The Palestine Writes Literature Festival, to be hosted at the University of Pennsylvania between the 22nd and 24th of September, is slated to feature a number of speakers who have made antisemitic remarks.
On its website, Palestine Writes describes itself as “the only North American literature festival dedicated to celebrating and promoting cultural productions of Palestinian writers and artists.”
The festival will largely be conducted in person across multiple facilities on the UPenn campus.
Featured “antisemitic” speakers
Speakers to feature at the Palestine Writes festival
Among the speakers to be featured at the Palestine Write Literature Festival are individuals who have made anti-Jewish statements or support terrorist organizations or activity against Israel and Jews.
Among these individuals is British musician Roger Waters, the former frontman of the rock band, Pink Floyd.
Waters has made comments such as suggesting that more artists don’t oppose Israel because “the Jewish lobby is extraordinarily powerful” in the US. The artist has also held concerts that have been condemned as antisemitic in the past. One 2013 Waters concert featured a large, inflatable pig with a Star of David on it.
In another concert in 2023, Waters wore a uniform resembling that of a Nazi SS officer and compared Anne Frank to Shireen Abu Akleh.
Another speaker to appear at the UPenn Palestine Writes festival is former CNN commentator, Marc Lamont Hill, who praised the terrorist who attempted to bomb the Zion Cinema in downtown Jerusalem in October 1967.
Additionally, Hill was fired from the news giant after calling for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” a slogan understood by many to call for the utter destruction of the State of Israel. Hill was recently hired by CUNY, a university slammed by a 2023 report as “the most systemically antisemitic university in the United States.”
Other speakers include Wisam Rafeedie who praised the 1972 Lod Airport Massacre in an article from June of this year, Salman Abusita who claimed in a video that Jews were hated in Europe because they played a role in the destruction the the economy in some countries,” Nadia Tannous, a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement, an organization that publicly supports terrorism against Israelis, and others.