Amos Elon has died
Laurence Joffe, an Obituary of Amos Elon, Guardian 4 June 2009
Amos Elon, who has died aged 82, was one of Israel’s most celebrated intellectuals, renowned for his powers of observation and his scathing criticisms. In 1970 he was already a well-known correspondent for the newspaper Ha’aretz when he published his seminal book The Israelis: Founders and Sons. An instant bestseller in Hebrew, and in English from 1971, it became required reading in schools and mirrored the lives of Israelis.
Founders and Sons looked back to before the Jewish republic’s creation in 1948, and forward from its 1967 military victory. It described what most knew, but few articulated – that the torch was passing to a native-born generation. More pointedly, Elon criticised Israel’s otherwise idealistic creators for ignoring Arab national hopes. “The chief chronicler of the Israeli story,” as Ha’aretz dubbed Elon, became a Cassandra, warning that the recently conquered West Bank represented “a victory worse than defeat”…
See also our previous posting Amos Elon warning on Israeli settlements by Robert Mackey.