Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) expresses its full solidarity with the Irish novelist Sally Rooney against the fierce attack launched by the Zionist lobby over her refusal to contract with Israeli publishing houses to translate her latest novel into Hebrew.
Since the announcement of her position in early October, copies of all of Rooney’s books have been withdrawn from the shelves of two of Israel’s largest bookshops, Steimatzky and Tzomet Sefarim, which together have over 200 bookshops across Israel. As a spokesperson for Steimatzky has said, “from the moment the subject was brought to our attention, as an immediate step, we removed the books from the site.”
The Zionist lobby also launched a campaign to discredit Rooney, aiming to terrorize her and force her to change her position, describing her of being anti-Semitism
Rooney’s previous two novels were translated into Hebrew. However, as she explained in her 12 October statement regarding Beautiful World, “I have chosen not to sell these translation rights to an Israeli-based publishing house.” In her statement explaining her decision, the novelist cited various human rights organisations’ reports on Israeli’s “racial domination” of Palestinians, and the call from Palestinian civil society for an economic and cultural boycott of all Israeli institutions that support the Israeli apartheid system.
In the same statement Rooney made clear that “the Hebrew-language translation rights to my new novel are still available, and if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS movement’s institutional boycott guidelines, I will be very pleased and proud to do so.”
“In the meantime, I would like to express once again my solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, justice and equality”, Rooney added.
AOHR UK welcomes fully supports Rooney’s position against Israel’s apartheid domination of the Palestinian people.
