Wit & Attitude Quote by A. B. Yehoshua

Yehoshua’s line lands with the particular sting of an insider scolding his own camp: a novelist’s moral diagnosis dressed as political lament. The key word is "dream" - not policy, not doctrine, but a founding fantasy Zionism told itself about purpose and posture. "Bridge" is doing double duty: Israel as literal connector between regions, and as metaphorical proof that Jewish sovereignty could be something other than a fortress mentality. Then comes the reversal: "Instead". It’s a narrative pivot, the kind fiction writers use to expose betrayal.

The subtext is less about geography than appetite. Yehoshua doesn’t blame fate or enemies first; he blames a "stupid desire to have more", a deliberately undignified phrase that refuses to sanctify expansion as destiny. "More" stays vague on purpose - more land, more security, more control, more symbolic victory - because the pattern is what he’s indicting: acquisition as identity.

Context matters: Yehoshua was a major Israeli public intellectual associated with the peace camp, speaking from within a society shaped by trauma, regional hostility, and the post-1967 occupation. His provocation is that Israel isn’t merely reacting to an East-West clash; it’s helping script it, turning itself from a potential mediator into a wedge. The rhetoric is plain, even impatient, because he’s not trying to win an abstract debate. He’s trying to puncture a self-justifying story before it hardens into permanence.