Friday, February 26, 2010

Your words are meaningless

When Ian Black is not printing Mossad disinformation, he allows Israelis--only Israelis--to speak. So he does not mind if the Nakbah is writing about, provided it is written about by Israeli Jews. Only the occupiers can speak about the plight of the natives. To paraphrase Marx in theses on Feuerbach, the task of Israeli critics of Israel is not to offer words or flowers, but to either join the Palestinian resistance movement, or at least pack and vacate the occupied homes. Short of that, they are the enemy. "Condemned bluntly by another Israeli novelist as "anti-Zionist," it won the prestigious Sapir prize last summer, though it was quickly withdrawn amid accusations of bias by the judges. "I feel as if the author is using language as a weapon against us," complained one Jewish reader. "Disgusting," thundered another. "How low will you stoop?" Hilu, now promoting the English translation of The House of Rajani, makes no apology for what he calls his "narrative of the other," which foreshadows the nakbah – the dispossession and flight of the Palestinians during Israel's 1948 war of independence." (thanks Molly)