Amos Oz

The idea of the nation-state is, in my eyes, “goyim naches” — a gentiles’ delight. I would be more than happy to live in a world composed of dozens of civilizations .  .  .  all cross-pollinating one another, without any one emerging as a nation-state: no flag, no emblem, no passport, no anthem.  .  .  .  But the Jewish people has already staged a long-running one-man show of that sort. The international audience sometimes applauded, sometimes threw stones, and occasionally slaughtered the actor. No one joined us; no one copied the model the Jews were forced to sustain for 2,000 years, the model of a civilization without the “tools of statehood.” For me this drama ended with the murder of Europe’s Jews by Hitler. And I am forced to take it upon myself to play the “game of nations” .  .  .  I accept those rules of the game because existence without the tools of statehood is a matter of mortal danger, but I accept them only up to this point.