Very, Very Lost in Translation

To say that Farouk Hosni doesn't much like Israel is putting it lightly. According to the Anti-Defamation League, he has called it "inhuman," and "an aggressive, racist, and arrogant culture, based on robbing other people's rights and the denial of such rights." He has accused Jews of "infiltrating" world media. And in May 2008, Hosni outdid even himself, telling the Egyptian parliament that he would "burn right in front of you" any Israeli books found in the country's libraries.

What's shocking is not just that Hosni has said these things, but that he is Egypt's culture minister -- and even more scandalous, that he is the likely next head of UNESCO, the arm of the United Nations sworn to defend cultural diversity and international artistic cooperation. Less surprising but also sadly true is that Hosni's opinions about Israeli culture are par for the course among Egypt's intelligentsia, for whom 30 years of official peace with the Jewish state, the longest of any Arab country, have done virtually nothing to moderate its rampant Judeophobia. If anything, the opposite might be true.

This affair has sparked protests from prominent intellectuals and politicians in Israel and around the world. And the only reason Hosni even has a shot at the UNESCO job, which he'd be the first Arab to hold, is because, in a major reversal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently lifted his country's opposition to the Egyptian's candidacy. How this came to pass remains shrouded in mystery. All that's known is that on May 11, Netanyahu met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and was convinced not to block the culture minister's candidacy in return for some unpublicized conditions. A few weeks later, Farouk Hosni penned an apologetic article in Le Monde, retracting his statement on book burning. Soon after that, he pledged that Egypt's culture ministry would translate literary works by two Israelis, Amos Oz and David Grossman. This seemed like a significant concession because official Egyptian policy mostly bars translation from Hebrew to Arabic -- or at least any dealings with Israeli publishers.

But what appeared to be signs of positive change in Egypt's literary elite were actually just reflections of its deep-seated hostility to Jewish and Israeli culture. Hosni was quickly and widely attacked as "courting Zionist influence" by his fellow members of the Egyptian intelligentsia. In fact, Gaber Asfour, the head of Egypt's National Translation Center, immediately denied any link between the translations and Hosni's UNESCO campaign. He clarified that there would be no translation of the Israeli authors from Hebrew at all, but rather from existing European translations, so as not to have to actually deal with the Israeli rights-holders themselves. Although there are certainly a lot of books about Israel on the market in Egypt -- most of them full of conspiracy theories or tendentious views of Jewish history -- Egypt's head translator said he wanted to publish more, if not directly from the Hebrew. For his justification, he quoted an Arabic proverb: "Who knows the language of a people is safe from their evil."

This whole imbroglio only serves to highlight the Egyptian literati's generally hateful and hidebound views of Israel, which are often more virulent than those of the Egyptian public at large. To this day, Egyptian cultural figures and academics are professionally barred from contacts with Israelis. Even the faculty senate at the American University in Cairo passed a resolution urging a boycott of Israeli scholars and schools. In July, the longtime management of the Atelier du Caire, the main gathering place for the city's artists and writers, fell to a coup mounted by a group of disgruntled members; the charge was incompetence and catering to Israelis. And Egypt's greatest modern writer, the late Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, was nearly expelled in 2001 from the Egyptian Writers' Union simply because many of his books had been published in Israel.

12NEXT

Save over 50% when you subscribe to FP.

JOACHIMCSMARTILLO

1:19 PM ET

August 25, 2009

Go Farouki Hosni!

If You Oppose Racism and Genocide, You Must Hate Zionism and Israel

A Balanced View and the Facts

I had this discussion with Linda Gradstein a few years ago after a talk in which she claimed to report the news about Israel and Palestine in a balanced fashion, and she just could not understand how I could argue -- as a former newspaper reporter -- that balanced reporting cannot possibly be objective reporting.

Every poll of the Muslim world shows that something like 70-80% of Muslims are personally offended by the continued existence of the State of Israel, and why shouldn't they be?

A bunch of racist murderous genocidal -- according to their own primary literature, which I have read -- Eastern Europeans stole Palestine from the native population and have justified Zionist crimes against humanity in a number of ways including defamation of the whole Islamic world.

I don't know if the overwhelming majority of the planetary population wants to see the State of Israel abolished, but I would wager that it is a respectable majority.

Why does the US have to be on the wrong side of history?

At the very least it is expensive, and it probably occasions a periodic horrendous terrorist attack.

Herein lies the problem. We are unable to have a rational discussion of the issue because at this point some racist Jewish Zionist invariably interjects with "the balanced view" and accuses those in disagreement of anti-Semitism and paranoia (the tip off that we are dealing with a Jewish hypocrite).

Guess what! Unless we start scrutinizing Jewish history, politics, and religion the way racist Jewish Zionists trash Arab and Muslim history and politics, we don't have a balanced view.

In fact, I have to ask our racist Jewish "Balanced View" Zionist, whether he has been studying Judaica for the last 40 years?

How much time has he spent in a Yeshiva?

Does he at the very least read Classical Hebrew, Mishnaic Hebrew, Modern Israeli Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, Russian, and German without which it is not really possible to have a good understanding of modern Jewish political economy?

Because a lot of the issues are related to finance and economics, how much background does he have in mathematical economics and financial modeling?

Does he have a good background in demography and statistics?

Anyone that starts flinging around epithets like anti-Semitism and paranoia is trying to shut down the discussion.

By any reasonable standard hating Zionists and Jews refusing to condemn Zionism is completely justified on the part of Arabs, Muslims, and their sympathizers.

Because Americans are particularly dense on this subject after decades of Zionist brainwashing, I will reiterate.

