JERUSALEM, February 26, 2008  - The Palestinian Writers' Union on Monday
urged Arabic publishers to boycott next month's book fair in Paris because
Israel will be the guest of honour.
   "We asked Palestinian and Arabic publishing houses to boycott this fair,"
the union's president, Al-Mutawakel Taha, told AFP.
   "It is not worthy of France, the land of the revolution and human rights,
to welcome at its book fair a racist, occupying country," Taha said.
   He claimed that inviting Israel at the March 14-19 fair would "legitimise
all its fascist acts".
   Some 40 Israeli writers have been invited by the fair's organisers, to mark
the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state.
   Palestinians call the May 15 anniversary the "Nakba," or Arabic for "the
catastrophe".

AFP