Anti-Semitism

Author defends anti-Semitic endorsement

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Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker said critics of her endorsing an anti-Semitic book mean to silence her advocacy for Palestinians.

The author of The Color Purple responded to a controversy aroused by a feature in the New York Times Book Review, in which she endorsed the book And the Truth Shall Set You Free by anti-Semitic British conspiracist David Icke.

Critics, and the Times, noted that Icke’s book places Jews and Jewish organizations at the center of a global conspiracy to control the world.

“I do not believe he is anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish,” Walker responsed. “I do believe he is brave enough to ask the questions others fear to ask, and to speak his own understanding of the truth wherever it might lead. Many attempts have been made to censor and silence him.”

Walker noted that she is a supporter of the BDS movement. “I believe the attempt to smear David Icke, and by association, me, is really an effort to dampen the effect of our speaking out in support of the people of Palestine,” she wrote.

Walker also defended reading books that are “problematic,” a list she said includes the Koran, the Talmud, the Bible and Mein Kampf.

Walker has previously recommended Icke’s book to fans, and in the New York Times recurring feature “By the Book,” she noted that it was on her nightstand. She called the book, which includes theorizing about the Jewish and extraterrestrial forces that control the world, a “curious person’s dream come true.”

Times editor Pamela Paul defended the decision to present the recommendation. “The intention for By the Book is to be a portrait of someone through his or her reading life,” she said.

When asked if she had considered asking Walker about Icke’s book, Paul said no. “When we interview anyone, whether it’s a public official or a foreign leader or an artist, The Times isn’t saying that we approve of the person’s views and actions,” she said.

Walker is best known for her book The Color Purple, detailing the hardships of African-American women in the early twentieth century.

Yair Rosenberg, a columnist for the online Jewish magazine Tablet who first reported her recommendation, noted that Icke is infamous for his conspiracy theories regarding the Jews, as well as a secret cabal of lizard men who secretly control the world.

In the book endorsed by Walker, Icke blames “Jewish members of the conspiracy” for deploying the Anti-Defamation League to stifle discussion about the Rothschild family’s alleged ties to the cabal. Icke claims that he is not implicating all Jews in the so-called plot, although Jews play a distinct and outsize role on nearly all of the book’s 476 pages.