Wie man Fanatiker kuriert

The escalation of violence in the Middle East, specifically between Israelis and Palestinians, forms the backdrop against which Amos Oz delivered his lectures in Tübingen in January 2002. Here, he, who had been advocating for two independent states on Israeli-Palestinian territory since the mid-1960s, describes how he became a writer. In the second lecture, the "fanaticism expert" Amos Oz addresses the theme that runs like a red thread through his entire literary and essayistic-journalistic work: the causes and consequences of fanaticism. And to provide a practical example of both non-fanaticism and the coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians, Amos Oz invited the Palestinian writer Izzat Ghazzawi to speak about the significance of culture and literature in conflict zones. In this way, the present volume sheds light on the situation and sets a small optimistic sign: namely, that coexistence between the two peoples is possible.