Shabati Declines Invitation

(forwarded)

Note: Aharon Shabtai is an Israeli poet and teaching Hebrew literature at Tel Aviv University.

His letter (below) was sent to the organizers of the 5th international poetry festival in Jerusalem. He has approved wide ciruclation and publication of his letter.

To Yitzhak Eizenberg Shalom Fifth international poetry festival in Jerusalem

Thank you for your invitation to participate in the international poetry festival in Jeruslaem in 2006 and the details. I would like to take my name out of the list of participants. I read these days on the barabarism in the Qalandia checkpoint. I oppose an international poetry festival in a city in which the Arab inhabitants are oppressed systematically and cruelly, imprisoned between walls, deprived of their rights and living spaces, humiliated in checkpoints and the international laws are violated. I think that even poets were not allowed in the past, and not in the present, to ingore persecutions and discriminations on a racial or national basis.

yours
Aharon Shabati

    --
    BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
    PO Box 728, Bethlehem, Palestine
    Telefax: 00972-2-2747346
    info@badil.org - www.badil.org

Jennifer Loewenstein
amadea311@earthlink.net

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	Jennifer Loewenstein Archive
	(forwarded) Note: Aharon Shabtai is an Israeli poet and teaching Hebrew literature at Tel Aviv University. His letter (below) was sent to the organizers of the 5th international poetry festival in Jerusalem. He has approved wide ciruclation and publication of his letter. To Yitzhak Eizenberg Shalom Fifth international poetry festival in Jerusalem Thank you for your invitation to participate in the international poetry festival in Jeruslaem in 2006 and the details. I would like to take my name out of the list of participants. I read these days on the barabarism in the Qalandia checkpoint. I oppose an international poetry festival in a city in which the Arab inhabitants are oppressed systematically and cruelly, imprisoned between walls, deprived of their rights and living spaces, humiliated in checkpoints and the international laws are violated. I think that even poets were not allowed in the past, and not in the present, to ingore persecutions and discriminations on a racial or national basis. yours Aharon Shabati -- BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights PO Box 728, Bethlehem, Palestine Telefax: 00972-2-2747346 info@badil.org - www.badil.org Jennifer Loewenstein amadea311@earthlink.net Stay up to date: write to have your name added to the mailing list.