Dr. Gaber Asfour, director of the National Project for Translation, said steps were already taken to translate the works of the Israeli writers Amos Oz and David Grossman into Arabic. He said Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni has approved it. The French news agency said Asfour hopes to sign the contracts for the translation before July with their French or British publishers, as opposed to dealing with Israeli publishers. He told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the National Project for Translation refuses to deal directly with Israeli publishers, as this would fall under normalization with Israel; a conduct that is rejected by the Egyptian intellectuals. "It would raise a wave of protests in Egypt and the Arab world, which is why we decided to negotiate with the European publishing houses," he said. He said he is waiting for replies from the European publishers to translate the English or French versions of their works, noting that Oz and Grossman belong to the peace trend of Israel. Asfour said this had nothing to do with the nomination of Farouk Hosni for UNESCO Director-General or with trying to appease the situation with Israel. "The National Project for Translation has six years ago translated six books written by Israelis from languages other than Hebrew, which means we have done things like that before," he explained.
In a related development, the National Center for Translation issued a statement reiterating its commitment not to deal with any Israeli publishing house.
