(JTA) – A Dutch publishing house that was founded by anti-Nazi fighters lost some of its best-known authors following its contract with a Hezbollah supporter who has accused Israel of genocide. Leon de Winter, a Dutch-Jewish writer who is one of the Netherlands’ best-known novelists, said he joined the walkout by two other writers from De Bezige Bij last week, partly because the company was “lacking a leader” but also over its publication of the book Plea for Radicalization by Dyab Abou Jahjah – a Lebanon-born activist from Belgium who has called for violent attacks on Israeli Jews.

De Winter said he considered Abou Jahjah an antisemite, an accusation rejected by Abou Jahjah – who last year called Antwerp Mayor “a Zionist cocksucker” on Twitter, and who founded a Muslim European group which published on its website a picture of Anne Frank in bed with Adolf Hitler as well as a caricature suggesting that Jews invented the Holocaust.

De Winter told JTA Thursday that his leaving De Bezige Bij after 30 years “is very painful” because of the company’s wartime history and its record of supporting its authors. “But when you add the worldview of a person like Abou Jahjah, which is incompatible with mine, when my publisher tries to hide these differences or perhaps prefers Abou Jahjah, then I have to go look for a new publisher,” he said.

In June, the publishing house lost Jessica Durlacher, a celebrated Jewish author who is de Winter’s wife, and the award-winning novelist Tommy Wieringa. Both of them cited Abou Jahjah as a factor that led to their departure.

The Jewish Chronicle of London has  described Abou Jahjah – who famously has posed for a picture while holding an AK-47 assault rifle in his native Lebanon – as a former Hezbollah combatant.

CAP: Leon de Winter