Is a world-renowned author and an activist for peace and although much taken to their motherland is also a tough critic of Israeli policies. In the last book, "the Horse Walks Into a Bar", David Grossman combines humor and horror in what many see as a metaphor of the contradictions that divide the country.In his book "the Horse Walks Into a Bar", the protagonist, Dovalé, is a moral and humanistic character but has, at the same time, a grotesque side that shows the ugly side of the world. He personifies your mixed feelings for Israel?David Grossman:Well, first of all is a literary character with many layers and intrinsic contradictions. This is the reason that mak es the literary characters seem alive. But, perhaps most of all, Dovalé is a person who, because of something that happened when I was a kid, when I was 14 years old, his life took a different direction from the one that should have followed. In some ways you could say that he lives in parallel the life I should have lived. Maybe, too, if you like, Israel has this because in recent years we have become a sort of titles are hard, and I think from that moment we entered in the parallel direction wrong of our life, of our being.Euronews:It seems that there are many messages in this book, but is there any in particular you want to convey?David Grossman:The story I tell is about a child, Dovalé, who later becomes an actor of stand-up comedy and the book takes place in a nightclub. But Dovalé that it was a very sensitive and fragile and very creative and passionate, all of a sudden, when I was 14 years old, she was sent for the first time in his life out of the House, to a kind of semi-military camp, by which all been when we had 14 or 15 years. Until that moment he had lived his whole life with a family that was very symbiotic, he, his mother and father, and it was the first time, as I said, he was away from them. And then, one day, when he was in training camp, a woman soldier came up and asked: "Who is the Dovalé?" He replied: "that's me." And she said: ' come, come with me. Hurry up, let's go. You need to be at 4:00 pm Jerusalem for the funeral. " And he was shocked. "That funeral? Nobody told me about a funeral when I left home. " Quickly, with the bag being made by other soldiers, he is in a military vehicle and sent f or four long hours for the funeral in Jerusalem. But he hasn't asked a question and no one told him. Who died? The mother or father? And these four long hours were traumatic enough in your life and truly shaped its destiny. Sometimes I think that the most astute of cruelty and indifference.Euronews:Dovalé also seems a rather isolated figure, while remaining in front of an audience that's going to abandon one-by-one, and he talks to a circle of people less and less. I know that maybe resist this kind of autobiographical references, but this situation makes me think of you because in your country who consider a traitor due to his convictions. Feels increasingly isolated in their own country?David Grossman:I feel that my opinions are increasingly isolated and feel that more and more people give up to understand this very complicated reality and choose simplicity. So if you see as more and more Israelis are being tempted to look at the conflict abandoning any attempt to achieve a political solution and rational and, instead, are more prone to fanaticism and fundamentalism. This is seen on both sides, happens in Israel and happens in Palestine, which makes a solution almost impossible.Euronews:But we also see the dissenting voices, the voices that oppose the main currents of thought in Israel be silenced. I am thinking of the Israeli Government that said, for example, that authors like yourself will not receive State subsidies because they are not considered loyal to the Hebrew State and I wonder what it means that loyalty? David Grossman:You should ask them what that means. First of all, I do not think I should even justify my loyalty. I was born here, this is my place, I have an active part in the life of Israel, in the culture of Israel. I don't think the issue of loyalty should even have been raised. It's a fascist question. This is one of the signs of the deterioration of democracy and democratic lack on Israel. My loyalty is to my art, I try to do in my books, in my writing, is to document the most I can, in the most accurate possible, the nuances of life here in Israel because I think that life here is a glamorous life, but sometimes is unbearable.Euronews:< string xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/2003/10/Serialization/">This leads me to one of his early novels, "Until the end of the Earth", in which a mother throws a journey to Dodge what here is known as "notification", the news that her son died in army service. I know that reality and fiction mixed when I wrote this book because it has received a "notification". But what I want to know is the effect it can have on a society living in fear of their children being killed?
