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href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/new-york-bookseller-bowed-israel-supporters-after-violent-threats/23301">https://electronicintifada.net/content/new-york-bookseller-bowed-israel-supporters-after-violent-threats/23301</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">New York bookseller bowed to Israel
supporters after violent threats</h1>
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<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah">Ali
Abunimah</a></span> <span class="field
field-publisher">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-02-13T15:39:00+00:00">13 February 2018</span></span>
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<p>A New York City bookseller faced threats of violence
from Israel supporters before it caved in to demands
to sign a statement repudiating the nonviolent BDS –
boycott, divestment and sanctions – movement for
Palestinian rights.</p>
<p>The statement, written by a local rabbi, also
declares that Israel has a “right to exist.”</p>
<p>Columbia University Students for Justice in Palestine
and Columbia/Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace are
reaffirming a <a
href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1DEO1YaSFmN09q-LM_GTke0uCXup8KUjQTDL8yuEOQXk/viewform?edit_requested=true">call</a>
to boycott the bookseller, Book Culture, unless it
rescinds the statement.</p>
<p>Book Culture issued the statement in the wake of
threats and intimidation because it was promoting a
children’s book called <em>P is for Palestine</em>.</p>
<p>The petition, signed by 18 faculty members and almost
200 students, alumni and community members, accuses
Book Culture of “bowing to pressure from pro-Israel
groups that seek to silence literary representations
of the Palestinian right to resist.”</p>
<p>“Book Culture’s suppression of literary freedom is
profoundly demoralizing, especially given its stated
allegiance to free speech and progressive values,” the
petition adds.</p>
<p>Many students from Columbia and other area colleges
order their course books through the independent
bookseller.</p>
<p>The student groups <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/columbia-students-for-justice-in-palestine/update-on-the-petition-to-boycott-book-culture/10156594986530931/">liken</a>
Book Culture’s capitulation to the recent retreat by
the New Orleans city council, which <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/new-orleans-repeals-human-rights-resolution-shield-israel">repealed</a>
a human rights measure due to concerns it could be
used to hold Israel accountable. They also compare it
to the United Nations’ <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/un-official-resigns-after-pressure-withdraw-israel-apartheid-report">suppression</a>
of a report on Israeli apartheid.</p>
<p>Such cave-ins “embolden Zionist organizations
agitating against Palestinian human rights; they come
to learn that violence, blackmail and censorship
tactics work,” student groups <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/columbia-students-for-justice-in-palestine/update-on-the-petition-to-boycott-book-culture/10156594986530931/">stated
in affirmation of the boycott call</a>.</p>
<h2>“People could get hurt”</h2>
<p>Chris Doeblin, co-owner of Book Culture, said that as
soon as news broke that one of the store’s branches
would be hosting an <a
href="http://www.bookculture.com/event/columbus-storytime-golbarg-bashi">18
November reading</a> by Golbarg Bashi, author of the
children’s alphabet book <em>P is for Palestine</em>,
“a terrific and virulent storm” ensued.</p>
<p>“We, the staff and the store in general, received
threats of mayhem, violence, obstruction, boycotting
and the like from emails, in person and phone calls,”
Doeblin told The Electronic Intifada.</p>
<p>“On the day of the event itself, the owners of the
store came and stood together to proclaim in person
that we would not be cowed into removing the book or
refusing to host the presentation of <em>P is for
Palestine,</em>” he said.</p>
<p>“Following the event the onslaught of opinion and the
effort to censor the book continued,” Doeblin added.</p>
<p>Asked to describe the threats, Doeblin said, “they
were, for example, ‘you better watch out’ and ‘some
people could get hurt.’”</p>
<p>The store was concerned enough to notify the New York
Police Department, though Doeblin said they did not
send an officer to watch the event as requested.</p>
<p>Asked if he would characterize the people making the
threats as pro-Israel, Doeblin responded, “Yes,
absolutely.”</p>
<p>The store attempted to appease the anger.</p>
<p>Doeblin told The Electronic Intifada that at the
request of a “group of young mothers” who were
attacking <em>P is for Palestine</em>, his store <a
href="http://www.bookculture.com/sixdayhero">hosted
a reading of a children’s book</a> glorifying
Israeli combatants in the 1967 War which marked the
beginning of Israel’s brutal, ongoing occupation and
its illegal colonization of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, and Syria’s Golan Heights.</p>
<h2>Angry “mommas”</h2>
<p><em>P is for Palestine</em> author Golbarg Bashi told
The Electronic Intifada that all hell broke loose
after she posted an announcement about her planned
reading on Upper East Side Mommas, a Facebook group
with more than 27,000 members.</p>
<p>Bashi was taken aback by the level of vitriol she
encountered, with attacks not only mischaracterizing
the book, but denigrating the Iranian-Swedish author
because of her ancestry.</p>
<p>“I was immediately slandered and threatened in that
forum. In a page for mothers, I saw naked racism and
class-based prejudice in the eye,” Bashi <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156818974612892&set=pb.561947891.-2207520000.1517330211.&type=3&theater">stated</a>
on Facebook.</p>
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<p>All this over a children’s book: as the civil
liberties group Palestine Legal <a
href="https://palestinelegal.org/news/2017/11/29/nyc-book-store-receives-calls-to-censor-palestine-childrens-book">explains</a>,
<em>P is for Palestine</em> “features a Palestinian
girl with black curly hair who takes a diverse group
of children through an illustrated ‘alphabetic
adventure to Palestine’ with phrases such as ‘B is for
Bethlehem,’ ‘F is for Falafel’ and ‘J is for Jesus.’”</p>
<p>But what raised the ire of Israel supporters,
according to Palestine Legal, is “the use of the word
‘Palestine’ in the book’s title” and the “use of the
word intifada to illustrate the letter i.”</p>
<p>For this, one member of the Upper East Side Mommas <a
href="https://forward.com/fast-forward/388150/mommy-facebook-group-shuts-down-over-p-is-for-palestine-book/">accused</a>
Bashi of “inciting death.” Another declared, “Nothing
more racist than Muslims!!!!!!!”</p>
<p>Such was the hostility that the moderators had to
temporarily <a
href="https://pagesix.com/2017/12/02/manhattan-moms-allowed-back-into-facebook-page/">shut
the group down</a>.</p>
<p>But that was not the only online forum for incitement
against Bashi and her book.</p>
<h2>Incitement and intimidation</h2>
<p>On 20 November, the Facebook page “United With
Israel” <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/unitedwithisrael/posts/1766473763385591">posted
an attack</a> on <em>P is for Palestine</em>,
exclaiming, “We cannot believe that such a disgusting
children’s book that supports violence is being sold
right in the USA!!!”</p>
<p>Almost 2,000 Facebook users “liked” the post slamming
the “sick book” and dozens chimed in with calls to
boycott anyone who sold it.</p>
<p>The thread quickly devolved into open bigotry against
Muslims.</p>
<p>Online incitement morphed into real-life aggression:
when a group of progressive Jewish parents in New York
City decided to show support for <em>P is for
Palestine</em> by holding a reading for their
children at a Hanukkah party, it was invaded by a
violent right-wing group.</p>
<p>“As our kids settled down to hear <em>P is for
Palestine</em>, four uniformed members of the Jewish
Defense League moved into position behind them and
started filming and harassing them,” parent and
anti-racist activist Emmaia Gelman <a
href="https://forward.com/opinion/390530/we-had-a-p-is-for-palestine-party-for-kids-and-the-jdl-showed-up/">recounted</a>.</p>
<p>But the hatred and incitement came not just from the
Jewish Defense League. Supposedly progressive quarters
were arguably even more effective in their hateful
attacks.</p>
<h2>Written by rabbi</h2>
<p>In November, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the nominally
progressive Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York’s
Upper West Side <a
href="https://www.westsiderag.com/2017/11/28/local-rabbi-clashes-with-book-culture-over-childrens-book">declared</a>
that the book’s inclusion of the word “intifada” meant
that it “promotes murder,” and as a result Book
Culture would be barred from taking part in the
synagogue’s upcoming book fair because it sold <em>P
is for Palestine</em>.</p>
<p>That is when Book Culture’s owners were called in by
the synagogue.</p>
