Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 12.11.2024
Today there is a letter calling for a boycott of book publishers and literary institutions in Israel, signed by about 6,000 literary figures, including Nobel and Pulitzer winners. For years there has been a kind of silent boycott, in which writers prefer not to publish their books in Israel – only in the last year the boycott gained momentum following the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Those literary institutions, the petition reads, “help blur the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian population.” According to them, the local literary world contributed to the whitewashing of the occupation, and most publishers and agencies “collaborate directly with the state.”
The meaning is simple: Nobel-winning authors such as Annie Arnaud and Abdulrazak Gorna, and other prominent authors such as Naomi Klein, Sally Rooney, Ocean Wong and Jonathan Latham, all of whom signed the petition, firmly refuse to have their books translated into the Hebrew language, due to the cooperation of the Zionist authors with the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Avi Shomer, CEO of the “Book Junction” chain, says: “Sadly, some writers introduce politics into literature. I’ve been working in the book industry for 40 years. We’ve been through many operations and wars, and I don’t remember such a time from my days. There were Egyptian authors here and there who did not want their books translated into Hebrew, but it was more the result of pressure on them. I don’t remember non-Arab writers who had problems translating their work. In terms of damage, the more significant impact of the letter is less financial and more psychological and image-related.” It is simply another cog in the wheels of Israeli propaganda.
The Zionists attribute the boycott of Zionist literature to anti-Semitism, but if the motive was anti-Semitic, why was a boycott not announced on Jewish writers in the various countries but on Hebrew-Zionist literature. To claim that it is sad that politics is brought into literature is hypocrisy because where there is genocide and writers ignore it, they have brought in the politics of oppression.
The isolation of the Zionist monster is growing daily. The time for Israel begins to run out. Many Israelis begin to understand that, and instead of joining the struggle for freedom of the Palestinians, they get passports in other countries ready to flee Israel.
Yes, to boycott all aspects of Zionism!
For Palestine, red and free from the river to the sea!