More than 1,000 writers and publishing professionals, including Sally Rooney, Arundhati Roy, and Rachel Kushner, have pledged to boycott Israeli cultural institutions they deem “complicit in, or silent observers of, the crushing oppression of Palestinians.”
The signatories state they will not work with Israeli publishers, festivals, literary agencies, or publications that they believe are complicit in “the violation of Palestinian rights,” citing “discriminatory policies and practices” as well as efforts to “whitewash and legitimize Israel’s occupation, apartheid, or genocide.”
Institutions that have not publicly recognized “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law” will also be boycotted, according to the signatories.
This campaign was organized by the Palestine Literature Festival (PalFest), which holds an annual series of free public events across cities in Palestine.
“We writers, publishers, festival staff, and other book workers are publishing this letter at a time when we face the deepest moral, political, and cultural crisis of the 21st century,” the statement begins, noting that since last October, Israel has killed at least 43,362 Palestinians in Gaza, following “75 years of displacement, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid.”
The signatories emphasize that culture “has played an integral role in normalizing these injustices,” adding that “Israeli cultural institutions, often working directly with the state, have played a crucial role in concealing, obfuscating, and whitewashing decades of dispossession and oppression of millions of Palestinians.”
The pledge asserts that those in the cultural sector “have a role to play.” The letter continues, “We cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without questioning their relationship to apartheid and dispossession,” referencing the historical precedent of writers boycotting apartheid-era South Africa.
The letter concludes with a call for signatories to join their colleagues in the pledge.
In response, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), an organization of lawyers supporting Israel, sent a letter to the Society of Authors, the Publishers Association, and the Independent Publishers Guild.
“This boycott is clearly discriminatory against Israelis and does not impose similar conditions on authors, publishers, festivals, literary agencies, or publications of other nationalities,” UKLFI stated, adding that its members believe there are legal risks involved in participating in the boycott.
Omar Robert Hamilton, co-founder and current festival director of PalFest, responded, calling UKLFI’s letter “notable only for its moral bankruptcy,” saying it demonstrates “that Israel’s defenders have nothing substantive to say.”
Rooney, author of Normal People and most recently Intermezzo, has long been an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights and, in 2021, refused to sell the Hebrew translation rights for her novel Beautiful World, Where Are You to an Israeli publisher.
Roy and Kushner are also vocal critics of Israel. Earlier this month, while accepting the PEN Pinter Prize, Roy mentioned Gaza in her speech and announced she would donate the prize money to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.
