500 international publishers demand Frankfurt Book Fair cut ties with Israel.
Publishers for Palestine, a global solidarity collective of more than 500 publishers in 50 countries, has issued an open letter to the Frankfurt Book Fair (the world’s largest trade fair for books, which this year takes place from October 16 – 20 and is expected to bring in over 200,000 visitors) demanding that its organizers “denounce Israel’s targeting of Gaza’s writers, students, schools, universities, libraries, archives, and book publishers in its ongoing genocide.”
In a press release issued yesterday, Publishers for Palestine outlined their four core demands:
The coalition has made four demands of the Book Fair: to condemn Israel’s regime of genocide in Gaza and affirm the human rights of the Palestinian people; to refuse collaboration with complicit Israeli book publishers, including their participation in the Frankfurt Book Fair; to denounce the attacks on Palestinian writers, journalists, and academics and acknowledge that such attacks are part of a genocidal project seeking to erase Palestinian life and culture; and to create programming that prominently features Palestinian writers, publishers, and narratives.
The release goes on to highlight the cancelling of Palestinian novelist Adania Shibli’s scheduled award ceremony last October, the Fair’s pledge to actually increase Israeli programing, and the German state’s crackdown on Palestine solidarity:
In October 2023, an award ceremony for Palestinian author Adania Shibli scheduled at the Frankfurt Book Fair was cancelled and indefinitely delayed, and the Fair announced that it stood “with complete solidarity on the side of Israel.”
Almost one year later, and many months after the International Court of Justice’s ruling of a plausible genocide and the UN’s report of Israel’s scholasticide in Gaza, the Frankfurt Book Fair has only continued welcoming Israel; the Fair’s 2023 pledge to increase Israeli programming remains in place for the 2024 event, a position inconsistent with its 2022 ban of Russia because of its assault on Ukraine. The Fair’s direct ties to Israel and its entanglement with the German state, which explicitly supports Israel, has been well documented.
“Book workers have a special role to play as purveyors of the written word because the work we do cements and legitimizes ideas and politics; as an influential cultural institution, the Frankfurt Book Fair has an opportunity and responsibility to leverage its power in this cultural sphere to pressure Israel to end its genocide of Palestinians,” a member of the coalition said.
The Publishers for Palestine letter also denounces the German state’s crackdown on Palestine solidarity as the backdrop of their calls. Ahead of the 2024 Fair, its organizers have announced that, “Throughout the fair, there will be an increased number of police officers in the halls, both plainclothes and in uniform.”
That the world’s largest book fair has pledged to maintain, and even deepen, its already substantial ties to the Israeli cultural sector, at a time when Israel has decimated Gaza’s culture infrastructure—killing writers, bombing libraries and publishing houses, and burning books—should be of real concern to all of this year’s participants and visitors.
In July, Mandoweiss highlighted the hypocrisy of the Frankfurt Book Fair’s stance on Israeli participation, given the ban FBF imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022:
Such vocal and tacit support sits in stark contrast to past national bans on the part of the massive international publishing forum, including an ongoing ban imposed upon Russia ever since 2022, citing the “violation of international law” as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. An FBM newsletter distributed on April 24 includes a highlight entitled “Book Market Ukraine: Ruined Libraries and New Bookstores,” which reads, “There is one question publishers are routinely asked in international events and private conversations: How do you continue working during the war?” Yet FBM makes no mention whatsoever of Gaza, where writers, academics, publishers, libraries, universities, and printers were targeted well before October 7, and have been brutally singled out for elimination in the many months since. This destruction of knowledge has been extensively documented, including in a thorough report written by Librarians and Archivists with Palestine. The UN has since reported on “scholasticide” in Gaza. Every university in Gaza has been destroyed. The fact that the FBM has as yet failed to announce a ban on Israel similar to that imposed upon Russia, nor expressed even a hint of concern over Israel’s violation of international laws, throws an already-existing incongruity into sharp relief.
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Here is the Publishers for Palestine open letter in full:
We international publishers stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine, and with resisters of Israeli apartheid and genocide within Germany, including the organizers and participants of the Palestine Congress that was brutally and undemocratically shut down by German authorities.
While a massive wave of writers, artists and cultural institutions worldwide speaks out for Palestinian liberation, enraged by Western complicity in Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, the crime of crimes, many German institutions insist on isolating themselves from the world by attempting to censor those expressions of solidarity, contrary even to German public opinion, which generally opposes Israel’s military actions in Gaza.
Even Pop-Kultur Berlin was forced to dump its years-long partnership with the Israeli embassy after many artists boycotted the flagship German music festival. Many federal German politicians and Berlin senators condemned the campaign, which nonetheless compelled the publicly-funded event to conclusively abandon its partnership with genocidal Israel.
Frankfurt Book Fair, the largest and oldest international book fair in the world, is also complicit in the German state’s deep involvement in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. Despite supposedly standing for “respect, diversity and tolerance”, through its financial operations and cultural presence the fair is enmeshed in Germany’s financial, military, and diplomatic support for Israel’s genocide, and last year engaged in shameful repression of solidarity with Palestine.
As Publishers for Palestine, a coalition of 500 book publishers from 50 countries around the world, we call upon the Frankfurt Book Fair to undertake the following:
–Publicly denounce Israel’s regime of genocide and setter-colonial apartheid against the Palestinian people.
–Adhere to the long-standing calls from Palestinian civil society, including the absolute majority of writers, scholars, and cultural institutions, to refuse professional engagements with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit in whitewashing or justifying Israel’s oppression against Palestinians. This means refusing collaboration with Israeli book publishers, including their participation in the Frankfurt Book Fair, unless those institutions fulfill the basic demands to affirm the legally enshrined rights of the Palestinian people according to international law, including refugees’ rights.
–Acknowledge and denounce Israel’s deliberate targeting of writers, academics, journalists, book publishers, schools, universities, libraries, archives, and all cultural producers and caretakers of the written word in Gaza and Palestine, acknowledging that these attacks on culture, language, history, and art, are part of a genocidal project that seeks to erase Palestinian life and culture.
–Create programming for Frankfurt 2024 that prominently features Palestinian writers, publishers, and narratives, in a way that does not attempt to mask or minimize the truth of Palestinian history, and that does not attempt to minimize or omit the truth of the current Israeli occupation and genocide of Palestinians.
We invite fellow book publishers and writers—particularly those in Germany, and in other countries whose governments, corporations and institutions remain supportive of and complicit in Israel’s genocide and apartheid—to join us in endorsing and amplifying the above demands being made by the international publishing industry of the Frankfurt Book Fair.
Publishers for Palestine
