will this is the briefing — i'm sally bundock, live deal negotiated with the eu. from westminster where the british it's despite theresa may securing parliament votes later today last—minute changes on the issue on whether to leave of the irish border. the european union in march without a deal. this comes after mps mps will now vote on whether or not emphatically rejected the prime minister's latest brexit dealfor the second time. uk should leave the eu without any the prime minister said she profoundly regretted the result agreement. if it is a no on that of tuesday's vote. they will ask the eu for more negotiating time. in australia, cardinal pell has been sentenced to six years in prison for sexually abusing two choir boys in melbourne in the 1990s. in his summing up chiefjudge peter kidd told the 77—year—old he "may these are unenviable choices but not live to be released from prison" because of his age and health issues. thanks to the decision that the house has made this evening they are the boeing 737 max is temporarily choices that must now be phased. -- banned from european airspace, and many other countries, after two fatal accidents faced. in five months. the us federal aviation authority cardinal george pell, has said it will not former vatican treasurer, suspend the aircraft.

you are up—to—date with the headlines. now on bbc news its hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk. writers of contemporary fiction have a complex relationship with their own societies. they are both insider and observer. my guest today is a prize—winning israeli novelist who brings a trained psychologist‘s i to compelling stories set in her home country. hers is a world of moral ambiguity where truth, memory, right and wrong are not necessarily what they seem. it is her work telling us something important about the israeli psyche?

welcome to hardtalk. hello. you're a trained clinical psychologist, you are also a novelist, which matters most? i feel very passionate about both of them. i think they are both driven, originated from the same place. it is a place where instead of judging place. it is a place where instead ofjudging you try to understand when you would find something that you would rush intojudgement, you have to ask yourself could i under any circumstances be doing this thing that when i look from the outside perspective seems so wrong. that is interesting. it is searching for the nuance for a deeper

understanding of actions and events. it seems to me that may be difficult ina it seems to me that may be difficult in a country, israel, which i know from personal experience is such a very intense place where people, innocence, always feel there are existential questions and there are a lwa ys existential questions and there are always size to be taken, al—sayed, their side, good against bad, is it a tough place to find the nuance?” find it a very nuanced place. because it is tough. it was amos oz who said about the clash between us and the palestinians, what is so difficult about this clash is that it isa difficult about this clash is that it is a clash between right and right and not a clash between right and wrong. in a world of right and run and wrong. in a world of right and i’ui’i “ and wrong. in a world of right and run —— right and you a world of nuances. sometimes the difficulty in israel is that people often don't have the time or the energy or maybe there will to look into all those nuances. you are not a political writer in the sense that your books are not about the

israeli—palestinian conflict. are you very aware of the need to avoid that, to dig deeper, to not play into stereotypes? identify myself as a political writer. ithink into stereotypes? identify myself as a political writer. i think writing is always a matter of political choices. you choose to write about one thing, you choose not to write about 100 other things. living right now in israel, when i wrote my third novel, layer, iwrote now in israel, when i wrote my third novel, layer, i wrote it during the war. i asked myself if it was legitimate to write right now a novel about an israeli girl that doesn't deal with the war, am i neglecting something am i forgetting something? i am a political person, iam something? i am a political person, i am entitled not to write all the time about the occupation, to write about other aspects of the israeli society. we will come back to the ways in which, in your other life,

not sure writing life, but your other life, you have been active in politics and civil rights in israel, in terms of the books themselves, do you feel it is important to show that, for example, the truth is a very complicated subject. and, indeed, one of your books called liar, you sort of suggest in your books that lying can sometimes be justified, can sometimes be an act ofa justified, can sometimes be an act of a good and decent person. yes, i was i was intrigued by this ironic double standard that we have about lies, because on one hand lying is considered a very heavy social crime. if i can call somebody stupid 01’ crime. if i can call somebody stupid or ugly it will still become i think, less insulting than to call somebody a liar. it is a very big social problems lie. but everybody lies, all people live. you have the thing that everybody keeps on doing

