"Alice Walker, author of the Pulitzer-prize winning novel “The Color Purple,” says she is refusing to allow an Israeli publisher to release her book in Hebrew, because she believes Israel is an “apartheid” state. In a letter she wrote to the Israeli publisher Yediot Books and posted Sunday on the website “Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel,” Walker leveled strident accusations, characterizing Israeli policies as being “far worse” than the U.S. before civil rights...." Article
It should be noted the so-called tribunal there is no testimony nor any rebuttals from the opposing side. Its a kangaroo court made up of jurors like noted anti-Semite Cynthia McKinney. Here is another part of Ms. Walker's letter:
"It was not a particularly difficult position to hold on my part: I believe deeply in non-violent methods of social change though they sometimes seem to take forever, but I did regret not being able to share our movie, immediately, with (for instance) Winnie and Nelson Mandela and their children, and also with the widow and children of the brutally murdered, while in police custody, Steven Biko, the visionary journalist and defender of African integrity and freedom.
We decided to wait. How happy we all were when the apartheid regime was dismantled and Nelson Mandela became the first president of color of South Africa.
Only then did we send our beautiful movie! And to this day, when I am in South Africa, I can hold my head high and nothing obstructs the love that flows between me and the people of that country.
Which is to say, I would so like knowing my books are read by the people of your country, especially by the young, and by the brave Israeli activists (Jewish and Palestinian) for justice and peace I have had the joy of working beside. I am hopeful that one day, maybe soon, this may happen. But now is not the time..." Rest of letter
Here is more on these so-called people's tribunals in The Wall Street Journal a few weeks ago and how they are used to delegitimize the existence of Israel. One would think Ms. Walker would want a book she wrote to fight injustice and discrimination to be published in a land she thinks practices the same but apparently her antisemitism is doesn't allow her to do so.
69 comments:
It's hard, on one level, to disagree with her sentiments. Apartheid is a bit strong (maybe), but the isolation of the Palestinians, and the illegal occupation of the West Bank (Palestinian territory) by the Israelis bear some resemblance to parts of the apartheid regime in South Africa. And 'Fish, I know this is your blog, but the swastika is a bit much.
Nice leap Glenn Beck's bitch, on describing what her own words don't reveal as being anti-semetic. Swastika's a nice touch, too.
Its the Palestinians who teach children to be suicide bombers, promise to wipe Israel off the map, and tell their children the Israelis eat Palestinian children. Funny how you don't say anything about all the Jews expelled from Arab lands. Why don't you push for their repatriation? Oh thats, right, that is because you know what would happen to them if they returned to their Arab lands. Walker can go to hell and if you don't like my photoshop, too bad. I really don't care who I offend with that one.
There are Arab states that are more democratic than Israel. Remember, it is illegal for Christians to witness in Israel. It's easier to express religious thoughts in Saudi Arabia than Israel. So, for all your Christians out there who love and support Israel, just remember, they don't want you there.
But the enemy of my enemy is my friend who is helping guard the oil.
Name 'em.
How dare they isolate people who swear daily in their public prayers to destroy Israel if it's the last thing they do! That's downright insensitive.
The Muslims have made a reasonable offer: give us your land in exchange for being annihilated. Why can't Israelis accept the common sense proposition that they should immediately be put to death?
May Alice Walker someday live amongst the Palestinians, and experience all the gratitude they would show to a liberal, outspoken non-Muslim woman.
As I said, 'Fish, it's your blog.
Agreed the swastika is a bit much, Hitler would be insulted.
... and Dees is still reading ...
You'd think she would want to be an example of tolerance, not the other way around.
"It's easier to express religious thoughts in Saudi Arabia than Israel."
Bullshit.
Darryl Hamilton summed it all up very well.
How about those groovy Muslim coun tries in Africa where slavery is still practiced?
@11:37 AM - go ahead and name those democratic countries in the mid-east.
