Fanatics In Paradise Poem by gershon hepner

In foolish dreams fanatics sometimes weave
a paradise where posthumously sex
is their prerogative if they believe
in afterlives that should be rated X.

Inspired by a tribute to Amos Elon by Tomy Judt in the NYR, July 2,2009:
Amos was perfectly well aware that the present Middle Eastern imbroglio was the achievement of all sides. His sympathy for the 'stateless, dispossessed, and dispersed Palestinians' did not blind him to the ineptness of their leaders.[5] He had met enough Arab and Palestinian politicians to know just how inadequate they were to the tragedy of their peoples and the tasks facing them. In all his writings, notably an influential 1996 New York Review essay entitled 'Israel and the End of Zionism, ' he was distinctly evenhanded in acknowledging the errors of both sides. But the historic mistakes of the Palestinians had come primarily before 1948, whereas Israel was overwhelmingly responsible for the disastrous missteps that followed its great victory in 1967. Zionism, as Amos came to realize, had outlived its usefulness. 'As a measure of...'affirmative action, ' Zionism was useful during the formative years. Today it has become redundant.' What had once been the nationalist ideology of a stateless people has undergone a tragic transition. It has, for a growing number of Israelis, been corrupted into an uncompromising ethno-religious real estate pact with a partisan God, a pact that justifies any and all actions against real or imagined threats, critics, and enemies. The Zionist project, a doctrine dating to the state-building nationalisms of the late nineteenth century, has long since lost its way. It can mean little—though it can do much harm—in an established democratic state with aspirations to normality. In any case it has been hijacked by ultras. Herzl's dream of a 'normal' Jewish country has become an exclusivist sectarian nightmare, a development that Amos illustrated by slightly misquoting Keats: 'Fanatics have a dream by which they weave a paradise for a sect.'[1]
[1} The original excerpt from Keats's poem The Fall of Hyperion reads 'Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave/A paradise for a sect.

6/20/09