and yet this thing is considered so terrible and nobody is supposed to be doing it. so as an author, but also as a psychologist, i am very drawn to this moment when a lie is born. when i started writing liar i asked people if they remember their first lie, as kids, if they remember the first time that they realised that you could use language not to tell what's happening, but to tell something that is happening only in your own head. and i got the most interesting stories of people, because there's always a moment of big, a crack between you and reality that you try to build over this crack a bridge built by words. like the first time a kid lies to his pa rents the first time a kid lies to his parents or lies to the other kids. you have written frankly about your own first big lie, and it seems to me important to discuss it because it isa me important to discuss it because it is a lie about something that is so

it is a lie about something that is so fundamental to israeli consciousness, tojewish consciousness, tojewish consciousness, the holocaust. you told a lie, i think you are nine yea rs told a lie, i think you are nine years old, in your own school, about your own grandmother and her experiences during the second world war. tell me what you did, exactly, and why you did it, now you reflect upon it? the first thing i will tell you, it is amazing how you ask this andi you, it is amazing how you ask this and i feel the blood you, it is amazing how you ask this and ifeel the blood rushing in my cheeks as if i was nine years old again. and to talk about it in front of the television, if my grandmother would see that she would kill me. so my grandmother was not, luckily for her, a holocaust survivor, even though my family had members that we re though my family had members that were killed in the holocaust. i never met them, it was the first circle of the family. but i grew up in the neighbourhood where many kids who had grandparents who were holocaust survivors. and my best

friend, her grandmother, came to the school telling her story, after the way she survived auschwitz, she was a very impressive woman. and i remember myself in the age where you a lwa ys remember myself in the age where you always compare what you have two what your friends have, feeling sort of jealous. what your friends have, feeling sort ofjealous. now, of course, todayi realise there is nothing more stupid than to be jealous of somebody who has a holocaust survivor in his family. but through the eyes of a nine—year—old i rememberi family. but through the eyes of a nine—year—old i remember i found myself saying that my grandmother, too, was a holocaust survivor. and she had been auschwitz, too. that she had been auschwitz, too. that she had been auschwitz, too. that she had been auschwitz, that she had killed a german soldier, it sort of caught up... you really embroidered this thing. i think if you tell a story you should tell it all the way. so way before quentin tarantino did it, ithink way. so way before quentin tarantino did it, i think i way. so way before quentin tarantino did it, ithink i made way. so way before quentin tarantino did it, i think i made up a sort of story about my grandmother running and killing half of the nazis in auschwitz, which might have worked, but then it ended with kids saying "she has such a beautiful story, you

have to bring her to the school to tell the story to everyone." which she could not do because it was a lie and your grandmother ultimately found out. and she said... well, first she was very upset, because, i think, that is the job of the grown—ups is to keep you from telling stories and to let you know when you are right or when you are wrong. and she said this is wrong. but then she brought me my first notebook. it was the centre she brought me my first notebook. it was a yellow one, a low—paid notebook. she said if you have stories you can go and write them. but you don't go and tell them to people like that. that is such an interesting conclusion. it strikes me that writing to you, ever since that moment when you were a nine—year—old girl, has been a vehicle for you. in a way, it has been a form of therapy for you. and you are a clinical psychologist and psychologists often receive and find counselling useful

themselves. maybe for you the best therapy is actually writing.” think, you know, the storyline the witch and the wardrobe, it is a british novel, right? i rememberas a child i read it and i tried to enter the wardrobe of my parents to get to narnia, to get to the snow. and i get that you can read a novel that will send you to open a wardrobe and go inside and search for snow. this is something so generous that literature can do for you. like it can create a snow in a wardrobe. i think both as a reader and as an author, this is what we're trying to do, right, were trying to ta ke trying to do, right, were trying to take the ordinary things like a wardrobe or a group of kids in a high school, and we try to find a snow. yeah, that makes it sound quite magical. and in some ways your books have magic in them, but they also have very difficult, dark stuff in them. and when we come back to this theme of your take on truth and lies, you examine and challenge some

of the truths that all israelis think they know and hold very dear. some of them connected with the holocaust, which, in your books, hangs over so much of your fiction, and is interpreted in different ways and, frankly, some people tell lies about what happened, going back to your own childhood as well, but also the story of israel's creation, the coming about of the state, the fight ina47 coming about of the state, the fight in a 47 and 48 that established the nation. you suggest, in one of your books, that people who fought in that war don't always tell the truth about it. that there are serious lies told about how israel was created. well, i think this is true to any war, notjust the war of independence of israel. for me, as an israeli author, i can write fiction about the war thanks to the people of israel who died in this war. i needed the generational 48 to go to fight this war and win this

warfor me to be go to fight this war and win this war for me to be able to write critical stories about this war. but maybe you can push it too far. i am thinking of one of the characters, an old man you write about who actually was there and a fighter in 1948. he was regarded as a hero because he launched as offensive on a fortified hilltop. in fact, he hadn't. he wanted to retreat but the story got lost in translation. and you write about how he didn't want to bea you write about how he didn't want to be a hero, he refused to tell the story of the battle, but the prime minister himself came to visit and reprimanded him for lowering morale. were not asking you if you want to bea were not asking you if you want to be a hero, were telling you that you are, so the prime minister. imagine if everyone decided on own what he wa nts if everyone decided on own what he wants or doesn't want to be. not every lie is bad. in fact, some lies build countries. do you believe israel, in some ways, is built on lies? i believe every country, not specifically israel, is built on stories, mythologies, and stories we tell ourselves about who we are. no

stories are very important, they are the glue that keeps us together, but also they can be a very dangerous thing. you have the german notion of the folk being very appealing, but also very dangerous. you have the american notion of the self—made man being very appealing but also it allows the country to avoid welfare. and you have the israeli notion of we are the ultimate victim, which is, for me, it is not a mythology, it started as real objective fact. i mean, for thousands of years we were the ultimate victim. but i think today this objective facts are sometimes being used so that we won't see when a situation changes. i don't think today we are the ultimate victim. we used to be. but it is not who we are right now. this is the way that an objective facts can be turned into a myth and later toa can be turned into a myth and later to a story told by professional storytellers, not necessarily authors, but politicians, in order to keep reality as it is right now. interesting that notion of israel being the land of the dues who have

been the ultimate victims, because in this book, waking lions, you take a centraljewish character, the decent doctor, who drives into the desert from his hospital, where he is working, and he knocks down a man and kills him and that man is an error trainer migrants, and illegal migrants into israel and the story that unfolds of him and his guilt and wrestling with his attitude to this group of people in his midst, who he doesn't understand, who are the other, who cannot relate to, and, frankly, many people in his community are deeply racist about. again, challenging. do you think israel has a problem with empathy with those who were not, israeli dues, notjewish? i always feel when i talk about

waking lions outside of israel, a bit upset when i get asked questions about racist israelis because to me, waking lions is not necessarily a novel about an israeli doctor, it's a novel about middle—class men and i think it could be just the same, uk doctor running over an illegal migrants. could definitely be a hamburg doctor from germany migrants. could definitely be a hamburg doctorfrom germany running over a syrian refugee. ifeel when you read literature today and we try to ask, is of those israelis who have a problem of empathy, i think every human being, no matter if he is israeli or american or palestinian, always have this question in front of them, what does it mean to be human, what kind of moral responsibility do we carry with us? and if i was driving home late at night, killing someone who is not me. if i'mjewish, it means notjewish. it's is not me. if i'mjewish, it means not jewish. it's on is not me. if i'mjewish, it means notjewish. it's on from the uk and

white, it means not white. would i stop or not? it's a powerful point you make but there are some interesting statistics around this which do suggest there is a difference between israel and some european countries. many people will not know that there are significant number of eritrean is but also africans who illegally migrated into israel in search of a better life, they are mostly kept in detention centres, some live illegally in the country, there are believed to be 40,000, 50,000 of them. israel has recognised the refugee status, of, literally, a handful of people from eritrea. in europe, the eu says eritreans eritrea. in europe, the eu says eritrea ns make eritrea. in europe, the eu says eritreans make it onto your pain territory, 90% of them, because of the way eritrea is, i given refugee status. there is a difference and it seems israel is absolutely adamant that it doesn't want to help the outsider in that way. i very much

