Sherry Lansing, Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Gene Simmons Among Signatories of Counter-Petition Opposing Boycott of Israeli Literary Institutions
Sherry Lansing, Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, David Mamet, Gene Simmons, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, and Scooter Braun are among the high-profile entertainment industry figures who have added their names to a counter-petition organized by the Creative Community for Peace in response to a letter published earlier this week calling for a boycott of “Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.”
The initial open letter, which refers to the Israel-Gaza conflict as a “genocide,” counts as its signatories more than 1,000 writers including Normal People author Sally Rooney, Naomi Klein, Rachel Kushner, Annie Ernaux, Percival Everett and Jonathan Lethem.
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The counter-petition “reject[s] the calls to boycott Israel and Jewish writers, publishers, authors, book festivals and literary agencies, along with those who support, work with, or platform them” and argues that “the instincts and motivations behind cultural boycotts, in practice and throughout history, are directly in opposition to the liberal values most writers hold sacred.”
Other Hollywood figures who signed the counter-petition include Julianna Margulies, Jerry O’Connell, Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, Haim Saban, Endeavor co-founder Rick Rosen, Jenji Kohan, Diane Warren, Rebecca De Mornay, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Gail Simmons and Ben Silverman.
“The exclusion of anyone who doesn’t unilaterally condemn Israel is an inversion of morality and an obfuscation of reality,” the counter-petition states. “History is full of examples of self-righteous sects, movements and cults who have used short-lived moments of power to enforce their vision of purity, to persecute, exclude, boycott and intimidate those with whom they disagreed, who made lists of people with ‘bad’ views, who burned ‘sinful’ books (and sometimes ‘sinful’ people).”
The letter later adds, “Regardless of one’s views on the current conflict, boycotts of creatives and creative institutions simply create more divisiveness and foment further hatred. We call on our friends and colleagues worldwide to join us in expressing their support for Israeli and Jewish publishers, authors, and all book festivals, publishers, and literary agencies that refuse to capitulate to censorship based on identity or litmus tests.”
In a statement along with the release of the counter-petition, Bialik states, “Harassing authors, canceling bookstore appearances and boycotting people based solely on their identity is disturbing and polarizing in ways that cannot be dismissed or minimized. Attempts to dictate ‘who’ or ‘what’ should be published have nothing to do with any path to coexistence or peace. This kind of rhetoric encourages demonization and hatred. As an author and as a creative, I believe in peace, I believe in humanity, and I believe in meaningful discourse. Silencing and sowing discord in this way reduces complex individuals to oversimplified caricatures which only hardens existing hostility and makes the hope for peace inch farther away.”
The initial open letter, calling for the boycott, says that participating authors will not cooperate with Israeli institutions including publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications that are “complicit in violating Palestinian rights” or that failed to publicly voice support for “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law.”
The letter continues, “To work with these institutions is to harm Palestinians, and so we call on our fellow writers, translators, illustrators and book workers to join us in this pledge. We call on our publishers, editors and agents to join us in taking a stand, in recognizing our own involvement, our own moral responsibility and to stop engaging with the Israeli state and with complicit Israeli institutions.”
No specific organizations were named in the boycott letter organized by a number of groups, including the Palestine Festival of Literature, Publishers for Palestine and Writers Against the War on Gaza.
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