Conversation with David Mamet
January 28, 2009, San Francisco, CA.
Speaking last night at the Jewish Community Center San Francisco in an on-stage conversation with his rabbi, Lawrence Kushner, playwright David Mamet voiced his uncompromising support of Israel. In the course of the conversation, provocatively titled “David Mamet on Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred and the Jews,” Mamet dismissed criticism of Israel’s recent incursion into Gaza. “Israel wants to live in peace within its borders, Hamas wants all Jews in Israel dead. Israel is at war, and in wartime every country does things they’d rather not do.” While stopping short of “Stuff happens,” he nonetheless accepted as inevitable the civilian casualties suffered by the Palestinians during the Gaza incursion, given Hamas’ choice of launching rockets and building tunnels within civilian areas.
Mamet disputed two widely held contentions proffered by Israel’s critics: 1) the notion of routinely splitting the difference between the opposing positions of antagonists in establishing a foundation for both public opinion and policy and 2) condemnation of Israel’s “disproportionate response” during the recent incursion into Gaza.
He thought it unreasonable to give weight to Hamas’ position since they want all Jews in Israel dead, saying, in effect, that sometimes one position is simply wrong and one must choose one side or the other, and his choice was clear. “Why should be believe our enemies, rather than our brothers and sisters?” he asked.
He dismissed criticism of Israel’s “disproportionate response” to the rocket attacks from Gaza. “Israel is at war,” he repeated, “and the purpose of war is to inflict pain enough to cause the enemy to quit.” He capped his point neatly by citing the example of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. “Should the United States response to Pearl Harbor have been to sink three battleships, two cruisers, three destroyers and then call it even?” He concluded his point by saying “I’m not going to second-guess the Israelis, I’m going to side with them.” (Big round of applause from an obviously partisan audience.) He made it clear that his unconditional support for Israel derived from the last of four questions a Jew must answer in the affirmative to be considered a Jew: “Do you pledge your loyalty to the Jewish people under all circumstances and situations?”
In assessing his views I must confess my disappointment that so accomplished a man of letters (whose work I admire immensely) should be so unabashedly partisan, even Manichaean in his views, if a Jew can be called such. However, considering his self-described “Episcopalian Jewish” upbringing in Chicago’s South Side (where living in Hyde Park he was “beaten up by Catholics, rather than by Blacks”), his subsequent re-commitment to the Jewish faith and rituals under the guidance of Rabbi Kushner, his love of and admiration for the Jewish people, and, of course, the setting of the evening’s conversation, his uncompromising position was readily understandable.
One look at him and you would never confuse him with your effete intellectual tucked away in some ivory tower, indecisively weighing both sides of the dispute in an endless search for some diplomatic resolution. Solidly built, square-jawed, with a stubbly beard, a buzz haircut and powerful hands, he reminds you of Bill Mauldin’s dogfaces, Willie and Joe with glasses. Blessed with a prodigious intellect, he is that unusual combination of thinker and doer, intense, purposeful, decisive. As a playwright, screenwriter and film director, with an uncanny ear for dialogue and an unerring dramatic compass, he’s someone who quickly sizes up a situation, makes decisions and moves on. Judging from his work, he sees the world pretty much in dog-eat-dog terms where high principle is trumped by the scramble for survival, never better expressed than in “Glengarry, Glen Ross” -- his gritty homage, I’m guessing, to what he regards as the greatest American play, “Death of a Salesman.” (A Jewish play, Mamet notes in passing, written by a Jew, about a Jew -- Willie Lohman was Willie Lowenstein -- in a Jewish business.)
Put it all together and you discern Mamet’s ground of being regarding the conflict in the Levant as a visceral struggle for Israel’s survival against an implacable foe bent on Israel’s annihilation. If they want Armageddon, baby, the blood as high as the horses’ bridles sure as hell ain’t gonna be Jewish. Mamet’s unrestrained support of Israel seems to be informed by the American unwavering determination to prevail during World War II, whatever the price in American blood and treasure and whatever the cost in civilian life of the adversary.
If that’s your assessment of the situation, then you are unlikely to find common ground with those who do not believe Hamas speaks for all Palestinians (let alone all Muslims), who assert that the conversion of Palestine into Israel by U.N. fiat and subsequent expansion of Israel’s presence in the Levant wrought severe and unjust hardship upon the Palestinians giving rise to legitimate grievances, and, therefore, who seek a “live-and-let-live” solution to the conflict rather than attempting to bend the Palestinians to Israel’s will by force. Proponents of those two divergent perceptions of the situation can argue “Who shot John?” until they are blue in the face and no peace will come out of it, as we’ve seen for sixty years. With Israelis and Palestinians acting on the assumption that the other is bent on annihilation, their perceptions become self-fulfilling prophecies. Where does it end?
After the event I spoke privately with Mamet, posing the following question: “You say Israel wants only peace within its borders. You are a writer with a great imagination. How do you imagine Israel attaining such a peace?” His first response was “I don’t know,” but quickly added: “I think the Islamic world will undergo a reformation – not unlike the Catholic reformation that began in the 16th century – but it will probably take a long, long time.” He paused and then continued: “Much as I hate Bush, in a hundred years the world may look back at the establishment of a democracy in Iraq as the seed of that reformation.” The unspoken implication was that Islam reformed might then pave the road to peace. I then pointed out that for the better part of a century Turkey had been operating as a functioning secular democracy in the region without producing any noticeable democratic reform among its Islamic neighbors. “One step at a time,” Mamet responded philosophically. He then hearkened back again to World War II. “In 1941 Japan attacked the United States, and yet five years later, under McArthur, Japan transformed itself into a democratic ally.” With analogy and economy of words of a master playwright Mamet had expressed himself fully – given the right circumstances, anything’s possible, however improbable it may seem, and things can change in unexpected ways in relatively short periods of time; there is reason to hope.