American writer Alice Walker won’t let an Israeli publisher release a new Hebrew edition of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Color Purple,’’ saying she objects to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people.There was something sweet in that last paragraph from Ms. Walker. I don't believe she's really a hater of Jews, especially considering that she married one; they divorced "amicably," ten years later, according to Wikipedia. But her obsession with Israel and Jewish issues is more than a little annoying.
Walker, an ardent pro-Palestinian activist, said in a letter to Yediot Books that Israel practices “apartheid’’ and must change its policies before her works can be published there.
“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,’’ she wrote in the letter, obtained by The Associated Press. “I am hopeful that one day, maybe soon, this may happen. But now is not the time.’’
Keep in mind that she doesn't recognize the right of Israel to define itself as a Jewish state. She was listed as one of numerous prominent signers of a statement published in The NY Times on March 13, 1988, demanding an end to US support for "apartheid Israel" and hailing a future of Israelis and Palestinians living together in one country (I heard her essentially restate this position a few months ago on WNYC's Leonard Lopate interview show). Later that year, by way of contrast, the PLO indicated an acceptance of the UN's 1947 vote to partition the Palestinian Mandate into separate majority Jewish and Arab states.
Walker is also a crusader against Brit Milah, the Jewish rite of circumcising male babies as a symbol of the Covenant. These are both extreme, uncompromising positions. One is against a principle that most Jews consider sacrosanct: the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination. The other is against a sacred ritual of the Jewish religion.
Yet I believe that Walker is moved to both positions out of compassion. On Israel and the Palestinians, I take it at face value that she cares about Palestinian suffering in Gaza. And I see Walker and others having humanitarian concerns about male circumcision, albeit misplaced in my view, as she undoubtedly conflates this practice with female genital mutilation and ignores the growing scientific consensus on the former's health benefits.
I am a stickler for precision in the use of one particular word---antisemitism. Walker's choice of a husband and the last paragraph of her quote above are both indications that she's not antisemitic, i.e., not a hater of Jews. However, whether she realizes it or not, she is establishing a track record for being anti-Jewish. Even if the English language has not yet derived the right term for such complexity, we should be able to distinguish between someone whom we would condemn as a hater of our people (an antisemite) and someone whom most of us would strenuously disagree with on principled grounds as an opponent of our people's values and interests. Walker falls into the latter category.
7 comments:
"I am a stickler for precision in the use of one particular word---antisemitism."
Ralph, you're one of my favorite Jewish voices, but here I think you're quite wrong. Let me point to this video that was copied on nearly every anti-racist blog I know of. The audience for the video is people who want to fight racism, but embedded in it is a call for a certain way of understanding racism. "It's not what you are; it's what you said." That's important for a lot of reasons. One, it keeps us from having to divine into anyone's soul, which is what you're doing here. Two, it keeps the conversation on constructive topics, on how people can change their behaviors or how power structures can change.
A discussion about someone else's soul just doesn't accomplish much of anything useful. It provides alibis for people who do and say things that are wrong, or it allows us to claim that we are "reasonable, not like those other Jews." These things are both counterproductive.
Surely Walker is familiar with such an idea, and probably insists on it herself.
I don't know about Walker's motivations, but I'm also not particularly concerned with that. It's what she's said and what she's done that *is* antisemitism.
Interesting comment from Matt, but is it useful or right to see her as a hater, an antisemite, if that's not what she is? It's enough for me to see her as anti-Jewish for these positions she's taken, and to oppose her on that basis.
I went back and looked at that link Matt supplied us, to this white hip hop artist; he makes a good point, although I could do without his faux-African American accent. But what I argue (with some evidence) is that it's an error to see Walker's views as bigoted. Isn't it enough to call her out for being wrong?
Dear Ralph,
You are very confused.
1) Again, Alice Walker never objects to anything about her book in Hebrew, so please change the title of your post. If you can find her mentioning Hebrew in her statement, you might have a leg to stand on, but she does not:
http://pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1917
You are misrepresenting her statement. She does not want her book published by an Israeli publishing house at this time. The reality that the publication would have been in Hebrew is a derivative issue. And she allowed her book previously to be published in Israel in Hebrew.
