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