The committee to hold the Worldcon in Tel Aviv, Israel has announced they are no longer bidding for 2027 but will aim for a later year.
Kevin Standlee shared the message from Tel Aviv in 2027 bid chair Guy Kovel in a post on Worldcon.org:
Regrettably, due to the situation in Israel, we would have to push our bid to a later year, we have not yet made an announcement as we are still in internal discussions as to what year we would be able to bid for.
That leaves Montréal in 2027 the only announced bid for the year. Standlee adds that Montréal officially filed with the administering convention (Seattle 2025) today.
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Good. It’s going to take a lot of change before I’m happy going to Israel.
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Were they likely to win given the Montréal bid? It seems to me that was rather unlikely.
Probably for the best.
Well this is unfortunate.
IME Canadian conrunning is not capable of running a NASFiC, much less a Worldcon. Ever since Winnepeg, I have been calling them Can’tSMOF.
I didn’t like the idea of a Worldcon in occupied Palestine, but at least the folks running it were competent.
@Cat Eldredge: I would have thought that a bid from Israel would have had a difficult time winning a Worldcon bid under any circumstances (note the above comment from Nate which claims that Tel Aviv is in “occupied Palestine”), but after October 7, 2023 their chances drifted from slim closer to none. The Montreal bid didn’t emerge until a few months after that, though. (File 770 first posted about a Montreal bid on Feb. 10, 2024.)
Hopefully Tel Aviv will someday be able to bid for a Worldcon, but I don’t know when that day will come.
I wish the Tel Aviv bid well. I hope they take this as an opportunity to gain more Worldcon staff experience. If and when peace comes to the area, a Worldcon would be a fantastic way to celebrate.
I’m a lifelong proponent of Palestinian rights to self-determination and equal rights. I’m also a longtime critic of the Netanyahu administration.
But referring to the ancestral homeland of my people for millennia (in fact, since long before the term or concept “Palestinian” was ever conceived) as “occupied Palestine”? I am certain I am not the only Jewish fan who feels deeply hurt and grievously offended by that ill-advised choice of words.
(If you intended to use the term to refer solely to Gaza and the West Bank, then I would consider the term reasonably defensible, and would not take issue with its use. But Tel Aviv, the site of the bid in question, does not lie within either of those and is squarely situated within the nation of Israel proper.)
Fandom at its best is a warm, inclusive and welcoming community, one which I’ve been a part of since my first con in 1979. This is the first time I’ve been so deeply offended by another fan’s choice of words. I beg you: please, please do not take us down this path.
I mean, I assume they have reasons not to withdraw the bid, but bold of them to think it will become more likely in the near future. I wish them – actually I wish them, the whole region, and all their inhabitants good luck.
I think the fact that they need to have bomb shelters in the stair wells of their hotels would keep people from voting for Tel Aviv. So until the terrorists who attack Tel Aviv stop firing rockets, they may have a hard time getting a bid in.