Boycott Watkins
Our Statement
Watkins Media is a UK-based independent publisher, whose imprints include Repeater, Angry Robot, Nourish, Moon + Bird and Datura Books.
The CEO and owner of Watkins is Etan Ilfeld, an Israeli venture capitalist.
It has now been revealed that Ifeld is an partner of Remagine Ventures, an Israeli AI technology company that has collaborated with Unit 8200, a division of the Israeli Intelligence Corps, alongside evidence that staff members are currently serving in the IDF.
Furthermore, when Repeater Books, a Watkins imprint, signed the Publishers for Palestine statement in October 2023, Repeater were later forced to retract the signature, reportedly under direct instruction from Ilfeld.
Now, Watkins authors are requesting the rights to their books be returned to them, due to the risk that any profit from sales of books may - directly or indirectly - be reinvested in the growing use of AI technologies in the occupation and genocide of Palestinians. In response, Ilfeld has either refused to return rights or demanded that authors buy them back for thousands of pounds.
We know that Ilfeld’s actions are part of a wider pattern of attempts to intimidate, silence, and punish those in the arts and cultural sector who express solidarity with Palestine and call for an end to the genocide.
We speak out in solidarity with Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, murdered by an Israeli airstrike in 2023. We speak out in solidarity with the Palestinians journalists who risk their lives every day to bring truth to the world. We speak out in solidarity with Palestinian children, the future novelists, painters, sculptors and musicians, whose lives and creative potential have been stolen forever by Israeli bombs.
For this reason, we are now calling on authors, readers, booksellers, editors, artists and cultural workers and all those who support an end to the genocide and occupation of Palestine to boycott Watkins until the demands below are met.
We believe in books, care deeply about supporting authors and keeping literature alive. But we must respond to the Palestinian-led call for artists to now escalate the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and refuse to be complicit in any way that may enable occupation and genocide.
We therefore call on Watkins Media and Etan Ilfeld to immediately:
Divest from Israeli AI technology company Remagine Ventures.
Disclose all financial interests, investments, or business relationships tied to the Israeli economy or Israeli institutions.
Guarantee full and cost-free reversion of rights to any Watkins author who chooses to terminate their contract in solidarity with Palestine.