A Report by Shimon Samuels and Alex Uberti
Frankfurt, 24 October 2024
Over the past 23 years we have been monitoring several Arab bookfairs across the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, as well as the biggest World book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany (FBM - the Frankfurter BuchMesse), to identify texts and publishers that peddle hate, especially against the Jews. At the FBM, in compliance with German law and following our alerts, those texts that got through would be checked and confiscated by the local Hessen Police.
At this year’s FBM Press Conference, Samuels asked formidable Turkish writer, Elif Shafak, if she had heard of our yearly mission. She was curious to know more while our friend, the Book Fair’s Director Juergen Boos, was nearby and smiling knowingly.
At the end of the Fair, annually, we “award” a prize to the worst examples of hate, that usually goes to Egyptian publishers linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, to Syrian publishers faithful to the Assad dictatorship or to Iranian publishers relaying the Ayatollah’s genocidal narrative.
Last year, Türkiye had won, with books denying the Holocaust and promoting conspiracy theories. This year’s Turkish stand was clean, and even had its own books in Russian for the growing expat community fleeing the consequences of war.
This year, official Iranian publishers seemed to be discreet, probably due to the regime’s ban on international flights. The official Arab stands were from countries that do not usually indulge in anti-Jewish texts.
Nevertheless, the Arab mixed stand (hall 4.1, stand B85) caught our attention with a book that got through:
n.1 - Comparing the Quran to the Palestinian Cause in the Light of the Flood of al-Aqsa Battle, by Sheikh Aladdin Zaatari, Dar Rawd al-Majd publishing house, Syria (an Islamist cleric’s justification of Jihad);
n.2 - The Jews and Their Contempt for Religions, is in the catalogue of publisher Alam al-Kotob, Egypt. It is a recurrent defamatory canard in Arab book fairs.
The Iranian stand Green Palm Publications, Iran (hall 6.2, stand PRC) has some problematic books in its catalogue, including:
n.3 - The Ashes of Sparrows, Testimony of 44 Crimes of the Zionist Regime in Gaza, by Ahmed Askari.
A few stands had Islamic proselytizing texts that illustrate the rise of conversions in Western societies.
A number of problematic books were present on European and American stands, in particular:
An Irish publisher was promoting a book accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza. Since the 7 October massacre, we have not noticed new Irish books on the horrors of terrorism, so we are compelled to state that this might be a sign of the resurgence of antisemitism in Ireland.
A publisher in Scotland presented a single “tea-table” book at the Fair, a collection of photographs from Gaza and texts (book n.4) that depict the effects of the current conflict, ignoring Hamas’ existence, influence and responsibilities.
A publisher close to the French radical left displayed an essay by several authors on the “instrumentalization” of antisemitism (book n.5), which seems to aim at reversing responsibility for this age-long scourge on the Jews themselves, and displayed several books calling for BDS: the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign targeting Israel (book n.6).
Already mentioned last year, an American publishing house owned by a Palestinian “refugee” living in the US since decades now, shows an obsession for Zionism, portrayed through the narrative of “Apartheid” and “colonization”.
Finally, we also visited the stands of some American universities, which carried books that reflect a year of one-sided polarization around the Middle East conflict, and inherent academic delegitimization of Israel.
A few German far-left stands also relayed an anti-Western post-colonial narrative, but after the Nazi regime’s genocidal war and defeat, Federal Germany’s Constitution has shaped legislation to ban the publication of texts that single out, demonize or express hatred towards the Jews.
The “2024 Hate Prize” goes to a Syrian publisher (see book n.1), for its glorification of the murderous 7 October terror attack on Israel. Runners-up are those publishers in the West who play around with semantics, but are de facto justifying antisemitism and reversing responsibilities. We have already seen this trend... about a century ago.
Dr Shimon Samuels is former Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre
Alex Uberti is Consultant and Project Manager for CSW-Europe
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For further information, contact csweurope@gmail.com