The recent publication of a ‘fictional’ short story published in the New Yorker has struck a raw nerve and it’s guaranteed to reverberate for a long time into the future.
Shani Boianjiu, author of “Means of Suppressing Demonstrations” opens her story replicating a highly publicized, brutal massacre on June 9th, 2006. The event broke a 16-month ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, setting off a summer of death (Operation Summer Rains) which resulted in over 400 dead human beings. Boianjiu described a famous photo in her fictional story, which matched a real life photo that McClatchy described as “an icon of the Arab-Israeli conflict” and “a potent symbol in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that could embolden Palestinian resistance and erode international support for Israel.”
She named the character in her ‘fictional’ account Huda, the very same name as Huda Ghaliya, the Gazan child who lost her family on the beach that fateful day, a day that will never ever be forgotten by Palestinians and people in our movement. Reports of the broken ceasefire were reported here, here, and the media spin blamed Hamas, who responded by firing 15 Qassam rockets into Israel on June 10th. The New York Times blamed Hamas for breaking the truce (“Hamas Fires Rockets Into Israel, Ending 16-Month Truce“), never mentioning that it was the Israeli attack that precipitated the violence. Even still, the Times reported on Huda:
In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, thousands of Palestinians mourned the death of most of the Ghaliya family and wept as Huda Ghaliya, 7, kneeled to kiss her dead father before he, her mother and four siblings were buried. All were killed when the Israeli shell struck the beach where they were having a picnic. Huda had been playing nearby on the beach at the time. On Saturday, she asked mourners, “Please do not leave me alone.”
The Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya of Hamas, who called the incident “a war crime,” said he would adopt the girl. Later, Mr. Abbas, who called the incident “a dangerous, horrible, ugly crime against civilians,” issued a presidential order adopting her.
The dead included Ali Ghaliya, 49, and his wife, Raisa, 35, and their children Ilham, 15, Sabreen, 7, Hanadi, 1, and Haihsam, 4 months. Mr. Ghaliya’s first wife survived, said Ayyam Ghaliya, 20, one of Mr. Ghaliya’s surviving children.
A cousin, Adham Ghaliya, 9, was seriously wounded. He was taken to an Israeli hospital for an operation and was listed in serious condition.
On Friday, there were reports of a second woman killed at the beach. The body of an eighth victim washed ashore on Saturday.
The Ghaliya family lost four members less than two years ago when an Israeli Army shell hit their farm in Beit Lahiya. Then, as now, the army said it was shelling to try to stop Palestinian fire into Israel.
Israeli officials said they regretted any casualties among the innocent as Israel tried to stop the firing of Qassam rockets into Israel by shelling the areas from which they were launched. Defense Minister Amir Peretz sent a message expressing regret to Mr. Abbas, who called the incident “a bloody massacre” and declared three days of mourning.
The moment I read Boianjiu’s story I knew exactly the attack she was referencing; there was no mistaking it. Except, in her fictional version the responsibility of Israel’s military for the unconscionable brutal massacre of an innocent family picnicking on the beach in Gaza was erased completely, pawned off as “a dormant shell that Palestinian militants had left by the sea”. Not only that, the photograph was referenced as “manipulation”, and it was anything but. These are real people living through this hell day in and day out in a real place the Israeli military treats as a petri dish for exercises in inflicting pain and suffering.
The attack occurred less than 6 months after Hamas won the January 2006 legislative elections and the Quartet imposed harsh economic sanctions against the Palestinian territories, a precursor of the current blockade of Gaza still in effect today. Later that month, after the attack on the Ghaliya Family, after the abduction on the 24th of Osama and Mustafa Muamar, Gilad Shalit was captured and held as a hostage. Shortly thereafter, on June 28th, Israel officially launched its summer operation, and the next day abducted numerous Hamas officials, 8 ministers, and 26 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
‘How could the New Yorker be so blind to history? Is that even possible?’ was my first thought. It was the magazine’s choice to publish a story that replicates the impenetrable cloak of lies pumped out by Israel’s robust hasbara emissaries. But for a respected publication like the New Yorker to publish a “fictional” story which replicates the horrible death of a family of 7, thus beginning a summer of violence and clearly recorded as resulting in innumerable attacks…I still find this inconceivable and unconscionable.