David Grossman:Maybe there's something that characterizes Israeli society more than anything else, this thing is fear. Is fear of our children go to the army but is also afraid to walk in the street. The Government and the right are using this fear of a cynically. We have a Prime Minister who is good to investigate and to put in evidence the real dangers that Israel faces, and we face real dangers here in the Middle East, but he knows how to mix these dangers with the echoes of past traumas. I believe that a society that is dominated by fears is a declining society that does not have the energy or the vitality you need to flourish, to desabrolhar and, also, to solve existential problems. If categorizarmos things into categories of fear, desperation, we're not going away. In the end, we realize our greatest fears.Euronews: We asked our audience on the internet to send us some questions for this interview and I would like to give voice to some of these issues. George Miller question "How is it possible to get out of this spiral of hatred and anger â€" and we can add fear â€" we see grow?David Grossman:The society is now formatted for these fears, wants the Israeli wants. And people feel truly they're condemned to live like this forever. The air of desperation is so heavy that people don't have the mental energy to imagine what can be a life in peace. That's why we need leaders and politicians but also of intellectuals and writers who formulate the option of peace, which insist on revitalization of this option of peace which today does not exist at all.Euronews:Do you think you will be able to view the peace as long as he lives? Or even for the lives of their children?David Grossman:I do hope so. My struggle for peace is not only for Palestinians having their House, their homeland and their dignity. I don't want to live their lives under the shadow of occupation, I do not want to overshadow anyone because when I do shadow someone is my life that is in the shade. Because I'm Jewish and Israeli, Israel would like to see flourish in peace, see what are you going to do for us, for the first time in our history, in our history and in our recent history, live a life without fear.Euronews:There is much talk of the solution of two States, but seems to be dead ...David Grossman: No, don't kill her so quickly, is not dead, it is the only possible option.Euronews:The solution of a single State. Think that the Israelis can you imagine that?David Grossman:Believes that these two peoples, the Israeli and the Palestinian, who are not only marked by a century of violence but also truly distorted, do you really believe you are sufficiently mature to collaborate efficiently and positively into a single political entity? It's not going to happen.Euronews:This b rings us to the question of Robin Wilson: "How can progressives do win the idea of Israel as a civic State of Jews, Arabs and other minorities, rather than a Hebrew State"?David Grossman:No, I don't want to be, or have only one Jewish State. And I think that will always be important there are other communities and other minorities here, in Israel. People who feel and are fully equal to the Jewish majority and people that interact together, Jews and Arabs, Druze and Christians, and create a Rico and prosperous place here in Israel.Euronews:As we have seen is a critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. You said recently that he was directing th e country eyes wide shut. What do you mean?David Grossman:I can't figure out how someone so smart, a person with a deep historical knowledge as he, ignores reality, ignores the fact that if Israel rely solely on his power, at one point, that God keep-and this is the only context in which'll resort to God â€" Israel will be defeated, there will be a stronger power , more cunning and more courageous, more sophisticated power will defeat Israel.Euronews:I would like to raise another issue of our audience on social networks. Hernan Pena asks a question that should be in the minds of many people, he says: "I consider Netanyahu a war criminal."
David Grossman:
No, I'd say he is a criminal of peace because during all these years he has avoided every opportunity for peace and because it has declined constantly create an option to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, and this is dangerous. To do this it puts Israel in danger because, as you know, this belief that if we hit the Palestinians with a stick, then they will start to love ourselves and start trading with us, is a very primitive idea. There is a very profound refusal, for many years, in all the Israeli leaders, to see the situation from the point of view of the Palestinians. This is something to which I might be able to contribute to the debate as a writer. We must enable the Palestinian story to infiltrate into our consciences. We have to understand what makes the Palestinians so angry, so mad, what mak es them run on the streets to stab us, massively, so many years ago. If we allow this, we might not be at war with them.
Euronews:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared the self-styled Islamic Hamas State and vice versa. Think that is a fair comparison?
David Grossman:
Hamas is not my favorite part of Palestinian society, because they are fanatics, fundamentalists and in his statement, wish to openly the eradication of Israel and the building of an Islamic State in its ruins. However, Hamas, because of its structure and the geopolitical situation, also has political interests, unlike Daesh. For example, we found within the Hamas people are in f avour of a "houdnah". A "houdnah" is an Arabic term that designates a long cease-fire that deal when they're interested. But I look at the long term and say: OK, maybe, if we have a "houdnah" with the Palestinians of Gaza, with the Hamas, during 10, 2025 years, maybe things can change.
Euronews:
Israel is increasingly seen abroad as a pariah state. The Lord travels a lot, never embarrassed to be Israeli?
David Grossman:
I feel ashamed of what my Government, I'm not ashamed to be an Israeli. I still think this country is an incredible place. Sometimes we tend to just criticize Israel and completely forget how this country was forged, three years afte r the Holocaust, after the Shoah, and have built myself, truly from ashes, and have created here a great culture, and agriculture, and a high-tech industry and many layers of life that are unique. And, as I said, I don't want to live anywhere else.
Euronews:
Very well, let me give you a concrete example and see what you think of it. The European Union began to indicate on the labels the goods coming from the settlements. The Lord is against the settlements in the West Bank. What do you think about this?
David Grossman:
I think they have the right to do so and in fact I'm happy because it means I accept the idea of two States. Accept the total legiti macy of Israel within the green line. Have the right to mention to their consumers that these products come from contested locations. In a way it's a price that Israel created himself.
Euronews:
The Lord is a bumbling proponent of peace, we found that during this interview. We received this question from Mahmoud Dido Kilosho that asks about "what would you do to the Palestinians traumatized?"
David Grossman:
First of all, I think that the Palestinians should do something for the Palestinians, the Palestinian traumatized traumatized. What I tried to do since it was always looking at reality and write about the complexity of this conflict. I described the life of the Palestinians and the situation of occupation in three books, a novel and two documentary books.
Euronews:
Relieved it somehow?
David Grossman:
Relieve me? Don't. You know, I take the reality very seriously and the alternative is to be cynical or desperate about the situation and I don't want to be either of them. And look for us at the moment. The greatest superpower of the region and we are still victims of our fears, our nightmares, sometimes the fears and nightmares of our neighbors and our enemies. We're not taking our fate into our hands.
Euron ews:
Must have a great pleasure in writing, which must move away from this reality. Can you tell me a little bit of pleasure that withdraws in writing fiction?
David Grossman:
Yes, it's a lot more enjoyable than writing about our reality. Be a writer leaves us in contact with the infinite options of every human situation. In every human situation there is a huge arsenal of options, potential, of passion, of energy. Sometimes it is very difficult to fall asleep when I finish my day's work, at the end of 6, 7, 8 hours and I have to get back to reality, especially this terrible reality is really hard.
Euronews:
Finally, I would like to return to your last book. "The Horse Walks Into a Bar" is full of jokes, has jokes from beginning to end and I ask him if he has any particular joke to tell us?
David Grossman:
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