You are either fresh out of Whitfield or too dumb to realize how stupid you are. Regurgitating crap that someone else has fed you doesn't make you sound very cool here, putz.
People like you are friggin despicable. You would have been talking the same crap when Hitler was running amok...and we know how wrong that kind of nonsense talk turned out to be.
You gotta pull your head out of whatever "uber cool" liberal friends ass it is in and try to do some thinking. There is nothing cool about being so damn stupid...even if Jimmy Carter makes it look cool for democrat voters to do so.
Check out Tanglewoods Garden, next to Hawkins Air Field, to be dedicated tomorrow. It appears to be a giant Habitat project in line with Jacktown's Apartheid strategy.
Can't we just all get along and return to the '67 borders and form of government?
I'm sure the Commies would've love for Solzhenitsyn to refuse to send his works to Mother Russia because they discriminated.
Po' wittle anonymous Anderson is offended.
At least King has an audience Anderson.
Anon 11:37 -
Maybe the most ignorant statement ever on the Internet.
Have you ever been to Israel? I guarantee you, Israeli Arabs (also known by the made-up term "Palestinians") live better lives than the ones who live under administration by the Palestinian Authority. There are Arab members of the Knesset.
Also, the issue of the West Bank being "illegally occupied Pestinian territory" is bullshit. The West Bank was part of Jordan until the Six Day War. Jordan formally renounced its ownership in 1988.
The automatic reflexive support for Israel on display here is telling, but expected from religious zealots. What's more telling is that Kingfish without apparent guilt is equating someone who does not wish their own writings to be published in a foreign country to mass murdering genocidal fanatics. By photoshopping a Swastika on her sleeve. A lady who was the child of black southern sharecroppers and who endured an upbringing of untold racial harassment and difficulties in some of the worst decades of the South. An upbringing that someone the likes of Mr. Kingfish cannot fathom.
Someone who has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Really, Kingfish? Is your unquestioned support of Israel that strong?
Shame on you.
Don't bother the anti-Semites with details 8:22. It really isn't about territorial disputes with them.
The automatic reflexive support for Israel on display here is telling, but expected from religious zealots.
Your massive leap isn't telling at all. It is the ignorance we've come to expect from your posts.
She sure didn't mind in engaging in a little bit of racism, herself, did she? I really don't care what her background is. More than a few people became what oppressed them. Take the black leadership at the Hinds BOS. They are no different than the racist good ole boys from 70 years ago. Of course they both kept the state in last place. Whites 70 years ago didn't care if we were last, the blacks electing them don't care either.
Like I said, I don't see the Israelis making "wiping out all Arabs" as part of thier constitution. How many deals have the Arabs refused because they would have to give up that promise?
By the way, during the 1948 war, what happened to the Arabs that didn't leave Israel? You know, the rest of them, the so-called Palestinians, took off when it started as the Arabs promised these jackals the rest of the country after they conquered it and then found out they bet the wrong way. They were offered a two state solution then, no dice. It was all about driving Isreal into the sea and the only reason they don't do it know is because Israel kicked their ass in Yom Kippur.
I'm different than Sharon. I would've annihilated the Egyptian Army when it was surrounded.
I wonder if Alice would wear that hairdo and run around spouting off her mouth if she lived in "Palestine" or under the rule of the Palestinians.
did not know she is considered a Mississippi author, thought she was born in and grew up in Georgia
I wonder if Alice would wear that hairdo and run around spouting off her mouth if she lived in "Palestine" or under the rule of the Palestinians.
Not if she was in Gaza living under the subjugating yoke of Hamas.
I wonder if there is an Arab translation of the book. Just curious.
Remember, it is illegal for Christians to witness in Israel.
To Anonymous at 11:37 - before you start removing doubt concerning your total ignorance, you should try using that there computer you're sitting at to do some research. It's really not hard.
http://www.jewishpost.com/archives/news/countering-missionaries-in-israel.html
Or you could try actually talking to someone from Israel. They work seasonally at the mall in a couple of kiosks in the downstairs walkway.
