Today the British novelist Ian McEwan was photographed in the occupied east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, attending the weekly demonstration against the evictions of Palestinian residents. On Sunday 20 February, McEwan will attend the Jerusalem Book Fair to accept the Jerusalem Prize, awarded to him for his work exploring the theme of the ‘freedom of the individual in society’. The fair is organized by the Municipality of Jerusalem and involves the Israeli national government: in 2009 both the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, and President Shimon Peres presented the biennial prize to Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. In response to calls in The Guardian newspaper, by British Writers in Support of Palestine (BWISP), and others, for the writer not to accept the government-sponsored prize, McEwan wrote in a 26 January letter to the same paper: “I think one should always make a distinction between a civil society and its government.” On 27 January, Israeli citizens wrote a letter in which they warned McEwan that “he will be legitimizing the actions of Jerusalem’s racist Mayor, Nir Barkat” by accepting a prize “awarded by the Israeli establishment”.
The Jerusalem Municipality has approved evictions of Palestinian families from their homes in Israeli occupied & illegally annexed east Jerusalem to make way for ideological Jewish settlers. The same municipality is overseeing the construction of the new Jerusalem light rail that has stolen further Palestinian land; the first line of the light rail connects west Jerusalem with illegal Israeli settlements around Palestinian east Jerusalem on the West Bank. In a recent confidential internal report, 25 European Union Consuls General in Jerusalem said that the cumulative effect of Israeli policy towards east Jerusalem Palestinians – including settlement building, demolitions and evictions, but also “restrictive zoning and planning, ongoing demolitions and evictions, an inequitable education policy, difficult access to health care, the inadequate provision of resources and investment” continue to “negatively affect” Palestinian life.
In the same Guardian letter, Ian McEwan cites previous laureates in justification of his decision to accept the Jerusalem Prize.
However, Bertrand Russell accepted the prize in 1963 before the 1967 war that ended with the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip, and the 2001 and 2003 winners, Susan Sontag and Arthur Miller respectively, accepted it before the 2005 Palestinian civil society boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) call, and before the 2004 International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion that the separation wall is contrary to international law. Seven years on, Israel has ignored the ICJ opinion and continues to be in violation of numerous UN resolutions, all of which are addressed by the boycott.
In 2005, over 170 civil society organizations launched the BDS campaign, which includes the call for international civil society organizations and all people of conscience to boycott Israeli cultural institutions (see PACBI’s guidelines) until the Israeli state meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with international law. BDS is a non-violent act of resistance by – and on behalf of – a people whose national identity and historical narrative of over half a century of territorial dispossession and ethnic cleansing is denied to this day by the military occupier. As with other non-violent acts of resistance, such as the weekly popular protests against the separation wall that has torn through and illegally annexed large areas of Palestinian land, the boycott call is met with a violent counter-attack by a state determined to continue at all costs its unlawful actions.
On 15 February, the Israeli constitutional committee voted to approve the anti-boycott bill for a first reading. This proposed Israeli parliamentary bill to punish BDS supporters is the least of the state’s attempts to silence calls for an end to the status-quo: it has intensified its aggressive public relations campaign to brand Israel – against all available evidence – as an enlightened democracy, and its contested cities as centres of ‘Culture’. The state and its apologists, thereby, hope to set those who support an effective political campaign to end legal impunity for crimes committed against the Palestinian people in opposition with lovers of art, music, dance and literature. In including in his letter the statement: “I’m for finding out for myself, and for dialogue, engagement, and looking for ways in which literature, especially fiction, with its impulse to enter other minds, can reach across political divides” McEwan allies himself with those who seek to obfuscate the fact that the boycott does not block the exchange of opinions, ideas and culture; an artist can deliver her or his message to the Israeli public outside any establishment venue.
Ian McEwan has recently taken a principled stand on a controversial issue by calling for new UK laws to allow terminally ill patients to receive medical help to die. His interview for the Telegraph is testament to the writer’s commitment to the ‘freedom of the individual in society’. This freedom is, however, is denied to Palestinians by the Israeli state. One only has to look at the cases of the jailing of Palestinian civil disobedience activists, such as Abdullah Abu Rahme, based on testimonies extracted from children, detained illegally and terrorized by their interrogators.
Ian McEwan should resist the propaganda of those who brand boycotters as delegitimiers of the Jewish state, disloyal citizens and obstructers of valuable cultural exchange. He should instead stand with those who refuse to be co-opted by the Israeli state while it consolidates its system of apartheid, denies UN resolutions on refugee rights, and continues to build colonies on occupied and annexed lands, crushing the national aspirations of the Palestinians.