<p>“We were asked to agree to a statement that is now
public record written by the rabbi,” Doeblin wrote to
The Electronic Intifada. “Some of that statement puts
us in a pro-Israel light and anti-BDS.”</p>
<p>Doeblin insists he was never asked to remove the book
from sale and would not have agreed to do so, although
<a href="https://palestinelegal.org/2017-report">according</a>
to Palestine Legal, the bookstore for a time “hid” the
book “behind the cash register.”</p>
<p>In early February, Book Culture’s stores on 112th
Street and at Broadway and 114th Street both said they
had copies in stock. The book is published and sold
online by Bashi’s <a href="https://www.drbashi.com">own
company</a>, which bills itself as a “diverse
children’s educational start-up, focused on regions
and languages with the Arabic and Persian scripts.”</p>
<p>In the <a
href="https://www.swfs.org/news/book-culture-releases-statement-stephen-wise-free-synagogue-to-host-book-fair-as-planned/">statement</a>
published on the synagogue’s website on 29 November,
Book Culture expresses “regret that we did not fully
appreciate the political or communal ramifications of
the children’s book <em>P is for Palestine</em> by
Dr. Golbarg Bashi, nor did we anticipate the pain and
distress it has caused in our community.”</p>
<p>Book Culture also states that “We oppose terrorism or
other forms of violence perpetrated against Israeli
civilians during the intifada or thereafter. Any
impression from the book to the contrary is not our
view.”</p>
<p>“We support Israel’s right to exist,” the statement
adds. “We do not endorse the boycott, divestment and
sanctions movement (BDS).”</p>
<h2>“Under the bus”</h2>
<p>For Bashi and supporters of Palestinian rights, the
statement caused shock and dismay.</p>
<p>“It was very sad reading it – I’ve known Chris for a
very long time — you know, the way he threw me under
the bus,” Bashi told The Electronic Intifada.</p>
<p>According to the <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/columbia-students-for-justice-in-palestine/update-on-the-petition-to-boycott-book-culture/10156594986530931/">student
groups</a>, the statement “elided the structural
violence enacted on Palestinians by the Israeli
state.”</p>
<p>It made “a racist conflation between the term
‘intifada’ and terrorism” and “insinuated that the
book promotes terrorism by mentioning the intifadas” –
the successive Palestinian uprisings against Israeli
military occupation.</p>
<p>The student groups also note that the statement
includes repudiation of BDS and an affirmation of
Israel’s “right to exist” even though <em>P is for
Palestine</em> makes no reference to either.</p>
<p>Following the publication of Book Culture’s statement
by the synagogue, students and faculty signed the <a
href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1DEO1YaSFmN09q-LM_GTke0uCXup8KUjQTDL8yuEOQXk/viewform?edit_requested=true">petition</a>
calling for a boycott of the store until it rescinds
the statement.</p>
<p>Students engaged with the store in an effort to
persuade it to do so.</p>
<p>“In the course of several meetings with co-owner
Chris Doeblin, we outlined the issues we had both with
the content of the statement and the precedent set
through the decision to release it,” Columbia Students
for Justice in Palestine and Columbia/Barnard Jewish
Voice for Peace <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/columbia-students-for-justice-in-palestine/update-on-the-petition-to-boycott-book-culture/10156594986530931/">stated</a>
in early February.</p>
<p>According to the student groups, Doeblin “initially
showed interest in releasing a public statement
acknowledging the issues with the [Stephen Wise Free
Synagogue] statement,” but then backed off, telling
them in an email that he had “concluded that the best
course is not to make any further statements now.”</p>
<p>Doeblin told The Electronic Intifada that during the
meetings, “we had a great deal of difficulty finding
language that I was comfortable with, because I didn’t
want to retract what we had gone on the record saying,
as it was just going to cause more confusion.”</p>
<h2>“Both sides”</h2>
<p>Yet Doeblin also seems now to acknowledge – without
saying it explicitly – that signing the statement was
ill-considered.</p>
<p>“I don’t want to be offensive to anybody but it was a
statement for what we thought was a limited group of
congregants,” Doeblin said.</p>
<p>“If we had sat in the room with the rabbi and he
said, look we’re going to create a public statement
together to be released to the world, we maybe would
have been a lot more cautious and been a lot less open
