Armed Israeli police tried to shut down the opening night of a prominent Palestinian literary festival in Jerusalem on Saturday, ordering a theater to close at the event.
The week-long festival, supported by the British Council and UNESCO, has brought several high-profile international authors on a speaking tour of Jerusalem and the West Bank, among them Henning Mankell, Michael Palin and Ahdaf Soueif.
Shortly before the opening, a squad of about 12 Israeli border police walked into the Palestinian National theater, in east Jerusalem, and ordered it closed.
They brought a letter from the Israeli minister of internal security that said the event could not be held because it was a political activity connected to the Palestinian Authority.
The audience and eight speakers were ordered to leave. However, the event was held several minutes later, on a smaller scale, in the garden of the nearby French Cultural Center. Israeli police were deployed on the street outside.
“We’re so taken aback. It is completely, completely independent,” said the Egyptian novelist Soueif, who is chairing the Palestine Festival of Literature.
“I think it’s very telling,” she told people at the French center. “Our motto, which is taken from the late Edward Said, is to pit the power of culture against the culture of power.”
Israel regularly prevents political Palestinian events in east Jerusalem but has also started to clamp down on cultural events in an apparent attempt to extend control over the city.
It comes at a time of mounting international concern over the Israeli government’s demolition of Palestinian homes and the growth of Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem.
In March, Israeli authorities banned a series of Palestinian cultural events in Jerusalem that were to mark the Arab League’s designation of Jerusalem as this year’s capital of Arab culture.
Israel said the events breached its ban on Palestinian political activity.
This month, Israeli police closed down a Palestinian press center established in east Jerusalem for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI.
Mankell, the Swedish crime novelist, told the crowd at Saturday’s event: “Don’t lose hope.”
He compared the raid to life under apartheid South Africa: “What really makes us human beings is our capacity for dialogue. The only way we can save ourselves finally in the end is the capacity for making dialogue with each other.”
The festival will stage events this week in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron and Jenin before returning to the same Palestinian theater in east Jerusalem on Thursday night for a final event.
Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, said the event had been closed because Israel believed it was organized or funded by the Palestinian Authority. He said a signed order was handed over by the police.
“This is the policy being implemented with regard to any events which are either organized or funded by the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem,” Rosenfeld said.
Rafiq Husseini, chief of staff to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, was dismissive of the actions.
“It shows how the Israelis are not thinking,” Husseini said. “This is a cultural event. There is no terrorism, there is nobody shooting ... they are creating enemies for themselves.”
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