Skip to: List of incidents of censorship
Help us track the silencing of Palestinian voices and crackdowns on Palestinian solidarity in the publishing industry
We’ve been seeing aggressive crackdowns on Palestinian solidarity and the silencing of Palestinian voices in publishing for months. As those who are standing up to speak against Israel’s genocide face a range of unjust punitive measures on the part of their institutions, we need to record and track such incidents.
The firing, contract terminations, removal of books from publishers’ lists, and other forms of silencing of staff, contractors, and authors is inexcusable. The criminalization and vilification of Palestinian solidarity and resistance is not going unnoticed, and will not go unaccounted for; individuals and institutions that undertake them should be exposed for their complicity in the genocide of Palestinians and a racist Western status quo that dehumanizes Palestinians.
If you are facing punishment for your solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian people, or simply for being Palestinian, in the spheres of writing, publishing, or bookselling, or if you have witnessed censorship of Palestinian voices and solidarity in the book industry, please document this and let us know by using this reporting form. If you amplify such an incident on social media, you can also tag or dm us at @pubforpalestine on twitter and @publishers4palestine on instagram.
Instances will be archived and added to a public-facing page on http://www.publishersforpalesine.org and used in information sharing and advocacy efforts on behalf of Publishers for Palestine and its collaborators and partnering organizations. If you wish to remain anonymous, please indicate this in the reporting form.
Legal and other supports for those facing unjust treatment for their solidarity with the just Palestinian cause:
United States:
Palestine Legal https://palestinelegal.org/ and @pal_legal
Labor for Palestine https://laborforpalestine.net/
Canada:
Labour For Palestine https://www.labourforpalestine.com/
The Legal Centre for Palestine https://www.lcpal.ca
Palestine Legal referral services https://www.palestinelegalreferral.ca/contact
Arab Canadian Lawyers Association https://www.canarablaw.org/
UK:
Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights https://lphr.org.uk/who-we-are/
Law For Palestine https://law4palestine.org/about-us/ (also in Sweden)
International:
International Centre for Justice for Palestinians: https://www.icjpalestine.com/
Amera International, Palestine Legal Assistance https://amerainternational.org/legal-assistance-country-directory/palestine-legal-assistance/
Incidents of Silencing of Palestinians and Palestinian Solidarity in Publishing since October 7, 2023
We are tracking the censorship of both Palestinian voices and of solidarity with the Palestinian people. But we wish to first and foremost emphasize the importance of listening to Palestinians, amplifying Palestinian voices, and addressing the censorship of Palestinians as the first priority when it comes to thinking about who is silenced.
Palestinians are dehumanized, and the century-long process of normalization of Israeli occupation and apartheid, which includes the silencing of Palestinians all over the world, is part of this long process of dehumanization that must be exposed and undone. In his article in The Nation entitled “The Right to Speak for Ourselves,” Palestinian author and journalist Mohammed El-Kurd wrote:
Usually, I prefer to focus my talks on reporting Zionist brutality rather than on addressing the challenges of representation, because these challenges inevitably pale in comparison with the repression and violence visited upon Palestinians on the ground. But that very violence is precisely why we should sometimes address these predicaments of representation that ensnare advocates of Palestinian liberation in the Western world.
I say we are reliable narrators not because we’re Palestinians. It’s not on an identitarian basis that we must be given, or must take, the authority to narrate. But history tells us that those who have oppressed, who have monopolized and institutionalized violence, will not tell the truth, let alone hold themselves accountable.
There are of course many examples of censorship of Palestinian writers that predate October 7th. In April 2022 the Anti-Defamation League attempted to have Mohammed El-Kurd’s appearance at Georgetown Law School cancelled, and in June 2022 Goethe Institut uninvited him from speaking at a conference in Hamburg.
Below is a list of some of the many instances of silencing of Palestinian writers, and those standing in solidarity with Palestine, to which we will be continuously adding.
