The Message

Content Warning: This section discusses racism, racist violence, colonialism, the Holocaust, and the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict; views expressed are Coates’s alone.

Coates describes his visit to Palestine and Israel after an invitation from the Palestine Festival of Literature. Early in his visit, Coates visited Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center; the Book of Names held there contains close to five million names of people who died in the Holocaust. Coates felt despair and horror at Yad Vashem, relieved only by a few moments of hope when he saw stories of people who worked to save Jewish people during the Holocaust. There was one off note in the visit there—namely, a line of very young Israeli soldiers casually chatting. They were there to protect the museum from attacks, but their heavily armed presence was such a display of state power that it unsettled Coates and reminded him that when Western powers carved out Israel in the Middle East, the Jewish people who immigrated there became a nation with power.

As Coates navigated holy sites in Jerusalem with the group, he was struck by the widespread nature of Israeli control over the movements of Palestinians and Muslims. He recounts being made to wait outside a site as a soldier quizzed him about his religion (none), his parents’ (none), and his grandparents’ (Christian), with the latter answer gaining him admittance.