Israel and the Book Fair. A response to Valentino Parlato
Nazi Germany and Jewish books burningMemory, Hypocrisy and a Book Fair: a response to Valentino Parlato
Diego Traversa
Despite all the respect that I might have for Valentino Parlato, I am writing to express how stunned his editorial on the Turin Book Fair has left me.
It seemed to me a very simplistic and dogmatic article, overflowing to the brim with hypocrisy and a “feel-good” sentiment. But, of course, it’s still January, the Day of Holocaust Memory is upon us so naturally all of us must acknowledge how important it is to be philo-Jewish, all of us to kneel down humbly and to make amends for the horrors of the past. And, since I am here, I am going to take advantage of the opportunity myself, to absolve my duty and publicly ask pardon from all Jews: forgive us for what our people did to you and forgive me if I had a grandfather who was a convinced Fascist.
Having said this, let’s go back to dig through the lines of the article by Valentino Parlato, authoritative and legendary voice of il manifesto.
His comments on the upcoming Book Fair of Turin seem to me at the very least pointless and contradictory.
In the first place, it is not true that it was necessary to give a state to the Jews and further, neither is it true that Stalin was in agreement: his was mere political shrewdness, oriented at extending the Russian dominion towards the Mediterranean. This is indeed true in that Russia radically changed its politics by becoming fiercely anti-Zionist, just to show how much Stalin had the Jewish people close to heart!
The pivot of Parlato’s theorem is that one must reject the anti-Israeli boycott for an entire set of reasons: because the Jews have suffered unspeakable wrongs, because they can’t be compared to racist white South Africans (as a matter of curiosity, who knows if the Israeli magnates of the diamond industry momentarily put aside their traffic with South Africa when the entire world was practicing the boycott…) and especially because the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, before they were massacred by the Nazis, “sang the Internationale”.
What kind of discourse is he engaged in?
It is as if the sole fact of having had relatives who are evacuated and socialists guarantees any individual whatsoever the right to act any way he wants, stepping on the rights of others. It is almost like saying that the single mother in Taranto who made an unauthorised occupation of the house of that old woman who was taken to the hospital has the right to do such a thing. Even if this example does not fit like a glove, seeing as how the Israelis have done much more than occupy someone else’s house unlawfully.
In the first place, theirs is not a popular nationalism, but rather a nationalism imposed from on high, born out of diplomatic trafficking and intrigue between powers when the Jewish masses had not even the slightest interest in searching for a new country. Furthermore, it was not only the Jewish Socialist leaders who brought forward demands of independence, but even the ultra-conservatives and the representatives of the petit bourgeois and the middle classes. As a matter of fact, truth to tell, the history of Israel is nothing but an anthem, the triumph of an ideology that is one of the most reactionary possible. After the Ben-Gurions and Moshe Sharetts (who, rather than Socialists, I would define National Socialists), came the Begins, the Shamirs, and the Sharons to model modern Zionism, that is, the “ideological” children of that Vladimir Jabotinsky who promoted the crudest nationalism by supporting violence and the transfer of the Palestinian people. Therefore, telling us the story that the Jews sang the Internationale as valid argumentation to justify the existence of the Jewish state seems to me quite absurd, if not outright ridiculous and unjust, as if the destruction and violence committed against the indigenous Americans was justified by the religious persecution that the founding fathers and pilgrims of the Mayflower underwent and rendered dignified by their sacred hymns.
Yet, I don’t wish to focus too much attention on the history of Israel, but I can’t help but notice that the entire contradiction expressed by Parlato comes to the surface when he talks about boycotting: first he insists that it was right to enact that instrument against South Africans, but then he summons that the boycott is useless because it is “a no without arguments”.
It seems to me that the boycott is a civil and democratic form of non-violent protest: it is not censorship, forbidding someone to speak. It is only an outspoken way to express dissent. Specifically, considering the place of honour that has been given to the writers of Israel, it is more than opportune to should dissent against the exponents (respectable or not as they may be) of a country as racist, militaristic and warlike as Israel. Precisely because the Israelis have not learned anything from their past; precisely because they should be the first to oppose the modern horrors committed in Palestine, being, as we are constantly reminded, the “only” people to have known just what true suffering is; and especially because they do not treat the Palestinians like Semitic brothers (quite the opposite, they hate them a great deal, as witnessed in the widespread racism within Israeli society).
I am sorry for those Israeli writers who rightly point their fingers at the terrible politics enacted by their government, but unfortunately, this event in Turn has taken on a stale and disgusting taste of institutional legitimisation of Israel: the first to boycott this disgrace should be precisely those same writers who know firsthand what it means to live in Palestine today and how much horror Zionism has brought about. Theirs would be a clamorous deed, more meaningful than a thousand boycotts.
In regards to Valentino Parlato, I can only say: January may have become the Month of Memory but, please, let’s be careful it does not become the Month of Hypocrisy.
Not in teir (SICK!) names, please !
(Source)
If I may...
(I know, I know, it doesn't look very professional if I say it, but I REALLY cannot refrain from telling you what I think about this boycott. And then again, this is MY blog, isn't it?)
So...here it is...
