Karin Wenger‘s Buch «Checkpoint Huwara» ist in 2. Auflage erhältlich

Checkpoint Huwara

Die Gewaltspirale im Nahen Osten dreht sich seit Ausbruch der zweiten Intifada im Jahr 2000 immer schneller. Der Konflikt polarisiert wie kein anderer. Wahrgenommen werden jedoch vor allem jene Ereignisse, die Schlagzeilen machen: palästinensische Selbstmordanschläge, israelische Militärinvasionen und gescheiterte Friedensverhandlungen. In Checkpoint Huwara lässt Karin Wenger israelische und palästinensische «Helden» von ihrem Alltag erzählen. Aus ihrer Sicht berichten sie von ständiger Angst und Überforderung und davon, dass der Kriegsdienst aus Menschen Maschinen macht. Und sie erzählen von Mauern und Sperrzäunen, nicht nur von denen, die Israel bauen liess, um das Westjordanland von Israel abzutrennen, sondern vor allem von der Mauer des Schweigens.

Das Buch ist in den Verlagen NZZ Libro und Diederichs erschienen und ist seit August 2008 im Buchhandel erhältlich.

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Checkpoint Huwara

Elite units of the Israel Defense Force and Palestinian resistance fighters break the silence

Since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, the spiral of violence in the Middle East has gone into a tailspin; increasingly, whether in the form of suicide attacks by Palestinians, Israel’s military invasions, or the failure of peace talks, the conflict in the Middle East seems to take place mainly in the headlines. The situation has a uniquely polarizing effect, while the actual protagonists, the Israelis and Palestinians themselves, are heard from only rarely, more rarely still side by side in one single publication. In Checkpoint, the author lets heroes of the struggle on both sides report on their everyday life, and in the process makes a unique contribution to the documentation of the conflict. Between September 2004 and August 2007, Wenger spent several extended periods living and working as a journalist in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and has traveled throughout the occupied territories and Israel. In a series of excerpts from her notebook, organized here by subject, Wenger offers a moving glimpse into everyday life under the shadow of war. Her approach is neither moralistic nor judgemental; instead, she poses questions: What moves suicide attackers to their deeds? What is life like for guerrilla fighters on the run? In her quest for answers, Wenger takes her readers on a visit to a refugee camp, to collaborators, former prisoners, and to the Gaza Strip, and allows a young Palestinian forced to live in Balata, the largest refugee camp on the West Bank, to recount his sojourn in prison and the consequences of Israel’s strategy of attrition.

At the same time, the book does not impose the classic victim-perpetrator model: rather, it shows us the willing soldier and potential attacker hidden in each and every one of us, and the influence of our environment on their emergence. For this reason, Wenger also interviews nine young Israelis – infantrymen, a former member of a tank crew, and the navigator of an F16 fighter jet – who tell of their tours of duty in the occupied territories and in the most recent Lebanon campaign and offer a highly personal view of their mental and emotional experience. The soldiers recount their constant fear and sense of impotence, and demonstrate the way the military makes machines of human beings. They speak, too, of walls and fences, not only those built by the state to fragment the West Bank and segregate it from Israel, but also of the wall of silence that increasingly prevents Israelis and Palestinians from understanding each other, accelerates the process of dehumanization, and sows the seeds of further violence.

Karin Wenger

Checkpoint Huwara

Elite units of the Israel Defense Force and Palestinian resistance fighters break the silence

With an afterword by Arnold Hottinger and photographs by Kai Wiedenhöfer

272 pages, 38 b/w illustrations, maps

Format 16.5 x 21 cm, gatefold cover

approx. CHF 38.00/EUR (D) 20

ISBN 978-3-03823-408-1

Appeared in August 2008 in NZZ Libro (CH) and Diederichs (D)

There is no English version available yet.