Alice, the heroine of Wonderland, makes a reappearance in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. A logical pre-adolescent brought up with a clear idea of how the world should be. She struggles to make sense of the nonsensical adult world she somehow re-encounters through a mirror hung above her drawing room fireplace.
There, she must navigate a perverse world where, like a reflection in a mirror, facts, logic, and even the meaning of words are reversed. Running, for example, keeps one stationary, and walking away from something brings it closer.Carroll develops a cast of powerful authority figures including Humpty Dumpty, a walrus, and a carpenter to enlighten Alice about the dystopian nature of realpolitik.
For example, Humpty explains to Alice, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.” The walrus and the carpenter take a lengthy walk along a beach, where they seduce four young oysters into accompanying them while they discuss weighty matters.
An older and wiser oyster refuses the invitation, but the youngsters are swept along and soon attract many of their generation to join in. The discussion includes “Why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.” Before long, all the oysters are eaten by the philosophical pair – even as the walrus weeps copious tears for reasons we never know.
Unlike my previous home in London, my home in Israel has no fireplace, and yet I, too, feel that I have been drawn into a dystopian world that reflects a reversal of facts, logic, and the meaning of words. Facts like: Who is actually responsible for the tragic deaths of so many in this recent round of warfare in Gaza?
Words vs. facts
This readership hardly needs reminding of the facts surrounding October 7, the breach of our sovereign borders by Hamas terrorists, and the atrocities that they committed that dark day. Nor do we need reminding that the war that ensued, and is still ongoing, was mounted to try and rescue kidnapped men, women, and children and to establish security for southern communities.
No, what has blown my mind is the cynical distortion of facts and words. Words like “genocide.” Israel stands accused in the International Criminal Court, but which group has expressed a clear intent to annihilate another? Not just an intent! The barbarous, unashamed slaughter of innocents, filmed on GoPro cameras, was publicized by the perpetrators themselves – as are the statements by Hamas to repeat such incidents “again and again.”
Words like “apartheid.” Israel is accused once more, yet which country affords equal rights to all its citizens irrespective of race, religion, or gender? And which countries are Judenrein, subjugate women, and oppress gay minorities?
Words like “colonialism” applied to Jews. Jews who have never had an empire, been barely tolerated in the countries of their diaspora over the millennia, and who remained and then returned en masse to their historic homeland when the European enlightenment meant enlightenment and rights for all groups other than Jews.
Words that talk of “ethnic cleansing” when in 1948, the invading Arab armies encouraged Arabs living here to leave as they invaded the nascent state, promising a glorious return “from the river to the sea.” Around 700,000 heeded that call. When Israel was not strangled at birth as the surrounding Arab nations hoped, those people became refugees.
Their millions of descendants have become big business for the UN’s largest employers – UNRWA, and, uniquely among the world’s many tragedies involving population displacement, have inherited refugee status – even when living affluent lives in the West.
The 150,000 who remained became citizens of a flourishing democracy and now number about 20% of a thriving Israeli population.
And while we’re talking of ethnic cleansing, how about the 700,000 or so Jews from Arab lands who were unceremoniously expelled, robbed of their properties and rights, and became equally stateless? Where are they today? Productive citizens of their new countries, including, in many cases, Israel.
However, the most puzzling to me is the success of the phrase “globalize the intifada.” The unchecked, worldwide proliferation of hateful and violent anti-Israeli and antisemitic rhetoric and demonstrations across Western capital cities, not to mention the pitiful attempt by the secretary-general of the United Nations to “contextualize” October 7, have given rise to a new generation of haters.
We now see how the flames of hate have been fanned and have spread to students across university campuses around the world.
LIKE THE young oysters, the larger creatures with the money and power to make words mean what they want them to mean have persuaded a new generation that the sea might be boiling hot and pigs have wings.
Does Alice have a final lesson for us? In Wonderland, Alice ends up as a witness in a court case. The Knave of Hearts stands accused of stealing tarts. Alice is excited to identify everything in the court. She understands that courts are about justice, fairness, and the rule of law. The king presides as the judge together with a 12-person jury.
After hearing the accusation, the king demands the jury give its verdict even without hearing the witnesses. Alice quickly realizes that the search for truth is a sham in a meaningless world.
The case brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice in the Hague makes me wonder. Today’s young demonstrators baying for Israel’s destruction are, unlike Alice, the product of an education system whose wokeness has distorted reality. Alice rejected the nonsensical world in which she found herself and literally grew out of the courtroom. Can we dream that today’s young protesters will do the same?
The writer is an educator, psychologist, and author of a bestselling historical novel, Good for a Single Journey. She made aliyah from London to Netanya in 2013.