Update (12/17/18):
The most senior U.S. diplomat in Qatar, U.S. Chief of Mission and Chargé d'Affaires William Grant, responded to ADL's concerns. In a letter, he indicated he and his advisers took immediate action in response to ADL's letter of concern about anti-Semitic titles being promoted by the Doha International Book Fair.
Grant indicated that the Embassy's team raised concern about these books with the Qatari Ministry of Culture, visited booths at the book fair to identify the anti-Semitic materials flagged by ADL, and consulted with other embassies that were participating in the event. Grant relayed that the Qatari government subsequently withdrew certain anti-Semitic titles from the book fair and issued a circular to participants indicating that intolerant books were not permitted.
Several intolerant titles were removed from the book fair's website, although some others currently remain. As such, this effort will be an ongoing dialogue. ADL hopes that next year the U.S. government will only participate in the Doha International Book Fair if organizers can ensure once and for all that absolutely no anti-Semitic titles are promoted online or in person under its auspices.
New York, NY, December 4, 2018 … Blatantly anti-Semitic books are being promoted by the state-run book fair this week in Doha, Qatar, according to Anti-Defamation League’s experts in Arabic language. These anti-Semitic titles include “Lies Spread by the Jews” and “The Myth of the Nazi Gas Chambers.”
ADL wrote William Grant, the U.S. Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires at the American embassy in Qatar, asking that he leverage the embassy’s participation in the book fair to urge the Qatari government to stop promoting such hateful content. In the last few years, the Doha International Book Fair has a record of promoting blatantly anti-Semitic content in addition to other titles.
“Once again, this high-profile, government-sponsored book fair is being used to promote blatantly anti-Semitic books that deny the Holocaust and accuse Jews of controlling the world and trying to undermine Islam,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO and National Director. “We call on the U.S. embassy to make clear to Qatar’s government that this hate is unacceptable.”
The anti-Semitic titles being sold on the book fair’s website include an Arabic version of former Klansman David Duke’s anti-Semitic tract exaggerating Jewish influence in the U.S. and Henry Ford’s The International Jew, which teaches as historical fact the seminal anti-Semitic hoax, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
In the letter to the U.S. Embassy in Qatar, ADL noted the following Arabic-language books are being promoted for sale on the fair’s website:
- Lies Spread by the Jews
- Talmud of Secrets: Facts Exposing the Jewish Schemes to Control the World
- The History of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the History of the Corruption of the Jews, and the Demise of their Entity
- The International Jew by Henry Ford [multiple editions]
- Awakening to Jewish Influence in the United States of America, by David Duke
- The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Purported Temple
- The Myth of the Nazi Gas Chambers
The Doha International Book Fair has a history of promoting anti-Semitic books and speakers in prior years. The 29th annual book fair runs through Dec. 8.