The Jewish community at Duke University needs your help responding to the incendiary visit of one of Twitter’s most prolific antisemites, Mohammed el-Kurd, on March 31st, co-hosted by Duke Students for Justice in Palestine and the Duke Arab Students Organization. The speaker has repeatedly indulged in the medieval blood libel and other grotesque antisemitic tropes of centuries past. On this occasion, he enflamed anti-Jewish tensions at Duke when an audience member asked him what should happen to the Jews of Israel if Palestinian nationalists established a state “from the River to the Sea.” He responded: “don’t care,” and when pressed, said “I truly, seriously, sincerely, genuinely do not give a f**k…” to wild applause and cheering from the audience.”
Antisemitic Incitement by el-Kurd, including allegations of Jewish cannibalism, is an unfortunate pattern. 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.
El-Kurd has also repeatedly claimed that Zionist Jews are “Nazis.” 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…
El-Kurd also used racist terminology in assaulting the connection of Jews to Israel. 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?”
Far too many times, we have seen anti-Israel activity poison the environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students on American college campuses. As you know, data shows a strong correlation between anti-Israel sentiment and attacks on Jews; last May, antisemitic incidents in the US more than doubled thanks to anti-Israel incitement online during Israel’s war with Hamas, and a recent study shows that schools with five or more BDS-supporting faculty are six times more likely to experience acts targeting Jewish students for harm.
Sign the petition urging Duke University’s President Vincent E. Price to protect Jewish students by publicly condemning El-Kurd’s speech as antisemitic.
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