Hamas Shuts Down Palestine Festival of Literature: Where’s the Outrage?
On Wednesday, Palestinian “security officers” in Gaza broke up the closing event of the Palestine Festival of Literature. It must have been quite a scene. (You have to figure that when the Palestinian Center for Human Rights denounces Hamas–without actually naming Hamas, of course–something not-so-nice really did happen.)
So, where’s the outrage that one might ordinarily expect, especially from the media/literary folks?
For that matter–where’s the coverage?
Do you know how fast anything disadvantageous to the proceedings of this festival would be broadcast around the world (and the Internet) if Israelis were perceived to be responsible? To quote Rhett Butler’s words to Scarlett on the question of how fast she’d divorce him were Ashley Wilkes to become suddenly available: “It makes my head spin to think how quickly….”
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m not surprised. I know what happened only because I follow The Times of Israel on Twitter.
Yes, CNN did mention the episode–buried near the end of this article dedicated otherwise (right from the title) to suggesting how hard the Israelis (those blockaders! those deniers of permission to travel!) made it for the visiting writers to cross into Gaza in the first place. (The CNN coverage in its entirety: “PalFest organizers said that on Wednesday evening the closing event was shut down by the police, but added that police later apologized for the incident, saying it was an ‘individual error.'” Haaretz has offered just a bit more detail.)
So, media/literary types who are so quick to blog and tweet and opine any time there’s a semblance of an opportunity (real or perceived) for us to hear about your disgust and anger with Israel, I ask you: Where’s your outrage now?