200 AMERICAN WRITERS sign letter to PEN supporting Palestinian human rights & boycott of Apartheid Israel

200 anti-racist Jewish & non-Jewish American writers’ anti-apartheid Israel letter to PEN America and signed by 11 organizations, 61 individuals and 148 additional signatories (2016): “To PEN American Center: We, the undersigned, including participants at PEN World Voices Festival, ask the Festival to reject support from the Embassy of Israel. The Embassy of Israel is listed among the “Champions” of the World Voices Festival, and as a sponsor of a panel. Given PEN American Center’s mission of supporting freedom of expression, 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… Since 2005, Palestinian civil society has called on people of conscience around the world to engage in a peaceful campaign of boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning (BDS) Israel in order to force it to comply with international law and respect the rights of Palestinians now living under Israeli military occupation, as unequal citizens within Israel, or as refugees, denied their right to return to their homeland. The union representing Palestinian writers, the General Union of Palestinian Writers, actively supports this boycott call. We appeal to PEN American Center to honor this boycott call and refuse sponsorship by the Israeli embassy or any complicit Israeli institution for the 2016 World Voices Festival and for future PEN American Center activities… As with South Africa, where an international boycott played a crucial role in bringing an end to apartheid, we call on PEN American Center not to partner with the Israeli government or other complicit institutions until Israel fulfills its obligations under international law and fully recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to live in full equality and freedom in their homeland [signed by 11 organizations, 61 individuals and 148 additional signatories] (“Letter to PEN American Center: don’t partner with Israeli Government”, Adalah-NY: Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, 2016: https://adalahny.org/web-action/1376/letter-pen-american-center-don-t-partner-israeli-government ).