Citing apartheid, international writers support Sally Rooney boycott of Israel – Middle East Monitor

Seventy prominent writers, poets and playwrights from several continents signed a letter endorsing Sally Rooney’s boycott of Israel, describing it as “an exemplary response to the growing injustices inflicted on the Palestinians.”

Major authors, including award-winning Irish authors Niamh Campbell and Kevin Barry; Rachel Kushner, Eileen Myles and Eliot Weinburger from the United States; Monica Ali, Caryl Churchill, Pankaj Mishra, China Miéville and Kamila Shamsie from the UK are among the signatories of the letter.

“Sally Rooney’s refusal to sign a contract with a mainstream Israeli publisher – which markets the work of the Israeli Defense Ministry – is therefore an exemplary response to the growing injustices inflicted on the Palestinians,” said the letter, which continued. stressing the appeal launched by Palestinian artists to their international colleagues “to put an end to their complicity in Israel’s violations of their human rights”.

Last month, the award-winning Irish novelist turned down an Israeli publisher’s offer to translate her book into Hebrew. His decision sparked a heated debate around a boycott of Israel. Pro-Israel groups have accused Roony of anti-Semitism. They falsely portrayed the 30-year-old boycott of Israel as a boycott of Hebrew. This, however, was not the case. Rooney urged non-Israeli publishers to translate his work into Hebrew.

Turning down the offer, Rooney said last month she supported the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which works to “end international support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and pressure Israel to quash the Palestinians. ‘he complies with international law’, and that she did not believe it would be fair to collaborate with an Israeli company “which does not publicly distance itself from apartheid and does not support the rights of the Palestinian people stipulated by the UN ”.

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Describing the context of Rooney’s boycott of Israel, the letter referred to Human Rights Watch’s landmark April report that accused the occupying state of practicing apartheid, and Israel’s 11-day attack on Israel. besieged Gaza Strip. “Less than a year ago, Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel had ‘dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated and enslaved the Palestinians’, amounting to ‘crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution'” , indicates the letter. “It has only been a few months since the last bombing of Gaza since the last incursion into the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the new round of deportation orders in occupied East Jerusalem.

“This is the background to Sally Rooney’s decision,” the letter explained, adding that “in taking it, she is not alone.” The signatories mentioned that in May, Rooney was one of more than 16,000 artists who condemned Israel’s crimes in what they described as “a letter against apartheid.” Israeli apartheid, they said, is “supported by international complicity; it is our collective responsibility to right this wrong ”.

“By supporting Sally Rooney, we reaffirm this responsibility,” the letter reads. “Like her, we will continue to respond to the Palestinian call for effective solidarity, just as millions of people have supported the campaign against apartheid in South Africa. We will continue to support the non-violent Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality.