Hundreds of writers and entertainment figures sign letter rejecting Israel boycott.

Lionel Shriver, Lee Child, Bernard Henri-Lévy, Herta Müller, Simon Schama, Howard Jacobson, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Bret Stephens, Yossi Klein Halevi, and David Mamet are among the writers who have joined entertainment industry figures Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Julianna Margulies, Scooter Braun, Haim Saban, Graham Linehan, Ynon Kreiz, Ozzy Osbourne, Gene Simmons, Jerry O’Connell, and many more in signing an open letter “in support of freedom of expression and against discriminatory boycotts.”

This letter—organized by Creative Community for Peace, “a pro-Israel organization which works to counter anti-Israel sentiment in the entertainment industry”—comes in response to Monday’s publication of an open letter signed by thousands of prominent authors—including Percival Everett, Sally Rooney, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Annie Ernaux, Peter Carey, Rachel Kushner, and Jhumpa Lahiri—pledging not to work with “Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.”

The CCP letter erroneously claims that individual Jewish and Israeli authors have been targeted by the boycott pledge, before going on to assert that:

Israel is fighting existential wars against Hamas and Hezbollah, both US, UK, and European Union designated terrorist groups.

The exclusion of anyone who doesn’t unilaterally condemn Israel is an inversion of morality and an obfuscation of reality.

It closes with the following call to action:

We call on our friends and colleagues worldwide to join us in expressing their support for Israeli and Jewish publishers, authors, and all book festivals, publishers, and literary agencies that refuse to capitulate to censorship based on identity or litmus tests.

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Here is the Creative Community for Peace Letter in full:

We, the undersigned writers, authors, and entertainment industry professionals reject the calls to boycott Israeli and Jewish writers, publishers, authors, book festivals and literary agencies, along with those who support, work with, or platform them.

We continue to be shocked and disappointed to see members of the literary community harass and ostracize their colleagues because they don’t share a one-sided narrative in response to the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Israel is fighting existential wars against Hamas and Hezbollah, both US, UK, and European Union designated terrorist groups.

The exclusion of anyone who doesn’t unilaterally condemn Israel is an inversion of morality and an obfuscation of reality.

History is full of examples of self-righteous sects, movements and cults who have used short-lived moments of power to enforce their vision of purity, to persecute, exclude, boycott and intimidate those with whom they disagreed, who made lists of people with ‘bad’ views, who burned ‘sinful’ books (and sometimes ‘sinful’ people).

Over the past year, planned bookstore appearances by Jewish authors have been canceled, ads for books about Israel have been rejected, book readings have been shut down, literary groups have been targeted, and activists have publicized lists of “Zionist” authors to harass.

The instincts and motivations behind cultural boycotts, in practice and throughout history, are directly in opposition to the liberal values most writers hold sacred.

Boycotts against authors and those who work with them is illiberal and dangerous.

In fact, we believe that writers, authors, and books — along with the festivals that showcase them — bring people together, transcend boundaries, broaden awareness, open dialogue, and can affect positive change.

We believe that anyone who works to subvert this spirit merely adds yet another roadblock to freedom, justice, equality, and peace that we all desperately desire.

Regardless of one’s views on the current conflict, boycotts of creatives and creative institutions simply create more divisiveness and foment further hatred.We call on our friends and colleagues worldwide to join us in expressing their support for Israeli and Jewish publishers, authors, and all book festivals, publishers, and literary agencies that refuse to capitulate to censorship based on identity or litmus tests.