Naomi Klein: Oppose The State, Not The People
Published in Ha'aretzNOTE: Ha’aretz made a translation error in a previous version of this article. This is a corrected version [correction in bold].
Ramallah's intellectual elite, foreigners and curious spectators gathered last Saturday at the Friends School in Ramallah to hear writer and political activist Naomi Klein lecture to a packed auditorium.
Following a musical interlude by a string quintet, one of whose members is blind, Klein took the stage. She chose to speak in Ramallah about her Jewish roots.
"There is a debate among Jews - I'm a Jew by the way," she said. The debate boils down to the question: "Never again to everyone, or never again to us?... [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card...There is another strain in the Jewish tradition that say, 'Never again to anyone.'"
It seems that during her brief visit, which began last Thursday night, Klein has not rested for a moment. Straight from the airport, she set out for a tour of Highway 443 that runs through the West Bank between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, connecting them to Modi'in and the adjacent Jewish settlements.
She went on to the demonstration against the separation barrier at Bil'in, where there was a press conference on the civil suit in Quebec against Green Mount and Green Park, two Canadian companies that are providing construction services to the Jewish settlement of Upper Modi'in.
In the evening she attended an event at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.
At the beginning of this week, Klein went to the Gaza Strip, where she interviewed residents. Wednesday she appeared at the Almidan Theatre in Haifa.
Since her 1999 book "No Logo" become an undisputed textbook of the anti-globalization movement, Klein, 38, has lectured at hundreds of meetings around the world. A celebrity journalist, political activist and commentator, she came to Israel to launch the Hebrew translation of her latest book, "The Shock Doctrine" (Andalus Publishing).
Klein, who supports an economic and cultural boycott of Israel as pressure to end the occupation in the territories, thought long and hard about publishing her book in Hebrew, as well as visiting Israel. She finally decided to issue the book with Andalus Publishing, which specializes in Arabic literature, and to contribute her royalties to the press. Klein and Andalus publisher Yael Lerer carefully planned Klein's itinerary in Israel to avoid the impression that she supports institutions connected to the State of Israel and the Israeli economy.
"It certainly would have been a lot easier not to have come to Israel, and I wouldn't have come had the Palestinian Boycott National Committee asked me not to," said Klein in an interview before her arrival, at her Toronto home. "But I went to them with a proposal for the way I wanted to visit Israel and they were very open to it. It is important to me not to boycott Israelis but rather to boycott the normalization of Israel and the conflict."
Following a musical interlude by a string quintet, one of whose members is blind, Klein took the stage. She chose to speak in Ramallah about her Jewish roots.
"There is a debate among Jews - I'm a Jew by the way," she said. The debate boils down to the question: "Never again to everyone, or never again to us?... [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card...There is another strain in the Jewish tradition that say, 'Never again to anyone.'"
It seems that during her brief visit, which began last Thursday night, Klein has not rested for a moment. Straight from the airport, she set out for a tour of Highway 443 that runs through the West Bank between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, connecting them to Modi'in and the adjacent Jewish settlements.
She went on to the demonstration against the separation barrier at Bil'in, where there was a press conference on the civil suit in Quebec against Green Mount and Green Park, two Canadian companies that are providing construction services to the Jewish settlement of Upper Modi'in.
In the evening she attended an event at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.
At the beginning of this week, Klein went to the Gaza Strip, where she interviewed residents. Wednesday she appeared at the Almidan Theatre in Haifa.
Since her 1999 book "No Logo" become an undisputed textbook of the anti-globalization movement, Klein, 38, has lectured at hundreds of meetings around the world. A celebrity journalist, political activist and commentator, she came to Israel to launch the Hebrew translation of her latest book, "The Shock Doctrine" (Andalus Publishing).
Klein, who supports an economic and cultural boycott of Israel as pressure to end the occupation in the territories, thought long and hard about publishing her book in Hebrew, as well as visiting Israel. She finally decided to issue the book with Andalus Publishing, which specializes in Arabic literature, and to contribute her royalties to the press. Klein and Andalus publisher Yael Lerer carefully planned Klein's itinerary in Israel to avoid the impression that she supports institutions connected to the State of Israel and the Israeli economy.
"It certainly would have been a lot easier not to have come to Israel, and I wouldn't have come had the Palestinian Boycott National Committee asked me not to," said Klein in an interview before her arrival, at her Toronto home. "But I went to them with a proposal for the way I wanted to visit Israel and they were very open to it. It is important to me not to boycott Israelis but rather to boycott the normalization of Israel and the conflict."
READ THE REST:
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/07/naomi-klein-oppose-state-not-people
Etiquetas: Israel, Naomi Klein
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