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Despite Outrage from Jewish Students, Harvard Hosts Well Known Antisemite

A variety of Palestinian student groups at Harvard University this week hosted antisemitic activist Mohammed El-Kurd, who pushes antisemitic rhetoric, prompting protests from pro-Israel students at the Ivy League institution.

El-Kurd spoke on “pushing institutions to divest from oppressive systems” Monday at an event titled “Confronting State Violence: Divestment and Youth Activism.”

“Currently a columnist for the left-wing magazine The Nation, the 24-year-old el-Kurd has trafficked in antisemitic tropes, demonized Zionism, and falsely accused Israelis of eating the organs of Palestinians. Over the past two years he has widely toured across American university campuses, heightening concerns about rising antisemitism and harassment against pro-Israel students,” The Algemeiner reported.

As The College Fix reported last March, Duke University’s Student Government voted to provide $16,000 to bring El-Kurd to their campus. During his speech, when asked what would happen to Israelis if Palestinians took the land “from the river to the sea” he reportedly replied “I don’t care. I truly, sincerely, don’t give a f**k,” as the audience cheered.

During his talk at Arizona State University last April, El-Kurd joked: “If you heckle me, you will get shot.” as exposed by watchdog organization fighting antisemitism, StopAntisemitism.

El-Kurd was brought to Harvard by the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee, among other groups.

The guest talk prompted a student protest among pro-Israel students, who displayed Israel’s flag and waved posters criticizing El-Kurd, the Harvard Crimson reported.

Harvard Hillel President Natalie Kahn told the student newspaper that El-Kurd’s rhetoric has “crossed the line.”

“The kind of ideology that the PSC is espousing, when that’s the kind of speaker that they’re inviting in — they can’t claim to be for peace and dialogue or for really any kind of conflict resolution,” she said.

Prior to El-Kurd’s visit to Harvard, he spoke at MIT on Oct. 22.

“As an Israeli, it is incredibly disturbing that numerous departments at MIT would co-sponsor and allocate funds toward hosting speakers who lionize terrorists and whitewash horrific acts of violence against my family, friends, and peers as forms of ‘resistance,’” said MIT student Dana Rubin in a statement.

A feature on El-Kurd by the Jewish Journal earlier this year argued that beneath El-Kurd’s “veneer of social justice, altruism, and reporting is a vile agenda—full of antisemitism and hate for the world’s only Jewish state.”