Monday, August 30, 2010

Censorship in Ramallah mini-republic-under-occupation

A reader who does not want to be identified sent me this--he/she fears retribution.   "You might be interested to know that the Arabic translation of the recent book\interview with George Habash (Al-Thawriyyun la Yamutun Abadan, published by Dar A-Ssaki 2009) is possibly censored in the Palestinian Authority. While I was reading the copy I bought in Ramallah I discovered that page 258 was all blank. I thought it was normal since it was surely a bootleg edition. But when I found a copy from a street vendor in Jerusalem I opened on page 258 which  did exist in this one; it was the only page where Habash refers to the Palestinian Authority and the corruption there (Israel, of course, did not bother to censor it; by the way, it happens quite often that Palestinians in West Bank ask Palestinian Jerusalemites or Palestinians 48, who are under direct Israeli occupation, to bring them books the PA prohibit in its territories)."