The Guardian, a Jerusalem bookshop, and Norman Finkelstein

Adam Levick
CiF Watch
03 April '11

It appears as if our good friend, Conal Urquhart, who’s been doing a splendid job filling the ideological void in Jerusalem left by Harriet Sherwood’s two-week absence (see his reporting on a terrorist attack, militant attack, sudden explosion in Jerusalem , here.) is upset about the possibility that Israel may not renew the visa of Munther Fahmi - owner of the Bookshop at the American Colony Hotel - due to the fact that he spent decades abroad and let his residency lapse. (Israeli authors join campaign to keep Arab bookseller in the country, Guardian, April 3.)

Fahmi, who was born in the Jordanian occupied section of Jerusalem in 1954, and decided to go to the U.S. when he was 21, eight years after Israel’s reunification of the city following her victory in the Six Day War, has been living in Jerusalem for years on temporary tourist visas after returning to Israel in the 90s.

Urquhart characterizes the bookstore as “a haven of tolerance for scholars in a bitterly divided city” and, further, as nothing short of “the only decent English-language bookshop in the country”.

While this latter claim is simply absurd to anyone, like myself, who has taken advantage of the many Jerusalem booksellers who offer a wide variety of used and new English volumes, let’s leave this aside and get to the heart of matter for Urquhart: Who is to blame for the possibility that this Jerusalem “institution” may close?

Yup, you guessed it:

(Read full "The Guardian, a Jerusalem bookshop, and Norman Finkelstein")

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