ON DECEMBER 21, 2008, I sat in the Jewish National and University Library, now renamed “The National Library of Israel,” across from the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, and the Israel Museum. In the courtyard I noticed a sign for the “Institute for Advanced Studies.” Below it there was another sign for “The Center for the Study of Rationality.”

I had seen the crumbled homes of East Jerusalem, the uprooted olive trees, slabs of concrete and rubble in the places that Israeli guidebooks do not include. My thoughts wandered away from West Jerusalem to places that remain rooted in Palestinian memory, even as they are being erased. It’s hard to imagine what the word “rationality” means in this context. Just six days later, two days after Christmas, Israel began an assault on the open-air prison that is Gaza. The delirious violence, cruelty, and indifference were justified as a reasonable response to Hamas rocket fire. The cohabitation of claims of reason and actual barbarity makes the lethal effects of brute force less open to criticism.

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