The event that ultimately led to the creation of Publishers For Palestine was the cancellation of Adania Shibli’s receipt of the 2023 LiBeraturpreis award for her book Minor Detail at the Frankfurt Book Fair—a book that gives an account of the true story of a gang rape and murder of a Bedouin woman by Israeli Defense Forces in 1949.
In October 2023:
Poetry magazine indefinitely postponed publication of a review of poet Sam Sax’s collection Pig, which grapples with themes of anti-Zionism and Jewish law.
The University of Vermont cancelled a lecture that Mohammed El-Kurd was scheduled to deliver.
Writers Bloc Presents’ cancelled an event with Nathan Thrall where he was to discuss his book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama due to “security concerns” and police were called in to cancel his London event.
A staging of the play “And Here I Am,” written by Hassan Abdulrazzak and based on the story of actor-director Ahmed Tobasi, born in Jenin during the first intifada, was cancelled.
A talk by writer Viet Thanh Nguyen was called off by 92NY because Nguyen was one of 750 people who signed a letter, published in The London Review of Books, calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas conflict and condemning both sides for killing civilians.
Editor-in-chief of the scientific journal eLife, Michael Eisen, was removed from his position after retweeting an article from the satirical newspaper The Onion titled, “Dying Gazans Criticized For Not Using Last Words To Condemn Hamas.”
In December 2023:
Heinrich Böll Foundation’s withdrew their support for Russian-American journalist and writer Masha Gessen’s receipt of the Hannah Arendt Award
Even though there was a surge in demand for the book, French publisher Fayard stopped printing Ilan Pappé’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
The Toronto Workmen’s Circle cancelled a January 2024 public online event that they had organized featuring the authors and illustrator of the book The Bund: A Graphic History of Jewish Labour Resistance (for which they had previously donated publication funds) published in September, 2023 by Between the Lines. The reason they gave for cancelling the event was the book publisher’s “unreserved and enthusiastic support for resistance and solidarity with Palestine.”
The city of Paris cancelled the event “Meeting Against Antisemitism and Its Instrumentalization” with Judith Butler and Angela Davis on grounds that the event presented a threat to public order.
Newark Public Schools (New Jersey) removed a YA novel about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, A Little Piece of Ground, by Elizabeth Laird and Sonia Nimr, from its classrooms and curriculum following a lobbying campaign from a Jewish organization that deemed it antisemitic.
A large investor pulled a $500,000 investment from Row House Publishing, citing their posts in support of Palestine as the reason. Founder, Rebekah Borucki, says, “It left us in a financial crisis that forced us to crowdfund to stay in business. We are currently $100,000 short of our goal.”
In January 2024:
Less than a month after leaving her German publisher S. Fischer over their silence on Gaza, Bosnian-Serbian novelist Lana Bastašić was subsequently uninvited by Austrian literary organizations Literaturfest Salzburg and Literaturhaus NÖ who cancelled her scheduled residency and reading. You can read her scathing response here.
Mohammed El-Kurd’s speech at the London Palestine Solidarity Campaign March for Palestine was called antisemitic and MP Robert Jenrick called for the arrest and deportation of anyone who makes such remarks.
In February 2024:
Pen America member novelists Angela Flournoy and Kathleen Alcott severed ties with PEN after its co-sponsorship of an event featuring zionist Mayim Bialik) and Palestinian writer, Randa Jarrar, along with other members of WAWOG disrupted a PEN America event with Zionist Mayim Bialik and were removed from the event.
The Barbican Centre backed out of hosting a lecture series that included talks about the Holocaust and allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, including a talk from the writer Pankaj Mishra entitled The Shoah after Gaza.
The Montreal’s Jewish Public Library removed books by Quebec writer and illustrator Élise Gravel from its open shelves, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) has accused her of antisemitism because of the author’s support for Palestine in her social media posts.
Publishers for Palestine 