Oppression or censorship? Israeli poet caught in crossfire

A second row this month has flared up over the presence of an Israeli writer at a Dublin literary event. Deaglán de Bréadún reports on the dispute.

A war of words has erupted between the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) and the Dublin Writers Festival over the Israeli embassy's partial sponsorship of an appearance by the Israeli poet, Amir Or, at a festival reading this evening.

The row comes shortly after a similar dispute between the IPSC and the Irish Writers' Centre over an invitation to the Israeli novelist, AB Yehoshua.

After Amir Or was invited to take part in the festival, the organisers approached the Israeli embassy in Dublin, which agreed to pay his air fare. The IPSC has offered to pay Or's air fare instead, but he has not taken them up on this, and has responded with an open letter  to James Bowen, IPSC chairman.

Dr Raymond Deane of the IPSC yesterday claimed the festival, "by accepting Israeli sponsorship even to the tune of a few hundred euro, is complicit in disseminating propaganda for the Israeli state, and in aligning the Irish cultural sector with oppression and racism".

Pat Boran, programme director of the festival, has in turn suggested that only a policy of "censorship" would appease the protests of the IPSC. He has invited members of the IPSC to attend the reading and to make its views known.

Meanwhile, Deane said the IPSC was not concerned with Or as an individual writer.

"We are objecting to the fact that Or is appearing courtesy of the Israeli embassy/ foreign ministry, and that the embassy's logo - the logo of an ethnocratic rogue state that bombs civilians picnicking on a beach - appears on the festival's website," he said. (Israel has denied it bombed Gaza beach.)

"The IPSC contacted him offering to pay his air fare to Dublin if he renounced the sponsorship of the Israeli state, thus letting everyone (except the Israeli state!) off the hook. He didn't deign to reply to this offer."

He pointed out that "there is a clear and explicit call for a comprehensive boycott of Israel coming from 170 (probably more by now) Palestinian civil society organisations, so we have a direct mandate from the victims of Israeli aggression, occupation, colonisation - and censorship".

"Israel is not a democracy of any kind whatever, but a racist ethnocracy," he added. "Hence an artist travelling under the auspices of such a state, unlike an artist availing of the privileges of a true (if imperfect) democracy (and I admit the line is a thin one!), is affirming his allegiance to a regime that suppresses the human rights of another people on a daily basis."

Boran, speaking on behalf of the festival organisers, told The Irish Times he had written to all the participating writers in connection with the Amir Or dispute. He said several participants had already sent responses, which were, "I'm happy to say, entirely in support of our stance".

In his letter to the participants, Boran wrote: "I understand that the group (IPSC) has been contacting other writers due to take part in the festival in an attempt to bring pressure on us to withdraw our invitation to Mr Or."

Suggesting that there were "a number of people who would rather operate a policy of exclusion rather than one of reasoned discourse", Boran added that "the Dublin Writers Festival has no policy of excluding writers from any country".

The letter continued: "I have already invited the members of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign to attend the Amir Or reading and to make their grievances public, and have also invited them to distribute and circulate any material they see fit to support their stance. Further than this, I, acting for the Dublin Writers Festival, am unable and unprepared to go."

Other writers taking part in the festival, which opened last night, include Seamus Heaney, John Carey, Roddy Doyle, Nancy Huston and Ziauddin Sardar.

The IPSC intends to mount a protest outside the Project Arts Centre during the Or reading this evening. Deane said it would be "very low-key".

• www.dublinwritersfestival.com