John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com

Israel has a list of books banned in the West Bank of the occupied Palestinian territory according to Ursula Lindsey, writing for the New York Review of Books. One of those books is “Hamlet,” placed on the list during the first intifada.

My initial thought was that banning books is inconsistent with Israel’s insistence that it has a democratic government. Israel’s defense is the perception that some of lines in “Hamlet” are an incitement to violence. An example are the lines, “to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them.”

The fear for Israel is that “a sea of troubles” will be understood as the occupied Palestinian territory, resulting in taking up arms against the occupier, Israel.

Isabella Hammad’s book, “Enter Ghost,” is a novel about the efforts of Israel to heavily monitor and censor books and theater in the West Bank. She acknowledges that plays in general and “Hamlet” in particular, when translated into Arabic, have the double context of both actors acting in the play and also the Palestinian audience acting out the play in their lives. Thus, a familiar text may take on new life.

“Because of this potential,” Hammad writes, “theater in the occupied territories has always been heavily monitored and censored.” As Hamlet says in the play, “The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.” That is, the play may expose Israel’s oppression and injustice against the Palestinians and motivate retaliation.

The same plays and literature that strike fear in the Israelis give a glimmer of hope to the Palestinians. For example, when the most familiar play in Western literature becomes a Palestinian play, “Hamlet” takes on new life and a new awareness of the Palestinian plight. It also motivates the Israeli military to action. Hammad’s novel “Enter Ghost” includes a description of the Israeli army’s intrusions into the clandestine rehearsals of “Hamlet.”

It describes power cuts, tear gas, informers, and checkpoints inhibiting travel to the ever-changing rehearsal sites. The hope is that the struggles depicted in the novel will shed light on the real-world atrocities. Meanwhile, in the real world, it is reported that “Israeli forces have killed at least 12 Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, in raids across the occupied West Bank since Monday, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry…. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces had also fired on their ambulances in Jenin.”

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Israel’s book banning and interfering with theater productions amount to an acknowledgment that the words and actions in the context of a novel or a play may also speak to the context of the real world. Israel’s anxiety about the possibility of this transference may be fear that the injustices of the occupation of the Palestinian territory may be given credence by a particular book or theater production. This amounts to a confession by Israel of oppression, injustice, and racism against the Palestinians.

By limiting the artistic freedom of authors and dramatists, Israel seeks to hide the truth buried in the books and theater that are perceived to give reason for Palestinian resistance: “take arms against a sea of troubles.”

Banned novels and plays may only be imagination. However, Mariam, a character in Enter Ghost, reflects, “sometimes the best thing one can do is pretend that one’s words and acts matter, that there is hope. Sometimes ‘you have to fake it’.”

It seems that even censoring the arts amounts to giving hope where there has been little hope. It would behoove Israel to concentrate less on banning books and interfering in theatrical productions and concentrate more on interfering to end the oppressive actions of its military toward Palestinians.

Giving new meaning to Hamlet’s words we might say, “Therefore … give it welcome. / There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”