"Dear Joel and Ethan Coen
We understand that you’re among this year’s winners of a $1mn Dan David prize, awarded jointly by the Dan David Foundation and Tel Aviv University. We read that you’re likely to attend the award ceremony in Israel on May 15, in the company of Israeli president Shimon Peres.
All this may seem unexceptional to you. But we think you’re too smart not to understand that nothing in this situation is simple. The Dan David judges apparently like your ability ‘to tell a simple story in a complex manner’. Allow us to complicate your reported acceptance of this prize.
Your much-celebrated presence will adorn a colonial settler state still vigorously engaged in the business of dispossessing and driving out the indigenous inhabitants, who are the Palestinians. Of course the United States itself is built on the bones and demolished civilizations of its own indigenous inhabitants, but for the Palestinians the struggle is real and present – an every day battle to hang on to land, houses, livelihoods, hopes and ambitions."
We understand that you’re among this year’s winners of a $1mn Dan David prize, awarded jointly by the Dan David Foundation and Tel Aviv University. We read that you’re likely to attend the award ceremony in Israel on May 15, in the company of Israeli president Shimon Peres.
All this may seem unexceptional to you. But we think you’re too smart not to understand that nothing in this situation is simple. The Dan David judges apparently like your ability ‘to tell a simple story in a complex manner’. Allow us to complicate your reported acceptance of this prize.
Your much-celebrated presence will adorn a colonial settler state still vigorously engaged in the business of dispossessing and driving out the indigenous inhabitants, who are the Palestinians. Of course the United States itself is built on the bones and demolished civilizations of its own indigenous inhabitants, but for the Palestinians the struggle is real and present – an every day battle to hang on to land, houses, livelihoods, hopes and ambitions."
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