We are writing to you as recent Penn alumni. We span all races, religions, backgrounds, and ideologies. We represent members of the class years 2016 through 2024. We are the University’s most recent graduates and its future support base. We are collectively appalled by the decision to allow racist, antisemites to spew hate within the halls of the place that we once called home.

 

While on campus, many of us dealt with the occasional disturbance of hostile, racist, and misogynistic preachers who would scream garbage on Locust walk to harass students. While these religious fanatics were disgusting and caused trauma for some, many students saw through this and actively protested these demonstrations right on Locust Walk. Notably, these radicals were never given free passage into a Penn-owned building or allowed to use a Penn space for their evil platform.

 

Currently, the Palestine Writes event is a ploy to allow known antisemites into Penn spaces to spread their damaging words. We believe in free speech and the ability of demonstration. We recognize there are many positive aspects of an event celebrating Palestinian writing, agency, and speech. However, a line must be drawn to prevent any event being taken over by hate and a quick analysis of this one shows the following participants:

 

● Roger Waters (Speaker)

-In an October 2022 webinar on Grayzone, Waters vociferously advocated for

comparing Israel to the Third Reich and called for Israel to "join the human race"

and "stop imposing your hated, hated apartheid regime on the indigenous people

of the Middle East."

-In August 2022, Waters had an interview with World Beyond War where he

claimed that Israel thinks Jews are superior to everybody else on the planet,

saying: “...religious supremacy, the idea that the Jewish people are somehow

superior to everybody else on the planet but particularly the Arabs, the Palestinian

Arabs...the Israeli state who believe that the Jewish people are superior, more

important than any of those people, those people’s lives are worthless.

-For a period of time in 2010, Waters’ shows featured an array of symbols that

placed the Jewish Star next to dollar signs on an inflatable pig.

-Most grotesquely, in May of 2023 during a concert in Berlin, Waters compared

Israel to the Nazis while he paraded around the state wearing an SS Nazi uniform.

In fact, it was so egregious that the City of Frankfurt initially banned his next

show citing Rogers as “one of the most widely known antisemites in the

world.”

■ We are unable to find any information about how Roger Waters is involved in

Palestinian literature.

 

● Susan Abulhawa (Executive Director)

-In April of 2023, Susan posted a picture of her in her office with pictures of

terrorists, Specifically, one of the terrorists was Dala Mughrebi, the terrorist in the

Coastal Road Massacre which killed 38 Israelis (13 being children).

-Susan is also very active on Twitter where she tweeted, “One cannot overstate

what an abomination Israel truly is. They’re worse than Nazis”

-She even went so far as to celebrate the killing of 18-year-old Noa Lazar in

October 22nd, stating, “Breaking Foreign colonizer who manned checkpoints

designed to oppress and harass indigenous Palestinians dies after Palestinians

gave her a dose of her own medicine.” While I can accept that some may view

members of the IDF as “colonizers,” someone who celebrates the killing of

another human being should never be allowed to speak on campus.

 

● Humaida Arraf (Program Coordinator)

○ Founder of the International Solidarity Movement which she claims has worked

with Hamas and the PFLP, both deemed terrorist organizations by the United

States.

○ More shockingly, she served as the lawyer for PFLP terrorist Rasmea Odeh

who confessed to being the mastermind behind a bombing that killed two college

students in Jerusalem and attempted to bomb the British consulate. Rasmea, in

fact, was deported and stripped of her US citizenship on counts of terrorism.

 

● Marc Lamont Hill (Featured Speaker)

○ In 2022, Hill glorified a convicted terrorist, Fatima Hernawi, who planted a bomb

in a Jerusalem movie theatre. Lamont said "Just heard about the death of Fatima

Bernawi. She is a legend among Afro-Palestinians and a beloved daughter of

Jerusalem."

○ CNN cut ties with Marc Lamont Hill after his desire to “Free Palestine, from

the river to the sea,” effectively wiping Israel off the map.

 

● Maytha Alhassen (Featured Speaker)

○ In 2015, Alhassen posted a picture on Instagram posing in front of a mural of

Marwan Barghouti. Her caption, “Your task is not to seek for love…” To

underscore her post, the mural she included was of Marwan Barghouti, a terrorist

who is currently serving five consecutive life sentences for his role in suicide

bombings and shooting attacks.

 

● Aya Ghanameh (Featured Speaker)

○ In 2021, Ghanameh tweeted, “If a zionist breathes near me today I will destroy

you.”

○ In 2023, on the same day of a mass terror attack targeting civilians in Jerusalem,

she tweeted, “It’s a good thing settlers aren’t civilians”

○ Potentially, most shockingly, in 2020 Alhassen tweeted the words of Leila

Khaled’s autobiography, “f*ck the Americans, zionists, and Arab governments,

long live the revolution.” Leila Khaled is a top member of the PFLP and

participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in

1970. Khaled has such hatred within her that she even advocated for the use of

children in terror activities.

 

● Noura Erakat (Speaker)--Spoke at Penn in the Spring of 2023

○ In 2022, Erakat taught a class titled “Zionism as Racism and Discrimination,”

where she repeatedly opposed Israel’s existence and expressed the need to use

military force to destroy Israel.

○ Erakat, has also claimed that “Zionism is a bedfellow to Nazism”

○ As mentioned, Erakat spoke at Penn, an event in which she:

■ Repeatedly stated “I’d love to hear the hecklers come at me because I am

ready for you and will destroy you”

■ “Palestinians have the right to pick up arms”

■ “Zionism has committed crimes against humanity”

■ “The most stringent laws were in the Third Reich and they did things that

were according to law”

 

Based on the track records of these individuals, we, as young Penn alumni, feel very uncomfortable, targeted, and frankly ashamed by the course our university is charting here.

 

We question simply what you will allow next.

 

Will Penn become a place where known KKK members like David Duke can speak freely in buildings to call for attacks on black people?

 

Will Penn become a place where known misogynists like Richard Spencer can call women horrific names too cruel to repeat in writing?

 

Will Penn simply fail under its current leadership’s soft response to recognize that it is tarnishing the very reputation that we’ve built since Ben Franklin created out institution?

 

Put simply, these speakers should not be allowed entry into private university buildings for them to continue their hateful rhetoric and harmful racism. Freedom of speech does not include freedom of social judgment.

 

The University maintains custody of its buildings. As students we couldn’t just enter Annenberg theater at all hours of the day and during events in which we didn’t have tickets. The hateful speakers called out above should not be allowed to enter Penn buildings. Additionally, the University should withhold funding from departments who attempt to bring these particular speakers into university buildings.

 

Let them preach outside, in the open, where they are subject to the opinions and objections of those walking by. We demand you not allow a precedent of making the campus we love so much a place where hate has a home and a roof over its head.