    Why they banned his book

    Israel Shamir finds himself in the crosshairs, and it is no surprise.
    For several years his words have struck as a barb in the Zionist
    edifice. Not that it could ever have been fatal, but his writing has the
    annoying characteristic of being literary prose, eloquently slicing and
    dicing cherished perfidy with consummate ease. That is the trouble with
    literary prose, it cannot be fact-checked into oblivion, dealing, as it
    does, with ideas and concepts; philosophy rather than an unending series
    of patent facts.

    This is the reason Shamir finds his books targeted for banning, how else
    does one combat a concept that examines the Protocols of the Elders of
    Zion from the standpoint of dispassionately alluding to it as a literary
    phenomenon, without judging on its authenticity one way or the other?
    Clearly it can only be done by making the subject taboo, not just the
    book. How does one combat literary prose? By banning books.

    Publishing a book can be an expensive exercise. Someone has to do the
    numbers, forecast the number of units that is likely to be sold,
    estimate the break even point, and more often, have a blind faith that
    expenses will be recovered. A Publisher works on the principle that
    publishing failures will over time be covered by the successes. If, as
    in this case, a book attracts more than just input costs, then it
    becomes a publishing disaster. Targeting publishers of books in the way
    Al Qalam has been is designed to ensure that the words of Shamir, or any
    similar screed, is unlikely to be published again, without the publisher
    having serious misgivings about doing so.

    It therefore has the effect of causing the opposition to self-censor.
    Control by fear.

    A campaign to control by fear relies on creating an example by selecting
    its targets carefully. Preferably someone who finds themselves somewhat
    alienated from their erstwhile colleagues due to minor differences of
    opinion. In this way, the target can be represented to have strayed far
    from the fold, and be deserving of his fate – the herd mentality. Like
    mourners at a funeral; they are inexplicably happy, grateful that it is
    not them lying in the casket. If they target too many, or target someone
    close to the center of the herd, they run the risk of exposing
    themselves as manipulators and oppressors for all to see.

    Examined in this light, it is not difficult to understand why Israel
    Shamir has been targeted. Far from hating jews, he is not afflicted with
    excessive Judeophilia. Philo-Semitism afflicts many good people on our
    side of the struggle. Shamir wants Jews to be regarded in the same way
    as other people on this planet. It is a call for equality with others.
    Unfortunately, one of the primary characteristics identifying
    philo-Semitism is a hyper-sensitivity towards any critique of Jewish
    people, even in the abstract. Shamir’s characterization of Judeophiles
    as a capitalized ‘Jews’ is an easy target, as it lends itself to being
    mis-characterized as an attack on ‘jews per se’. It is no defense for
    Shamir to explain himself in this regard; it is enough that he used the
    word ‘Jews’.

    Equally damning, is Shamir’s use of literary imagery that draws
    liberally from concepts first enunciated by other thinkers; particularly
    the idea that being a ‘Jew’ is a matter of choice first posited by Isaac
    Deutscher, a Jew of the Trotskyite persuasion. It is determined that he
    tells ‘tales’ that incite the reader to hatred. True, a storyteller
    tells '‘tales’, and Shamir is nothing if not a storyteller, but stories
    are moral fables, and contain explicit messages that lead to obvious
    conclusions. Shamir liberally uses the technique of re-telling existing
    fables, in order to explain current events. That the tales reflect quite
    badly on current behavior is a result that is difficult to combat, if
    you are the one being examined against the yardstick of the tale. People
    might even begin to hate you, if they are so inclined. But Shamirs
    intention is quite the opposite, it is to win converts from the
    perpetrators of such behavior. He does after all believe that being a
    ‘Jew’ is a matter of choice, as does Isaac Deutcher. This theme is quite
    evident to anyone reading the Flowers of Galilee.

    But the argument is not that it is evident to readers of the Flowers of
    the Galilee, but that phrases could be de-coupled from their context,
    and shown to be ‘teeming with incitement to hatred’. Hence the need to
    protect the ordinary people, who are not intellectual researchers, who
    may buy the book in the French equivalent of Mary Ryan’s Family
    Bookstores.

    It is ridiculous stuff, but one that will nonetheless induce paranoia
    into the publishing community in France, if not elsewhere. What
    yardstick will they use when weighing the wisdom of publishing a book
    that contains criticisms of Israel, the ‘Jews’, or even Zionism? Indeed,
    one of the comments by the presiding judge was to explain the ‘warlike
    discourse’ of comparing Israeli society with Apartheid. Far from
    pretending that France is an open society, this judgement will ensure
    that French publishing will for the foreseeable future be even more
    closed than before.

    Shamir has been the favored target of jewish anti-Zionist activist for a
    few years now. Philo-Semites to a man, and woman, they decry his
    analysis of the Israel/Palestinian conflict. It is too close to the bone
    for them, preferring, as they do, to pretend that they are Palestinians
    in Jewish skins, and that they therefore know what is good for the
    Palestinians, and they tell them so uninterruptedly. They insist that
    the problem is a bilateral one, and that the status quo can only be
    solved by a joint Palestinian/Jewish approach. The modus operandi of the
    struggle must therefore exclude any rhetoric that can be deemed hostile
    to Jewish sensibilities. Shamir’s tales obviously fail the kosher test,
    and he must perforce be excluded from the discourse.

    This artificial construct requires that those forming this integrated
    opposition must be extracted from the societies that are directly
    affected – Palestinians and Jews, not Israelis, bringing together people
    with their own unique set of in-built complexes that continues to
    manifest itself it the anti-Zionist discourse. Because the matyrological
    jewish complex is so strong, it has the effect of producing a western
    anti-Zionist discourse in which jewish activists do the talking, and
    Palestinians the listening.

    The discourse is therefore heavily flavored by argument about whether
    this-or-that is ‘anti-Semitic’ or not. This is always unproductive, and
    participants waste lots of time in internal mudslinging. This lack of
    common identification manifest itself in constant internal strife. It is
    not unsurprising that Jewish Supremacist have noted this schism and that
    Shamir, as a consistent target of the philo-Semite faction, has been
    subject to attack, and action to ban his books taken. It is expected
    that few anti-Zionist will spring to his defense. It is classic divide
    and rule tactics.

    I wonder then, if erstwhile ‘anti-Zionist’ will rally to cause against
    Zionist, or remain silent in the belief that Shamir deserves it?

    JohD

    Brisbane

    Australia

    22/12/05