We cannot forget. We cannot blind ourselves through time nor insensitivity. We won’t let that happen. Unknowingly or not Shani, you’ve picked a scab and opened a wound that will only fully heal when Palestine is free. We will use your ‘fiction’ at the New Yorker to teach a lesson in truth. A lesson about dismissing Palestinian suffering, pain, death; dismissing Israeli collective punishment of Palestinians; dismissing the fact that escalations of violence are almost always initiated by Israel, (“In response, Israel is considering a large-scale assault on the coastal strip, short of the introduction of ground forces.”) which was exactly how this provocative attack was used.
We will never forget. You want to write a fantastical make believe story about Palestinians begging for your attention? Make it fictional. Leave their martyrs alone to rest in peace.
And to the New Yorker, you owe your readers an apology.
Mosaic:
When some university campuses start making the news with movements to boycott Israel, then things will change.
Isolated whining is not enough. The New Yorker couldn’t care less.
Shani Boianjiu is an ex idf-er. Or I should say, an ex member of the Apartheid occupation forces, a land thief, an ethnic-cleanser and killer.
Now we can plainly call her a wicked plagiarist of the worst kind – a self-absorbed immoralist who preys on the fabric and sinew of human suffering for fame and profit – a hasbara janitor who’s been assigned the duty of cleaning up the blood of innocent Palestinians that’s splashed all over her murderous friends in uniform.
I strongly advice the legal representatives of the orphaned Huda Ghaliya to sue both the pants off Shani Boianijiu and the New York Times IMMEDIATELY!
Even the worst anti-zionist has never ventured into the vile terrain of fictionalizing the sorrows of Anne Frank without once mentioning the nazis that were hunting her down. Nor have the Fogel family had the story of their murder stolen detail by detail by an anti-zionist literati.
I urge everyone to boycott and sabotage Shani Boianjiu’s psuedo writer’s ambition – she ain’t a writer, she’s a despicable propagandist who deserves scorn, humiliation and eternal infamy.
As to the NYT implicit colonialism – well it looks like they’ve reached a new low in the dissemination of propaganda and evil.
Taxi, I agree with everything you say — and say so well — except that Shani Boianjiu published her piece in The New Yorker and not in The New York Times. Suing The New Yorker . . . now there’s a thought: if only I had a law degree.
Many hats off to Annie Robbins for so eloquently challenging Shani Boianjiu and The New Yorker on their shameful and blatant denial of Israeli atrocities and Palestinian suffering and erasure. Annie is right: We cannot and will not forget.
Great work, Annie! And let’s not forget Nancy Kanwisher’s statistical study reported in “Reigniting Violence,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-kanwisher/reigniting-violence-how-d_b_155611.html, in which she concluded: “it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week.” Her study covered data from September 2000 to October 2008.
Haaretz has this small country/provincial thing of bigging up anything an Israeli/South dakotan does in the big world
I have to say I am very disappointed by Krauss ;)
http://www.haaretz.com/culture/arts-leisure/new-yorker-publishes-short-story-by-young-israeli-author-1.440010
A short story by Israeli author Shani Boianjiu has been published in this week’s issue of The New Yorker.
“Means of Suppressing Demonstrations” is part of Boianjiu’s first novel, due to be published in September.
Boianjiu, 25, of Kfar Vradim, wrote the book in English. At the end of her military service, she studied at Harvard University, where she won an award for creative writing and a scholarship for a creative writing course in Ireland.
Last year, Boianjiu was selected by the National Book Foundation as one of “5 Under 35” promising young fiction writers. She was nominated on the recommendation of author and National Book Award finalist Nicole Krauss.
“Shani Boianjiu has found a way to expose the effects of war and national doctrine on the lives of young Israelis,” Krauss wrote. “So her subject is serious, but lest I make her work sound in any way heavy let me point out how funny she is, how disarming and full of life. Even when she is writing about death, Boianjiu is more full of life than any young writer I’ve come across in a long time.”
“Means of Suppressing Demonstrations” describes Lea, an Israel Defense Forces officer serving at a military roadblock, as she stops to feel her body. “Lea often [said] that she couldn’t feel her body. That she could move it, but not feel it. That those were two separate things,” writes Boianjiu.
In an interview with the magazine ahead of the story’s publication, Boianjiu was asked to recommend Israeli authors unknown to U.S. readers. She named Sara Shilo, Eli Amir and Galila Ron-Feder-Amit.
Boianjiu’s novel will be published by Hogarth Press, an imprint of The Crown Publishing Group, part of Random House Inc. Boianjiu is represented by the Wylie Agency, one of the world’s biggest literary agents.
The rights to translate the book have been sold in 22 countries. The Hebrew translation is slated to be published by Kinneret Zmora-Bitan in February.