right, Left and Centre: The Politics of Some Canadians: Part Eleven. The Crtical Crtic - Part Three

     The Critical Critic - Part Three


    So by the early 21st century, the critical critic was yet another somewhat conservative Canadian, albeit one with a Jewish slant. He put down people on the left, supported Israel, and had little time for 1960's rebels or any rebels. Yet he did admire the Civil Rights movement and its leader the late Martin Luther King Junior.
      The critic had money. His mother had left him a reasonable amount when she died. He grew this sum. He never worked after his early 30's and lived in a modest apartment in downtown Toronto. He travelled across North America and around Europe. He studied architecture and wrote glowing letters about his journeys. "You could have been a good travel journalist,' someone told him. Yet this would have meant meeting people and making friends.This the critic couldn't do.
     The deaths of his stepfathers had taught him to stay away from people. If he got too close to a person, that person could die. And he never wanted to feel the pain of separation again. So he lived in Toronto for over 40 years and never made any close friends. It was a solitary life but not a bad one. Yet then something happened.
    The critical critic re-visited Israel. He'd been there twice before. Once as mentioned in the late 1950's and then again in the early 1970's. On his second visit he caught hepatitis and had to come back to Canada to be cured. After this visit he became more conservative and a fierce critic of the 1960's counterculture that he had once admired.
     Now in the 21st century, he found a totally different Israel. The country had shucked off its left leaning image. Kibbutzim had disappeared. Social programs had been slashed. Shrewd ruthless business people now ruled the economy. The religious right had grown in strength. Meanwhile transplanted russian Jews moved the country's politics rightward.
   On Israel's West Bank, Israeli armies pushed Arabs aside to make way for Israeli settlers. On the country's west side of Gaza, big Palestinian settlements had sprung up. Yet most of the people there were poor. They supported extremist groups like Hamas. From time to time, they fired rockets into Israel, killing one or two Israelis. Yet the Israeli forces would then strike back, often killing dozens of Arabs, The critical critic realized that times had changed.
    "I don't like the way Israel has turned out," he said. "I don't like what Israel has become." Yet the critic wasn't naive. He knew that most of Israel's neighbours loathed the country. If Israel lost one battle it could be destroyed. The critic went home. He thought about what he'd seen. Then he stopped admiring Israel. Yet who could he admire? Certainly no one on the left because he was a centrist if not sometimes a conservative. Then another group of people popped up on his radar screen, namely the French Canadians.