Salman Natour

"I was born in 1949, into a war, and started school in 1956, the year of the Suez War. I finished high school in 1967 during the Six-Day War, married in 1973, the year of the Yom Kippur War. My first child was born in the middle of the 1970s, when war was raging in Lebanon; my second child was born in 1982, when Israel annihilated Beirut with bombs, and my father died during the Gulf War. My whole life is mapped out by wars. When I talk to my Israeli peers, they say, 'It's the same with me.' And I say, 'But is that a good thing? Or should we do something about it?' I'm trying to fight against all this, so that my children's lives and the lives of my grandchildren are not always described by wars.'"

"("I ask Natour what potential he thinks literature has in this situation. And what about his own work, translating Hebrew literature into Arabic, is there a sort of mission behind that? Is it important for Palestinians to know about Hebrew literature?") SN: Extremely important. I am strongly in favor of translations, both ways. We should get to know each other better and better. Literature is a perfect way to do that, because literature allows you to have direct contact with the other side. It takes you into their society. Knowing the other side makes it possible to have dialogue."

"It is not democracy when Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. That is racist. Over twenty percent of the population in this country is Arab, like me. I don't want to live in a Jewish state, I want to live in a democratic state. The majority might be Jewish or Muslim, that doesn't matter to me, as long as the state is democratic. And this Jewish state has a law called 'the Law of Return,' which guarantees the right of all Jews from all over the world to come and settle here. Whereas the Palestinians who were forced to flee in 1948, and whose houses are perhaps still standing today, are not allowed to come back. And another thing: I was born after 1948, so I have Israeli citizenship, but many of the Palestinians who live in this country and who were born before 1948 don't have that right. They are called present absentees. Is that democratic? How can Israel and Israeli authors talk about democracy? Israel should ask itself what sort of state it wants to be, one based on power or one based on justice. The Jews have the right to live here, but we Palestinians have the same right. They have created so many problems for the people here, problems that they have to solve. So no, I don't think there will ever be peace until the refugee issue is resolved."

"When I grew up, there was Hebrew literature on the curriculum, and only a bit of Arabic-but certainly no Palestinian literature. They didn't speak about the Israeli Palestinians as Palestinians at all, but rather as Arabs. They thought that if I was a Palestinian, then I was Arafat. So it immediately became a political issue. The Jewish identity is very, very confused. The Palestinians don't have that problem."

"a thief's feeling of guilt lies deep in the Israeli psyche. Many of them know that they are guilty. The politicians and military cannot allow themselves to say or feel that they are in any way at fault, of course, but now and then a writer feels it. And they deal with this feeling in one of two ways: either they try to repress it, or they try to find a solution. Every so often, Israeli writers try to make contact and protest against the occupation. The problem is that they seldom talk about al-Nakba and their responsibility for what happened in 1948...That is the reason why they don't want to let the 1948 refugees back, because then they will have to admit that they have been lying the whole time. Because the official version has always been that the Palestinians left their homes voluntarily. It is a psychological and moral problem...What I try to tell the Jews is that they can ask me, as a Palestinian, to help them solve their guilt problem. I don't want them, or us, to carry on suffering."

"I know that all Israelis say that if the refugees are given the right to return, it spells the end of Israel...The point is that they think like colonials. Because they came here and took another people's land by force, they think that the return of the Palestinians will inevitably mean that they themselves are chased out and that the Palestinians will take over the whole land. But we cannot ignore the fact that the refugees are an Israeli problem, and not a Palestinian one. The Palestinians have the right to return, this is their home and country. Everyone is of course aware of the problems connected with coming back, but that is the next step. The first step has to be that Israel recognizes this right. Then we can discuss the practical solutions with each family."

"("So what about Palestinian culture, in terms of those who live here in Israel, as opposed to in the West Bank or in Gaza?") SN: There are no conflicts and no real cultural differences, but of course our lives are different. They live under a military occupation, and we live under a cultural occupation...we have to differentiate between three different groups of Palestinian writers: Palestinians living in Israel, Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, and Palestinians living abroad. As far as Palestinians in Israel are concerned, I can speak from experience. I have written about Jews myself. They are my friends, I meet them everywhere, every day. My experience of Jews is well rounded, and so I can write about how they live at home with their families, with their wives, how they love and how they hate. Because I know. It's different for a writer living in Ramallah. He cannot write about anything other than settlers or soldiers at the checkpoints - whereas I can write a short story about myself and a Jewish friend discussing love and the universe, a writer in Ramallah couldn't even imagine that. And he doesn't need to either, because the Jew is the occupying force, and you don't write about occupying forces as anything other than occupying forces."