Canceling Peace

I'm with New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, who decries the war in Israel's stifling impact on free debate. On Friday, the 92NY, a big literary stage in Manhattan, canceled an event featuring the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, who signed a public letter denouncing the "violence and destruction in Palestine" and has supported the boycott, divestment and sanction movement against Israel. Goldberg, a Jewish writer who sat down with Jerusalem-based journalist Nathan Thrall for a recent Brooklyn event, noted that he too has been widely canceled, even though his new book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salaman, is a humanitarian cry for peace in the region.

The cancel fever has also spread to Hollywood, where a top agent at Creative Artists Agency was demoted and forced to apologize after posting anti-Israel remarks on Instagram. Meanwhile, Hollywood celebrities are lauded for donating money to Israel and have even raised funds for the Israel Defense Forces, whose soldiers are now massing on Gaza's borders, an imminent invasion which is certain to cause horrific civilian casualties.

"The moment when dialogue is most fraught and bitter is when leaders most need to model it," Goldberg writes.

I don't know any creative person who thinks tribally and vengefully now. All of them blame Israel's brutal occupation of Palestinian land as well as the outburst of bestial violence by Hamas. They want peace and justice for both sides. And yet very few writers and artists and entertainers have the courage to speak their minds. We are experiencing a further clampdown on intellectual exchange and dissent. And it only silently fuels the bitterness and divisiveness that is tearing us apart.

The author Nathan Thrall