The Thinking Heart review: ‘David Grossman’s dream for Israel omits certain details’

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David Grossman made his breakthrough as one of Israel’s leading novelists in the 1980s with novels such as See: Under Love (1986), about a nine-year-old child’s growing awareness of the Holocaust. It was also at this time that he established himself as a leading voice of conscience about Israel and the Middle East with The Yellow Wind (1987), which recorded the devastation that two decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip had wreaked on Palestinians and Israelis alike.

His new book, The Thinking Heart, is a collection of short articles published in a number of leading newspapers and magazines during the last few years about the crisis facing Israel. The title is taken from the diary of a Jewish woman murdered at Auschwitz. She wrote: “I prayed, let me be the thinking heart of these barracks. Let me be the thinking heart of a whole concentration camp.”

The articles are written with passion and moral urgency. They remind us that many of the best Israeli writers have been the moral conscience of their nation. However, it is unfortunate that only three of these pieces were originally published after October 7 and, following the killing of Yahya Sinwar and the outbreak of war in Lebanon, some already feel out of date.

There are three key themes running through these articles. First, the fragility of Israel, a country living, he writes, “on the precipice”. Why can’t Israel have what every other nation has, “a complete, definitive, stable existence”? How can this change? Grossman’s answer is simple but not necessarily persuasive. First, he writes, “Israel must achieve stability and acceptance with its neighbours as quickly as possible”. He immediately qualifies this by saying, “Israel must strive immediately for peaceful relations with those of its neighbours who are willing”, which is a very different proposition. Unfortunately, he doesn’t say who these neighbours are. Qatar? Lebanon? Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran? Syria?

Secondly, he worries about the “years of occupation and humiliation” that Palestinians have had to endure in Gaza and on the West Bank. This “misery and wretchedness” have been disastrous for the Palestinians but have also corrupted Israel. Why is there such denial in Israel in the face of this suffering? Grossman writes: “Any agreement that strengthens ties in the region… must address the Palestinian nation, its tragedy, and it wounds.” But which “Palestinian nation”? Gaza run by Hamas? The West Bank run by the Palestinian Authority whose leader mourned the death of Sinwar? Are they willing to accept the existence of Israel? Grossman doesn’t say. Did he really not see the problems he was evading in these articles? A bland sentence about how Hamas “have undoubtedly lost their humanity” doesn’t answer any of these questions.

The third key theme is his loathing for Netanyahu and “his destructive coalition”. Like so many Israeli liberals, Grossman believes “the nationalistic, racist extremists are calling the shots”. He singles out the usual suspects: Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and Aryeh Deri. The tone is increasingly angry. “Chaos is here,” he writes. “Internal hatred is here.”

Yet this kind of language doesn’t do justice to Grossman. Sometimes there is too little serious analysis, just anger at what has become of the Israel he loved.

Many readers will agree with Grossman, with his attacks on Netanyahu, his sympathy for Palestinians, his worries about the morality of living in “an occupying country”. Others might respond that hand-wringing is all very well, but where are the answers, how will this deal with Israel’s enemies? Why is there so little about Hamas and nothing about Iran? Will getting rid of Netanyahu really solve these problems and if not, what will?