Wake Forest U. invites pro-Hamas spokesperson, but cancels after backlash

Students organize petition against pro-Hamas spokesperson with over 8,000 signatures

Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, canceled an October 7 event featuring Hamas President Professor Rabab Abdulhadi in the face of student opposition.

WFU Dean Michele Gillespie and President Susan Wente announced the cancellation Thursday in a letter to faculty and students.

“Invite an academic to give a lecture entitled “One year after the flood of Al-Aqsa: how to take stock of a year of genocide and resistance?” The first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel led to a cascading series of events that eroded the university’s confidence in ensuring security in a rapidly changing environment around the date of the event public,” they wrote.

Abdoulhadi (photo) is an associate professor in the Ethnic Studies Program and the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, as well as a senior scholar and founding director of the Arab and Muslim Ethnic and Diaspora Studies Program at SFSU .

Jewish students at WFU organized a petition after the announcement of Abdulhadi’s event, asking the administration to cancel the event. It currently has more than 8,000 signatures, according to the WFU student newspaper. Old Gold and Black. The initial goal was 7,500 signatures, Caroline’s Diary reported.

Some of the students’ concerns relate to Abdulhadi’s 2019 collaboration with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Front, like Hamas, is classified by the United States as a terrorist group.

Abdulhadi hosted a Zoom event with Front member Leila Khaled, who illegally hijacked a commercial plane in 1969, according to PBS. The virtual event violated Zoom’s terms of service, leading to its cancellation.

In an emailed statement before the event was canceled, Cheryl Walker, WFU executive director of strategic communications, said The college fix, “The University actively fosters a culture of respectful dialogue on the most pressing social, political and religious issues of our time. »

“University departments and organizations invite speakers from diverse perspectives to campus each year. Students can engage with a wide range of ideas, including those they support and those they oppose,” Walker said.

Walker also said the university communicated with event organizers as well as opponents.

“It is deeply upsetting to see (Abdulhadi’s event) scheduled on a day that marks the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust,” said Isabelle Laxer, president of WFU Chabad, a Jewish student organization. Laxer, who helped organize the petition against the event, shared his thoughts with Fox 8 before the event was ultimately canceled.

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Laxer also said the event was advertised with “anti-Semitic” and “pro-terrorist” posters on campus.

“Hate speech is hate speech, whether it’s October 7, 8 or 9 or not… Obviously, I think the date adds insult to injury, but I think holding a speaker like “This one on the Wake Forest campus is upsetting and should not be allowed,” Laxer told Fox 8.

Additionally, groups like the Anti-Defamation League and Campus Watch have criticized Abdulhadi, accusing him of “being anti-Semitic, promoting an anti-Israel agenda, and promoting terrorism,” according to Old Gold and Black.

The college solution contacted Abdulhadi, campus Jewish organizations Hillel and Chabad, Students Supporting Israel and the Coalition for Jewish Values for comment via email last week. None responded by post.

The Department of History, Department of Politics and International Affairs, National Endowment for the Humanities, Middle East and South Asian Studies Program, and WFU Humanities Institute co -sponsored the event.

Wake Forest has since scheduled two events for Oct. 7: “Interfaith Prayers for Peace” and a “community reflection event,” according to Gillespie and Wente’s statement.

“At both events, students, faculty, and staff are invited to pause, reflect, and write a prayer or light a candle for peace,” the email said.

The school has not indicated whether it will postpone Abdulhadi’s event.

Jewish organizations on campus also collaborated with the university to hold a memorial service on October 7 to honor the first anniversary of Hamas’s attacks on Israel.

“We worked meticulously with Student Engagement to ensure our event was safe and secure,” said WFU Hillel President Andrew Orfaly. Old Gold and Black.

Terrorists have killed more than 1,200 Israelis since the October 7, 2023 attacks and still hold more than 100 people hostage, according to the American Jewish Committee. The Israeli response against Hamas has caused more than 40,000 deaths, reports Fox 8.

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IMAGE: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs/YouTube

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