By the way, I happen to be married to someone from Israel.
And as for your other stupid comment "For all your (sic) Christians out there...they don't want you there." Do you even have a clue as to how much tourism money pours into Israel because of the "Christians"? http://www.travelujah.com/blogs/entry/Tourism-to-Israel-Hits-All-Time-High
Moron.
126 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 1,476 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis since September 29, 2000.
1,096 Israelis and at least 6,568 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000.
10,792 Israelis and 59,575 Palestinians have been injured since September 29, 2000.
0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians and 24,813 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel since 1967.
Sources available if you care.
When Israel was left alone there is religious freedom for any religion. Islam and Jews and Christians are free to worship as they choose. Israel has started no wars, but has been attacked over and over again. The Palestinians have vowed to kill all Jews. It is not about the West Bank which Israel took in the last war. They gave back the Sinai to the Arabs after taking it, I suggest some of you go back and read the history of Israel and the wars that were launched against them and stop the anti Semitism. The women is clearly a person that sees herself as for victims. The Palestinians are not victims. If the Palestinians would stop their war against Israel and acknowledge their right to exist, peace would come to them and prosperity. Otherwise they can continue to get money from terrorist group and the USA and continue the terror attacks on Israel. That is why the houses have been demolished. They hide the terrorist.
Why are we pussyfooting around this issue? The problem in the world today is that there is a religion that is so intolerant that their whole purpose is to destroy one tiny nation. A religion that kills anyone who tries to leave, subjugates women, condones abuse, and when literally translated means surrender. A religion that is based in fear and anger, who's leaders support acts of terrorism, a faith who says anyone who doesn't believe is an infidel that should also be put to death. A mission that is to spread it's disease by the sword all over the world, building mosques over razed churches and temples. You cannot rationalize with it, nor appease it with treaties. But yet we are told it is peaceful and has a right to exist. I have had enough of this in my lifetime. I want to see Islam as a religion removed from my country, not bargained with, and eradicated from the globe. You might be astonished by how many people living in the middle east that would be equally relieved to have Islam gone. Mark these words, we will one day be forced to deal with Islam as a unified middle eastern state.
" So called Palestinians" is telling. Some of you should learn when and where that phrase originated.
What should you call those who lived in the British Palestinian Mandate prior to the Zionist movement which urged Jews to reclaim those lands as Israel?
Do you even know when the Zionist movement began and who came up with that idea?
How is massive immigration into the Palestinian Mandate different from a Mexican starting a movement to urge Mexicans into lands once controlled by Spain by suggesting it once was theirs?
Imagine Mexicans overpopulating Texas, a civil war ensuing and the Texans losing this time. And, Catholicism, let's pretend, becomes the official religion. Would you not expect the Protestant Texans who had lost their property to be a bit pissy?
There is no excuse for terrorism whether it was the IRA or communists red terrorist groups or the militia that led to the Oklahoma bombing or jihadists. It's wrong. PERIOD and genocide is wrong. PERIOD.
But, it's time we understood that in Israel, just like in this country, there is not ONE political point of view regarding policy towards those descendants of people who once lived in the Palestinian Mandate. Not all Israelis support the squatter settlements.
And, I suggest that all of you learn more about what is happening to Christians in Jerusalem when current policy is to have it be an Israel controlled city rather than an international city.
I support Israel as a country and it's right to exist.I support their right to defend themselves But, I do not support some of the policies of the current leadership.
Just as in our Nation, some things have more to do with money and power than with statesmanship.
@6:28: "intolerant religion"
"subjugates women"
"condones abuse"
"religion based in fear and anger"
"a faith who says anyone who doesn't believe is an infidel"
"cannot rationalize with it"
For a second there, I thought you were describing fundamentalist Christianity.
