We mourn with the Grossmans, the Avneris, Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Nissim Calderon, Galia Golan, all intellectuals we know for many years.

We learned about this latest loss to that illustrious circle of wise friends. Are they doomed because the world, in its addiction to oil, has allowed the likes of Bin Laden and Ahmedinejad to take over center stage and to push us all back into the dark ages of the past? Where are the counterparts to David Grossman, Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, Uri Avneri – Israeli post-Zionists – where are similar thinking outspoken intellectuals of the Islamic World? We bleed for the Israelis also because we do not find any counterparts of this caliber in the Islamic World. There are only 5-6 million Israelis, and there are 1.2 billion members of the Islamic World – just look at the last 50 years – what did Israel contribute to the world culture these years, and what is the contribution of 1.2 billion people. The small group created a culture of life – the others of worship of death that has sucked into this muck young Uri, other Israelis like him, and many innocent people of Lebanon. We know that not all Islam is to be blamed equally – but we do know also that there is very little outspoken Islamic resistance to this madness.