In a brief statement on social networks last month, the Tel Aviv publishing house I have run for over a decade announced that all future books would carry the following message on their back cover: “Nine Lives Publishing declares its opposition to the murder of innocent people in Gaza and calls for an immediate ceasefire and the return of the hostages.”
It is a brief message, but ambitious in its intent: on the basis of this common denominator, we seek the support and contributions of our publishing colleagues and all cultural, academic, artistic and social institutions—everyone involved in producing knowledge and culture in Israel—in condemning Israel’s war crimes, committed in the name of its citizens and with their tacit consent.
Our call to action attracted some attention in the local media. As literary publishing is an act of love and a means of opening a window of communication through art, we hoped that our message would have an effect beyond the specific position of our publishing house. Absurdly, our call, an active exercise of our right to freedom of expression, was met with mockery, boycotts, and negation; violence on the part of our fellow citizens and deafening silence from our colleagues. Not having received any support from our fellow professionals thus far, we appeal to the international community—editors, writers, cultural creatives, every person or institution involved in some way in our field—for support and solidarity.
Casting my eye over the state of Israel today, allow me to share some of my impressions as a Jewish-Argentinian immigrant who has loved this country since he was a boy but who has also been a witness to the complete transformation of its society. In Israel it is frowned upon to criticize the nation, especially in front of outsiders. In times of war, it is simply forbidden to say anything that violates the general consensus—and the consensus regarding the war is sacred and immutable. The individual is regarded as inseparable from the omnipresent state, a subordinate position which most seem to gladly embrace. With military objectives as the ultimate goal, the individual has been relegated to the bottom rung of Israeli society.
Most Israelis see war as the only option. Signs of humanity and alternate ideas, however constructive, are regarded as naïve; the only “serious,” adult choice is the military one.Israeli citizens during wartime have no choice but to regard themselves as victims, irrespective of what’s actually happening on the ground. After the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, widespread and indiscriminate revenge was presented as the only alternative. When that turned into mass annihilation, the most frequent Israeli excuse was the population’s state of shock, trauma, exhaustion and bewilderment, the sensation of being under threat from outsiders and in imminent danger. Survival is presented as a never-ending war to ensure the country’s future existence; there is no alternative.
Most Israelis see war as the only option. Signs of humanity and alternate ideas, however constructive, are regarded as naïve; the only “serious,” adult choice is the military one. Even citizens with rights, educated people in cultural or academic fields, who seem to understand the extent of the atrocities being committed in Gaza, absolve themselves of responsibility by laying the blame at the feet of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is seen as a kind of anti-Christ with satanic powers and qualities that somehow negate the possibility of action by well-intentioned, democratic (“liberal”) citizens. Netanyahu is the excuse for staying silent about Israeli barbarity in Palestine.
Over two years of war there has been no significant action or mass demonstration, no rhetoric of resistance has formed and there has only been a single general strike, which lasted 60 minutes and that was not against the war but in favor of the return of the hostages. When the murder of 100,000 people, many of them women and children, is mentioned or denounced, or when someone dares to use terms such as genocide, ethnocide, ethnic cleansing or similar, most people choose to take issue with the characterization, quibbling over semantics. As though the word defined or lessened their degree of responsibility. Nobody wants to have to deal with terms such as “massacre” or “mass killings.” The most they will accept is a euphemistic “deaths,” without specifying their number, who is causing them or why.
The inability to put a name to what is happening also hinders action, whether against the wanton destruction of Gaza or against the ongoing razing of Palestinian communities in the West Bank by armed settlers—in both cases the random murder of innocents, with the guilty parties protected by the state and exonerated without a proper trial. There is no institutional political opposition to the killing in Gaza or the West Bank. No institution has spoken out or acted against it and criticism seems to crumble away before it is fully formed. Against this backdrop, daily life in Tel Aviv continues in bars, restaurants, self-help routines, segregation and physical exercise, avoiding common sense, adopting an allusive discourse and denying the development of a personal political conscience.
No book has been published about the annihilation of Gaza, there has been no attempt to include it in the historical record.The Israeli literary scene operates within this murky world, cynically taking advantage of the economic benefits to purchase cheap raw materials, or renting cheap storage spaces in illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, distributing their books in extremist communities which send out arsonists to set fire to their defenseless neighbors and freely publishing authors who normalize the occupation. It’s a dubious world and also one of collaboration and apartheid: Israeli publishers don’t publish local Arabic work, bookshops don’t sell books in Arabic, cultural supplements don’t name or cover Palestinian Arabic work and publishers, supplements, and cultural programs rarely have Arabic contributors. Only on isolated occasions is the other domesticated and assimilated, forced to leave their own culture behind (so-called “pet-Arabs”).
