Countering boycott, over 1,000 reject attempt ‘to scapegoat Jewish and Israeli authors’

Literary and entertainment figures sign letter supporting those who ‘don’t share one-sided narrative’ about Oct. 7, slam ‘censorship based on identity or litmus tests’

Illustrative: Israelis attend the annual Hebrew Book Week in Tel Aviv on June 18, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
Illustrative: Israelis attend the annual Hebrew Book Week in Tel Aviv on June 18, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

A group of over 1,000 figures from the literary and entertainment industries have signed a letter rejecting attempts “to boycott, harass and scapegoat Jewish and Israeli authors and literary institutions.”

Their letter came after some 1,000 authors and literary professionals signed a pledge to boycott Israeli cultural institutions. The signatories pledged not to work with Israeli publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications that are “complicit in violating Palestinian rights,” including “whitewashing and justifying Israel’s occupation, apartheid, or genocide.”

The signatories rejecting the boycott pledge included Bernard Henri-Lévy, Lee Child, Herta Müller, Howard Jacobson, Yossi Klein Halevi, Elfriede Jelinek, Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Julianna Margulies, Haim Saban and many more.

They declared that they “continue to be shocked and disappointed to see members of the literary community harass and ostracize their colleagues because they don’t share a one-sided narrative in response to the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.”

“Regardless of one’s views on the current conflict, boycotts of creatives and creative institutions simply create more divisiveness and foment further hatred,” they said.

“Israel is fighting existential wars against Hamas and Hezbollah, both US, UK, and European Union designated terrorist groups. The exclusion of anyone who doesn’t unilaterally condemn Israel is an inversion of morality and an obfuscation of reality.

“We call on our friends and colleagues worldwide to join us in expressing their support for Israeli and Jewish publishers, authors, and all book festivals, publishers, and literary agencies that refuse to capitulate to censorship based on identity or litmus tests.”

Booker Prize winning author and columnist Howard Jacobson. (Photo credit: Jenny Jacobson)

The letter also said that “history is full of examples of self-righteous sects, movements and cults who have used short-lived moments of power to enforce their vision of purity, to persecute, exclude, boycott and intimidate those with whom they disagreed, who made lists of people with ‘bad’ views, who burned ‘sinful’ books (and sometimes ‘sinful’ people).”

“The instincts and motivations behind cultural boycotts, in practice and throughout history, are directly in opposition to the liberal values most writers hold sacred.”

The boycott call endorsed by Rooney and others follows numerous other campaigns around the globe urging individuals and institutions to cut ties with Israel amid the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, which began when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a massive cross-border attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 people as hostages to Gaza.

Israel’s military response is aimed at destroying Hamas and saving the hostages.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 42,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.

Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

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