Alice Walker’s books aren’t worth reading in the first place, so she isn’t denying the Israelis anything they really need, but the idea of denying the right to translate her work into a particular language because she dislikes the policies of the people who speak it is monstrous, sets an extremely dangerous precedent (cf. the photo above), and plays into the hands of the Palestinian jihadists. “Alice Walker Refuses Israeli Publisher Permission To Translate ‘The Color Purple,'” from the Huffington Post, June 19:
Alice Walker is protesting Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians by refusing permission for an Israeli publisher to translate her most famous book, “The Color Purple.”
The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1983. It deals with the inhuman treatment of a poor black girl in the American South.
The American author sent a letter to the publisher, Yediot Books, a copy of which was published with her permission on the website of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. The New York Times confirmed with Walker’s agent that the letter was genuine.
In her letter, she thanked the publisher for the request, but then slammed their country”s treatment of their neighbors, referring to a citizen’s tribunal made up of human rights activists, including Walker, that last year investigated Israel’s alleged violations of international law.
As you may know, last Fall in South Africa the Russell Tribunal on Palestine met and determined that Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories. The testimony we heard, both from Israelis and Palestinians (I was a jurist) was devastating. I grew up under American apartheid and this was far worse. Indeed, many South Africans who attended, including Desmond Tutu, felt the Israeli version of these crimes is worse even than what they suffered under the white supremacist regimes that dominated South Africa for so long….