Portuguese author Jose Saramago, the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, drew harsh criticism after he commented yesterday that Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories were a crime comparable to what happened in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Israeli sources said that Saramago had fallen victim to the Palestinian propaganda machine.

"We must ring all bells in the world to tell that what is happening in Palestine is a crime, and it is within our power stop to this," Saramago said, when a delegation of members of the International Parliament of Writers (IPW) met with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. "We can compare it to what happened in Auschwitz," the author continued. "Even if we consider the differences in place and time, it is still the same thing. From the military point of view… Ramallah is the barracks of the camp, and the Palestinians are the prisoners inside."

Saramago said that before his visit to Ramallah he knew that Israeli tanks were stationed there and that the army had confined Arafat to the city. "I didn't know that two 'colonies' with army posts overlook Ramallah. I didn't know that every Palestinian settlement is under a separate siege."

Asked by Ha'aretz to expand on his concentration camp comparison, Saramago said that "so far there are no" gas chambers in Ramallah. He said that as a writer, it was his job to make emotional comparisons that would shock people into understanding, Ha'aretz reported.

In an interview with Yediot Aharonot, Saramago refused to retract his comments but charged that the media had not reported everything he had said. "I opened by saying that I have a simple, human dream, a dream of the possibility of shared lives, of co-existence between Israel and the Palestinians."

Saramago said that when he visited Yad Vashem, Israel's central memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, he had "cried like a child. But in a similar manner, my eyes filled with tears when I saw what was happening in Ramallah. I said what I had to say. I don't fear the uproar or the truth. Only the dead of the future, so unnecessary, scare me."

IPW executive director Christian Salmon told Ha'aretz that Saramago's comparison did not reflect the views of the parliament. Also participating in the visit were Juan Goytisolo of Spain, Breyten Breytenbach from South Africa, and 1986 Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka from Nigeria.

American film director Oliver Stone filmed the IPW visit to Ramallah, but refused to disclose what he planned to do with the footage. A member of Stone's production team said that Stone was preparing a documentary film on world conflicts, with a special focus on Arafat. Stone refused to relate to Saramago's comments, saying that he "wasn't chasing headlines."

"Totally baseless comparison"
The Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed outrage and indignation at the "totally baseless comparison" made by Saramago. "To compare the current situation in Ramallah to Auschwitz, in which more than one million innocent civilians were systematically annihilated as part of a precise plan by Nazi Germany to carry out the total elimination of the Jewish people and achieve world domination by the Aryan race, is to exhibit a total lack of historical understanding," said the center's Israel director, Dr. Efraim Zuroff.

"His comparison between what the Germans did in Auschwitz and what the Israelis are doing in the territories is wretched and outrageous," said Jewish author and Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel. These comments "hurt the memory of the victims, and the emotions of the survivors and their children."

Wiesel said he would advise Saramago to read history books. "His words make me even more sorry, as someone who has read his works with great devotion. It doesn't make sense that a man who can write such books could say such a thing."

MK Tommy Lapid (Shinui), also a Holocaust survivor, said Saramago had caused great damage not only to Israel, but also to his own name and standing in the intellectual world.

"From such a deep and complex person as Saramago, I would expect a more complex vision of reality," said Prof. Menachem Perry, who served as editor of the translation into Hebrew of Saramago's writings. "I am surprised that he doesn't understand what the Holocaust was… I am not opposed to harsh political expressions, but I am against embarrassing statements, and I feel sorry for him. His words will only hurt him."

Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua said Saramago's words were "an unprecedented outrage." He said, "You cannot blame him for blindness, because this is intentional blindness." Yehoshua's words were chosen to draw a connection to one of Saramago's books, "Blindness," a 1995 novel that helped pave the way to his Nobel Prize award.

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