The publishing world has rolled out the red carpet for one type of hatred

While Jews - both Israelis and those in the diaspora - are shunned, authors whose virulent bigotry is unvarnished are feted

It was 2.45am when I saw the tweet. I was blearily making my way home from the public shelter after Iran’s latest barrage during the twelve-day war when I read the words: “You spend years thinking you needed therapy but, as it turns out, what you really needed was to watch Tel Aviv burn.”

Not much shocks me anymore, but this was a tweet from Susan Abulhawa, author of Mornings in Jenin, a mainstream author whose work a client of mine had acquired for publication in a European country just two weeks earlier.  I am a literary scout, originally from London, based in Tel Aviv for the past eight years, and I advise clients in fifteen countries of the most exciting forthcoming books to acquire for translation.

I immediately attached a screenshot and emailed it to the client with the subject line “Hate Speech”, expecting a horrified, or at the very least mortified, response, and assuming the contract would be swiftly cancelled. This kind of behaviour is not tolerated in the genteel world of publishing.

Instead, I was told that the tweet had either been deleted or must have been fake, that the client did not regret acquiring the book, and that while they were sorry for what I was experiencing in Israel, Netanyahu was to blame and it would be better for me to leave the country as soon as possible.

This from a client of twenty years, once among my most Israel-friendly publishers, from a country my ancestors had fled generations earlier, now telling me where I should go.

It should not really have shocked me that Abulhawa’s tweets are hateful and antisemitic; a quick glance at the rest of her X account confirms that her tweets would not look out of place in Mein Kampf.

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