Washington Post Book Review Eviscerates Anti-Israel Writers

Matti Friedman

A Washington Post book review by journalist, author and former IDF soldier Matti Friedman highlighted the inaccuracy and the absurdity of a recently published anti-Israel collection of essays.

The Post, to its credit, published Friedman’s “What happens when famous novelists ‘confront the Occupation’ in the West Bank,” which examined an anthology called Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation. This book features contributions by novelists such as Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Dave Eggers, among others.

Friedman noted that the group of novelists were “shown around by anti-occupation activists and wrote about their experiences.” Yet, as a reading of the book makes clear, “the visiting writers aren’t experts,” nor are they seeking a balanced or accurate portrayal of Israel. Friedman points out that the essays get basic facts, such as when the Oslo Accords were signed, wrong.

The essays are also plagued with poor sourcing, as Friedman notes:

“The writers interview the same people who are always interviewed in the West Bank, thinking it’s all new, and believe what they’re told Chabon, for example, waxes sarcastic that in the West Bank you can spend months in administrative detention if you forget your I.D. card at home. But that isn’t true.”

Indeed, the writers don’t ask—nor do they tell readers—who financed their anti-Israel excursion: Breaking the Silence (BtS). As CAMERA has pointed out, BtS is one of several largely foreign-funded organizations that seek to delegitimize the Jewish state via anonymous testimonials.

Yet, the group’s influence is obvious on the writers. Friedman highlights that “the host’s choreography becomes evident the more you read, because the writers keep going back to the same street in Hebron, the same village near the same settlement, the same checkpoint activist. They avoid Palestinian extremists and average Israelis, so it looks like all Palestinians are reasonable and all Israelis aren’t.”

Nonetheless, “everything,” Friedman says, “is described with a gravitas suggesting that the writers haven’t spent much time outside the world’s safest corners.”

Indeed, according to the review, one monumental fault with the book is its superficiality and the novelists’ own sense of self-importance. Large regional questions that are unfolding near Israel’s borders, such as the Syrian civil war, Hamas’ totalitarian Islamist vision being implemented in the Gaza Strip, internecine Palestinian violence, aren’t given attention in the volume. Why? Because “the essays aren’t journalism but a kind of selfie in which the author poses in front of the symbolic moral issue of the time…That’s why the very first page of the book finds Chabon and Waldman talking not about the occupation, but about Chabon and Waldman.”

“After a while,” Friedman bemoans, “I feel trapped in a wordy kind of Kardashian Instagram feed, without the self-awareness.”

Readers of a Kingdom of Olives and Ash aren’t the only ones being taken for a factually flawed, skewed view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. As CAMERA has pointed out, The Washington Post itself feted the group of the writers while they were on their anti-Israel tour (“Washington Post’s Letter from Israel Should be Marked ‘Return to Sender,’” May 11, 2016).

Matti Friedman’s book review can be found here.