Arnon Grunberg
Words Without Borders

A Thin Line

There was so much ado about President Carter's book Palestine Peace not Apartheid that I finally decided to buy it.
I have to admit that it was my first book by President Carter. I missed his poetry, his children books and his memoirs. Not that I have anything against President Carter—I just happen to think that politicians should avoid writing books and writers should not run for the office of president, senator or even sheriff.
We should be thankful that the people of Peru never elected Vargas Llosa as president. Not that the other candidates were that great—quite the opposite—but at least the people of Peru had the decency to prolong Mr. Vargas Llosa’s literary career.
Of course, much of the ado about President Carter’s book is caused by the word "apartheid" in the title. As is probably widely known, this word is a Dutch contribution to our lingua franca.
More than ten years ago, a quality newspaper in the Netherlands fired a columnist for writing that Israel had established a system of apartheid and that most of the reporting about the country was one-sided because so many correspondents based in Israel were Jewish.
The last argument was a little bit sloppy, but nowadays the same newspaper would not fire a columnist for writing the former.
President Carter’s book is slightly dull for anybody who has followed the news about Israel and Palestine for the last ten years. It’s quite self-important, and President Carter’s style of writing cannot be considered brilliant, but there is no reason to consider him anti-Israel. Yes, he is more on the Palestinian side than politicians in the US tend to be, but as Roger Cohen pointed out in the International Herald Tribune, President Carter is not running for office anymore.
My sister is a settler on the West Bank with seven children. Sometimes we call each other, but we avoid two subjects: politics and religion.
It’s a thin line between being sensitive and being paranoid. It’s a good thing not to cross that line. At least that’s my belief. Call it my religion.


200520062007200820092010

JanuaryFebruaryMarchAprilMayJuneAugustSeptemberOctoberNovemberDecember

171421