Review: Flowers of Galilee
Israel
Shamir
Dandelion
Books, 2004/ISBN # 1-893302-78-4
Meeting
Israel Shamir in person was a
high point
of the
year, and getting a copy of his book Flowers
of Galilee was another. He has a wonderful talent as
a writer, and I do not mean simply a certain writing skill, but
in a much deeper sense, Shamir writes with a real flame; it
warms, it shines, it burns.
His
subject is
Palestine
, a land
that he first saw as an Israeli soldier, and then fell in love
with; he shows us the
land
of
Israel
, he shows
us the
land
of
Palestine
, or are
they one and the same? That is one of the many enigmas that are
encountered with this controversial subject. The fact that
subtle and not-so-subtle irony is on every page is a given, and
we the reader are presented with a well-seasoned plate with many
complex flavours. In talking of the land of Israel, Shamir takes
us behind the stereotypes; we meet straight Jews, gay Jews,
ultra-Zionists, pacifists, soldiers, refuseniks,
would-be defenders of the faith from America, and Israeli teens
who want to lose faith and go to America; it takes all kinds.
In
one of his essays, titled “The Last Action Hero”, he writes
of the history of refuges in the land, from David to the modern
protesters, and also of the oppressors, from the Philistines to
Rabbi Kook, who wants destroy all the churches in Israel. Under
this present leader, the Church of the Nativity was placed under
siege, and murdering Christians was considered an act of duty.
Many who were not shot were starved to death; the smell of
rotting corpses offended the air in the holy place during
Easter. Sadly, little if any coverage of this massacre got was
allowed to reach us in the West; Michael Jackson gets more
attention than martyrs, and so the stories of Zionists blowing
up caves and driving off peasants, which is detailed in “Hills
of Judea”, or the mention of Rami Rozen,
who states that Jews conceal their hatred of Christians from the
church, is hidden from us by our media, which has now proclaimed
it has the “right to lie”; indeed it does, and so the
sad facts that are mentioned in the title essay, which explores
the true feelings of Jews towards the Church and their
neighbours, are left un-proclaimed by so many of our papers and
talking heads. In
that essay he deftly cuts down the lies which are put forth, and
a quote from it would be appropriate:
The majority of Christian Zionists are simple, misled
souls, people of good intentions but little knowledge. They
think they “support Jews”, but they promote the
Christ-hating spirit among the Jews. It was not in vain that a
hero of the Zionist Bible, Exodus
by Leon Uris, kept a
poster in his room saying “We crucified Christ.” It was not
in vain that an Israeli soldier on the roadblock of
Bethlehem
told me yesterday, “We starve the beasts,” referring to the
native Christians of the city of the Nativity. It is not in vain
that the Gospel was burned at the stake in Israel, that
anti-Gospel literature is widely spread; that new immigrant Jews
embracing Christianity are persecuted and deported; that every
preacher of the Christian faith in Israel can be sent to jail
according to new anti-Christian laws; that Israeli archaelogists
raze the Christian holy sites and memories off the face of the
Holy Land.
To the leader of the Christian Zionists, who surely know
these facts, but lead their innocent flock on the path of the
Anti-Christ, I say:
Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in
Christ to sin, it would be better for him to have a large
millstone tied round his neck and be drowned in the deep sea.
(Matthew 18:6)
So
no wonder some zealots want to deny Shamir’s existence, or at
least vilify him. That lot too is presented in this work, and he
rebuts them as skilfully as Perry Mason examines a lying
witness. We are left with a view of them for what they are,
participants in a “virtual state that is quickly losing all
remaining connection to reality…”,
a “ghost of a state” which is a “source of pride for
American Jews”, but in reality a “cardboard sham”.
Tragic,
as what was there was Paradise; a land of gentle streams, olive
trees, orange orchards, plots of thyme, managed by a hospitable
people whose roots date back to Biblical times. This area has
hosted the Romans, the Persians, Ottomans and the British;
cultural
variety was the norm. It takes not just genius to describe this,
it takes compassion, and Shamir treats his subject as Glenn
Gould would treat his piano. We hear pain, we hear beauty, we
hear a cry for help; it is not an anodyne work of intellectual
description, but a soulful outpouring, with the depth of
research adding that dimension to his work that so many zealots
lack: credibility. He footnotes his words and chooses them
carefully, so that they flow together in a well developed fugue,
rising above the crescendo of the mere diatribe that is so
common today; this is no mere recital, it is a well-tempered set
of short studies, complex in their counterpoint and focused in
their harmony.
Dissonant
problems demand resonance, and the issues addressed in Flowers
of Galilee demand solutions. In this regard Shamir
treads carefully, actually examining some of the proposed
solutions that have failed and why. He calls for justice, and
this means trying certain individuals for war crimes, which may
be a difficult goal to achieve, but is the only realistic
option. For too long the issue of justice has been obscured in
idealistic jargon and bad reporting by a warped press, ever
sensitive to one side but not willing to listen to both. That is
one cause of the problem, and others are presented as well;
Zionist Christians (who he points out are not real Christians at
all), Armageddon freaks, US televangelists raising money from
pro-Israel groups, mass immigration, ethnic cleansing programmes,
greedy land grabs by settlers, and the greed of arms’ dealers.
In most cases, one can follow the money line, which may be made
complex by jingoism and fanaticism; Shamir follows this
stealthily throughout and demystifies the equation.
I
am not surprised that this book has its critics, some of whom
have never even been to Israel/Palestine and prefer to believe
what their favourite newspaper or televangelist tells them
during a fund-raising drive. As a Christian (incidentally, so is
Shamir), I especially encourage the church to get a hold of this
book; if one wishes to support the State of Israel, and believes
this to be a concept that God himself creates and holds dear,
maybe it is time to examine what is really being done with the
money going to the “Holy Land” and listen to a well-written,
eye-witness account by someone who lives there.
Kenyon
Gibson
Author,
Common Sense: A Study of the
Bushes, the CIA, and the Suspicions Regarding 9/11 and
Hemp for Victory
A
Poem SIAM wrote when he received the Galilee Flowers:
YOUR
ARRIVAL
(for
Israel Shamir)
You
arrived,
as
a carefully
wrapped
white package
in
my mailbox from Tel Aviv,
Your
authentic
signatured
word,
carved
by flaming prophetic fingers
into
Holygraphic Sinaitic Mountain
of
literary stone,
A
living breathing
autographed
book of
luminous
electrifying flowers
from
Israel’s Galilee
floating
softly in my air,
gently
wafting the flashing scent of
your
mind, heart, and soul
before
my inner nostrils,
You,
a poet’s poet
who
sings the Divinely inspired song
of
hope and longing
for
the oppressed and dispossessed
of
the Holiest of ancient lands,
You,
Great Oasis
in
a barren desert for
thirsty
wearied travelers
in
search of Light and Truth,
an
ordained raging wind, rain, and storm,
purifying
a new day’s dawning,
The
Magic of our Greater Selves,
sacred
images of this Multiverse -
Reflected
in your eyes.
SIAM
0925004-12:05PM