Tell the Brooklyn Book Festival to no longer accept partnerships with the Israeli government or complicit institutions.
To the Brooklyn Book Festival Inc. and the Brooklyn Book Festival Literary Council:
We, the undersigned, including participants and exhibitors at the Brooklyn Book Festival, recently noticed that the festival has chosen to accept support from Israel's Office of Cultural Affairs in New York for one of its panels.
It is deeply regrettable that the Festival has chosen to accept funding from the Israeli government just weeks after Israel's bloody 50-day assault on the Gaza Strip, which left over 2100 Palestinians – including 500 children – dead, displaced a fourth of the population, destroyed homes, schools, and hospitals, and involved numerous potential war crimes. Sustaining a partnership with the Israeli Consulate at this time amounts to a tacit endorsement of Israel's many violations of international law and Palestinian human rights.
Israel has systematically attempted to suppress, expropriate and suffocate the art, culture, and literature of Palestinian writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, and poets. We hope that you agree that partnering with a state that practices occupation, colonialism, and apartheid is paradoxical for a festival that celebrates a "lively literary marketplace."
Since 2005, Palestinian civil society has called on people of conscience around the world to engage in a peaceful campaign of boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning Israel in order to force it to comply with international law. The BDS movement has grown exponentially since then, attracting support from a range of cultural and literary figures around the globe.
We appeal to the organizers of the Brooklyn Book Festival to refuse the sponsorship of the Israeli embassy or any complicit Israeli institution in the future. This is not, we emphasize, a call to isolate or boycott individual Israelis, but an effort to renounce business as usual with a state that routinely violates international law and basic human rights with impunity. We urge the Brooklyn Book Festival to decline future offers to partner with complicit Israeli institutions on conversations about literature, because to continue to do so is to participate in whitewashing Israel's crimes.
As was the case in South Africa, where international solidarity played a crucial role in bringing down apartheid by boycotting the economic, sports and cultural institutions of the apartheid regime, we sincerely hope you will not partner in any capacity with the Israeli government and other complicit institutions, until the Israeli government fulfills it obligations under international law and fully recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to live in full equality and freedom in their homeland.
Initial Signatories
Anthony Arnove, assisted with PEN World Voices Festival |
Kevin Caplicky, Justseeds Artists' Cooperative |
Ken Chen, PEN Awards Committee, PEN Ten Editor, PEN events collaborator |
Eleanor Davis, cartoonist, How to Be Happy * |
Greg Grandin, author, Empire of Necessity * |
Jonathan House, publisher, Unconscious in Translation |
Andrew Hsiao, Editor of books/authors featured in PEN World Voices Festival, assisted with Festival |
Ramsey Kanaan, publisher, PM Press * |
MJ Kaufman, Playwright |
Peter Kuper, cartoonist/editor, World War 3 Illustrated * |
Daniel Lang-Levitsky, co-editor, Dreaming In Public: Building the Occupy Movement |
Aurora Levins Morales, PEN Member |
Phan Nguyen, editor, Verso Books * |
Craig O'Hara, publisher, PM Press * |
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, author, Harlem is Nowhere * |
Sarah Schulman, PEN Member |
Bhakti Sringarpure, editor, Warscapes * |
Jacob Stevens, editor, Verso Books * |
Astra Taylor, author, The People's Platform * |
Seth Tobocman, cartoonist/editor, World War 3 Illustrated * |
Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, (US) |
Librarians and Archivists with Palestine (LAP) |
Featured Signatories
Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within |
Revolution Books , * |
The Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest) |
Remi Kanazi |
Nafisa Haji, author, The Writing On My Forehead and The Sweetness of Tears |
Nadeem Aslam, author, The Blind Man's Garden * |
Eliot Weinberger, PEN Member |
Junot Díaz |
Kamila Shamsie, Former Vice-President of English PEN |
Gaiutra Bahadur, author, Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture |
China Miéville |
Allison Kilkenny, author, #NEWSFAIL |
Amit Chaudhuri |
Conner Habib, author, The Sex Book |
Elif Batuman, author, The Possessed * |
Molly Crabapple, PEN Member |
Ahdaf Soueif, PEN Member |
Ricardo Cortés, author/illustrator ** |
Sasha Frere-Jones, critic |
Anand Gopal, author, No Good Men Among the Living |
Chase Madar, author, The Passion of Bradley Manning ** |
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Individual Signatures
María Lozano |
Robert Lesko |
Pam Sporn |
Pete Klosterman |
Felice Gelman |
Elizabeth Dougherty |
Kyle Goen |
Marina Gutierrez |
Susan Beschta |
Carolyn Eubanks |
Evan Giller |
katherine barnhart |
Riham LaRussa |
Henry Camacho |
Jyothi Natarajan |
Dr. Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams |
Hannah Mermelstein |
Mary Williams |
Allison Brown |
John McDermott |