agree with you and personally, as an israeli, i am very much embarrassed by the fact my government recognises less tha n by the fact my government recognises less than 1% of the people coming from eritrea. we are a nation of refugees and now we have other refugees and now we have other refugees to knock at our door and we know what it means to come all the way to the promised land and find that the gates are closed for you. we are the gatekeepers in the promised land. we have refugees from eritrea walking the same road that the biblical refugees walked on the road from sinai in the desert and we are the ones closing the day —— the gates. as an israeli, we feel uncomfortable. i try to do things to change the way my government treats these refugees. i find change the way my government treats these refugees. ifind myself part ofa these refugees. ifind myself part of a collective who is guilty in not treating the refugees in the humanistic manner but at the same

time, ifind it much easierfor me to have this discussion inside israel. to criticise israeli civilisation from inside israel. why? | civilisation from inside israel. why? i will give you an example. d villages disloyalty or country to be critical of it to non— israelis?” feel it is very loyal to my country to be critical. there are people in israel who call us traitors. we are not, we are the ultimate patriots. if you have a friend coming to you and saying, you have something in your teeth. he is not a bad friend. only your best friend will tell you that and if you are inside own country, we have something, not stuck in our teeth but our heart, you are doing a patriotic act. but he bristled somewhat when you mentioned the notion of —— when i mentioned the notion of —— when i mentioned israel and racism. i don't need to interrupts but i want to quote you something he wrote in waking lions which is extraordinarily powerful. you get

inside the mindset of liad, the wife of the doctor and she is looking at a couple of arabs, palestinian men and she is feeling very uncomfortable and feeling a mixture of wariness and shame. she sees these men like a dog that you've beaten as you now both ridicule and fear, an arab dog. she would have given hell to any other police person in the precinct if he'd said anything like that but why? he would only have been saying out loud what she was thinking. that does address israeli racism. i do believe that there is israeli racism, but i find it easier to write in hebrew in the israeli context. once again, i can tell my mother very bad things about her because she is my mother and —— and she knows that i love her and i'm talking about my concern that if somebody else was to talk about my mother or burn down herflag, if she had won, i would feel uncomfortable.

asa had won, i would feel uncomfortable. as a psychologist reflecting on that, are you thinking, i shouldn't feel so uncomfortable, i should feel open to this? i think, as an author and a psychologist, myjob is to say what it is that i seek. if i see racism inside the israeli society, then myjob is to show those places. like when you go to a dentist and you are going to the dentist to talk about the holes in your teeth and it would be upset at him, telling him, why are you telling me i have holes in my teeth, that's what i pay you. when you go to a psychologist and you open a novel, you are paying money to know something about the holes in your teeth as a nation but i sometimes feel when i'm outside of israel, these things that i write out of your concern to my country might be used in a way that i disagree with and that's why i sometimes feel uncomfortable. you live in a country where, if one

looks at politics, the majority opinion right now is pretty white —— right—wing. benjamin neta nyahu opinion right now is pretty white —— right—wing. benjamin netanyahu for a long time, the look at party looks like it might win the next election. you and a whole bunch of israeli writers of the progressive left seem to be out of sync with the majority view of the people in your own country. does that bother you? yes, very much. why did you think it is? i was brought up at the age of rabin and the peace agreement and i remember my parents crying, it was the one time i saw my father crying when rabin was assassinated and then i remember us dancing in the square when barak was elected. and are a member us being so incredibly full of faith in the possibility of peace. —— and i remember. just to

