Sapiens author said boycotting Israel event in LA to protest discriminatory laws

Yuval Noah Harari reportedly refuses consulate invitation, saying he ‘prefers not to represent the government so long as it persists with these policies’

A world-renowned Israeli scholar has reportedly refused to participate in a Foreign Ministry-sponsored event in Los Angeles, in protest of a series of recent government laws, which he said were discriminatory.

Yuval Noah Harari, a history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem whose books “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” and “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow” have become international bestsellers, is said to have refused an invitation to take part in a Live Talks LA event, at the behest of the consulate in Los Angeles.

A representative for Harari told the consulate, “Even though he was proud of his Israeliness, he was not interested in collaborating with the consulate, which is the long arm of Israeli government policy that limits freedom of press, expression, creativity and thought,” the Yedioth Aharonoth daily reported Monday.

According to Yedioth, a spokesperson for the consulate, Karine Eliyahu-Pery, told Harari’s representative that Israeli missions were not political and represented all segments of Israeli society. However, Harari responded, “Even so we prefer not to represent the government so long as it persists with these policies.”

His refusal comes after the government passed a series of laws in recent weeks that have been condemned as discriminatory, including the nation-state law and a law that excludes single men from using surrogates to become parents.

Some 100,000 people turned out last week to protest the surrogacy law.

The nation-state law, which was passed as a semi-constitutional Basic Law, has drawn fire from critics who say it discriminates against minority groups by reserving the right to national-self determination exclusively for Israel’s Jewish citizens and downgrading Arabic from an official language to one with “special” status.

Supporters of the law see it as necessary to balance Israel’s Jewish and democratic characters, as well as enshrine into law the country’s status as a Jewish state.