The two became friends when they met at a literary conference in Europe six years ago; two years later, at the height of the Intifada, Samir contacted Etgar and suggested they publish a collection of short stories together: the result of their collaboration is called Gaza Blues. A couple of years ago I wrote an article about Etgar; this past May, I had the great pleasure of meeting Samir in London.
This week the two friends wrote letters to one another, in which they reflected upon the current conflict between Israel and Lebanon. They were published today in Corriere Della Sera and appear in English below.
Samir El Youssef
Dear Etgar,
You must be as distressed with what’s happening as I am. Not that we haven’t been there before, and I’m certain that they will take us there again and again. I say ‘they’, not only to define the warring parties who want to make violence and war the only political agenda available, but also to assert that people like you and me, on both sides of the divide, are still committed to the cause of peaceful co-existence. The question is for how long we are going to be able to make such an assertion? You know very well the violence, which has been carried out without discrimination, might increasingly make it hard for us to keep our distance from them.
This morning I phoned a Lebanese friend of mine who is very much for negotiation and peace. Unsurprisingly he was angrier with Hezbollah than Israel. He was particularly upset because Hezbollah has managed to make itself the generator of politics in Lebanon. He was also worried that if it managed to come out of this confrontation undamaged it will play a role in the politics of the region dangerous enough to perpetuate the state of violence and war. But just as I was about to tell him that I share him his anger and worry I heard him saying with an undeniable admiration: “But it is remarkable the way Hezbollah has been able to hit back at the Israelis!”
The inconsistent attitude of my friend was too stark to be overlooked. How, I asked myself, could some one who’s against war, against Hezbollah be so impressed by their violent performance? But the fact of the matter is that this attitude is neither seldom nor new- I am sure that you must have heard similar views on your side. This desire for revenge, the desire to see the other sided hurt and humiliated has for a long time inflicted even those of us who believe in peaceful co-existence. What’s more, such desire, which allows for indiscriminate violence and collective punishment, is an evidence of the undeniably self-destructive element in the politics of our society, and yet it has made no appropriate claim on our attention. I know that neither of us is very keen on late psychoanalysis, but we must admit that emotions have always determined great deal of our politics and fate. This, I believe, is what we need to confront, with unwavering honesty, when we start talking about peace again. Otherwise no distance can be kept between them and us; total self-destruction will be the order of the day.
I hope I haven’t made you distressed more than you already are.
Keep safe!
Yours,
Samir
Etgar Keret holding his son, Lev ("heart" in Hebrew)
Dear Samir,
It is always a pleasure to hear from you, even though the events of recent days have not been very pleasant. The last time we spoke on the phone I congratulated you on your marriage and you congratulated me on the birth of my first child. Little Lev does not yet know how to talk, but he has already become addicted to the television news broadcasts. Every time they show an explosion on the screen he claps his hands and shouts with happiness. It doesn’t make a difference to him whether it’s a missile that landed on Haifa or a bomb that exploded in the suburbs of Beirut. Of course, he does not like the pictures of the wounded and the dead. Nobody likes them. For now, the media is trying to show them as little as possible. Just sequences of sterile explosions. Fireworks over urban skies, with the sole job of amusing babies.
Yesterday a young taxi driver drove me to my parents’ house. At first he tried to insist that I strap my son into a car seat. “That’s the safest way,” he tried to convince me. “The safest way is to move to Switzerland,” I told him. He laughed and let me ride with little Lev held in my arms. The driver couldn’t take his eyes off my Lev and he couldn’t turn his ears away from the radio that was reporting in real time and at full volume about the kidnapped soldiers, Nasrallah’s threats and the katyusha rockets that were falling on various locations throughout Israel. “When we were kids,” the driver chuckled, “They always told us that we would probably not be soldiers. That by the time we were old enough to be drafted there wouldn’t be any more wars. But now, with Hamas and Hezbollah and all that shit, you can’t tell him that anymore. “Why?” I protested. “You can always say it.” “Yes,” responded the driver, “But it’s not a nice thing to do, to lie to a child. “But didn’t they lie to us?” I said. Just then, there was a report on the radio about katyusha rockets falling on Tiberias. The announcer reported in a semi-hysterical voice that he had temporarily lost contact with the broadcasting facilities in the city so he couldn’t give further information on the scope of the bombing or the number of wounded. “Tell him that he probably won’t be a soldier,” said the driver, as he smiled at me bitterly in the rearview mirror. “That by the time he’s old enough to be drafted there won’t be a country anymore.”
You wrote in your letter that you hoped you hadn’t caused me
any distress. In fact the opposite is true. It is daily life here, with its
unending suspicion and hate, which makes me despair and your letters that fill
me with more than a little hope. Even though you write about unhappy subjects,
you never cease to show me that, even in the most difficult times, a person can
look at the situation objectively, without hate and without fear, and give a
clear reading of human nature with all its shortcomings. If only it were
possible to make your deep insights land on our heads instead of bombs and
katyushas; if only it were possible to bombard them into the depths of the
consciousness of all the participants in this long and unending conflict. Then
we would have had a new Middle East a long time ago.
Etgar