say the word peace now in israel makes us sound like a hippie. we don't say the word peace, we say agreement, as if peace is something childish to think about these days. i think perhaps the job of the left todayis i think perhaps the job of the left today is not to go in demonstrate dish out, it's to go and try to persuade people to take a leap of faith, do something that we failed to do, we failed once because of our government and because of the palestinian government and to say, 0k, palestinian government and to say, ok, so we had to try it again and again and again. but again, i'm thinking of your experience as a psychologist, you've described israel as a society that is still in a state of ptsd, post—traumatic stress. it seems to me encouraging a lea p stress. it seems to me encouraging a leap of faith to people who are suffering ptsd is unlikely to be a

successful strategy. it's an interesting question because perhaps the leap is too big but a small step. when you deal with a patient who suffers from anxiety but also your own child who is under the bed because he is sure there is a monster under the bed. you arejust get into bed with him and say you are completely right, which is like saying, you are right, the palestinians are the ultimate evil, they want us all dead. but then again, you won't say it's nonsense, you are completely ridiculous, because you won't get anywhere this way. you won't do it slowly but you still try to do it. in your books, you painted extraordinarily diverse picture of israel, full of different sorts of characters from different places with different attitudes and cultures. when people look at israel

from the outside, it seems oftentimes they bring quite a 1—dimensional aspect to it. how do you think you can best get people from outside of israel to understand the complexity of your country? well, i must say that i don't feel that i owe something to those people outside of israel. how do i transfer the complexity? i don't think any uk writer feels he needs to transfer the complexity. you just know you have a whole diversity are different people who think different things and for me living in israel, i know that we are not all pro— occupation and not all liberal or orthodox. i know the variety and i feel it i wa nt to know the variety and i feel it i want to try to transfer something of this variety because this is what i see that if somebody wants to see israel is just the ultimate evil or

ultimate good, he will do it no matter what. ayelet gundar-goshen, we have to end it there but thank you very much for being with hardtalk. thank you. hello there. very windy overnight. it's still going to be very windy during the day on wednesday. sunshine and blustery showers. we're still feeling the effects of storm gareth. this was earlier on, that belt of cloud brought the rain. behind that, we're seeing frequent showers around the centre of the storm, and just on the southern flank of that curl of cloud, this is where the strongest swathe of winds has been, affecting western scotland, northern ireland, increasingly now running over the irish sea. by the time we get to the early morning, into the rush—hour time, the winds still very strong in western scotland and northern ireland. not as strong, though — 50—60mph. strongest winds over the irish sea into north—west england, into pennine areas, leeds

and sheffield, 65 mph. there'll be some continued disruption. it will be windy everywhere early in the morning, and gales widely. we'll also have streams of showers, one in north—eastern scotland, one into western scotland, over the irish sea into the midlands. for much of the day, southern parts of england and wales and eastern england will be dry with some sunshine. the winds gradually easing down through the afternoon. eventually, some cloud and some rain arrives in northern ireland. shouldn't be quite as chilly — temperatures 11 or 12 degrees on wednesday afternoon. the winds continue to ease through the evening, but we introduce more cloud, we introduce rain to many parts on wednesday afternoon. the winds continue to ease through the evening, but we introduce more cloud, we introduce rain to many parts of the country overnight, and the main concern is the amount of rain. the continued rain in upland areas of north—west england, over the pennines and the cumbrian

fells, could lead to some flooding issues over the next few days. mild enough, temperatures 5—7 degrees, ‘cause it's windy and it's wet. now, the worst of the rain will probably be overnight and first thing in the morning. that weather front will take the heaviest of the rain away, and then we've got this secondary cold front that's moving its way southwards and taking patchy rain across wales and into southern england. then still a strong to gale—force north—westerly wind will bring down sunshine and showers, most of the showers in the north—west of scotland, where it's a little bit chillier, temperatures 8 or 9 degrees. further south, could get up as high as 11 or 12. now, as one band of rain moves through, as we look to the atlantic again. this is where everything is coming from. very mobile situation, another set of weather fronts arriving overnight, the winds picking up in time for friday. so some more strong—to—gale—force mainly westerly winds. most of the rain will be across scotland and northern ireland. as that rain pushes into england and wales, it peters out. south—east may be dry,

and quite warm, actually — temperatures of 14 or 15 degrees. chillierfurther north, increasingly wintry showers in scotland.