"A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops"
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Oz shifts the battlefield from geography to psychology, and in doing so he quietly indicts the way nations narrate violence as a matter of “strategic terrain.” Hilltops are the easy story: they’re photogenic, measurable, and ripe for moral theater. You can point to a ridge line and call it destiny. Hearts and minds are messier. They implicate fear, humiliation, memory, and the addictive clarity of belonging. Oz’s line works because it refuses the comforting fiction that conflicts are solved by capturing the right piece of land. Even when maps change, the emotional infrastructure of grievance can stay intact, ready to reanimate the next round.
As an Israeli novelist long preoccupied with the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy, Oz is also speaking into a very specific political obsession: settlements, borders, and sacred elevations that turn “hilltops” into talismans. The subtext is both pragmatic and moral. Pragmatic, because no military victory can compel genuine consent; moral, because treating land as the core problem lets people dodge responsibility for what they’re willing to believe about the other side. It’s easier to argue about property lines than to confront dehumanization.
The phrase “begins and ends” is doing heavy lifting: Oz implies origin and resolution are symmetrical. The same inner mechanisms that ignite conflict - narratives of injury, zero-sum identity, righteous revenge - must be rewired for peace. It’s a novelist’s diagnosis, not a general’s: the plot doesn’t turn on the hill, it turns on the characters.
As an Israeli novelist long preoccupied with the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy, Oz is also speaking into a very specific political obsession: settlements, borders, and sacred elevations that turn “hilltops” into talismans. The subtext is both pragmatic and moral. Pragmatic, because no military victory can compel genuine consent; moral, because treating land as the core problem lets people dodge responsibility for what they’re willing to believe about the other side. It’s easier to argue about property lines than to confront dehumanization.
The phrase “begins and ends” is doing heavy lifting: Oz implies origin and resolution are symmetrical. The same inner mechanisms that ignite conflict - narratives of injury, zero-sum identity, righteous revenge - must be rewired for peace. It’s a novelist’s diagnosis, not a general’s: the plot doesn’t turn on the hill, it turns on the characters.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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