EDITOR’S COMMENT on Messud article below July 2, 2009
COMMENT: Who would have thought that a literary festival of well-known international writers would pose a “security threat” to a powerful military state like Israel? Well it did. If it was not for the French consulate and British Council in Jerusalem, this year’s Second Annual Palestinian Literary Festival would not have gone ahead at all. The closure occurred – according to an Israeli police spokesman and reported by The Guardian’s Micky Rosenfeld – because Israel believed it was organised or funded by the Palestinian Authority (PA), despite being supported by UNESCO and the British Council. Now, if Israel thought it was organised and funded by Hamas, it would have made more sense, but the PA, the governing body of the Palestinian state that US President Obama and other world leaders are so committed to seeing emerge? The PA that has just been offered $10 million in aid by our deputy prime Minister Julia Gillard? So much for that “shining light on the hill” democracy that journalists and politicians are all too eager to laud without questioning how that phrase ever came to be coined.
While Israel is ready to come down heavily on any positive Palestinian cultural events in Israel, we find that in Australia, Israel tries to showcase its “democracy” by encouraging some token friendly Palestinian/Israeli games and/or cultural exchanges for the benefit of Australian audiences. But try as propagandists might to normalise Israeli society, the ugliness of its government’s policies and practices are showing through. Ordinary people are quite capable of seeing the contradictions.
The repression of a Palestinian literary event for internationals in Israel certainly justifies every protest we can raise here against Israel’s cultural partnership with the Melbourne International Film Festival being held from 24 July – 9 August. Please contact us if you would like to help make the Palestinian voice heard during this event. – SK
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