Sally Rooney Risks Arrest by Pledging To Direct Book Proceeds to a U.K.-Proscribed Terror Group

Irish novelist Sally Rooney could face legal action over her promise to donate the proceeds from her work to an anti-Israel organization that the United Kingdom has designated as a terrorist group. The 34-year-old author, who has been hailed as the “first great millennial novelist,” announced her support for Palestine Action in an opinion piece published in the Irish Times over the weekend.Ms. Rooney committed to using the royalties from BBC adaptations of her best-selling books “Normal People” and “Conversations with Friends” to “go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can.” “My books, at least for now, are still published in Britain, and are widely available in bookshops and even supermarkets,” Ms. Rooney wrote. “In recent years the UK’s state broadcaster has also televised two fine adaptations of my novels, and therefore regularly pays me residual fees.” The television adaptation of Ms. Rooney’s 2018 novel, “Normal People,” achieved significant commercial success. The 12-part series, which was co-produced by the BBC and Hulu, was the most-streamed series of the year on the BBC when it came out in 2020. The same team subsequently produced a miniseries adapted from Ms. Rooney’s earlier work, “Conversations With Friends,” which garnered positive reviews but failed to match the extraordinary success of “Normal People.”The British government outlawed Palestine Action in July after determining that the group’s “orchestration and enaction of aggressive and intimidatory attacks against businesses, institutions and the public” had “crossed the thresholds established in the Terrorism Act 2000.” Under British law, individuals who demonstrate support for a proscribed terrorist organization face penalties of up to 14 years in prison.The organization was banned shortly after its members vandalized a Royal Air Force station at Carterton, England, causing more than $9.4 million in damage to the facility’s aircraft. Palestine Action targeted the installation to protest the United Kingdom’s support for Israel’s military campaign against Hamas.Demonstrations have erupted across Britain in the weeks following the government’s decision. Ms. Rooney, in her piece for the Irish Times, praised the some 500 activists who were arrested while protesting at London earlier this month. “I feel obliged to state once more that, like the hundreds of protesters arrested last weekend, I too support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it,’” Ms. Rooney wrote.Although Ms. Rooney currently resides in Ireland, she could face prosecution under Britain’s Terrorism Act if she enters the United Kingdom.A British-Jewish advocacy group, Campaign Against Antisemitism, has vowed to pursue legal action against Ms. Rooney should British authorities decline to prosecute her. “Sally Rooney’s announcement that she intends to fund a proscribed terrorist organisation is utterly indefensible,” the organization stated. “This goes far beyond political activism — it is a deliberate statement of intent to channel money towards a group that vandalised RAF jets and terrorised the Jewish community.”The Campaign Against Antisemitism urged publishers and platforms that profit from Ms. Rooney’s work to reconsider their partnerships, warning that “they now risk enabling the flow of funds to a terrorist organisation.” The group confirmed it has “reported this matter to Counter Terrorism Policing.”The U.K.’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, declined to comment directly on Ms. Rooney’s remarks but noted, “Support for a proscribed organization is an offense under the Terrorism Act and obviously the police will … implement the law.”Ms. Rooney’s involvement with anti-Israel activism predates Hamas’s October 7 attack. In 2021, she embraced the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement and blocked an Israeli publisher from translating her third novel, “Beautiful World, Where Are You,” into Hebrew.In October 2024, Ms. Rooney joined some 1,000 writers and publishers in pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions they identified as “complicit in violating Palestinian rights,” including those engaged in “whitewashing and justifying Israel’s occupation, apartheid, or genocide.”Citing the war in Gaza as “the most profound moral, political and cultural crisis of the 21st century,” the signatories charge that they “cannot in good conscience engage with Israeli institutions without interrogating their relationship to apartheid and displacement.” Fania Oz-Salzberger, the daughter of a celebrated Israeli writer and peace activist, Amos Oz, responded to the petition by stating that her father would have been “sad, disgusted, but proud” to be among those included in the ban.

Sally Rooney Risks Arrest by Pledging To Direct Book Proceeds to a U.K.-Proscribed Terror Group

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