In “The Danger of a Single Story," one of TED’s most popular talks ever, Nigerian-American novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains the danger of believing one story about groups or regions instead of acknowledging the complexity of their many stories. World media and academia must have missed Ngozi Adichie’s talk.
Tales of tumult: Israeli authors decode war
- October 7 2023, a day that will live in infamy/ Noa Menhaim
- A call: Help release the Israeli captives/ Yishai Sarid
We, Israelis, have been watching with dismay and disbelief the inability of the liberal and progressive world to see the complexity of our region. Israel and the Palestinians are looked upon from a binary point of view. Israel is seen as the perpetual aggressor even when its civilians are attacked by missiles, its kibbutzim destroyed and their people murdered.
So much so, that feminist organizations are failing to condemn documented brutal rape of young women in the October 7 attack in the south of Israel; Journalists are reporting the war partially, and celebrities such as Susan Sarandon refer to the war as if it began with the IDF’s retaliation, and the net is full of fake news. I assume none of them has read the Hamas Charter that aims at waging war till all Jews no longer exist.
Like many others, I have been following the changes in tone, nature, and subtext in American academia, regarding political correctness, until it turned into blindness, fear of speaking one’s mind, and automatic alliance, as if life is composed of a single story.
Originally, as we all know, political correctness attempted to help those previously misrepresented or overlooked, but half a millennium later, the purpose of “inclusion, equality and diversity” became a distorted idea that serves the loud, the active, and the well-organized, whereas those misrepresented find themselves excluded, less secure, even attacked – Jewish students in ivy league universities included.
University authorities fail to protect them these days, allowing pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas groups to harass and threaten them. A Harvard professor attests to current incidents in which pro-Palestinian Harvard students forcefully denied the right of passage from Jewish students, on campus.
Harvard President Claudine Gay did not dignify that professor with an answer, let alone take action. In a video that turned viral, an MIT math lecturer asks a student holding a Palestine flag in the middle of class, “Can I just finish this line?” before stepping aside and allowing the student to shout his anti-Israeli propaganda.
So here we are, on the 46th day of the war, appalled by the one-sided perspective via which the war between Israel and the Hamas terrorists in Gaza is perceived. Mr. Roger Waters, for your information, there are channels via which you can watch the horrifying 47-minute official video – released by the IDF and partially filmed by the terrorists’ go-pro cameras – of the massacre, rape, and butchery committed by the blood-thirsty Hamas terrorists on October 7 against women, men, children, and babies.
I can assure you, after watching the video you won’t be able to sleep, eat, or carry on with your routine life for a long time.
Israel, the holy land for three religions, a relatively new state that has not solved its regional conflicts yet and still has no fixed borders, is small both in population and territory, but has a tremendous impact on the world.
It evokes emotion in people who hardly know where Israel is on the map or the history of the Middle East. It evokes antisemitism because the sentiment has been rooted ever since the word “Jew” was associated with “Judas” since the then-new Islam started preaching against “heretics.”
True, Israel has made many political mistakes over the years but it signed a peace agreement with Egypt, Jordan, and lately with The Emirates, withdrew from the south of Lebanon in 2000 but is currently attacked by Hezbollah missiles; withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but instead of pursuing peace Hamas kept attacking Israel, as Hamas has not yet succumbed to the idea that Israel is here to stay.
American university authorities who allow pro-Palestinian students to chant “Palestine from the river to the sea” on campus, and those who are anti-Israel no matter what, not only are in danger of a single story but are also turning a blind eye to a clear call for the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. That will never happen.
- Edna Shemesh is an award-winning Israeli novelist, book reviewer and translator. She is a MacDowell Fellow (2016)