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UPenn to Host Anti-Israel Hate Fest During Jewish Holidays

UPenn to Host Anti-Israel Hate Fest During Jewish Holidays

University administrators admit they have “deep concerns about several speakers who have a documented and troubling history of engaging in antisemitism.”

As Jews prepare for the High Holidays, the most sacred season in the Jewish calendar, the University of Pennsylvania is gearing up to hold an anti-Israel festival.

Next week, UPenn will host some of the world’s worst Israel-haters and antisemites to support the ‘free exchange of ideas,’ Israel-based journalist Emily Schrader reported Wednesday on the Ynet news website. The event, involving activists and outfits linked to Palestinian terrorist groups, is taking place under the cover of the ‘Palestinian literature festival.’

Organized by the Islamic Relief USA, a ‘charity’ accused of funding Gaza-based jihadist group Hamas, the festival will feature an array of notorious speakers ranging from rabid Western antisemites to supporters of Palestinian terrorist groups, news reports suggest. Speakers include rock star-turn-Israel hater Roger Waters and fired CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill.

Emily Schrader wrote (Ynet, September 13) :

On September 22-24, in the midst of the Jewish High Holidays, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) is hosting the Palestine Writes Literature Festival with known anti-Israel, pro-terror, and antisemitic speakers such as Roger Waters, Marc Lamont Hill, Noura Erekat and representatives from U.S.-designated Palestinian terror groups such as the PFLP, as well as representatives from their affiliates.

Among the featured speakers are PFLP militant Wisam Rafeedie, Salman Abusitta from the UK Hamas-affiliated organization Palestine Return Center (PRC), Marc Lamont Hill, American journalist who was fired from CNN for his antisemitic comments and has praised the likes of Louis Farrakhan and convicted PFLP terrorists, Roger Waters, known for his anti-Israel and antisemitic stunts, and Noura Erekat.

This same festival in 2020 awarded notorious pro-terror Palestinian activist Mohammed el Kurd with its Emerging Writer Award. El Kurd has spread antisemitic blood libels on social media accusing Israel of “trafficking Palestinian organs.”

The primary festival organizer, Susan Abulhawa, also has a colorful track record of support for PFLP terrorists such as Ghassan Kanafani and Dalal Mughrabi, as well as comparing Israel to Nazis. Abulhawa’s events in Australia have previously been canceled due to her pro-terror stances and extremist associations.

Also concerning are the sponsors of the event, such as Islamic Relief USA which has been accused of funneling money to U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas. Additional sponsors include governmental bodies in Pennsylvania, a state that has passed anti-BDS legislation, and in Australia, which previously canceled an event due to the speakers’ ties to extremists.

The festival occurring on a U.S. campus is even more concerning given the fact that UPenn, which is a private institution, has received public funds to the tune of $582.3 million in research funding from the U.S. Department of Health’s National Institutes of Health.

The list of openly Jew-hating speakers at the ‘literary festival’ has forced UPenn — one of America’s oldest and most prestigious universities — to go into damage control. “University administrators attempted to distance themselves from the event, saying they have ‘deep concerns about several speakers who have a documented and troubling history of engaging in antisemitism,'” the Jewish Insider reported Thursday.

As woke agitators will be locking arms with terror supporters at the hate in Pennsylvania, Jews in Israel will face the wrath of Palestinian terror.

This year’s Jewish High Holidays are occurring “amid numerous threats and terror warnings during this sensitive time in Jerusalem,” the Ynet reported Wednesday, citing police sources.

Every synagogue in the Holy City has been given armed protection in the face of threats issued by Palestinian and Islamic terrorist groups. “The armed individual in each synagogue — a police officer, a volunteer police officer, or a citizen with a gun license — will be specified ahead of the holidays,” The Times of Israel reported.

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Comments

To be fair, it’s pretty hard to avoid Jewish holidays, especially in the fall.

American Jews be like

“We’re safe in America. We’re loyal Americans.”

“It’s not that bad. It’s just talk.”

“They have a right to their opinions.”

“They seem so nice, once you get to know them.”

“There’s absolutely no need to consider resigning from my position at Penn or any other institution that betrays such vile contempt for me and my heritage.”

What’s that saying? “If you ever wondered how you would have behaved during 1930s Germany, you’re finding out now.”

Still and again, it’s a ‘self-indentity’ canard. IE: there is no such nation called palestine, and never has been, just like there are no such people named palestinians, and never has been. They are merely mongrel Arabs unwelcome all across the mideast.

The canard is akin to calling modern Israelis ‘canaanites’ living in canaan. It’s just not true. Israelis came, they saw, and kicked Arab azz. That makes it their land. Stay in your lane, Arabs.

Good grief.

    WestRock in reply to LB1901. | September 14, 2023 at 7:50 pm

    Actually, Jews came, bought land over decades from the Bedouin and other Arabs, who saw it as nothing but a patch of sand. This is all documented but who reads? All the land was purchased legitimately, parcel by parcel. It wasn’t until all of the Jewish workers and their families toiled and brought life to the desert did the Arabs want it. When it was sand it was worthless. When it started to produce crops and provide the new settlers sustenance the Arabs wanted to take it back. Sound familiar? Groups of people who had the chance to produce but didn’t wanting what those that did now have is as old as time.

    I highly recommend Israel: A History https://a.co/d/4oii3G3 by Martin Gilbert.

      guyjones in reply to WestRock. | September 15, 2023 at 9:00 am

      There’s no need to get into business transactions, because the historical record is much simpler to analyze and is decidedly inconvenient for European, Leftist dhimmis and American Dhimmi-crats who parrot Muslim supremacists’/terrorists’ contrived and fallacious victimhood mythologies and propaganda — to wit, Jews were living in the middle east for millennia before the founding of the supremacist, totalitarian and belligerent ideology of “Submission;” millennia before such a thing as a “Muslim” ever existed.

These knuckleheads apparently didn’t get the memo that anti Israeli propaganda and calls for boycotts, sanctions and divestment are supposed to be separate from anti Semitic rhetoric according to the d/prog lefty playbook.. Kind of hard for them to argue there’s no linkage given the specific timing.

    jagibbons in reply to CommoChief. | September 15, 2023 at 9:07 am

    Still boggles the mind why so many Jews are leftists given the Left’s support for the Arab nations and people who would love to erase Israel from world history.

And the ADL will be completely silent

Sadly, a lot of Jews in America belong to the most lax and least observant denomination, Reform Jews. One can almost call them JINOs, Jews In Name Only. Many, alas, hide from their identity and worse, see Israel as baddie. It’s hard to explain. Probably has to do with a long history of antisemitism. If you weren’t a fighter and surrounded by kids asking “Are you a Jew?” and being taunted with “You killed Jesus!!” are you going to say “Yes”? Not everyone can defend themselves all the time. And a lot of people want to survive and did what’s easiest. It drives some Jews to be a non-practicing Jew. You can’t hide your color but you can hide your religion. Not making excuses, just presenting a point of view.

The haters have a right to hate. Their hate should be allowed so we all can see who they are.

That said, it says more about those that host or enable these expressions of hate, and they should face their behavior each time they lecture about their lofty “principles” and the wrongs of others.

Penn whch once was friendly to Jewish students and even had a strong Orthodox Jewish presence is clearly not so today