Israeli backing for New York festival rejected in angry letter by authors
Source: The Guardian
Israeli backing for New York festival rejected in angry letter by authors
PEN American Center provokes fury of its own members
over promotion of government that denies human rights
Sian Cain
Wednesday 6 April 2016 22.05 BST
More than 100 writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners Alice Walker, Richard Ford and Junot Díaz, have called on the PEN American Center to reject support from the embassy of Israel in a furious open letter.
Sent to PEN American Center and other festival participants in March but published online on Wednesday, the letter opposes the Israeli embassys sponsorship of PENs annual World Voices Festival (PWVF), a seven-day event in New York at the end of this month.
In the festivals promotional materials, PEN America lists the Israeli embassy as a champion of the festival, one of the tiers of festival involvement, and a sponsor of theNinety Minutes, Three Minds panel discussion involving Ethiopian-born Israeli author Dalia Betolin-Sherman.
It is deeply regrettable that the festival has chosen to accept sponsorship from the Israeli government, even as it intensifies its decades-long denial of basic rights to the Palestinian people, including the frequent targeting of Palestinian writers and journalists, says the letter, sent by Adalah-NY, The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, an American group that campaigns for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
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Read more:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/06/israeli-backing-for-new-york-festival-rejected-in-angry-letter-by-authors