Author David Grossman fears for Israeli democracy [Video]

MONTREAL—Israel’s decades-long control of the Palestinians is eroding its claim on democracy and condemning Jewish Israelis to a perpetual state of conflict, says David Grossman, one of the country’s most acclaimed writers.

“If you occupy another people for what will soon be 54 years, in June, then your status as a democratic state is very shaky,” said Grossman at the Blue Metropolis Festival, an annual international literary event held in Montreal. Grossman, winner of the 2018 Israel Prize and numerous international literary awards, spoke from his home in Jerusalem where he was born 67 years ago.

“It is very hard to call my country a democratic country while it continues to occupy another people, the Palestinians, for so many years,” he said.

He was in conversation with Derek Penslar, a Harvard professor of modern Jewish history, formerly at the University of Toronto.

Grossman, an outspoken political essayist as well as …