25.8.03
Children's book on intifada under fire
Pro-Israel pressure groups are demanding that Macmillan publishing house withdraw a fictional children's book about a boy growing up during the intifada.
The logic behind this demand for censorship is clear: every effort must be made to persuade the world that people in the Middle East, and especially Palestinians, do not share "our" standards of justice and fairness; the experiences of Palestinians - including childhood and the transition to adulthood - cannot be comprehended by people coming from a "Western" perspective (and those who try are, clearly, "terrorist sympathizers" or the like); in fact, Palestinian children are qualitatively different from other (e.g., Israeli) children, in that their sufferings are not important or real enough to merit any kind of attention; and anything which portrays Palestinians as human beings, with the same thoughts, feelings, and struggles as other people in the world, must be suppressed at all costs.
Pro-Israel pressure groups are demanding that Macmillan publishing house withdraw a fictional children's book about a boy growing up during the intifada.
The logic behind this demand for censorship is clear: every effort must be made to persuade the world that people in the Middle East, and especially Palestinians, do not share "our" standards of justice and fairness; the experiences of Palestinians - including childhood and the transition to adulthood - cannot be comprehended by people coming from a "Western" perspective (and those who try are, clearly, "terrorist sympathizers" or the like); in fact, Palestinian children are qualitatively different from other (e.g., Israeli) children, in that their sufferings are not important or real enough to merit any kind of attention; and anything which portrays Palestinians as human beings, with the same thoughts, feelings, and struggles as other people in the world, must be suppressed at all costs.
