Anti-Israel group slams Wake Forest's decision to cancel pro-Hamas speaker
Wake Forest University recently announced the cancellation of an anti-Semitic speaker, which has caused backlash from some anti-Israel activists.
A petition against the speaker circulated online and accused her of being a 'self-proclaimed Hamas sympathizer.'
The recent decision to cancel a pro-Hamas speaker on Oct. 7 by a private university in Winston-Salem, North Carolina has been met with backlash from an anti-Israel organization.
The Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) released a statement on Oct. 2 in protest of Wake Forest University’s cancellation of San Francisco State’s Rabab Abdulhadi’s Oct. 7 appearance.
“We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern about Wake Forest University’s decision to cancel a scheduled lecture by Professor Rabab Abdelhadi, who is currently director of San Francisco State University’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative,” CAF wrote to university President Susan Wente and Provost Michele Gillespie.
“We regard Wake Forest’s action as a severe violation of the principles of academic freedom,” the group continued.
CAF also stated that the university’s decision to end the event “because some people object to an invited speaker’s perspective on an issue of public interest betrays the university’s avowed commitment to academic freedom and to the free and open exchange of ideas, principles which are fundamental to the integrity and mission of our institutions of higher education.”
Abdulhadi was scheduled to speak at Wake Forest on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israeli civilians. After a petition began circulating online to scrap the planned lecture of the “self-proclaimed Hamas sympathizer” gained almost 10,000 signatures, Wake Forest canceled the event over fears that it would “stoke division.”
“Abdulhadi is a San Francisco State University professor who has publicly threatened Jewish students and has had similar events canceled due to violations of Zoom’s, YouTube’s, and Facebook’s terms of service,” the petition read. “She has also publicly supported and celebrated terrorists, some of whom are on the FBI Watchlist, as well as spreading blood libels about Jews.”
“The event, titled ‘One Year since al-Aqsa Flood: Reflections on a Year of Genocide and Resistance,’ refers to the mission carried out by Hamas on October 7th, resulting in the most significant loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust,” the document continued. “The title equates the murder, rape, and kidnapping of innocent Jewish and Arab life on October 7th to resistance.”
In a Sept. 26 update to the school community, Wente and Gillespie wrote that they “made the conscious decision not to host events on this day that are inherently contentious and stand to stoke division in our campus community.”
“Thus, we have informed the academic units sponsoring Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi’s campus lecture on October 7 that it cannot take place,” the message added.
Campus Reform has contacted Wake Forest University and Professor Abdulhadi for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
