World’s Literary Stars Ask Israel To Spare West Bank Villages
Dozens of the world’s literary stars have added their names to an Israeli writers’ petition urging the army and the Netanyahu government not to destroy Palestinian villages in the southern Hebron hills.
Renowned Israeli author David Grossman penned the petition, which has now also been signed by Nobel laureates in literature J. M. Coetzee, Mario Vargas Llosa, Herta Mueller, Orhan Pamuk and the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who died last Friday and signed the petition before his death.
Other signatories include Julian Barnes, John Le Carre, Michael Chabon, Junot Diaz, Dave Eggers, Neil Gaiman, Nathan Englander, Aleksandar Hemon, Yann Martel, Colum McCann, Ian McEwan and Philip Roth.
The petition, which Grossman wrote in late June, was signed by Israeli writers such as Yoram Kaniuk (before his death), Sami Michael, Meir Shalev, Yehoshua Kenaz, Etgar Keret, Zeruya Shalev and Ronit Matalon. It reads in part: “For the past 20 years, Israel has been actively expelling and displacing the inhabitants of the villages of the southern Hebron hills. These villagers have always practiced a unique lifestyle: Most of them are cave dwellers and find their livelihood in sheep and goat herding and farming.”
For more, go to Haaretz
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