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The Brighton-based ‘Wandering Who? Reading Group’ met for the third time on Wednesday 11th April, this time in a tower block with a fantastic, if dizzying, view over Brighton & Hove. We were considering Chapters 4 and 5 of Gilad Atmon’s book, ‘The Sabra, the Settler and the Disapora Jew’, and ‘Fagin vs. Einstein’ respectively.
Atzmon makes an interesting distinction between the Sabra, a native born Israeli whose ideal is to be tough outside and tender inside, and the Settler, who dispenses with any idea of compassion. The Sabra ‘can ethnically cleanse the entire Palestinian nation on Friday and then attend a “Peace Now” demonstration in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening.’ In this he is the negation of the soft Diaspora Jew. While he resembles a German soldier in certain respects, ‘he is loose, he likes to walk in Biblical sandals …’ Atzmon objects that this constructed identity is fundamentally inauthentic, while that of the Settler, however much we may dislike it, is authentic. The West-Bank settler, who arose after the 1967, ‘doesn’t shoot and sob; he is driven by conviction.’ Whereas the Sabra negated the Diaspora Jew, the Settler negates the Goy.
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