A personal statement about Kalmann being published in Hebrew in spite of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Reykjavík, 11.6.2025
In spring of 2023, when I received the offer from Keter Publishing House to publish Kalmann in Israel—in Hebrew, a language rich in history and culture—I felt both excited and conflicted. I felt torn.
For many years, I have been watching helplessly as the terror between Israel and Palestine unfolded; Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians, the constant theft of land by Israeli settlers, and the deliberate killing of civilians on both sides… Simply a nightmare.
In 2007, I moved to Iceland, and I am proud to say that I gained citizenship a few years later. In 2011, Iceland was the first Western state to officially recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders. This tiny nation in the North Atlantic Ocean, once ruled by the King of Denmark, has developed a strong sense of independence and a tradition of siding with the “underdogs” (case in point: Iceland was also the first state to recognize Lithuania in 1991).
In 2019, during the Eurovision Song Contest held in Tel Aviv, the band Hatari, representing Iceland, took the opportunity to travel deep into Palestine to collaborate with Bashar Murad, a fellow musician. The documentary A Song Called Hate that resulted from this visit is striking—the apartheid system becomes blatant—but the film also shows how art can be used as a platform for a suppressed people within an apartheid system.
On October 7th, 2023, the world stopped spinning. More than 1,200 men, women and children were slaughtered by Hamas—the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The right and need of Israel to defend itself became very clear that day. But what followed was even worse: the slaughtering by the Israel Defense Forces of about 60,000 Palestinians—mostly civilians, including men, women and, according to Gaza’s health ministry, 18,000 children. That’s 28 children each day. A UN commission has identified war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israeli attacks on Gaza. Following an investigation, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu (and other accused war criminals), accusing him of war crimes including starvation as a method of warfare, along with murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts during the Gaza conflict.
In early 2024, even before Amnesty International concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a group of incredibly brave Icelandic civilians—including writers—went to the Egyptian/Palestinian border to help refugees cross over and bring them to Iceland. Until last year, Iceland had a government that showed little interest in helping Icelandic visa-holders from Palestine escape the hellish situation in Gaza. This act of civil courage eventually forced the government to act. Shortly after, 72 refugees from Gaza were brought to Iceland.
This reminded me of the Swiss Bergier Report from 2002. It addressed issues related to Jewish refugees during World War II and acknowledged that the government of Switzerland implemented restrictive entry and turn-away policies that limited refuge for Jewish people fleeing the Holocaust. The report recognized that these policies often contributed to their suffering. In light of this past, the silence of Swiss state officials about the genocide in Gaza and the unwillingness to accept Palestinian refugees is shameful. The Swiss weapons industry continues to do business with Israel.
In all of this, I need to ask myself: Should a writer refrain from publishing his or her books in a society that is in the process of committing genocide? Could works of literature be used for whitewashing? When our politicians fail to act, is it the duty of artists to use their limited power to boycott a nation that commits war crimes? Here in Iceland, many would answer these questions with a loud and clear “yes”. And in many regards, I do agree.
However, I fear that cultural isolation of the Israeli people is the wrong way to go. As a strong opponent of violence, I support dialogue and cultural exchange. We must keep talking. We must keep each other informed. We must put pressure on our governments to use their power to stop the armament of Israel and to bring Palestinians to safety.
There is hope: Protests within Israel against the Israeli leadership, as well as demonstrations by Jewish communities worldwide standing up for Palestine, do exist. Many in the publishing world in Israel are avid opponents of the Benjamin Netanyahu regime.
These protests, some loud, some silent, show that Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government appear to be the main forces behind this ongoing violence. However, we must not forget, Netanyahu does not represent all of Israel, just as Hamas does not represent the entire Palestinian people.
Although I was torn, I accepted the offer from Keter Publishing House, as it allows me to use this platform to speak out, to use my voice—however unremarkable it is—and to continue the dialogue, as I am doing now. Yet, I do not intend to profit financially from Kalmann’s publication in Israel. I have donated my advance from Keter to the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund, which supports children in Gaza by providing medical aid and helping alleviate the strain on Gaza’s healthcare system in Lebanon. My future earnings from Israel, if there will be any, will go to the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund as well.
I sincerely hope that the genocide will be stopped, the hostages on both sides released and the perpetrators locked up for life. I hope, the stolen land will be returned and the war crimes committed by the Israelian military will be compensated by the war profiteers. I hope that Israelis as a society, will ever recover from the horrors inflicted to Gaza and the West Bank. I hope that one day all the people in Israel and Palestine will be able to live in peace, side by side in a two state solution – and Palestine will be free. But first: Ceasefire now. And stop the Genocide.
From Iceland,
Joachim B. Schmidt
[Update: The genocide on the people of Gaza has been confirmed by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories B’Tselem, the Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, by Amnesty International, by UN commission and Human Rights Watch – and more…
By October 7th 2025 more than 67.000 people were killed in Gaza]