7000+ Writers Refuse Complicity in Apartheid

Over 7,000 writers, editors, translators, illustrators, publishers, agents, librarians, and other book industry workers have now joined the boycott of Israeli literary institutions complicit in the dispossession of the Palestinian people. Upon its release on October 28th, 2024, the public letter announcing the campaign already constituted the largest boycott against Israeli cultural institutions in history. Now, with thousands more signing on, this letter signals a watershed moment in the international movement for Palestinian rights.

Among the new signatories are Khaled Hosseini, Piper Kerman, Ling Ma, Robin Coste Lewis, Michael Rosen, Peter Carey, Omar El Akkad, Chris Kraus, R.O. Kwon, V (fka Eve Ensler), Annie Baker, Kiran Desai, Brandon Taylor, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Akwaeke Emezi, adrienne maree brown, Bette A. & Brian Eno, John Cusack, Sapphire, and Greta Thunberg.

The signatories include winners of the Nobel Prize, Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Giller Prize, MacArthur Fellowship, Miles Franklin Award, and National Book Award—including three of this year’s winners: Percival Everett, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, and Shifa Saltagi Safadi—and editors at each of the “Big Five” publishing houses, and many independent publishers.

You can see the letter and the full list of signatories here, and if you are a writer, publisher, or book worker who has yet to sign on, you can do so here.

New York: WAWOG Town Hall & Fundraiser for Gaza

Join Writers Against the War on Gaza on the evening of January 6 for a night of community-building and consciousness-raising, centered on the irrepressible struggle for Palestinian freedom.

The program features readings, performances, and a panel on prison breaks, followed by an open discussion around internal and external decolonization. Where do the local and the international intersect? What does it mean to build a mass movement in the imperial core? How do we weave webs of solidarity strong enough to withstand the forces of reaction, from democratic fascism and state repression to our own fears and desires for safety?

100% of proceeds from ticket sales will benefit Dahnoun Mutual Aid, a group of volunteer organizers working to provide life-sustaining aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

Find out more and get tickets here.

Mohammed El-Kurd on Palestine and the Media

On this week’s episode of The Big Picture, the podcast of Middle East Eye, journalist Mohamed Hassan interviews Mohammed El-Kurd about how the western media has limited the possibilities to meaningfully engage with Palestinian political discourse. On the one hand, western media outlets imposes frameworks of victimhood on Palestinian political discourse; on the other, western journalists often engage in linguistic acrobatics to preserve the innocence of Israeli settlers and soldiers.

Against this, El-Kurd argues for flipping the script: repurposing the permission to narrate in order to confront the power dynamics that mandate Palestinian victimhood.

You can watch the entire interview on Youtube, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Book of the Week

A timely collection of one of Palestine's foremost intellectuals and leaders. I cannot think of a better collection to guide anyone seeking a moral role for the Left today in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Ghassan Kanafani's fusion of humanism, universalism and commitment to Palestine will eternally serve us a model in our own struggle for a free Palestine.

– Ilan Pappé, historian and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Ghassan Kanafani (1936-1972) is one of the most notable Palestinian novelists of the past century. In addition to his novels, including Men in the Sun and Returning to Haifa, he was also a leading political thinker, strategist and revolutionary, keen across his work to not just capture the vital resilience of the Palestinian people but also to make sense of the cultural logics of the Zionist occupation in order to destroy it. Since his assassination by Israeli agents in 1972, Kanafani’s work and ideas have continued to sustain struggles and solidarity movements for Palestinian liberation.

Selected Political Writings collects his writings on politics, history, national liberation and the media in English for the first time. Featuring new commentary from leading writers, this collection is a testament to Kanafani's continuing relevance. His work remains a vital touchstone for revolutionary Palestinian struggle and anti-colonial thought.

This collection is edited by Louis Brehony and Tahrir Hamdi. Louis Brehony is an award-winning researcher on political culture, musician, writer and activist. He is the author of Palestinian Music in Exile and director of the documentary film Kofia: A Revolution Through Music. Tahrir Hamdi is a Professor of Resistance Literature at the Arab Open University, Jordan. She is author of the prizewinning Imagining Palestine, and assistant editor of Arab Studies Quarterly.

You can get the book from our Bookshop (US / UK).

Reading Roundup

The Dis-Invention of Gaza – A powerful essay from Zena Agha, in which she argues that Israel is not merely destroying Gaza, but ‘dis-inventing’ it, acting on “a desire not only to destroy, but also to operate as though the place never existed at all.”

1500 Invasions Later: Photos of Destruction and Resilience from the Jenin Refugee Camp – A photo essay from Noora Said and Yousef Hamad documenting the fabric of everyday life in Jenin during the Israeli siege in May and June of this year.

The Palestinian Struggle: From Genocide to Global Realignment – Tareq Baconi appraises a number of the major trends in the Palestinian struggle over the past year, from the intensification of Zionism’s violence and the impotence of international law to the groundswell of solidarity in the Arab world and across the globe.

Defunding Dissent – Will Alden reports on how philanthropic organizations in the United States are cutting funding to grassroots organizations, such as abortion funds and racial justice initiatives, for standing in solidarity with Palestine.

This is What it’s Like to Be A Medical Student at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza – Zaina Alqudwa shares a testimony from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, revealing a medical system that is overwhelmed with patients and under-resourced to treat them.

A Thorn in the Occupier’s Eye – Roqayah Chamsedinne offers a dispatch from South Lebanon on the people’s resolute commitment to Palestine’s liberation.

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha: Two Poems – The Markaz Review profiles Lena Khalaf Tuffaha and publishes two poems from her collection Something About Living, which recently won the National Book Award.

How Has This Year Been for You? – Looking back on the year, Selma Dabbagh writes about how the methods of killing have only worsened and the politicians who could stop it have only become more craven and avoidant.  

Israel's Genocide is Making Us Strangers on Our Own Land – Huda Skaik writes about spending the past year in a state of perpetual displacement, and remaining hopeful nonetheless.

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