Customer Reviews

J'Accuse

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Deftly translated from Hebrew into English by Peter Cole, J'Accuse is a collection of verse written by Aharon Shabtai, an Israeli poet who sharply denounces Israel's current policy toward the Palestinians. Resolutely criticizing the occupations of the West Bank and Gaza, this emphatic collection contains a dramatic signature of determination that what is wrong should be put right for the sake of both the Palestinians and the Israelis. To A Pilot: When next you circle/in your chopper/over Jenin,/pilot, remember the children/and old women/in the homes at which you fire./Spread a layer/of chocolate across your missile,/and do your best to be precise --/so their souvenir will be sweet/when the walls start to fall.

By turns venomous and lyrical, brutally contemporary, melancholically nostalgic, and timelessly erotic, this slim collection has an enormous range of emotion and poetic technique. Most of Shabtai's poems collected here are quite short, often only a page in length; the translation is seemingly prosy and plain, but this is the right choice, as it only renders the poetry more direct in its impact. The politics of these poems are complex and resist the oversimplification of controversy-mongers; Shabtai is at once bitterly nostalgic for the utopian dream of early, socialist Zionism, and angrily opposed to the current state of things. Contemporary poetry readers would do well to give this book a serious look; also, American spectators to the Middle East will find Shabtai presents a very different picture of the politics of Israeli Jews than we are commonly presented with by domestic media.

Aharon Shabtai is a classicly-minded (translator from the Greek) Israeli public poet, their Neruda, bringing a powerful poetic conscience to bear, even in his erotic verse. Peter Coles' translations are a great gift, delivering new vistas from the Middle East. This poetry is unexpected, sharp, tensile and fresh. Sage in brilliant heat.

It is one thing to be critical of your own country. But it is another thing to do this with hatred , contempt and total lack of understanding of the situation it is in, the forces it must contend with in order to survive. It is one thing to have sympathy with the fallen of one's enemies, but it is another to have no sympathy whatsoever with the victims and fallen of one 's own side.
Sadly this is what Aharon Shabtai does in this book.
I also believe he is not a particularly good poet. I may be wrong about that, but about the moral question I do not think I am.

Mr. Shabtia's poetry appears to be the latest victim of the violence in Israel. From his poem, "War": "I, too, have declared war: / You' ll need to divert part of the force / deployed to wipe out the Arabs - /. and set it against me." One almost wishes the Israeli Army had done so. If there is some poetic value underlying these self-righteous diatribes I was unable to locate it.

Mr. Shabtia's poetry appears to be the latest victim of the violence in Israel. From his poem, "War": "I, too, have declared war: / You' ll need to divert part of the force / deployed to wipe out the Arabs - /. and set it against me." One almost wishes the Israeli Army had done so. If there is some poetic value underlying these self-righteous diatribes I was unable to locate it.