Call for a boycott of Israeli literature by foreign authors

More than 1,000 authors signed an open letter calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, including Israeli publishers, festivals, publications and literary agencies, which, according to the signatories, “remained silent spectators” in the “oppression of Palestinians.”

Signatories include such famous writers as Sally Rooney, author Normal people; Booker Prize-winning writer Arundhati Roy, who wrote God of little things; and Percival Everett, whose books include Erasing. The letter was composed Palestinian Literature Festival (PFL) and is distributed on the Internet.

The letter reads, in part: “The overwhelming injustice faced by Palestinians cannot be denied. The current war has entered our homes and pierced our hearts. This is genocide, as leading experts and scholars have been saying for months… Israeli officials have openly stated their motives to destroy the population of Gaza, make Palestinian statehood impossible, and seize Palestinian lands. This followed 75 years of displacement, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.”

Rooney previously made headlines when she refused to allow her books to be translated into Hebrew, and the letter appears to be encouraging other authors to follow her lead.

In the Middle East section of the Harvard University bookstore, there are more anti-Israel books than pro-Israel ones. (credit: Tomer Reifer)

British lawyers in Israel

Jewish Chronicle reported that British lawyers in Israel (UKLFI), a legal advocacy group, condemned the letter as “blatantly discriminatory towards Israelis”. He referred to the UK Equality Act 2010.

Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UKLFI, said in a letter to the Publishers Organisation: “This boycott is clearly discriminatory towards Israelis. The authors do not impose such conditions on publishers, festivals, literary agencies, or publications of any other nationality… Boycotts also contravene laws prohibiting discrimination based on nationality in many other countries around the world… most states in the United States have passed laws providing for sanctions against those who participate in boycotts against Israel.”

He also called the accusations contained in the letter, in particular the accusation of genocide, false. He referred to the fact that the former president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said in an interview with the BBC that the court did not decide that there was a plausible case of Israel committing genocide, which was incorrectly reported by some media outlets.

In addition, he noted that the letter cited the number of Palestinian deaths in the current conflict as 43,362, but did not specify that this figure was obtained from Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, which does not discriminate between civilians and combatants.

In an article criticizing the call for a boycott in The Free Press, Lionel Shriver, author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, wrote: “Ironically, like most Western literary subcultures these days, Israel’s is predominantly left-wing, so the Rooney brigade is eager to punish their natural political allies. But the intent is not just to punish Israel’s tiny cultural institutions.

The goal of the boycott is to go far beyond the signatories and to intimidate all authors into withdrawing their work from consideration by Israeli publishing houses and refusing to participate in Israeli festivals. This includes writers who disagree with the organizers and do not believe that the IDF’s efforts to eradicate Hamas amount to genocide, as well as a number of Jewish writers in Israel and beyond whose views on the war may be distorted or nuanced because we everyone must speak as one.

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As always, a single point of view is allowed. Writers used to enjoy conflict, complexity, contradiction – arguing on paper or talking loudly to each other on a festival panel. Now we sing as one choir.”

Shriver went on to say that she believes the best way to get her point of view across to readers around the world is to publish her work in as many languages as possible: “And if you’re reading this, Sally, be it Selling Translation Rights to Hebrew is none of your business. Moreover, since my fiction is the best expression of my own broader political worldview, distributing my novels as widely as possible represents the optimal method of promoting that worldview. Publication in translation is certainly better than a sanctimonious refusal to allow my precious phrases to be distorted into the language of the Jews.”

Brendan O’Neill, writes in the British edition Viewerjokingly asked when Rooney and her cohorts would start boycotting the US and UK over the wars they fought in the Middle East and said: “I’m just curious why they always single out Israel. I just want to know why in this country, more than any other country, their hearts race in fits of rage. Why do her military maneuvers bother them so much more than ours, or the American, or the French, or the Turkish, or the Iranian, or the Chinese? (The list is endless.) Why does the Jewish state live for free in the minds of the right?…

“And now literary figures are promising not to attend book festivals related to Israel and not to write for publications related to Israel. Is this activism or fanaticism? To regard one nation – and one nation only – as so immoral, dirty, cruel and despicable that all interaction with it must cease is surely in the realm of prejudice rather than politics, emotionalism rather than rationalism. I’ll just say this: if you’re dedicated to making your life Israel-free, yet you’re happy to buy Chinese-made items while on vacation in Turkey, or allow your books to be reprinted in Iran, then you may not be the one good person you think about. are. Quite the opposite.”