The editorial system in Israel is also complicit in the decontextualization and spread of misinformation about the war: over the past two years, over 150 books have been published about October 7, consisting of prose, poetry, essays, chronicles and testimony. Books about the experiences of military regiments and battle anecdotes have also been published. No book has been published about the annihilation of Gaza, there has been no attempt to include it in the historical record. Every local literary festival has a denialist facade in which guest authors are invited to make statements in support of the nation. Other literary events (of which there are still many, even though reading rates in the country have fallen by over 40% in the last year) generally begin with a statement about their hope that the hostages will be returned, never the need to stop the killing in Gaza or for the war to end. The military has such a prominent presence in Israeli society that soldiers receive gifts, coupons and discounts on books, benefits not given to the elderly, the disabled, or students.
As regards the media coverage of boycotts of Israel by several international writers, the political indoctrination is such that far from stimulating reflection, the literary world begins to attack the writer in question, calling them blind or anti-Semitic. There is no sense of responsibility or critical assessment of the causes of the refusal to publish in Israel while the massacre continues. In the academic world, universities limit themselves to producing symbolic letters and petitions so as to continue to receive international grants and support. There’s no question of organizing strikes, getting students involved or calls to action. The few people who protest against the war on radio and television are interrupted and censored. State and private channels don’t say what is really going on in the footage they broadcast or their news reports.
When news breaks of developments in the war, the coordination between the media is clear and suspiciously similar. The syntax of atrocity is hidden beneath a series of nationalist proclamations. Different entities air their general “concern” and call for an abstract and ill-defined end to the war. In this state of useful inactivity in Israel, which has seen an unwillingness to negotiate a peace for the past twenty years, turning a blind eye to the lack of rights of 3.5 million Palestinians who were born in this country, and having failed to make civil progress of any kind, the innately impotent so-called “Zionist left” cries over their plight in silence.
In Israel, the literary world censors, silences, distorts, segregates and thus collaborates with the atrocities perpetrated in Gaza.Other than rejection and censorship, the brief text that appeared on the back covers of our books had no hope of becoming part of any real discussions in the literary world, because such dialogues don’t exist in Israeli society. This is no small failing: literature has a symbolic and expressive power that throughout history has been a part of protests, revolutions and major structural changes. In Israel, the literary world censors, silences, distorts, segregates and thus collaborates with the atrocities perpetrated in Gaza.
We address this letter to every entity and person involved in culture and literature, because we do not want to be complicit and we want to act. Our publishing house has a migrant nature and operates across national borders and for that it is relegated in society. We do not distribute our products in illegal Israeli settlements or store our books in them. We print a large part of our books in the West Bank, which most regard as enemy territory, making us a shunned organization. We speak openly about what is happening in Gaza. We exercise our limited freedom of expression and take a stand against Israeli ethnocide. We believe that we still have time to mold a more human view of the other, that there are people who think differently but don’t express themselves, who haven’t found the words to draw a line and say, “enough is enough.” We need to re-educate ourselves. We dream of taking a first step toward peace through actions and words.
As an editor, apart from painting over graffitied slogans of “Death to Arabs” in our public spaces, I call for action. Personally, as a Jew, the grandson of Europeans who suffered from persecutions and pogroms, who were driven from their homeland and welcomed in multicultural lands, and as an Argentine born during a military dictatorship but educated in a free, pluralist society, I find Israel’s behavior, not just that of its government and more fanatical social segments but the majority of its population, abhorrent. Israel today makes use of the language and methods of those who once murdered Jews and thus brings shame upon the people who suffered the Holocaust.
In this environment, isolated at home and unable to share how we think in freedom and safety, it is hard to find the will to continue creating and publishing books. We ask that the international literary community take a public stand alongside us and join us in starting a dialogue that might restore a vestige of sanity. We invite our publishing colleagues to evaluate how publishing in Israel sells and collaborates with the occupation. We ask the international Jewish community to engage in critical reflection and reevaluate its ties with the Israel of today.
A moral condemnation of actions that undermine the very basis of Judaism would be more constructive and useful than unconditional support. We hope to rekindle our passion for literary publishing by raising our voices in difficult times to transform our platform and books into objects of political and human power. The massacre, starving and destruction of Palestine must end.
This text was translated from the Spanish by Kit Maude and copy-edited by Roy Isacowitz.
