UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) have written to the Publishers Association to alert the organisation and its members to the legal consequences of participating in a “discriminatory and illegal” boycott of Israeli publishers and other literary bodies. (Guardian, Literary Hub, Times, Times of Israel).
A letter calling for the boycott of Israeli cultural institutions “complicit in genocide” has been signed by hundreds of leading authors. Among them is Sally Rooney – a long-time supporter of cultural boycotts of Israel, having previously refused to allow her novel Beautiful World, Where Are You? to be published in Hebrew. Others include the British-based Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah, Booker winner Arundhati Roy and the American novelists Rachel Kushner and Percival Everett (both shortlisted for this year’s Booker).
The signatories have pledged to boycott Israeli publishers, book festivals, literary agencies and publications that are “complicit in violating Palestinian rights”, by operating “discriminatory policies and practices” or “whitewashing and justifying Israel’s occupation, apartheid or genocide”. Institutions that have never publicly recognised the “inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law” will also be boycotted.
Organised by the Palestine Festival of Literature, alongside Books Against Genocide, Book Workers for a Free Palestine, Publishers for Palestine, Writers Against the War on Gaza and Fossil Free Books, the letter has now been signed by more than 5,000 writers and publishers.
Speaking to the Times, Omar Robert Hamilton, the author who co-founded the Palestine Festival of Literature, said that ‘passive silence’ from such organisations – i.e., not speaking out against Israel’s military – is also a form of “complicity”.
In response, UKLFI warned the Publishers Association – a trade organisation that represents UK publishers – that there are legal and reputational risks to supporting a boycott which is “plainly discriminatory against Israelis”.
The UKLFI’s letter also points out that the boycott is contrary to section 29(1) of the UK Equality Act 2010 which states that:
A person (a ‘service-provider’) concerned with the provision of a service to the public or a section of the public (for payment or not) must not discriminate against a person requiring the service by not providing the person with the service.
A number of prominent literary figures have also spoken out against the attempted boycott.
Howard Jacobson, another Booker winner, said he had read the letter with “scarce belief that one writer, that one person from the artistic community, should dream that he or she has a right to silence another. It is staggering.”
Writing for The Free Press, FSU Writers’ Advisory Council member Lionel Shriver said the intention of the letter goes well beyond “punishing Israel’s tiny cultural institutions”. Instead, it seeks to “intimidate all authors into withdrawing their work for consideration at Israeli publishing houses and refusing to participate in Israeli festivals”.
“Boycotts are about withholding, and for writers, boycotts are about silence as well as about silencing,” continued Shriver, who won what’s now known as the Women’s Prize for Fiction with We Need To Talk About Kevin. “It would be more in keeping with Rooney’s and Roy’s profession for these authors to put their anguish about Israel into words rather than to mutely withdraw their work and pressure other authors to shut up.”
Neil Blair, JK Rowling’s literary agent, said he found it “authoritarian, illiberal and really, really problematic” that they would attempt “an artistic boycott on an entire nation [and] try to exclude and ostracise fellow members of a cultural community”.
Meanwhile, a counter-letter signed by more than 1,000 writers and historians, including Simon Schama, Lee Child, Simon Sebag Montefiore and Niall Ferguson, has said boycotting Israel’s culture will only “create more divisiveness and foment further hatred”.
The letter, released on Wednesday, states: “The exclusion of anyone who doesn’t unilaterally condemn Israel is an inversion of morality and an obfuscation of reality.”
It adds: “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 threat comes just months after literary festivals in the UK were accused of discrimination on the basis of nationality – a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 – over the decision to drop a major sponsor because of its alleged investment in companies operating in or trading with Israel.
Hay Festival and the Edinburgh International Book Festival cut ties with Baillie Gifford after pro-Palestine activists alleged it had links to “genocidal” Israel, and authors threatened a boycott. A regretful press release from Edinburgh’s organisers said that their “ability to deliver an event… that is safe and successful for audiences, authors and staff has been severely compromised, following… threats of disruption from activists”.
The campaign against Baillie Gifford was led by Fossil Free Books, which alleges the investment management firm has interests in companies with ties to Israel’s defence and technology industries – and therefore links to “Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide”.
More than 200 authors supported the group’s threats of “escalation” and “disruption”. Naomi Klein and Sally Rooney were among those who signed an open letter calling for the firm to drop investments in companies which profit from “colonial violence”.
Following sustained pressure, Baillie Gifford then withdrew sponsorship from the other literary festivals it supported, including those in Cheltenham, Stratford-upon-Avon and Wigtown.
However, according to Philippe Sands KC, who is on the legal team at the International Court of Justice seeking an end to Israel’s 57-year occupation of Palestinian territory, the boycott movement’s case against Baillie Gifford was based on “rather tenuous” evidence.
As a spokesman for the company pointed out at the time: “The suggestion that Baillie Gifford is a large investor in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is seriously misleading. It is based on conflating two different types of exposure.”
The company said that it invested approximately $19 billion in multinational technology companies such as Amazon, NVIDIA and Meta, which have commercial dealings with Israel “that are tiny in the context of all of their overall business. Practically every consumer and investor in the developed world is using the services of these companies”.
It added it was a “small” investor in three companies that have been identified as having activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories – Airbnb, Booking.com, and Cemex – and is “committed to responsible analysing and engaging with the companies in which we invest”.
