Tony Judt and Israel

Benjamin Kerstein
newledger.com
30 August '10

When a man dies, especially when he dies of something uniquely horrifying and grotesque, people always tend to remember them well, if for no other reason than pity for their suffering. This seems to have been the case with historian and essayist Tony Judt, who died this month from the degenerative disease known as ALS. The sight of Judt reduced, and reduced very quickly, from an intellectual in late middle age to a wheelchair-bound invalid incapable of breathing on his own would give even the most cold-hearted some pause when penning his obituary. In those last months it was, no doubt, a terrible life and, in the end, a terrible death.

If we can, however, separate a man’s work from his life – and I think we must – then his work can and must also be separated from his death. I am mostly ignorant of Judt’s most famous work, which dealt with the post-war history of Europe, though I have it on good authority that it is decidedly brilliant. I have no doubt that this is probably so. But the truth is that during the final years of his life Judt was most famous, most celebrated, and most quoted because of his outspoken belief that the state of Israel should not exist.

Some may regard such a characterization of his stance as unfair, but it is worth pointing out what lies beneath the euphemism known as the “binational state.” Judt’s stance was not a crude one, of course; it was eminently intellectual and erudite in nature. But nonetheless, Israel’s end is more or less what it amounted to, and the persistent refusal of both him and his defenders to acknowledge this was and is to their discredit.

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