to him writing anything and not editing it.”</p>
<p>Doeblin also said that BDS was “not something we were
even aware of.”</p>
<p>Unwilling to back down, Doeblin now presents Book
Culture as the hapless, well-meaning victim caught
between two warring and unyielding sides.</p>
<p>He emphasizes that the store actively supported <em>P
is for Palestine</em> by pre-ordering 100 copies and
promising to promote it.</p>
<p>“We refuse to be used and politicized by any side,”
Doeblin added. “Our goal is that one continues to find
books that both support and oppose any and all of
one’s ideas in our stores.”</p>
<p>He told The Electronic Intifada that it was
“distressing” to hear threats of boycotts from “both
sides.”</p>
<h2>Misleading</h2>
<p>Yet this effort to equate two “sides” is misleading –
though it is the type of position Palestinians have
become accustomed to in much mainstream and liberal
commentary.</p>
<p>Asked if Book Culture or its staff received any
threats of violence from people he would characterize
as pro-Palestinian, Doeblin responded succinctly:
“No.”</p>
<p>He acknowledged that the reading of the children’s
book glorifying Israel’s 1967 <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/article-jerusalem-new-york-times-falsifies-history-1948-1967">attack</a>
passed off with “no obstruction, no threats.”</p>
<p>Doeblin acknowledged that supporters of Palestinian
rights have not asked him to make any statement
endorsing their views, but simply to rescind the
statement he signed to appease the anti-Palestinian
groups.</p>
<p>“While the [Stephen Wise Free Synagogue] and other
Israel supporters in the community seek to compel Book
Culture to take a political stand, our demand has
always been to maintain Book Culture as a neutral
space,” the student groups <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/columbia-students-for-justice-in-palestine/update-on-the-petition-to-boycott-book-culture/10156594986530931/">state</a>.</p>
<p>They add that they are not asking the bookseller to
take a position on BDS, or to endorse or condemn
particular books.</p>
<p>“All we ask is for Book Culture to assert its role as
a community space for education and dialogue, to take
no stand on Palestine and Palestine literature, just
as it does with its books that span the entire
political spectrum.”</p>
<p>Doeblin insists that whatever people make of his
position, “I think it’s very important to have and to
support bookstores, and an open free media.” He said
that it is wrong for “anyone to try and boycott or
shut down a bookstore.”</p>
<p>That position will undoubtedly find instinctive
support among some liberals.</p>
<h2>Why boycott?</h2>
<p>But boycott campaigners point out that while pleading
for open discussion, Book Culture is colluding with
longstanding Israel lobby bullying tactics that have
systematically shut down free discussion by smearing
Palestinians and their cause as inherently violent and
“terrorist.”</p>
<p>“We choose to boycott because we know that, in years
past, community mobilization has proved an effective
strategy for holding Book Culture accountable to its
progressive vision, as in the case of Book Culture’s <a
href="http://gothamist.com/2014/06/26/book_culture_union.php">prior
union-busting</a>,” the student groups <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/columbia-students-for-justice-in-palestine/update-on-the-petition-to-boycott-book-culture/10156594986530931/">assert</a>.</p>
<p>“The main reason why progressive faculty have opted
over the years to order their course books for
students from Book Culture was on account of the
bookstore being independent and progressive compared
with the Columbia Bookstore, which is part of the
Barnes and Noble empire,” Joseph Massad, one of the
Columbia faculty who signed the petition, told The
Electronic Intifada.</p>
<p>“Unlike Barnes and Noble though, Book Culture decided
to take a public and unequivocal position in support
of settler-colonialism and in support of the violent
suppression of Palestinian rights,” Massad added.</p>
<p>“We chose Book Culture over other book stores because
we believed it to be a more progressive alternative;
with its new position it has become even more
objectionable than the others,” Massad said.</p>
<p>“Its being the last independent bookstore in the
Columbia neighborhood can in no way be used as a
counterweight to its right-wing support of violence
against the indigenous Palestinians.”</p>
<p><em>Ali Abunimah is executive director of The
Electronic Intifada.</em></p>
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