semitism.net

I was most heartened when Linda Grant wrote to me about a book called Gaza Blues. The book was co-authored by Samir al-Youssef (a Palestinian) and Etgar Keret (an Israeli). It contains 15 short stories and one novella. Both authors say the book is non-political. But it exposes, in literary form, some of the more intimate experiences of oppressed and oppressor that have arisen out of the conflict.

Sometimes art provides an antidote to politics. There is a lot to say about life in Israel and Palestine that is never approached in political discourse.

According to reviewer Kaelen Wilson-Goldie, writing in Lebanon’s Daily Star, Gaza blues

…carves out intimate space where as yet unexplored dimensions of the conflict may be probed. It resists falling prey to identity politics, and as such it appeals to anyone who might feel compelled to take a deep and weary breath before answering such questions as “What are you?” or “Where are you from?” Moreover, “Gaza Blues” is marked throughout by dark humor, touches of surrealism, and hip urban language.

“Our collaboration is meant to refer to a different area in the Palestine/Israel issue,” says Youssef. “And different means that which is deliberately overlooked and marginalized such as, in my case, the reality of the fragmentary nature of Palestinian society. There isn’t only one Palestinian society but many and different, and that’s why the Palestine/Israel issue is not limited to a certain geography or history.”

Ms. Grant interviewed Mr. Keret last month for The Independent. She describes a reading of Arab and Israeli writers that took place at “a marquee next to the border between Green Line Israel and Jordan, a no-man’s land on the edge of the Jewish and Arab world.” A Palestinian writer, Ahmed Harb,

…told an anecdote about the Six Day War when, as a teenager, he had believed the sermons of the mullah in his mosque near Nablus, who told local people that the Israeli planes were falling from the sky like flies.

Harb saw the Jordanian forces retreating, then a convoy of tanks which he believed were Arab forces coming to save them. When the tanks turned out to be Israeli, he ran to the cave where he was born and hid there for three months. The place of the imagination, the inner life, the closeness to one’s inner being as a refuge from rhetoric and propaganda: that was the theme that triumphantly emerged from the bridge event.

Mr Keret comments:

“People went there to play the role they’re supposed to play… Fighter for peace on one side and victim on the other - and you go out of those roles feeling dehumanised. But when they told their stories they were unclear and ambiguous, and then people listened to each other.”

Both authors have been attacked for the collaboration. Youssef has been criticized for violating a widely accepted ban among Arab writers against “normalizaion” of relations with Israel. He told the Daily Star:

…instead of introducing a thoughtful argument against a certain activity or policy that would involve meeting with the Israelis, Arab intellectuals who abide by the rule of ‘anti-normalization’ excuse themselves from thinking, from getting involved in a debate. Thus they dismiss their role as intellectuals. It’s for this reason that I call it idiotic. I have no time for idiocy!

Keret, for his part, was labelled an anti-semite by the Israeli right.

“The attackers’ goal is to stop any kind of humanization and empathy between Israeli and Palestinian and being attacked by them is, for me, a sure sign that Samir and I are doing something right.”

Apart from the Israeli-Palestinian battle over territory, there is a pitched battle over narratives. From the Jewish side, the story is of a persecuted people returning to its homeland against all odds and fighting implacable Arab enemies for the survival of their small nation. From the Palestinian side, the narrative tells of land stolen by imperial powers, of innocent people mercilessly persecuted and driven from their homes by an expanding Zionist state. In the official versions, each side demonizes the other and sees itself as a victim.

Good writing challenges comfortable beliefs and subverts the narratives that support power structures. Even without being overtly political, it can be a catalyst for change.

I’m looking forward to reading the book. If you are interested you can buy a copy online here.