To the Giller Foundation: Cut Ties with Genocide
July 10, 2024
To the Executive Director, Board and Advisory Council of the Giller Foundation:
We, the undersigned, have made the decision to withdraw our books from consideration for the 2024 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and to refuse participation in all programming or promotions associated with the Giller Foundation.
As authors, we cannot abide our work being used to provide cover for sponsors actively investing in arms funding and Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians. We cannot abide the Giller Foundation’s attitude to Palestine solidarity since November 2023: the criminalization of protest, and the silencing and discrediting of their own authors who have stood in solidarity with community organizers and Palestinians.
As long as the Giller Foundation continues to receive funding from ANY sponsors who are directly invested in Israel’s occupation of Palestine, it will still be complicit in genocide.
Our demands to the Giller Foundation are as follows:
- Use their organizational leverage to pressure their main sponsor, Scotiabank, to fully divest from Elbit Systems
- Cut ties with all funders directly invested in Israel’s occupation and genocide in Palestine, including the Azrieli Foundation, Indigo, and Audible
Scotiabank
The 2023 Giller Gala was disrupted in order to spotlight Giller’s lead sponsor Scotiabank’s $500 million investment in Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer responsible for the Hermes drone, cluster bombs, and white phosphorus used against Palestinians. Following this disruption, a support letter signed by over 2000 authors, and months of organizing by authors, artists and cultural workers, Scotiabank has halved its stake in Elbit, representing a divestment of nearly $250 million. Despite these major organizing gains, Scotiabank continues to have millions invested in Elbit.
The Azrieli Foundation
The Azrieli Foundation takes its name from David Azrieli, who participated in the Nakba, serving in the Seventh Brigade of the Zionist paramilitary organization Haganah. The Azrieli Group continues to conduct business on settlements in the occupied West Bank through their gas station chain Sonol— settlements deemed illegal under international law.
The Foundation itself has donated millions of dollars to organizations like Birthright Israel Foundation of Canada and United Israel Appeal of Canada— organizations whose missions to promote “immigration to Israel” expand the Zionist settler colonial project. In 2011, the Azrieli Foundation donated to far-right Zionist group Im Tirtzu, which has been characterized as “fascist” even by Israeli courts, under a stated mandate to "stop the academic boycott of Israel."
Indigo
Indigo is controlled by Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman, who fund the HESEG Foundation. HESEG provides incentives in the form of scholarships for non-Israeli citizens — also known as “lone soldiers” — to serve in the IOF to displace, terrorize and kill Palestinians. Reisman also co-founded the anti-Palestinian advocacy group Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), and is a major donor to Hillel Ontario, a Zionist student organization on school campuses.
Audible*
Audible is owned by Amazon, which partners with the tech company Palantir. Palantir CEO Alex Carp claims he has lost employees over his vocal and public support of Israel’s military response to Gaza — in other words, his support of genocide. Palantir has also provided information about undocumented people living in the U.S. to its Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), powering immigration raids, deportations, and police surveillance.
This week, Elana Rabinovitch, executive director of the Giller Prize, issued a statement to the Globe and Mail saying that they are working on “a solution that will support the foundation, the prize and all authors.”
To be clear: we will not be content with half-measures. Our goal is to truly win an arts and culture sector free from arms funding. Arts institutions cannot launder their moral reputations with empty statements calling too late for a ceasefire, or toothless guarantees that they will support authors’ free speech and right to protest.
We urge our peers and other authors to join us in withdrawing their work and their labour from the Giller Prize and Foundation– until such time as all our demands are met. We remember that our cultural institutions need us more than we need them. Giller may try to censor us, to contain us, rather than listen to our demands– but our resolve and our momentum will only keep growing. We will not be ignored.
*On July 10, in response to the release of the letter, Audible clarified that their partnership with the Giller Prize had ended in 2023. As of the letter’s release date, Audible was still listed on the Giller Prize’s website as a sponsor.
If you would like to sign on as an author with a 2024 Giller-eligible release, or as a former Giller-affiliated author, please email authorsrespond@gmail.com