Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel among Canadian writers urging Israel to halt evictions

by Travis Lupick on July 20th, 2013 at 10:00 AM

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It was decades ago, but Carmen Aguirre vividly recalls first learning of the struggles faced by many Palestinians.

“I was seven,” the Vancouver writer and actress told the Straight in a telephone interview. “I come from a family of Chilean refugees. We arrived in Canada in the early ‘70s as political refugees. And one of the strongest memories I have arriving here was of the local Palestinian community welcoming us and doing a lot of solidarity work with us.

“That’s when it became clear to me, as a small child,” Aguirre continued. “As far as I’m concerned, the Israeli state is a racist state acting against the Palestinians.”

Aguirre, who stars in the Showcase series Endgame, is among more than 90 prominent Canadian writers such as Margaret Atwood who have signed a letter that calls on Israel to permanently halt two impending eviction actions.

The first concerns a strip of the Southern Hebron Hills called Masafer Yatta, an area of the occupied West Bank where Israel has been trying to create a vacant “firing zone” since the early 1970s. About 1,000 Palestinians residents face the prospect of forced relocations.

The second initiative the writers are speaking against is the so-called “Prawer Plan”. It proposes moving Arab Bedouin populations in the Negev desert (in Israel proper) out of villages the state describes as “unrecognized” and into government-designated townships. The plan would involve the relocation of 20,000 to 70,000 people.

“The actions planned are manifestly unjust, and will gravely damage Israel’s international reputation,” the letter states.

Across the country, notable authors attached to the letter are Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid’s Tale), Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient), Rohinton Mistry (A Fine Balance), Lawrence Hill (The Book of Negros), and John Ralston Saul, who is the president of PEN International. A complete list can be viewed here.

Signatories from western Canada include Lorna Crozier, Patrick Lane, Hiromi Goto, Fred Wah, George Bowering, Steven Heighton, and Dr. Gabor Maté.

Another name on the letter is Yann Martel, author of the bestselling novel Life of Pi.

On the phone from Saskatoon, Martel said he felt the need to speak on these issues specifically because the Palestinians affected are especially vulnerable.

“This is a precarious population on the margins,” he explained. “And morality has no boundaries. If something is unjust in another country, it is still unjust. And I figure, if I can do something about it, why not?”

Martel said that it’s the nature of Israel’s actions as “an injustice so obvious” that caught the writers’ attention.

“Everybody in the Middle East has been there for a thousand years and right now, one group is dominating and disregarding the basic fundamental rights of these people,” he said.

Martel urged people to learn about what is happening.

“If other groups want to get involved, there’s no reason why it should be limited to writers,” he said. “If the plumbers of Canada want to rise up, that will be great too.”

The letter’s signing was organized by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, a non-profit established in 2002. The project was inspired by a similar letter signed by 21 Israeli authors (though that document only concerns the Southern Hebron Hills firing zone).

Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, dismissed the letter as “political theatre”.

“The letter that they are signing onto doesn’t reflect either the complexity of the issue, nor does it give a balanced presentation of the debate and thought and due diligence that has gone into the proposed plan,” he said in a telephone interview. “What I do take issue with, are those who would sign onto something without really appreciating the whole situation, and weighing in in a way that really reflects uninformed and incomplete understanding of the situation.”

Joan MacNeil, a senior policy analyst at Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, countered Fogel’s criticisms, noting that the names on the letter are generally not associated with political activism.

“The vast majority of the signatories are not people who usually sign petitions,” she said. “They are people who are very careful about what they say publicly and what they do. They are not people who just sign anything.”

Aguirre maintained that Israel’s plans for the Hebron Hills fire zone and the Nejev Bedouins amount to nothing less than “ethnic cleansing”.

“It’s not about Israelis or Palestinians, it’s about justice,” she said. “Just like the apartheid movement in South Africa, it was not blacks against whites; it was oppressed people defending themselves against an oppressor.”

Comments

17 Comments

Brian Gans

Jul 20, 2013 at 8:55pm

The "occupied territories" consist of land captured by Israel after Israel was attacked by its neighbours in their attempt to wipe Israel off the map. Many of Israel's neighbours consistently call for the annihilation of Israel, which is one of the smallest countries in the world. It is surprising that these authors seem to be oblivious to these facts.
There was a recent article in the New York Times indicating that the Chinese Government is going ahead with its plan to force 250,000,000 farmers to move into cities, and China has already forced 250,000 Tibetiens to relocate. I am not judging the Chinese Government, but would like to know why these authors have not.

Martin Dunphy

Jul 20, 2013 at 9:24pm

The article is about Israel, not China.

Willy Wonka

Jul 20, 2013 at 10:16pm

@Brian Gans

These articles are written by "useful idiots." They hate Israel more than they love freedom, peace, order and good government. So they focus on their hatred of Israel instead of how Israel is a beacon of hope in a region of the world that has for centuries been marred by slavery and tribal violence. The Palestinians simply want to continue that cycle, rather than modernize.

Gary

Jul 21, 2013 at 10:26am

@Brian Gans

For your edification:

THE 1967 WAR
At 7:45 AM on 5 June 1967, Israel attacked Egypt and thereby Jordan and Syria who each shared a mutual defense pact with Egypt. The attack took place just hours before Egypt's VP was to fly to Washington for a prearranged June 7th meeting with the Johnson administration to defuse the crisis between Egypt and Israel based on an agreement worked out in Cairo between Nasser and Johnson's envoy, Robert Anderson. In a cable sent to Johnson on May 30, Israel’s PM Eshkol promised not to attack Egypt until June 11 in to give diplomacy a chance to succeed. However, on June 4, when it heard about the June 7th meeting and the distinct possibility that it would rule out war, Israel’s cabinet order its armed forces to attack Egypt the next day. In short, the war was another massive land grab by Israel.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Minister without portfolio in Eshkol's cabinet, while addressing Israel's National Defence College on 8 August 1982: "In June, 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." (New York Times, 21 August 1982)

Meir Amit, chief of Israel's Mossad: "Egypt was not ready for a war and Nasser did not want a war."

