You refer to Israel as “a militarised society in which dissent
is punished” and liken 7 October to an “incredibly violent jailbreak”.
I was being precise. The idea that 7 October was an invasion is
completely wrong. This is a captive population in a ghetto, basically.
You can’t exercise self-defence against a population that you are
occupying militarily. The BBC will shout down a Palestinian guest and
say, well, that’s not what the Israelis would say. Of course it’s not
what the Israelis would say – they’re upholding an apartheid regime in
which they’re exacting a genocide on a captive population. To say that
Israel is a militarised state in which dissent is punished is precise.
They don’t let journalists into the Gaza
Strip; they put in prison people who like a social media post from
Gaza. I’m just trying to be precise with language – that’s the least we
can do.
[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]
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| ‘I remember being very taken by a poem that described waves breaking on a shore like eggshells’: Isabella Hammad. Photograph: Maria Spann/for The Observer |
How do you feel about the future?
I’m not an oracle. But many, many people who don’t have anything to do
with Palestine are devastated by what they’re seeing, which has
shattered all sorts of illusions they had about their societies and
their governments and about what’s humanly possible in terms of
destruction. I don’t know that it’s necessarily an optimistic thing to
say, but there’s no going back from this, whatever that means.
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Recognising the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative is published on 26 September by Fern Press (£9.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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