Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith among hundreds of cultural figures denouncing Gaza ‘genocide’
Kapka Kassabova
Middle East Eye reports on 28 May 2025:
Hundreds of writers and cultural organisations have signed a letter calling Israel’s war on Gaza genocidal and urging an immediate ceasefire.
The letter’s 380 signatories include writers Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, William Dalrymple, Elif Shafak, Irvine Welsh and Kate Mosse.
“The use of the words ‘genocide’ or ‘acts of genocide’ to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organizations,” the letter reads, adding that the UN Human Rights Council has “clearly identified” acts of genocide enacted by the Israeli military.
The letter was organised by writers Horatio Clare, Kapka Kassabova and Monique Roffey.
The signatories say: “This is not only about our common humanity and all human rights; this is about our moral fitness as the writers of our time, which diminishes with every day we refuse to speak out and denounce this crime.”
They add: “Too often, words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible. “Too often, too, the right words – the ones that mattered – have been eradicated, along with those who might have written them.”
Demanding sanctions on Israel
The letter quotes a poem by Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed in an Israeli strike a year and seven months ago: “And if one day, O Light / All the galaxies / Of the entire universe / Had no more room for us / You would say: ‘Enter my heart, / There you will finally be safe.”
The letter demands sanctions on Israel if the Israeli government does not implement a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as the “immediate unrestricted distribution of food and medical aid throughout Gaza by the UN”.”We stand in solidarity with the resistance of Palestinian, Jewish, and Israeli people to the genocidal policies of the current Israeli government,” the signatories say.
It comes a day after more than 800 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges signed a letter calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to sanction the Israeli government and take steps at the UN Security Council to expel Israel as a UN member state.
A slow trickle of cultural figures speaking out against Israel after its military campaign in Gaza began in October 2023 has gradually gained more mainstream momentum.
The development comes as the UN and humanitarian bodies warn of the risk of mass starvation as Israel blocks off aid deliveries into the besieged enclave.
Israel already faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice, and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for crimes against humanity and the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.
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