Over a year ago, in June 2014, I was offered a contract by an Israeli publishing house for both Mornings in Jenin and The Blue Between Sky and Water. As a firm supporter of both the economic and cultural boycotts of Israel, I refused. I did not make my decision public at the time, but had planned to write about it eventually. Then time passed too quickly, as time tends to do. So rather than write an essay, I’ll just share the full correspondence here. My decision and reasons for it are evident. I decided to redact names, because they’re not really relevant.
The offer came to me via my agent. The following is the relevant portion of my response to her:
As for Israeli publishers, that is not an option. When we Palestinians are free to live in [our] own homeland as equal citizens of the state, I’ll be happy to sign a contract for Hebrew translation. But until this Apartheid system falls, I will not have business dealings with Israelis.
My agent must have shared that letter with the Israeli publisher because the following was then forwarded to me:
Please be so kind as to convey my words to Susan Abulhawa:
We at [company name redacted] Publishers share your hope for the fall of the Apartheid system. Our greatest joy would be to live to see the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel. Since our profession concerns books, our way to help realize this dream is by trying to widen the horizon of our readers. We are constantly looking for interesting voices from the Arab and Muslim world. I personally initiated the publication of [name of author and book redacted] a few years ago and have edited Iranian author [name of author and book redacted], that we published last year to wide public interest. I thought your voice might be of importance to our readers. Dialogue still seems to me the only way.
In the hope for future days of dialogue and peace.
My very best wishes,
[name redacted]
I responded to her directly:
Dear [redacted],
I hope you don’t mind that I’m writing to you directly. It seems easier this way.
I respect what you’re trying to do. While I believe that efforts should be made to engage the Israeli public in the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinian life being crushed by the state, I do not believe that is the task of Palestinians. I further do not believe that dialogue is something that can happen when there is such gross imbalance of power. There may be other words for such an exchange, but “dialogue” is not the right one.
It is not an easy decision to refuse to have my work translated into Hebrew, principally because Hebrew, like Arabic, is a language that is native to Palestine, spoken there by Palestinian Jews long before the establishment of Israel. But the existence now of a supremacist state, which subverts the rights of millions of non-Jewish natives, both there and in exile, is the reason I cannot in good conscience participate in any capacity (except where I have no choice, like border crossing etc.) that might normalize exclusion and ethno-religious privilege.
There may come a time when I might see things differently, perhaps more like my friend [redacted name of author], whom I love, respect and admire, regardless of whether we agree or disagree. But until then, I must respectfully decline your kind offer and hope that you understand.
Warm Regards,
susan
And here, her response was the last in that correspondence:
Dear Susan,
Thank you very much for writing. The imbalance of power requires an asymmetry in the speech act. I feel that my task is to listen. “I fully understand” would be a cliche,.To be more precise – I can tell you that I feel completely ok about your refusal.
My very very best,
[name redacted]
I believe that engaging with Israeli institutions or companies lends legitimacy to an ethnocratic state whose founding principles are those of ethno-religious entitlement, privilege, and supremacy. Celebrity names, of course, have a greater impact. But the only real legitimacy Israel can ever truly have, must come from the indigenous population. That’s the reason they are constantly demanding that Palestinians recognize their right to exist as an exclusively Jewish nation. It is only when recognition by the legal, historic, and cultural heirs who have belonged to that land for centuries (at least), can Israel claim the legitimacy chase. Their claim of Palestine, of our homes and history and heritage, of our culture and food, native songs and stories, was laid by the force of arms and terror, as all settler colonial enterprises do.
How could I sell my novel rights to a people who have been destroying our society? To a people who have barred me from so much as visiting my country? To those who speak so confidently of a right to possess a land that has been nurtured by the bodies of our ancestors?
Understandable enough, but getting first-hand Palestinian perspectives (which doesn’t mean fake ‘dialogue’) would surely help some Israeli Jews to understand the reality. I generally support the boycott, but I wonder if this isn’t counter-productive.
Would an 1840’s slave with literary talent who rode the underground railroad to Chicago refuse to have her work published in Alabama?
Gandhi in British India?
Would Ayn Rand have refused to have her work published in Communist Moscow in the 1950’s?
Western Arab radicals and their radical Trotskyite apologists appear to have a special talent for camouflage. They show great care to not step too closely to the taboo on forms of engagement that might be seen as undercutting the eliminationist fantasies and hysterical dehumanizing incitement preferred by their tougher comrades embedded in the established networks that control money, weapons and the heavily propagandized education on the Palestinian street.
Meanwhile, for those who care to know, daily life in Palestine, when objectively assessed, including self-reported experience of life, is near to or better than that of some 1/3 of the nations on the planet.
In particular, life in Palestine compares favorably not only to life in the least fortunate countries in Africa and the Middle East (including of course those presently embroiled in hot sectarian war — it would be an obscenity to try drawing conclusions by comparison with these).
No: life in Palestine compares favorably to countries that have not known full out civil or cross-border war for one or two or more generations: Egypt, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, South Africa, India, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Viet Nam, Philippines, Morocco.
http://report.hdr.undp.org/
http://worldhappiness.report/
Whatabouterry — it’s deep, especially to people curious about why the world is the way it is, and people interested in lived progress.
On the other hand, those who insist that “supremacist settler-colonialism” explains pretty much everything, and hold to a juvenile narcissistic equalism — such people are unreachable by facts.
Ms. Abulhawa
From the title of this article I expected it to be a complaint that the Israeli government or Zionist pressure groups had somehow prevented the publication of your work in Hebrew. That really could happen, because it is certainly in their interest to keep anything that might induce Israeli Jews to question Zionist assumptions out of their reach.
When I grasped what the article was really about I was flabbergasted.
Do you think that the publication of your books in Hebrew would be more likely to strengthen or to weaken the hold of Zionist ideas over the minds of Israeli Jews?
Who are you allied with on this matter — objectively?
As for what is and is not your task, I would say that for you, as for me or anyone else, if the task needs doing and you are in a position to do it then it is your task.
You are cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Please think again.
SUSAN ABULHAWA- “I further do not believe that dialogue is something that can happen when there is such gross imbalance of power. There may be other words for such an exchange, but “dialogue” is not the right one.”
That is absolutely correct. Reading your works would function primarily to salve the conscience of the liberal Zionists. Also, it ignores the massive influence of US Zionist fat-cats who absolutely desire Israel to remain a right-wing Sparta. A compromise could involve Israel lifting the siege of Gaza as a first step leading to eventual resolution. However, until Israel begins to take positive actions to at least begin to resolve its many abuses and broken promises, little if anything is to be gained by fraternizing with the enemy. And make no mistake, Israel has chosen to be your enemy.
>WH
… first-hand Palestinian perspectives … would surely help some Israeli Jews to understand the reality.
It seems most Israeli Jews have precious little interest in ‘understanding the reality’.
It is just around the corner of their daily lives, which they choose not to see, willed ignorance.
If they were really interested, they could learn to read Arabic, or English for that matter. The ugly reality of Palestinian suffering in Palestine (and elsewhere) is widely reported.
>Stephen Shenfield
Do you think that the publication of your books in Hebrew would be more likely to strengthen or to weaken the hold of Zionist ideas over the minds of Israeli Jews?
The ‘minds of Israeli Jews’ appear to be in lock-down.
You ask with whom she is allied on this matter. I am perhaps being presumptuous, but suggest she’s allied primarily with the Palestinian people, secondarily with the rest of the world who wish fervently to see justice for the Palestinians, who have suffered such vicious cruelty for so long.