UK publisher and bookseller remove anti-Israel book from websites

December 30, 2021

children, Israel, Palestinian

The UK publisher of a children’s book which deleted Israel from a map of the Middle East has now pulled the book from its website, and a bookseller has removed the book from its lists following accusations that the book is misleading and biased.

The book, Amazing Women of the Middle East, featured a map that replaced Israel with Palestine, and did not feature any Jewish women amongst the 25 “Amazing Women” that it profiled.

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) had asked the publishers, both in the UK and the USA, to withdraw the book and re-publish it with a correct map of the Middle East, which shows Israel, and to include at least one Amazing Woman from Israel. The UK publisher has now removed details of the book from its website, and also removed the teaching resources based on the book from its “Teachers resources” section.

UKLFI had pointed out to Pikku publishing that if the book were used as a teaching aid in schools it would be likely to result in a breach of Section 406 of Education Act 1996 headed “Political indoctrination”. This section forbids the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school.

UKLFI has also written to the major booksellers including Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles, Blackwells, Hive.com and bookshop.org alerting them to the misleading and biased contents of the book, and asking them not to sell the book until it had been amended.

Now Hive.com, has confirmed that it has removed this title from its lists, and also from the lists of its sister companies, Gardners and The Little Group. Hive.com said that they had made the publishers aware that they had withdrawn their stock from sale.

Caroline Turner, director of UK Lawyers for Israel commented: “It is good news that the UK publisher has removed the book from sale. It is shocking that a book for children in the UK could have presented such a misleading picture of the Middle East. I hope the publishers will now amend the book so Israel will be back on the map and that Jewish Israeli women will be included in the profiles.”