Irish author Sally Rooney has vowed to give fees generated by two BBC adaptations of her books to Palestine Action, an anti-Israel group that was recently banned in the UK as a terrorist organization.
The star writer, whose 2018 second novel “Normal People” and its 2020 BBC television adaptation won international acclaim, announced her plans in the Irish Times.
For years, Rooney has been a prominent advocate of boycotting Israel. She said she had chosen the Dublin-based newspaper to publicize her plans, rather than a UK one, as doing so “would now be illegal” after London declared Palestine Action to be a barred terrorist group in early July.
“The UK’s state broadcaster… regularly pays me residual fees. I want to be clear that I intend to use these proceeds of my work, as well as my public platform generally, to go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can,” she wrote.
The BBC noted that it is not currently working with Rooney on any upcoming projects and that she has never been directly employed by the broadcaster.
The British government outlawed Palestine Action on July 5, days after the group took responsibility for a break-in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated £7 million ($9.3 million) in damage to two aircraft.
The group said its activists were responding to Britain’s indirect military support for Israel during the war in Gaza. More than 700 people have since been arrested, mostly at demonstrations. Being a member of Palestine Action or supporting the group is now a criminal offense in Britain, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
“I feel obliged to state once more that, like the hundreds of protesters arrested last weekend, I too support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it,'” Rooney wrote.
Britain’s interior minister, Yvette Cooper, has defended the Labour government’s proscription of the group, stating that “UK national security and public safety must always be our top priority.”
“The assessments are very clear — this is not a non-violent organization,” she said.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson declined to directly respond to Rooney’s comments but said, “Support for a proscribed organization is an offense under the Terrorism Act and obviously the police will… implement the law.”
Rooney’s pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism dates back to well before the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. In 2021, she refused to let an Israeli publisher print her third novel, “Beautiful World, Where Are You?” due to her support for boycotting Israel. (She said a non-Israeli house could still publish the book in Hebrew.)
She was one of a list of celebrities to call for a ceasefire weeks after the October 7 attack in a letter that did not mention Israeli hostages. In 2024, she signed a pledge to boycott Israeli cultural institutions.
Ireland recognized a State of Palestine in 2024. Regarding Rooney’s pledge on Palestine Action, Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid, the Palestinian ambassador in Ireland, praised the author for “using her voice to call out international law and human rights violations in Palestine.”
“I hope these calls result in practical actions that will stop the horrors we’re witnessing carried out by Israel in Palestine; to stop the genocide and forced displacement and end the Israeli occupation,” she said.