2) Regarding Walker being "wrong" ss I've written before, I think in 10 - 15 years we will be looking back at people who took positions like yours as having been obstacles at each step in a movement for universal justice, rights and ultimately peace. Speaking of being "wrong," you used to try to discredit the Palestinian, Israeli and international protesters on the ground, and you attacked the boycotters, but well after the fact, after they've done the hard, courageous work, years later, you and your group come around to embracing the tactics you attacked, even if in half-measure.
The same will be true with Alice Walker, who like many others, years from now will be generally understood as among those who took a courageous stand in a movement for global justice. Those who continually attacked people like Walker who stood up for universal human rights will be understood as having been morally bankrupt people who were on the wrong side of history, who continually put up obstacles, obfuscated the reality of Israel's policies and thus prolonged conflict and suffering.
Ted
My post is very clear that Walker is boycotting this Hebrew translation because it's from an Israeli publisher, and not because of the language. More profound than our ongoing disagreement with Ted on facts and values is that, unlike Ted, we respect his and Alice Walker's right to be wrong. We don't constantly dis them for being wrong.
Dear Ralph,
If you are indeed a stickler for the precise use of the english language, why in your summary title do you not write, for example, "Alice Walker Boycotts Israeli Publication of Her Book."
This is a more accurate summary of her position than "Hebrew edition," which is derivative and a secondary outcome of the first. Your title misrepresents the focus of her boycott and contributes to the misperception that she has some problem with Hebrew. This misrepresentation of her position conveniently fits with your desire to characterize Walker as "anti-Jewish," but it has no basis in reality.
It is a willfully inaccurate title that you are exploiting to bolster your position attacking Walker.
Ted
Every human being on earth, including Alice Walker, can read the Hamas charter. Among the blatant anti-Semitism, the second hand status for Christians and Jews, is the statement in the charter that there can never be peace, there can never be a compromise with the Jewish state. The Hamas leaders openly declare and work for the annihilation of the Jews. Children from kindergarten onward are educated in hate, in Jihad, in becoming human bombs to murder others. Rival Fatah members are thrown from third story windows, Christians are persecuted and Churches firebombed, women are degraded and murdered in "honor" killings, Gays are hunted down and executed in Gaza.
Every human being on earth, including Alice Walker, knows that Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and that Gaza is not "occupied", can watch the thousands of tons of food and supplies entering into Gaza every day, knows that there is no shortage of food and goods in Gaza, can see people from Gaza being treated in Israeli hospitals, can see the mortars and bombs and missiles raining down from Gaza on Israeli school children and fathers and mothers in towns like Sderot.
Every human being, including Alice Walker, knows that the Israeli naval blockade, to prevent arms smuggling, is deemed legal by the UN under international law, knows that if Israel was really carrying out "a genocide" [as the liars claim] there would be no need to stage Al Dura or to re-tweet and post the same picture of the same little girl who died a few years back in a playground accident as a "victim" of Israeli "aggression".
Every human being knows, including Alice Walker, that Israel is a diamond of rights and freedom for all its citizens in the dark mud of the Middle East. That every Arab citizen, every woman, every Christian, every Gay enjoys in Israel rights and freedoms denied them elsewhere. That there are Arab judges (including a supreme court judge), Arab members of Knesset, Arab diplomats and Sr.civil servants. That from Israel shines the light of advancements in science and technology, medicine, that Israel is helping to feed the world and bringing us daily closer to a green world freed from fossil fuels.
So why does Alice Walker want to boycott the Jewish state and only the Jewish state? She and people like her say it is not because of hate toward the Jews and the Jewish State, that it's not because they have become so morally incapacitated they can no longer distinguish between good and evil, that it is not some form of racism that condones the acts of one group like Hamas and condemns their victims.
I don't know the answer. I do know that it is time that good, moral and fair minded people boycotted the Alice Walker's of the world.
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