Samir el-Youssef, who grew up in a refugee camp in Lebanon, told the story of reading an
Aharon Appelfeld novel in which two Jewish boys are hunted through Europe by the Nazis until finally, they escape by boat to Palestine. “And I felt relieved”, he said. “Then I thought, what are you doing feeling relieved? They’re coming to steal your country.” Such is the subversive power of art. It has a tendency to unpredictability, producing empathy for the wrong people and the wrong causes.
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