"I wonder if Alice would wear that hairdo and run around spouting off her mouth if she lived in "Palestine" or under the rule of the Palestinians."
It would be hard to see a hairdo under a burka.
8:34 AM, knew you'd be here sooner or later to make such a comment. How sad.
Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages.
Born in Eatonton, Georgia, now lives in northern California.
That book had been translated into Hebrew before by a different publishing house.
“Walker is a supporter of a movement that seeks to pressure Israel to end its rule over the Palestinian people through boycotts, divestment and sanctions. She was also a passenger on a flotilla that unsuccessfully tried to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip last year.”
“The chief editor of Yediot Books, Netta Gurevich, said in a statement Wednesday she regretted Walker's decision to bar the release of a new Hebrew-language edition of her book, a tale about black women's struggle against their miserable status in the American South in the 1930s. The arts, and literature in particular, ‘are so important to bridging differences, presenting 'the other' and generating a climate of tolerance and compassion,’ Gurevich said. ‘That's all the more so when talking about 'The Color Purple,' a book that addresses discrimination, otherness and the importance of the individual's struggle against injustice in general.’
There has never been a country called ‘Palestine’ and there is no such thing as a ‘Palestinian people’. The arabs who are occupying Jewish land came to Israel in order to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state. The British Mandate gave approximately 70% of the British land to the arabs who established the states Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. The arabs who are occupying Israel belong in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan and should be motivated, either monetarily or physically, to move away from the Jewish state.
It is insane that the government of Israel is actually talking peace with these murderous beasts. There is no peace with those whose goal is to make the world clean of all Jews. There was no peace with Nazis, there is no peace with Islam which preaches every Friday sermon to kill Jews.
@12:36 Hahahahahahahaha!! And I guess there are no Southerners, because there's no country called "The South". What a crock.
I've never understood the Christian obsession with Israel. All Jews are going to hell according to Southern Baptist convention, except for those few last minute saves.
Is it because they think its white people being threatened by dirty brown people? Cause I've got news for em, you cant tell the difference between a muslim and a jew there. They are both brown.
1:00 PM, Your total ignorance is astounding.
Bill Dees - unlike Palestine there actually was a "Confederate States of America". Also unlike Palestine they had a flag, a constitution, a president, etc.
The Palestinians have all of that. And, while I was never a Confederate, I am a Southerner, seventh generation Mississippian. The land comprising Israel and the West Bank Territory were called Palestine for millennia before there Israel was established in the 1940's, and the residents were always called Palestinians. Even the Jews were Palestinians. "Palestinian" is not the same as "Arab", or "Muslim".
Actually Bill the area has been referred to by many names throughout history other than Palestine. The Ottomans didn't use the name. The Brits resumed using the name after the fall of the Turks at the end of WWI. You'd be hard pressed to identify a blood line or lineage that represents a true "Palestinian" indigenous to the geography.
"I wonder if there is an Arab translation of her book. Just curious."
Virtually nothing ever gets translated into Arabic, because people who speak Arabic generally don't read anything other than the Koran. Spain translates more books from English to Spanish each and every year than all of the books which have been translated from English into Arabic in the last 1,000 years combined.
http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2009/08/10/a-note-on-arabic-literacy-and-translation/
Bill Dees, I highly recommend the book "Palestine Betrayed," by Efraim Karsh. It's an excellent history of Palestine which puts the lie to a great many liberal myths like the ones you cite. For example,
"Palestine at the time [1900] did not exist as a unified geographic entity; rather, it was divided between the Ottoman province of Beirut in the north and the district of Jerusalem in the south. It's inhabitants, like the rest of the Arabic-speaking communities throughout the region, viewed themselves as subjects of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled the Middle East and much of Eastern Europe and North Africa for hundreds of years . . ."
5:04:
Exactly.
"More than a few people became what oppressed them."
I thought this was pretty insightful.
