BANNING A BOOK This is a letter from Ted Honderich sent to the Frankfurter Rundschau for publication on 6 August. It responds to what Micha Brumlik speaks of as his outrage and amazement at finding the book After the Terror full of antisemitism. There is also a German translation of the letter. ------------------------------------------ ACADEMIC PRINCIPLE An open letter from Prof. Dr. Ted Honderich, to the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, by way of the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper. Micha Brumlik, the director a Holocaust institute and I understand a professor in your university's institute for general education in science declares me to be an antisemite. This is because in my book I defend the moral right of the Palestinians to their resistance to the state of Israel, as the state of Israel defends its moral right to the killing of Palestinians. The charge of antisemitism outrages me. I could not believe my eyes. How did the editors at the presses of the University of Edinburgh and Columbia University in New York, as well as Suhrkamp Verlag, fail to see my antisemitism? No one who has not already joined the New Zionism can read my book and declare any such thing. No doubt the charge will now have some psychoanalysis added to it to take into account the fact that I have had a Jewish wife, refused to lecture in Germany on account of the Holocaust, etc. The audacious stupidity of the charge of antisemitism gives rise to a complacency on my part about every sentence in Brumlik's letter. It is despicable, too, to engage in personal slurs of association having to do with people whose politics I do not share. It is dishonourable to attempt to bring pressure on a publishing house of outstanding international repute. This terrible disservice to truth and decency is not consistent with academic principle. I therefore ask you to consider the dismissal immediately of Micha Brumlik from his post with you. With respect, Prof. Dr. Ted Honderich ---------------------------- HOME to T.H. website front page