Politics and literature have an inconvenient marriage, particularly for authors. As long as a writer sticks to his message, talking about his book, his life, and his hobbies, then without any problem whatsoever he can add statements about the importance of democracy, freedom, and prosperity for all human beings excluding rapists, serial killers, and child molesters. But the moment that the author is asked to move beyond the kind of declarations that would offend nobody, politics become unpleasant.

Last fall, a group of Dutch authors traveled to China for a book fair. China is booming, and apparently—it sounds awkward—the Chinese are interested in Dutch literature. Amnesty International asked the authors to protest the imprisonment and treatment of dissident Chinese authors by the Chinese government. Some of the visiting Dutch authors responded by saying that they could very well decide for themselves when and where to protest. They felt that Amnesty’s public request was paternalistic. My work has not been translated into Chinese, so I didn’t have to go. Sometimes rejection can add to your happiness.

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled to Jerusalem for an international literature festival. I was not asked to boycott the event, but some of the other authors were. In any case, I’m not in favor of a cultural boycott of Israel. I don’t believe that it’s an effective way of changing the policies of the Israeli government, and it’s possible that such a boycott can be seen and used as a tool to delegitimize the state of Israel.

But from the first night on, the festival was all about politics. We were told that it was not self-evident that we should be gathered there, and we were all reminded that especially one Algerian writer, Boualem Sansal, had been brave enough to travel to Israel. I don’t deny that it was brave for him to travel to Israel, but somehow literature itself appeared to have become a footnote to politics.

A few authors at the festival traveled to the Palestinian territories. This was not encouraged, but if an author asked to go, the organizers were helpful.

On a beautiful Wednesday morning I went by taxi from Jerusalem to Ramallah with a few other writers, among them Gary Shteyngart and Aleksandar Hemon. We saw a bit of Ramallah, we even had lunch with a Palestinian pollster, and then we drove back.

On the day we left the festival, some of the writers discussed whether we should tell the security agents at the Tel Aviv airport that we had been to the Palestinian territories.

When I arrived at the airport, however, nobody was interested in my trip to Ramallah. The security agents wanted to know about my sister, who happens to be a settler on the West Bank, and if I had been to Hebrew School as a child. The agents didn’t ask the question, but it was clear that they wanted to know just one thing: was I Jewish or not?

Apparently they got a satisfactory answer to this question, and within ten minutes I was through security.

There was a Dutch woman on a flight a few hours later. She happened not to be Jewish. She had to open all of her suitcases, and she had to answer long and tiresome questions. She didn’t mind, but it made me feel awkward.

I realized that being apolitical is just another way of being political.