WHAT A LOAD OF BULLSHIT!!!
What an offense to Culture and History!
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." (German: "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.")—Heinrich Heine, from his play Almansor (1821)
It seemed to me a very simplistic and dogmatic article, overflowing to the brim with hypocrisy and a “feel-good” sentiment. But, of course, it’s still January, the Day of Holocaust Memory is upon us so naturally all of us must acknowledge how important it is to be philo-Jewish, all of us to kneel down humbly and to make amends for the horrors of the past. And, since I am here, I am going to take advantage of the opportunity myself, to absolve my duty and publicly ask pardon from all Jews: forgive us for what our people did to you and forgive me if I had a grandfather who was a convinced Fascist.
Having said this, let’s go back to dig through the lines of the article by Valentino Parlato, authoritative and legendary voice of il manifesto.
His comments on the upcoming Book Fair of Turin seem to me at the very least pointless and contradictory.
In the first place, it is not true that it was necessary to give a state to the Jews and further, neither is it true that Stalin was in agreement: his was mere political shrewdness, oriented at extending the Russian dominion towards the Mediterranean. This is indeed true in that Russia radically changed its politics by becoming fiercely anti-Zionist, just to show how much Stalin had the Jewish people close to heart!
The pivot of Parlato’s theorem is that one must reject the anti-Israeli boycott for an entire set of reasons: because the Jews have suffered unspeakable wrongs, because they can’t be compared to racist white South Africans (as a matter of curiosity, who knows if the Israeli magnates of the diamond industry momentarily put aside their traffic with South Africa when the entire world was practicing the boycott…) and especially because the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, before they were massacred by the Nazis, “sang the Internationale”.
What kind of discourse is he engaged in?
It is as if the sole fact of having had relatives who are evacuated and socialists guarantees any individual whatsoever the right to act any way he wants, stepping on the rights of others. It is almost like saying that the single mother in Taranto who made an unauthorised occupation of the house of that old woman who was taken to the hospital has the right to do such a thing. Even if this example does not fit like a glove, seeing as how the Israelis have done much more than occupy someone else’s house unlawfully.
In the first place, theirs is not a popular nationalism, but rather a nationalism imposed from on high, born out of diplomatic trafficking and intrigue between powers when the Jewish masses had not even the slightest interest in searching for a new country. Furthermore, it was not only the Jewish Socialist leaders who brought forward demands of independence, but even the ultra-conservatives and the representatives of the petit bourgeois and the middle classes. As a matter of fact, truth to tell, the history of Israel is nothing but an anthem, the triumph of an ideology that is one of the most reactionary possible. After the Ben-Gurions and Moshe Sharetts (who, rather than Socialists, I would define National Socialists), came the Begins, the Shamirs, and the Sharons to model modern Zionism, that is, the “ideological” children of that Vladimir Jabotinsky who promoted the crudest nationalism by supporting violence and the transfer of the Palestinian people. Therefore, telling us the story that the Jews sang the Internationale as valid argumentation to justify the existence of the Jewish state seems to me quite absurd, if not outright ridiculous and unjust, as if the destruction and violence committed against the indigenous Americans was justified by the religious persecution that the founding fathers and pilgrims of the Mayflower underwent and rendered dignified by their sacred hymns.
Yet, I don’t wish to focus too much attention on the history of Israel, but I can’t help but notice that the entire contradiction expressed by Parlato comes to the surface when he talks about boycotting: first he insists that it was right to enact that instrument against South Africans, but then he summons that the boycott is useless because it is “a no without arguments”.
It seems to me that the boycott is a civil and democratic form of non-violent protest: it is not censorship, forbidding someone to speak. It is only an outspoken way to express dissent. Specifically, considering the place of honour that has been given to the writers of Israel, it is more than opportune to should dissent against the exponents (respectable or not as they may be) of a country as racist, militaristic and warlike as Israel. Precisely because the Israelis have not learned anything from their past; precisely because they should be the first to oppose the modern horrors committed in Palestine, being, as we are constantly reminded, the “only” people to have known just what true suffering is; and especially because they do not treat the Palestinians like Semitic brothers (quite the opposite, they hate them a great deal, as witnessed in the widespread racism within Israeli society).
I am sorry for those Israeli writers who rightly point their fingers at the terrible politics enacted by their government, but unfortunately, this event in Turn has taken on a stale and disgusting taste of institutional legitimisation of Israel: the first to boycott this disgrace should be precisely those same writers who know firsthand what it means to live in Palestine today and how much horror Zionism has brought about. Theirs would be a clamorous deed, more meaningful than a thousand boycotts.
In regards to Valentino Parlato, I can only say: January may have become the Month of Memory but, please, let’s be careful it does not become the Month of Hypocrisy.
Not in teir (SICK!) names, please !
(Source)
If I may...
(I know, I know, it doesn't look very professional if I say it, but I REALLY cannot refrain from telling you what I think about this boycott. And then again, this is MY blog, isn't it?)
So...here it is...
WHAT A LOAD OF BULLSHIT!!!
What an offense to Culture and History!
"Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings." (German: "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.")—Heinrich Heine, from his play Almansor (1821)
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