Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at American University (AU) in Washington D.C. is planning to host one of Twitter’s most prolific antisemites, Mohammed El-Kurd, on March 17th. The speaker, who has repeatedly indulged in the medieval blood libel and other grotesque antisemitic tropes of centuries past, is also being sponsored by numerous AU departments, including the Department of Anthropology, Department of Sociology, and the Asia, Pacific, and Diaspora Studies Program.
In his book of poetry, titled “Rifqa,” El-Kurd alleged that Jewish Israelis and Zionists eat the organs of Palestinians, writing: “they [Israelis] harvest organs of the martyred [Palestinians], feed their warriors our own.” In May 2021, El-Kurd tweeted that Zionists have an “unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood.” In June 2021 he claimed that Zionism is inherently linked to “blood thirsty[sic] and violent” actions.
In June 2021, El-Kurd tweeted that “Zionist settlers… are the sadistic barbaric neonazi [sic] pigs that claim to be indigenous to our land.” On May 12, 2021 he tweeted: “I don’t care who this offends they have completely internalized the ways of the nazis.” The same day, he tweeted to a non-Israeli Jew: “YOU ARE KILLING MURDERING BOMBING ETHNICALLY CLEANSING COLONIZING LYNCHING KRYSTALLNACHTING US IN REAL TIME CURRENTLY RIGHT NOW AND YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO MAKE HOLOCAUST ANALOGIES…”
In June 2021, El-Kurd called the Jewish connection to Israel called such a connection “fictional indigenity[sic].” In February 2021, he tweeted: “How are Israelis gonna say they’re indigenous to Palestine but can’t walk outside without getting sunburned? :/.” Similarly, in March 2021 he tweeted: “‘ancestral homeland?’ Then explain why y’all can’t walk around Jerusalem without getting sunburnt?”
El-Kurd has repeatedly referred to Zionism – the aspiration of Jews to have a state of their own – as a “death cult,” tweeting in July 2021 that such a designation “...should not spark outrage.” On November 8, 2021, he commented, “Zionism is brutal, murderous;” in September 2021, El-Kurd tweeted “Zionism is genocidal;” in August 2021 he opined that “Zionism is sadistic” and that “dishonesty has always been integral to the Zionist project;” and in June 2021 he offered that “Zionism is genocide.”
It should go without saying that these grotesque distortions constitute not legitimate anti-Israel political speech, but genocidally violent anti-Jewish racist rhetoric. This demonstrates once again why anti-Israel activists have fought against a clear definition of antisemitism on “free speech” grounds – because demagogues like El-Kurd recognize no limits to their defamatory incitement.
The AU event will undoubtedly serve as a means to harass and intimidate Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus. If Mohammed El-Kurd’s outrageous antisemitic slurs surrounding Jews and their indigenous homeland demonstrate anything, it is that this shameful rhetoric serves no place within the halls of any institution dedicated to historical truth, civility and acceptance for all. Stand with Jewish and pro-Israel students at AU by demanding the administration cancels this vile event without delay.
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