Good grief...shall we call them Ottomans instead of Palestinians then?
How silly to bicker over the name of those former residents.
The Zionist movement was started in 1897 by a guy name Herzl.
Israel, as a geographical entity hadn't existed since when? 1 AD ?
Must we be so zealous as to totally ignore that people had lived and owned property and worked in the Ottoman Empire or Palestinian Mandate or whatever you choose to call the geographical area and those people were outnumbered after WWII and eventually lost a war in which they wanted to maintain control of the land they regarded as their home.
Everyone is conveniently forgetting that after WWII, the world was less than interested in taking large numbers of Jewish refugees.
Gee, the North could have just decided after The Civil War to give Mississippi to the former slaves. It's hard to believe surviving Southerners would have sat still for that.
Leon Uris' account of the creation of Israel in Exodus is about as accurate as his account of the history of Hawaii where instead of Queen Victoria's multi-lingual, college educated, Anglican goddaughter as head of state is painted as a heathen fat lady in a muumuu. Yet, that's what most Americans know about the history of that period.
Palestinian women don't wear burkas.
October 24, 2012 6:53 PM is conveniently revising copious amounts of history.
The 1948 Israeli War of Independence was between the neighboring Arab countries and the newly formed state of Israel. The Arab countries did not send troops to help the people that are today known as "Palestinians" but rather they sent troops to drive the Jews into the sea. Most of the "Palestinian Arabs" fled to avoid the fighting. Remember, in 1948 they were not referred to as "Palestinians". This name was was created by the Soviet disinformation masters in 1964 when they created the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The term "Palestinian People" as a description of Arabs in Palestine appeared for the first time in the preamble of the 1964 PLO Charter, drafted in Moscow. The Charter was affirmed by the first 422 members of the Palestinian National Council, handpicked by the KGB. This term was formally used by newspapers around the world after 1967.
United Nations Resolution 181 partitioned the territory from the British Mandate for Palestine into two states - one for Jews and one for Palestinian Arabs. All of the Arab countries objected to the creation of the Jewish state and fought a war against its creation. This was Israel's War of Independence in 1948. Despite their superior numbers, the Arab countries lost the war and the Palestinian state never materialized because of this loss. In the war that was waged, the territory allotted to be the Palestinian state by the UN partition resolution was divided between Israel and Jordan. The "Palestinian Arabs" were rejected by every single Arab country, with the exception of the small percentage that ended up in refugee camps in Jordan where they remain to this day.
"Gee, the North could have just decided after The Civil War to give Mississippi to the former slaves."
Ah, in effect, it was attempted. And democrats were so enamored of it that LBJ duplicated the attempt nationwide exactly a hundred years later. Now we're witnessing another run at it.
5:42 a.m. - Right on! Arabs don't hate Jews over real estate. They hate Jews over religion and ideology. It's not a question of what Jews have done, it's a question of who they are.
After 9/11, that should sound familiar.
I should read the links more often. Her "co-jurors" on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine included Angela Davis and Cynthia McKinney. So yeah, that was a totally unbiased and impartial panel, there.
http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com/en/about-rtop/jury
Wow....Cynthia McKinney. Unfortunate that they left out Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.......always good for a laugh. Would have fit right in........
Very convenient history going on here...
There was an Arab revolt in the 1930s in response to the Zionist movement. There was the Peel Commission. No mention is made of the Lehi or Irgun or the Partition.
The Soviet stuff is just nonsense as inhabitants were called Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs long before 1964. Once Israel was declared a state, the necessity of attaching " Jew" and " Arab" to Palestinian becomes moot.
And, I hate to break the news to everyone, but anti-Semitism was alive and well in the US well into the 1950's. Doesn't anyone remember that Jack Benny along with other Jewish actors had to form their own country club?
In those days, the GOP was not pro-Israel just as it wasn't pro-abortion.
I know some of you weren't alive then, but really, study history from historians not from special interest groups. Information is only as reliable as the source.
