I Published Nasser Abu Srour’s Book. His Story is Valuable.

In light of the accusations made in the recent column by Charles M. Covit ’27 — who unfortunately appears not to have read Nasser Abu Srour’s The Tale of a Wall: Reflections on the Meaning of Hope and Freedom — as the book’s publisher, I want to add that I researched as best I could the circumstances that led to Abu Srour’s sentence of life in prison without parole.

I hired the prestigious Israeli human rights lawyer, Michael Sfard, who summarizes his efforts in the paragraph below.

“First, that we have received a letter from the Israeli Courts Authority saying that after a prolonged and careful search both in the District court and in the Supreme Court, they only found two documents from the file: indictment and verdict, and that a parallel search in the Israeli National Archives also did not yield any copies of the file or any documents from the file. I therefore told you that all I know is that regardless of what he went through in his interrogation, Nasser admitted in court (he entered a guilty plea) and was convicted. I do not know what the circumstances were, as I have no documents but the ones I sent you.”

A chapter in the book entitled “Confession” is excerpted here and gives the context of those circumstances.

I think it is important to make clear that Palestinians and Israelis were not treated as equals in the courts already in the 1990s. Literature often reveals truths and insights that debunk what we read in the news. I hope that Covit, who seems to admire non-Palestinian prison literature, might give Abu Srour’s book a chance.

Judith Gurewich is the publisher of Other Press.