Australian library removes book How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza after complaint
A public library in Sydney, Australia, has removed the book How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, provoking strong reactions for censorship and violation of freedom of expression.
The removal of the title that criticizes the Israel and the participation of the media in propaganda against it Palestine, was made following a complaint allegedly filed by a survivor of the terrorist attack in Bodai Beach in December 2025.
"The book has been removed from the library shelves for review, while the city council will consider further procedures to ensure stricter oversight of book selection," a city spokesman said.
“Like most public libraries, Waverley Council outsources the curation, ordering and purchasing of books, which means that the selection of titles is not done by council employees,” he added.
Jewish news outlet JWire reported last week that it approached the city council after a survivor of the December anti-Semitic attack in Bodai — in which 15 people died — saw How to Sell a Genocide on the “new releases/popular books” shelf.
The survivor posted on Facebook that "the display of the title was causing distress to survivors and the families of the victims."
The Guardian Australia website was unable to locate the specific Facebook post.
The book How to Sell a Genocide criticizes what it describes as "the complicity of the American media in the destruction of Gaza."
The author's answer
The decision to remove the book was strongly criticized by its author, Adam Johnson, who stated that characterizing Israel's actions in Gaza as "genocide" is not a "fringe or radical position."
“They seem to be protesting mainly because the title uses the word ‘genocide,’” Johnson said.
“But ‘genocide’ is not my word or my conclusion. The existence of genocide in Gaza is the overwhelming consensus in the human rights world and an absolutely dominant view among those who have undertaken the study and determination of such issues.”
"It's unfortunate that it upsets some people, but reality is often disturbing." This particular reality is particularly disturbing… for the parents of the more than 20.000 children who have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023. "Are the Sydney Authorities planning to remove pro-Israel books from their libraries because they may upset these community members?" the author wondered.
Wave of reactions and the legal framework
For his part, Bart Steinman, executive member of the progressive Jewish Council of Australia, called the decision to remove the book "deeply disturbing."
"Public libraries belong to all of us and should accommodate a range of views and topics, whether it's books about queer families or Israel's widely condemned war crimes," he stressed.
Israel has repeatedly denied committing genocide in Gaza.
The New South Wales government passed legislation earlier this year amending the state's Library Act, aiming to better protect institutions from book banning campaigns.
Steinman noted that "if the city council decides to remove the book permanently, both Mayor Will Nemes and Special Secretary of State John Graham must explain how this decision does not violate the law."
History lessons
The president of the Palestine Advocacy Network in Australia, Nasser Mashni, said that “a library’s duty is to provide its community with access to a wide range of published works, including those that may cause controversy or resentment.”
"Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, maimed and displaced," he said.
"The population of Gaza is facing an artificial famine, while all its hospitals and universities have been destroyed. The word genocide is not used to offend anyone. It is used because it describes the scale and intent of what is happening."
Masni added that "history has taught us very well what happens when books start being banned."
David Shulman, publisher of Pluto Press, which published How to Sell a Genocide, said that understanding the events in Gaza and the media's coverage of them is "a matter of the highest public interest."
“Adam Johnson is one of the most insightful media critics today, and his analysis is rigorous, meticulous, data-driven, and catalytic,” said Schulman.
"His book should be as accessible as possible, not only through public libraries that play such an essential role in a democratic society," he added.
"Genocide with evidence"
Writing about the book in The Conversation by Jeff Sparrow, Senior Lecturer, Centre for the Advancement of Journalism, University of Melbourne notes the following:
In How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, Adam Johnson explores an interesting phenomenon in the United States. His book, he says, is not focused on "the dehumanization of Palestinians by conservative or MAGA media."
This is partly due to the fact that right-wing media outlets, such as Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and The Daily Wire, do not hide their anti-Palestinian stance, but also because the timing of the war in Gaza made the coverage and commentary of supposed “progressives” particularly important.
“There was,” Johnson reminds us, “a Democratic president in office when the genocide began in earnest, and support from Democrats in Congress, as well as in the think-tank and media world, was instrumental in perpetuating said genocide.”
His criticism of what he calls the “center-left media” is based on careful documentation of some 12.000 articles and 5.000 television clips.
So speak with evidence.
Crowds of people at the mass funeral of 112 people, mostly women and children, who were killed in an Israeli raid on a residential neighborhood in Gaza. Since the start of the war, at least 73.377 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.
For example, Johnson notes that CNN – a pillar of American liberalism – reported child deaths during the first 100 days of the war in Ukraine far more times (4.223) than child deaths during the same period in Gaza (3.632 times).
On MSNBC, child victims of the war in Ukraine appeared 1.775 times, compared to those in Gaza who appeared 1.522 times.
However, in the first 100 days of the conflict in Ukraine, 262 children lost their lives, while in Gaza, the number of child deaths exceeded 10.000.
The systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza resulted, even in the initial period studied by Johnson, in 80% of the population being displaced. In Ukraine, the corresponding figure was only 33%.
However, Johnson finds that American television networks referred to refugees, displaced persons and similar terms eight times more often for Ukrainians than for Palestinians (1.663 versus 211).
The International Association of Genocide Scholars describes the Israeli war in Gaza as meeting the legal definition of genocide. The association's position was formed after a vote, so we know it reflects the judgment of 86% of its members.
Nearly all major human rights organizations and NGOs agree, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, the Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide, Genocide Watch, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, the Association for Middle East Studies, Oxfam, and Physicians for Human Rights, an Israeli NGO.
Yet most liberal media outlets still do not use the word “genocide” in relation to Gaza. Johnson shows how such lexical reservations do not apply elsewhere. “Although the destruction of Gaza, by all objective standards, was far more violent and deadly than that of the Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine,” he observes, “the combined moral labels of ‘war crime’ and ‘genocide’ were used on CNN and MSNBC 17,2 times more often in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine than they were for Israel’s actions in Gaza.”
His review of the first 30 days of the two conflicts showed that, on CNN and MSNBC, Ukrainians were described on air as victims of genocide or war crimes 1.790 times: 1.515 for war crimes and 275 for genocide. When the victims were Palestinians, the terms were used 104 times: 92 for war crimes and 12 for genocide.
“Seemingly impartial journalists and ‘analysts’ on both MSNBC and CNN,” Johnson writes, “often claimed that Russia was committing war crimes against Ukrainians, without this being considered a violation of their neutrality.”
Source:
photo JordanHoliday, https://pixabay.com
