French essayist attacks Palestinian novel as next wave of antisemitism

The Huffington Post - Susan Abulhawa- Bernard-Henri Levy, the French pop star of philosophy and intellectual elitism, authored an essay that featured my novel, Mornings in Jenin, as one of three distressing developments that led him to ask "is there no end to the demonization of Israel?" It was titled: "The Antisemitism to Come." The other two happenings that concern him, he says, are the growing boycott of Israel and an acclaimed documentary film called Tears of Gaza.

First, a look at Mr Levy's targets:

1) Mornings in Jenin is a work of historic fiction, where fictional characters live through real history; and I encourage anyone to do their own research to verify the accuracy of the historic events that form the backdrop for the novel. 2) Tears of Gaza is a documentary film by Vibeke Lokkeberg, in which she reveals the horrific impact of Israel's bombing of Gaza in 2008 to 2009, especially on children and women. 3) The activists participating in and encouraging an economic boycott of Israel are ordinary citizens all over the world who are heeding the call of their conscience to take a moral stand against a grave injustice that has gone on far too long against the indigenous population of Israel and Palestine; namely, the Palestinian people.

Rather than offer an intelligent analysis of any one of these three things that trouble him, Levy essentially resorts to name-calling. He simply slaps on the word "antisemitism" to discredit any negative portrayal of Israel. This word -- with its profound gravity of marginalization, humiliation, dispossession, oppression, and ultimately, genocide of human beings for no other reason but their religion -- is so irresponsibly used by the likes of Levy that it truly besmirches the memory of those who were murdered in death camps solely for being Jewish. And I thank Kurt Brainin, a Holocaust survivor who wrote a touching letter expressing exactly that in response to Levy.

Nowhere in Levy's essay does he identify anything truly antisemitic in any of the three elements to which he refers. Because he cannot. If he could, I think he would. In fact, the people who today are being marginalized, humiliated, dispossessed, and oppressed for the sole reason of their religion are Palestinian Christians and Muslims. That is the real antisemitism of today.

...Mr. Levy accuses us of "demonizing Israel", when in fact, all we do is pull back the curtain, however slightly, to show a dark truth he wishes to keep hidden. I suspect that Mr Levy feels, as most Jewish supporters of Israel do, that he is more entitled to my grandfather's farms than I am. After all, that is really the foundation of Israel, isn't it? The question that should be asked is "why?" and "how?" Why should Jews from all over the world be entitled to enjoy dual citizenship, both in their own homeland and in mine, while we, the natives of Palestine, languish in refugee camps, a diaspora, or patrolled ghettos and bantustans? How is it that a country with one of the most powerful militaries in the world, that has been committing well-documented war crimes against a principally unarmed civilian native population for six decades now, is depicted as the victim? And worse, the real victims, who are trying to resist their own extinction, are depicted as the aggressors? Read more