Palestine group seeks to prevent novelist attending Israeli festival

IPSC wants Gerard Donovan to cancel Jerusalem visit

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Irish novelist Gerard Donovan

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Novelist and poet Gerard Donovan is the latest target for the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign in its bid to impose a cultural boycott of Israel.

Already the ISPC has been blamed for forcing trad group Dervish to cancel a three concert trip to Israel this summer.

Their campaign led to bitter criticism from Ireland’s Minister for Justice Alan Shatter.

Now the Irish Times reports that the ISPC is targeting Donovan whose novel Schopenhauer’s Telescope was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

He was due to participate in the International Writers Festival in Jerusalem this week and has now been targeted by an open letter from the campaign’s cultural liaison officer Dr Raymond Deane.

The letter urged Donovan not to ‘whitewash’ Israel by participating in the festival.

The Irish Times reports that the letter contains a link to an appeal by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel asking writers not to participate in the festival.

It also includes a list of the 216 Irish artists who have signed up to the boycott.

Donovan, a lecturer in the University of Plymouth, could not be reached by the paper.

Fianna Fáil Senator Paschal Mooney condemned the campaign in the Senate. He said Dervish’s cancellation came as a ‘result of intimidation and bullying’.
 
 

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