It was first felt that writing a book after October 7, 2023 felt vandalism, Israeli author Aylet Gundhen said, “When we are holding the hostage there, the destruction of their families in Israel, and the destruction going into Gaza and you will get the privilege of running into a separate world, which is made in your own words?
Then came the turn that removed his hesitation: when Israeli official officials called for boycotting books and films, which portrays Palestinians in a human way. “For me, it was a moment where I thought, ‘Wait a minute. Well -wing, fascist, are afraid of words. They really believe that words can change something.” I thought, “Okay, if fascist is very afraid of words, it may probably be used as a weapon,” he said. “Not to avoid reality with words, not as an escapeism – quite opposite: as a way to face reality.”
Israel’s psychological profile
Gundar-Goshne then resumed work on a novel which he started long ago. “Bin calling guests” (without calling guests) were published in German in this summer.
In the novel, the Israeli child drops a hammer from a balcony, kills a teenage boy. A Palestinian construction worker who was working on that balcony was arrested. The mother of the little boy remains silent. It is as follows that Israeli is a drama about the crime, denial and revenge of the society, which is trapped in a deadly cycle of Gundar-Goshen “others”.
Gundar-Goshen is not just a novelist; So a psychiatrist. In her writing, she detects the hidden mechanism – which she has discovered in himself. A few years ago, when she was a young mother, a Palestinian laborer was working in her house. Suddenly a news report came: His Israeli employer was killed by a Palestinian worker. “The room was accused of fear,” he said. “Like, you can smell the fear. And, after a minute, I realized that he is as scared to me as I am afraid of him, because he knows that I can call the Israeli police and say, ‘Listen, I have an worker here and I am not safe.’ They will come in two minutes and take it.
‘Terrible trauma’
The “uninvited guests” illuminate psychological mobility that shapes Israel-Pilstiny life everyday. Gundar-Gochane said, “The fact that you understand yourself as a potential victim,” Gundar-Gochane said, “prepares you to be an aggressive.”
Gundar-Goshen bears his doctor’s approach in his work as a writer: not to do justice, but is trying to understand why people do this. “I am thinking about how difficult it is for people to accept the terrible trauma of October 7 – which cannot be justified, can never be appropriate – but at the same time at the same time the terrible trauma commits the terrible trauma palestinians, while the families of the hostages continue to shock,” he said. “It is as if people must be removed to be able to stand up.”
Gundar-Goshen is quite alone in expanding sympathy for both sides. Globally, the global noise of warm debate sinks as their voices – sometimes fought with violence, but more often protests, with political lithus tests and cancellation of artists, intellectuals and musicians.
In Israel, the kind of significant self-discipline that goes-gum-gocin practices really have no chance to create a success, which makes it more important. She says she is trying to find out her own blind spot, “and I know much that my blind spots have universal blind spots that we have,” she says. “If we do not really go through that painful moment to see ourselves in the mirror, we will never change in any way.”
Writing is not enough
Gundar-Goshen regularly participates in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and for the return of hostages and for the end of the war. Shje said that writing can be a function of resistance, but one which is inadequate on its own. “I would say: No, it’s not enough,” he said. “And you have to shout your feet in the street, in the street and mix your writing hand – and your body will have to work in it.”
He has not given up hope for reconciliation. “I am not pessimistic – because I am thinking,” she said. “I am watching history. I am looking at the fact that I am in Berlin right now: Okay, we are doing this interview in Berlin, and, if I told my grandfathers a few years ago that I would like to talk to you, they don’t believe? Things? Things can turn into history.
This article was original in German.