Gary

Jul 21, 2013 at 10:34am

@Willy Wonka

"Israel is a beacon of hope..."

Please, do not insult our intelligence.

To wit:

Ha'aretz, Feb. 26/13

"As Lincoln abolished slavery, Israel must abolish occupation"
by Bradley Burston

Excerpts:

"Occupation is Slavery"

"In the name of occupation, generation after generation of Palestinians have been treated as property. They can be moved at will, shackled at will, tortured at will, have their families separated at will. They can be denied the right to vote, to own property, to meet or speak to family and friends. They can be hounded or even shot dead by their masters, who claim their position by biblical right, and also use them to build and work on the plantations the toilers cannot themselves ever hope to own. The masters dehumanize them, call them by the names of beasts."

"The day we went to see ‘Lincoln,’ headlines spoke of 15 Jewish youths nearly killing an Arab Israeli in Jaffa, bloodying his head and one eye with bottles and glass shards, sending him to hospital in serious condition. The victim was attacked as he re-filled his vehicle with water, in order to continue to clean their streets."

Times of Israel February 21, 2013

"Former Foreign Ministry director-general invokes South Africa comparisons.
"‘Joint Israel-West Bank’ reality is an apartheid state"

EXCERPT: "Similarities between the 'original apartheid' as it was practiced in South Africa and the situation in Israel and the West Bank today 'scream to the heavens,' added [Alon] Liel, who was Israel’s ambassador in Pretoria from 1992 to 1994. There can be little doubt that the suffering of Palestinians is not less intense than that of blacks during apartheid-era South Africa, he asserted."

Shlomo Gazit, retired IDF Major General: "[Israel's] legal system that enforces the law in a discriminatory way on the basis of national identity, is actually maintaining an apartheid regime." (Ha'aretz, July 19, 2011)

Yesh Prabhu

Jul 21, 2013 at 11:06am

In case the Israeli politicians and all those people who consider Israel as the center of the universe wonder why Israel is now considered one of the most despised countries in the world, and placed right next to North Korea, wonder no more and look at all the despicable ethnic cleansing Israel so methodically carries out not just on Palestinians, but also on the Arab Bedouins who have been living in the Negev deserts for over a thousand years. I think the "Boycott Israel" movement will gain momentum if Israel carries out its intensions.
Yesh Prabhu, Bushkill, Pennsylvania

Brian Gans

Jul 22, 2013 at 7:08am

From Wikipedia: In 1967 Israel reiterated declarations made in 1957 that any closure of the Straits would be considered an act of war, or a justification for war.[75][76] On May 22, Nasser declared the Straits closed to Israeli shipping.[39][77] Nasser stated he was open to referring the closure to the International Court of Justice to determine its legality, but this option was rejected by Israel.[78][79] Egyptian propaganda attacked Israel,[80]and on May 27, Nasser stated "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."[81

Relayer76

Jul 22, 2013 at 8:53am

Great to see this list of 90 Canadian writers taking a stand for human rights. A year ago, the United Church voted to boycott Israeli settlement products. A large number of Canadians have become informed about the true nature of Israel in the past 10 years, largely due to the internet. When will the opposition parties take a stand against the Harper governments unconditional support for Israel?

Gary

Jul 22, 2013 at 10:58am

@Brian Gans

Reality:

The U.S. State Department's legal adviser rejected Israel's claim that it had a right to use force to open the Straits: "...in the opinion of the State Department's legal adviser, international law almost certainly did not confer on Israel the right to initiate the use of armed force against the UAR [Egypt] in the absence of an armed attack by the UAR on Israel. A blockade, he observed, in a memorandum to [Secretary of State] Rusk, did not of itself constitute an armed attack, and self-defense did not cover general hostilities against the UAR."

Furthermore, as the UN Emergency Force (UNEF)Commander, Major General Idar Jit Rikhye, revealed, Nasser was not enforcing the blockade: "[The Egyptian] navy had searched a couple of ships after the establishment of the blockade and thereafter relaxed its implementation."

Also, according to the UN Secretariat, "not a single Israeli-flagged vessel had used the port of Eilat [accessed by the Straits of Tiran]in the previous two and a half years." In fact, at most, only five per cent of Israel's trade passed through Eilat.

The quotation you provide regarding Nasser is classic misrepresentation by omission.

In fact, Nasser’s full statement to the Arab world on Egyptian radio during his May 26th address to the General Council of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions regarding the possibility of war with Israel conveyed a completely different message:
"If Israel embarks on an aggression against Syria or Egypt, the battle against Israel will be a general one and not confined to one spot on the Syrian or Egyptian border. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel." (Foreign Broadcasting Information Service, a U.S. agency in Washington)
Clearly, Nasser did not threaten to attack Israel. He did, however, leave no doubt that if Egypt or its mutual defence pact ally Syria were attacked by Israel, he would respond with total war. (Jordan and Egypt signed a mutual defence pact on May 30.)

Some advice: When it comes to the ME, never rely on Wikipedia.