Call on Penn to Condemn Antisemitism

The Jewish community at the University of Pennsylvania needs your support following the announcement that Mohammed El-Kurd and Noura Erakat, two of Twitter’s most prolific antisemites, will speak on campus on March 23.

‍El-Kurd and Erakat, invited by the anti-Israel hate group Penn Against the Occupation, have repeatedly indulged in grotesque antisemitic tropes of centuries past and denied Israel’s intrinsic right to exist in peace and security.   

Antisemitic incitement by El-Kurd, including leaning into the antisemitic blood libel trope, is a well-documented pattern. In his book of poetry, El-Kurd alleged that Jewish Israelis and Zionists eat the organs of Palestinians. He also tweeted that Zionists have an “unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood” and claimed that Zionism is inherently linked to “bloodthirsty and violent” actions.‍

‍El-Kurd has also invoked antisemitic tropes that Jews control the media, repeatedly denied the Jewish connection to Israel, and compared Jews and Zionists to Nazis, including implicating a non-Israeli Jew for the alleged actions of Israel.

Erakat, although hailed by many anti-Zionist activists as an expert in international law, also consistently peddles antisemitism. She has blamed Jews for perpetuating antisemitism in Europe, accused Israel of promoting Jewish supremacy, stated that Israel has no right to self-defense to protect its civilians against terrorism, has justified and glorified violent “resistance” against Israelis, and denied the existence of Judaism as a nation or an ethnicity. Erakat has also compared Zionism, the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their indigenous homeland, to Nazism, racism, and antisemitism. 

Erakat also proclaimed “Palestinians will not attack Jews because they are Jewish” but merely “because they are their military occupiers and oppressors.” This hateful rhetoric aims to justify attacks against Jews under the pretense that they are perceived as oppressors.

Far too many times, we have seen anti-Israel activity poison the environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students on American college campuses. 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.‍

Jew hatred has no place at the University of Pennsylvania. Sign the petition urging administrators to condemn these speakers' past antisemitic remarks and to protect Jewish students by immediately moving this shameful event off campus.