Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

May 7, 2019

A Publishing House Withdraws a Novel after It Was Attacked for Being Pro-Israel

Claiming objection to “Islamophobia,” when the real objection is to Zionism.

In April, a small publishing house called Dzanc Books announced a new novel, by the former journalist Hesh Kestin, that imagines a successful invasion of the Jewish state. Blurbed by the best-selling author Stephen King, The Siege of Tel Aviv seemed poised for success when critics rushed to Twitter to denounce it as “racist,” “Islamophobic,” and so forth. Dzanc mounted a feeble defense, but then withdrew the book. Mark Horowitz comments on what he calls an “all-too-familiar scene in American publishing”:

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