Anon 8:23
I said "so-called Palestinians" because it's a bullshit term.
Know where the term "Palestine" came from?
Glad you asked. Until the final Jewish Revolt (when the the Temple was destroyed and the martyrs at Masada took their own lives), the entire region was called (wait for it) Judea. Emperor Vespasian decreed that "Judea" sounded too much like "Jew." It was he who coined the term "Palestine," from the same root word in "Philistine," by then a long-dead race that had gone the way of the Amorites, Moabites, etc.
There is no such thing as an ethnic Palestinian. None. They are ARABS.
And here's something else for you Muslim-sympathizers to chew on:
Read the book "O, Jerusalem" about the 1948 War of Independence. (I met many veterans of that conflict on my trip there a dozen years ago.)
The UN partition planned called for two states: one majority-Jewish, the other majority-Arab, with Jerusalem an open city administered by the UN. The Jews said, "fine by us." The Arabs vowed to kill every Jew and drive them into the sea.
Israel, with virtually no outside help, did the impossible: They fought armies from Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Jordan (the latter with the aid of hundreds of British advisors.)
But a curious -- though not really surprising -- phenomenon happened. Whenever Arab troops (almost universally illiterate and uncivilized) would overrun a Jewish position, they celebrated by firing weapons into the air, and looting the town. Reconsituting and preparing for a counterattack? Nah. Wasn't in their DNA.
Within a couple months, ALL the Arab forces were begging for a cease-fire and UN intervention.
During the next 25 years, the surrounding Arabs would try three more times to exterminate the Jews in Israel. And they failed miserably each time.
You see, Muslims are taught in school that Jews "are the descendants of monkeys and pigs." Their evil prophet's book instructs them to cut off the heads and arms of the Jews.
Those "people" aren't interested in coexistence. They want to finish what Hitler started. And for you liberals and "moderates," here's a news flash. There aren't "two sides" to this story, unless you choose to grant legitimacy to a race of people whose entire culture was built on war, destruction and genocide.
I'm sorry, but facts can be a bitch sometimes.
Information is only as reliable as the source.
Exactly why your anonymous comment is automatically highly suspect.
Got news for you October 25, 2012 9:57 AM. Anti-Semitism is alive and well in Jackson, Mississippi in 2012.
Good lord, putting a swastika on her sleeve? You may want to go ahead and put your lawyer on notice that you may be facing a defamation suit here soon.
October 25, 2012 11:34 AM
YAWN ... SNORE ... ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz
10:15sm, by your logic, most of countries the world don't exist.
If you want to set Masada as your historical justification timeline, the US belong to native American Indians!
Agreeing with more than a few Sabras hardly makes one anti-Semetic, especially when one has a plaque from Israel thanking them for financial support. And here's a new flash, Arabs are Semites as well.
Defamation? Yeah right. Hope she does. Then I can counterclaim her and get her money.
from that picture of her smug ass methinks that those piglets in her head are wound a little to tight..hmmm...I wonder if a author of some book about Israel didn't want it published in, let's say, Atlanta, shows up in a photo with a KKK arm band on if it would be as amusing?
Very interesting/educational thread here. Thanks.
" more than a few people became what oppressed them"...
Indeed, KF, that is absolutely the truth and insightful.
In the determination not to be victims again, aggression and the need for revenge.retribution and hyper vigilance and over-sensitivity is common.
PTSD from trauma brings a paranoic view of life and events around you.
It bothers me that you can see that predictable human reaction only in one race or ethnic group.
If this were Ann Coulter deciding she didn't want one of her books published for one of her usual lame reasons, you'd all be arguing it was her right to control her work product and ignore her lame reason.
Walker's reason is lame. She should want everyone to read her book in hope they will see that violence and cruelty can be overcome by a determined human spirit.
Well, well, well, it appears my use of the swastika didn't go far enough.
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