Israel’s imperial need to build walls and ban books
In his celebrated essay “The Wall and the Books,” the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges recounts that the Chinese emperor who ordered the construction of the Great Wall was also responsible for destroying books. For Borges, the acts are signs of the emperor’s desire to wall off China from the outside world and from ideas. Borges goes so far as to say that these two acts are common to all despots, writing, “Burning books and building fortifications are common tasks of emperors.”
In the last week of 2015, Israel’s Minister of Education Naftali Bennett acted in a similar imperial manner. He suggested the permanent annexation of the West Bank, and he barred a book from being taught in Israeli schools. Both acts have created an international scandal.
On Dec. 28, Bennett declared to the Knesset’s pro-settler Land of Israel Caucus, “The time has come to say Israel is ours … To go from strategic defense to a process of initiating the implementation of Israeli sovereignty over the territories under Israeli control in Judea and Samaria.” That this control is illegal by international law seems not a matter of concern. The Land of Israel Caucus has recently been pushing for an easing of restrictions on settlement building in the West Bank.
Anyone paying any attention to what has been happening in Israel can attest that under the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the extreme right wing has been bolder than ever in flouting international law and continuing its colonial project of subjugation, seizure of land and property and annexation. While Bennett has been voicing similar proposals for years, he has become even more aggressive, recently saying he “forced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to backtrack on recent comments he made of possible Israeli unilateral pullouts in the West Bank by giving the prime minister a verbal ‘bullet between the eyes.’” All in the name of asserting a Jewish supremacist state for Jews only.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/1/israels-imperial-need-to-build-walls-and-ban-books.html