Via Free Beacon:
A newly hired New York Times columnist is an anti-Israel conspiracy theorist who is so opposed to “normalization” with the Jewish state that he once fought to prevent a think tank from translating his novel into Hebrew.
Influential Egyptian author Alaa al-Aswany sparked controversy in literary circles in 2010 when he tried to block the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information from publishing a Hebrew translation of his novel The Yacoubian Building.
IPCRI co-chairman Gershon Baskin told the Washington Free Beacon that his organization enlisted Amos Schocken, the editor of left-leaning Israeli daily Haaretz, to publish the Hebrew translation. However, Aswany would not give Schocken or the IPCRI permission.
“I met [Aswany] at the Gothenburg book fair in Sweden, and introduced myself, and gave him a letter … asking for permission to translate [the Yacoubian Building] and to pay him for the royalties,” IPCRI co-chairman Gershon Baskin told the Washington Free Beacon. “He responded that he would refuse to have it published in Israel.”
Aswany’s book had already been translated into 19 languages at the time, according to The Guardian.
Baskin said he was later informed that during an interview with a Ph.D. student, Aswany threatened to give any royalties from the book’s Hebrew translation to Hamas.
“He started yelling, and said ‘if it’s published in Israel, I’ll give the royalties to Hamas,’” said Baskin. “When I heard that, I said, excuse my language, ‘fuck him’—and we’re going to make it available to people as an educational service.”