A bunch or murderous racist genocidal E. Europeans stole Palestine from the native population and justified their crimes with a lot of ridiculous nonsense including

1) slicing and dicing Christian and Jewish scripture,

2) vilifying Arabs, and

3) demonizing Muslims.

It has little connection to realist foreign policy (except possibly issues of soft power), but hating Zionism is not anti-Semitism or paranoia. It is the natural reaction to Zionist villainy and the transparent mendacity of dishonest Jews like "A Balanced View."

[Obviously the logic applies just as much to Raymond Stock as it does to "A Balanced View."]

ISRAELI

7:10 PM ET

August 26, 2009

LOL..

its funny how much racist and ignorant you are..
lets go one by one..

1. the israelis are not from east europe..
actully.. only some 35-40% of israeli jews are from europe (east and west)..another 10-15% from north american.. another 40% are from the middle east and north africa.. and the last are from places in asia and africa..
they are all jews, and the vast majority of them (even genetice studies shows that) are descendants of the area of the levant..

2. the fact that 80-70% of muslims are "personally offended by the continued existence of the State of Israel" is the fact that kept the conflict going.
and about the argumant that the "overwhelming majority of the planetary population wants to see the State of Israel abolished" so israel have no right to exist is just BS..
there ware not a single year on this planet thet the "overwhelming majority of the planetary population " dident think the jewish people nead to be abolished.

"A bunch of racist murderous genocidal "
lol.. lets look at the numbers..
FACT: more palestinians ware killed in the last 61 years by other arabs and palestinians than by israel.
in all of the 80 years israeli- palestinian conflict - less than 20,000 palestinians ware killed by israel.. and some 6000 israelis killes by palestinians. (its lass than twice the number of people killed in iraq in one year)
on the other hand - arabs killed palestinians in number of conflict.
"black september" - jordan murder between 10,0000 - 20,000 palestinians (!!), in a number of weaks (!!!)
in the lebanon civil war - befure israel get into her.. another unknown number of thousands upon(tens of) thousands of palestinians ware killed by other arabs.
in the two inthifadas - more than 2000 palestinians ware killed by other palestinians for numors (political) reasons.
just last year lebanon army get in to a palestinian camp and killed more than 300 people there in a matter of days.. in during the last 3 years some 800 palestinians ware killed in the conflict between hamas and fatah..

summarize all the numbers and you will see the fact is prover (besides the black septmber massacre none of the numbers here are dispute'd)

in this is just the number of palestinians killed by other arabs - tens if not hundreds of thousands of non palestinians arab ware killed by other arab..
so any objective lock sees the fact that the arabs (and the wast) are obsessive to the israeli - palestinian conflict.. and they are not obsessive to the israeli - palestinian conflict becuse of the palestinians (no one gives a shit about all the palestinians that ware killed by other arabs).. they are obsessive to it only becuse of israel or in other words - they are discriminating the jewish country. ( no one givs a shit about palestinians that ware killed by arab, no one gives a shit [relatively] about hundred of thousands of afghans and iraqis killed.. no one gives a shit of millions of africans killed.. etc.)

TIPAPIG

7:32 AM ET

Terrible Article

I must say I am rather disappointed by the content and narrative of this article. For a well-known journalist to be citing an alleged inherent gap between Islam and modernity is utterly ridiculous. To say there is something at odds between Quranic verses and Michael Jackson, or Haifa Wehbe and Hamas is utterly ridiculous, essentializing and just plain stupid. An author would never say there is an inherent contrast between Jewish prayer and Michael Jackson, or Christian Bible verses and the Jackson Five. Yet to do so with Islam is socially accepted and self-evident apparently.

Secondly, I doubt if the author has even been to Egypt. His reading of Egyptian intellectuals and the Egyptian populace is superficial and essentializing, with information probably gathered from Wikipedia articles. The fact that Foreign Policy publishes uneducated articles like this is a black mark on its record.

POLITICALGENE

11:44 AM ET

Re to Tipapig

Tipapig,

Stock is not citing "an alleged inherent gap between Islam and modernity." He is citing a significant and obvious gap between conservative interpretations of Islam (such as those of Hamas) and a western culture which those same interpretations views as libertine and licentious. Anyone who has been in Egypt is shocked to see a number of stark contrasts. Egyptian men watch scantily clad Lebanese beauties on their televisions, but demand that their wives, daughters, and sisters wear the veil or niqab. Statistics show that internet pornography is tremendously popular in Egypt, but public displays of piety are ubiquitous. Egyptian culture frowns on or condemns immodestly dressed women, but police officers guarding Cairene streets will routinely harass even veiled girls.

As for whether the author has been to Egypt, you should do your homework, or at least read to the end of the article, where it clearly states that he is a prominent translator of Egyptian literature who lives in Cairo.

I, too, live in Cairo by the way.

609ALI@GMAIL.COM

11:32 AM ET

'...Israel "oppresses"

'...Israel "oppresses" Palestinians.'
'...reference to "occupied lands" and "Israeli aggression".'
The quotations are so absurd, Stock.

GORDOGUZ

4:51 PM ET

Racism is such an easily-uttered, often wrong word

Just a brief note: to claim that being against the State of Israel is the same as being antisemitic is a very eloquent sign of ignorance, malice or basic pandering, but is definitely not a serious way of discussing this topic. It also can mislead people into thinking that there is no such thing as Israeli or semitic racism. Also, I think it is very offensive and malicious to speak of opression against Palestinians and put this word in quotation marks ("opression").

How the Egyptian literary czar who wants to lead the world's top cultural body got caught up in his own country's rabid anti-Semitism.

BY RAYMOND STOCK | SEPT. / OCT. 2009

(6)