Authors in Bay Area Book Festival denounce Israeli occupation

CAIRO - 08 June 2017: The Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, California held a book discussion between several international writers on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The discussion was held on June 4, just a day before the 50th anniversary of the occupation, which began on June 5, 1967.

The participants condemned the Israeli occupation as a “moral crime,” in which Israeli forces repress and hurt millions of Palestinians and commit crimes ranging from murder, arresting children, raiding houses to preventing them from reaching their workplaces and watching them through humiliating barriers.

The book is called the Kingdom of Olives and Ash, and includes the writings of 23 world renowned writers, including Nobel Prize winning author Mario Vargas Llosa. Other contributors to the book include Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, Palestinian journalist Fadi Jeris, American novelist Rachel Kushner and politician Yehuda Shaul.

Waldman pointed out the major differences between the prosperity of Israelis living in Tel Aviv versus the suffering of the Palestinians under the Israeli occupation in the West Bank.

Moreover, Palestinian journalist Fadi Jaris spoke about Israel's practices and the reality of life for the Palestinians living under occupation. He described the state there by saying, "we pay every minute of our lives the price of being non-Jews."

He then discussed the Arab Nakba of 1948, where he believes was the first traces of when occupation began, the Anti Terrorism Law, enacted in 2016 in order to detain and imprison Palestinians without charges, and the confiscation of Palestinian lands without notice or reason.

The Bay Area Book Festival, organized by several cultural institutions, such as the Future of Literature Foundation in San Francisco, USA, was attended by around 200 people, including 25 non-American authors representing 13 countries.

The Festival is concerned with publications that promote freedom of expression, social justice, and cultural sustainability. The discussion focused on how literature can bring together different viewpoints, solve political problem, and pave the way for coexistence on a humanitarian basis.