Alice Walker's F U to Israel

[Liam]

So. Alice Walker has forbidden the Hebrew translation and publication of her best-selling novel The Color Purple.

You can read her letter to her would-be Israeli publishers here (http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1917).

While I don't agree with her position at all (I think she's cuckoo, quite frankly)--I respect her honesty and determination to do what she deems right.

Stupid question though: What does she think the ban on the publication of her book(s) in Israel will accomplish politically? It's not like the Israelis will start dropping dead on the street after NOT reading The Color Purple, :rolleyes:.

[Eric]

Maybe she's still subconsciously getting back at her ex. She was married to a Jewish lawyer from 1969 to 1977.

[Daniel del Real]

I know it's not important for Israelis not to read that novel, but she's making a solid statement about Israel's discriminatory politics in a way a writer can do it, with her voice and her letters. I agree with Liam that,right or not, she takes the time to defend the causes she is standing for.

[Liam]

Here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/22/alice-walker-color-purple-read-israel)'s a recent article about the issue in The Guardian. Check out the users' comments section, in particular: the responses are very telling, I think, mostly either 100% for or against.

[Eric]

It's rather ironic that Walker's actively preventing one of her books being translated into a small language. Think of the unwitting censorship involved when the Brits & Yanks censor thousands of books from Europe by simply not bothering to have them translated.

[Eric]

The unthinking reaction of many so-called intellectuals in the world is: criticise Israel and people will love you. If you want to be popular as a writer in some circles, one of the most effective things you can do is mention the occupied territories, the settlements, the blockade of goods getting into the Gaza Strip, and so on. I cannot understand how people can have double standards. There have been hundreds of unaimed rockets fired at ordinary Israeli towns over the past few days from the Gaza Strip that Israel abandoned as a goodwill gesture, but no one among the sanctimonious intellectuals of righteousness protests. But if the Palestinians fake the killing of one little boy, something that happened in a well-publicised incident, this is regarded as monstrous murder by the fascist Israelis. In a region of the world where Arab is murdering Arab en masse (Syria) and one very large country seems to be totally unstable (Egypt), the European-style Jews of Israel are still the only nation that you could describe as a democracy in the Middle East. But there is an automatic litany, especially in the left-wing press, that insists that the Arabs are constantly being threatened by Israel. Everyone seems also to have forgotten that Iran isn't very cuddly nowadays, either. When will the eyes of "intellectuals" be opened?

[Liam]

When will the eyes of "intellectuals" be opened?Probably never, because then they will cease to be, um, "intellectuals," :).

[Hamlet]

It sounds like she should register her protest, then let it through; that way, she at least gets to make a point, admittedly, a small one perhaps when compared to the rest of the international clamour, but a point, and then let the Israeli people read her novel against this backdrop if they choose to do so.