In a petition, supporters of the Palestine Festival of Literature and Fossil Free Books have called for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions, saying that they are “complicit in genocide”. Among the signatories are authors Sally Rooney, Arundhati Roy, Gillian Slovo, William Dalrymple, Guardian columnist Owen Jones, children’s author Michael Rosen and actress Miriam Margolyes.
The signatories say that they would avoid collaborating with institutions supporting “discriminatory policies and practices” or contributing to “whitewashing and justifying Israel’s occupation, apartheid, or genocide.”
Their letter, written on behalf of “writers, publishers, literary festival workers and other book workers,” said they could not “in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without interrogating their relationship to apartheid and displacement.”
But in both Britain and the U.S., big names in the publishing and entertainment world were rebutting the claims made by the boycotters. Howard Jacobson, a Booker Prize winner, said he was “staggered” that the petition’s signatories could dream that they had a right to silence other writers, while Lionel Shriver, another prizewinning author, said the letter sought to “intimidate all authors into withdrawing their work for consideration at Israeli publishing houses and refusing to participate in Israeli festivals”.
Thriller writer Lee Child, creator of the Jack Reacher novels, commented that his fellow writers should not attack their Israeli counterparts “whose hearts are still in the right place.”
Jewish people in the publishing industry, some of whom did not wish to be quoted by name, said it was perhaps too early to know what the knock-on effect might be of the boycott letter. One said: “The idea of silencing writers is just unbelievable, and ludicrous, really. And there are writers, not just Jewish writers, who are speaking out against the call for boycott.” But the individual added: “I think this will make people who already feel uncomfortable [in the literary world] even more deeply uncomfortable”.
A counter-letter, prepared by the Creative Community for Peace, notes that in the past year there had been instances where “any Israeli and/or Jewish author or festival that didn’t disavow Israel [was] being harassed and targeted for condemnation, with book readings being shut down, and authors being excluded from festivals”. In the past week, the organization said, “a prominent trade publication refused to advertise a new book because it feared the word Israel in its title might upset its audience.”
Writers should not attack their Israeli counterparts ‘whose hearts are still in the right place’
Signatories of the counter-letter include writers and authors such as Mayim Bialik, Sir Simon Schama, Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, actors Debra Messing, Rebecca de Mornay, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and film and TV names such as Amy Sherman-Palladino (creator of the “Gilmore Girls” and The “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, and Sherry Lansing, the former head of Paramount Pictures, together with Lee Child, Lionel Shriver, and Gene Simmons, the Israeli-born lead singer of the band, Kiss.
Sebag-Montefiore said: “The resort to witch hunt is always dangerous and ugly especially when the inquisitors are writers . History is full of examples of self-righteous cadres of self-appointed judges who tried to enforce their version of purity by excluding people. Whatever one things of this tragic Middle Eastern war, who judges who is good, who bad? Once started where would it stop? Who is pure enough?”
Lucy Abrahams, a Tel Aviv-based literary scout, said that “even before [the boycott] letter, we’ve been having big problems this year. I’m in touch with an agency here in Israel who say they are about 30% down in business this year.”
She said she had had four different meetings recently in which people had expressed reluctance to publish anything to do with Jews or Israel, saying it was “not the moment.” When she had challenged them because the books under discussion had nothing to do with the Israel Hamas conflict, they insisted that it was not the right time to publish such books.
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Sally Rooney, Arundhati Roy, Rachel Kushner signed boycott letter
(Photo: AP, GettyimageIL)
But Abrahams investigated and discovered “it was two specific people who were telling all the agents that their clients weren’t interested in such books.” Nevertheless, she added, there were more and more agencies “who are really pumping out a lot of books of a certain persuasion, only telling one perspective, very much against Israel’s narrative.”
She deplored a situation in which “it was just accepted that Israel should be boycotted. I think there should be outrage at the demonising of Israel, our ally, who did not start or want this war, while publishers have no such qualms about selling to Russia and China”.
Claudia Rubenstein, director of the Jewish Literary Foundation, which runs Britain’s annual book festival in February and March, said: “The proposed boycott of Israeli cultural institutions and writers is extremely disappointing, depriving people of the opportunity to engage in open discussion and debate, essential for any meaningful path forward.”
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