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Michael Livschitz

@MikeLivschitz

Sep 1

🚨 Storm in the Shadow: An Israeli Army Novel Rejected 215 Times 🧵 1/18

An open letter about rejection, bias, and why this book must be published.

This October will mark exactly one year since I began sending queries to literary agencies to find representation for my novel Storm in the Shadow. Hundreds upon hundreds of emails resulted in a total of 215 rejections—perhaps more—some of them openly biased and at times aggressive. A novel centered on the IDF—on its recruits and on the history of Israel—was met with hostility and promptly rejected by the literary industry.

This thread is my open letter: what Storm in the Shadow is, why it’s needed, and why I will not stop fighting for it. #StormInTheShadow

2/18
I didn’t give up: I launched a unique beta-reading initiative that drew responses from more than 50 readers around the world. After reading the first two chapters, they were virtually unanimous: they want the novel published and are ready to buy it as soon as it becomes available. Having completed that stage, I’m taking the next bold step and sharing an open letter—what Storm in the Shadow is, why this book is needed, and why I will not stop fighting for it.

📎 Screenshot: agent rejection

3/18
It’s time to look at Storm in the Shadow—not just from the outside, but from within—to grasp what this novel truly offers. At its heart, Storm in the Shadow is a contemporary literary novel of military training and psychological endurance, based on real events in late-1990s Israel—a work with nothing quite like it in English-language military fiction.

📎 Screenshot: agent rejection

Read 25 tweets

Michael Livschitz

@MikeLivschitz

Aug 22

1/🧵What’s wrong with this Guardian piece, titled: There’s a word for the EU’s inaction over Gaza: racism

The headline alone speaks for itself and already calls into question any promise of objectivity or constructive critique. I won’t recap the article; I’ll flag what jumps out at once. To begin with, the following lines strip the piece of any claim to grounded analysis. Please read the quotes:

2/
“I am hoping for similar calls for accountability over the EU’s complicity in Israel’s unfolding genocide in Gaza.”

3/
“I have watched in despair for almost two years as European governments have done little or nothing while Israel has devastated Gaza through bombings, targeted strikes and forced starvation after the 7 October attack by Hamas.”

Read 11 tweets

Michael Livschitz

@MikeLivschitz

Aug 7

1/🧵Hamas Propaganda: 11 Key Directives

Starting from October 7th, Hamas propaganda flooded all social media and was picked up by leading media outlets. A flood of fake news from Gaza literally swept away reasonable refutations and facts, which typically require time to emerge, unlike the nonstop conveyor belt of disinformation, and shaped a one-sided public opinion aimed at condemning Israel. Exposés of propaganda lies lack the power of Hamas’s fake news machine, and even ironclad evidence cannot, in this information war, tip the scales toward critical thinking and force a look at the truth.

📷 @Israel

2/
To shed light on how Hamas prepared the ground for this propaganda war, we need to look back—specifically to 2014, nine years before the terrible date of October 7, 2023. Hamas’s Ministry of Interior published a directive video in Arabic for Gaza residents—an urgent recommendation on how to behave on social media and when dealing with foreign press. For completeness, I will quote all the points one by one.

3/
“Hamas’s Ministry of Interior in Gaza … has requested that citizens not share photos of rockets launched from residential areas in downtown Gaza lest Israel strike those areas.”

Read 18 tweets

Michael Livschitz

@MikeLivschitz

Jul 16

1/🧵
Simplifying a complex historical reality leads to many superficial conclusions, which ultimately result in a distorted perception of the truth. When it is said that the Jews were the first on the land of Israel, it refers to the period when they established an organized society there in the 13th century BCE in the form of a tribal confederation. This later evolved into a full-fledged state during the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon in the 10th century BCE — long before the Babylonian exile, Roman occupation, or arrival of other peoples.

2/
The argument that this land was inhabited by others before the Jews conveniently ignores the most critical fact, which speaks for itself: Jewish culture, language, and religion were formed precisely on this land. It was here that the first ethnic, cultural, and religious identity emerged. Archaeological evidence and inscriptions in ancient Egyptian texts confirm that the Jews, as an organized people, had established themselves in Canaan during the Bronze Age. These are compelling proofs that Jewish history has been intertwined with this land for thousands of years.

3/
Let us delve a little into history to understand how Israel took shape and what preceded its emergence. First of all, when we speak of Canaan, it is important to realize that it was a kind of network populated by the Canaanites — a group of Semitic but politically fragmented tribes and city-states. These territories were, with varying success, under the control of larger powers such as Egypt, the Hittite Empire, and, earlier, Mitanni — an ancient Hurrian kingdom whose influence had already waned by the late 14th century BCE. These powers competed among themselves for dominance in the region. The Amarna Letters, dated roughly to the 14th century BCE and containing diplomatic correspondence between Egyptian pharaohs and local rulers, include requests for military assistance and protection from raids by nomadic groups known as the Habiru — likely a loose term for outcasts or wandering clans rather than a single people.

Read 15 tweets

Michael Livschitz

@MikeLivschitz

Jul 5

1/🧵
In the end, every war ends with negotiations. Modern history offers no other outcome. Not a single global power has ever conquered the entire world or established a singular regime that eliminated the need for diplomacy through the illusion of total victory.

One can speculate endlessly about the reasons behind wars. All it takes is feeding an artificially crafted, emotionally charged narrative to an indoctrinated public, and a so-called ideological war—bloody and ruthless—becomes “justified.” It’s as old as civilization itself, and yet humanity continues to choose this path over and over again.

2/
Of course, armed conflicts benefit the states that gain territorial, economic, or strategic advantages—both short-term and long-term. One might think that after the Second World War, the global community would have learned its lesson and chosen a different trajectory. But that illusion didn’t last. We see the same patterns again and again. Different times, different tools, different faces—but the same intentions.

3/
And that leads to a horrifying price: the currency of war is not resources, but human lives—thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of innocent people—sacrificed for the political ambitions of leaders who dream of securing their place in history as those who brought their nation to the top of the food chain. No one ever asks what that “greatness” cost. And the tragedy is, it’s usually a personal legacy, paid for with collective suffering.

Read 11 tweets

Michael Livschitz

@MikeLivschitz

Jul 4

🧵 Francesca Albanese is, in effect, calling for the destruction of Israel as a state — which inevitably leads to the conclusion that her statement constitutes de facto antisemitism through radical delegitimization and outright anti-Zionism. This is one of the clearest and most extreme expressions of antisemitism in public discourse today, and it can absolutely be interpreted as incitement to genocide.

It is important to understand that genocide does not only entail physical annihilation. It also includes the deliberate destruction of the conditions necessary for a people’s existence — such as dismantling their economy, stripping them of sovereignty, and denying their right to self-determination.

“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

— United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), Article II(c)

Francesca Albanese has manipulated the term genocide so many times for her own purposes that she failed to notice when she began inciting it herself.

A detailed thread about the manipulation of the term genocide in service of a one-sided narrative.

Read 4 tweets

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