Conference disinvites speaker who wished Zionists ‘torturous, slow’ death

Mohammed El-Kurd, who has said that Jews have an ‘unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood,’ dropped from German speaking appearance.

By World Israel News Staff

A Palestinian social media personality whose “viciously antisemitic” remarks have sparked controversy and concern from Jewish groups was disinvited from a conference in Germany, causing other speakers to withdraw from the event in protest.

Mohammed El-Kurd, a Jerusalem native, was due to participate in a Hamburg conference organized by the Goethe Institute addressing far-right wing movements.

El-Kurd rose to social media stardom for his rabidly anti-Israel tweets, including one earlier this year reading “F– Zionism,” and calling the movement “genocidal death cult.”

El-Kurd, who has said that Jews have an “unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood” and expressed hopes that Zionists, who he described as “sadistic, barbaric Neo-Nazi pigs,” die in “torturous and slow ways,” was originally slated to speak at a July conference hosted by the German state-run Goethe Institute.

However, after Jewish groups and others pointed to El-Kurd’s history of hateful remarks, the institute decided to withdraw his invitation last Friday.

“After some consideration, the Goethe Institute decided that Mohammed El-Kurd was not an appropriate speaker for this forum,” the institution wrote on Twitter, citing social media comments by him “about Israel” that were not “acceptable” to the entity.

They noted that El-Kurd’s fiery rhetoric, which many say falls under the category of incitement, was contrary to the goals of the forum, which “aims to discuss, among others, possibilities and ways to improve social discourse.”

Artist Moshtari Hilal and writer Sinthujan Varatharajah, who were slated to speak on the same panel as El-Kurd regarding the global far-right, withdrew from the event in protest.

In a joint Twitter statement, they accused the institute of racism and silencing Palestinian voices for disinviting El-Kurd.

“Goethe Institute’s veto against Al-Kurd calls into question the very purpose of this conference,” Hilal and Varatharajah wrote, charging that the conference was “adding to a climate of anti-Palestinian racism.”

“This cannot be tolerated or supported by us in any way,” they continued, saying that Germany was embracing “racist politics of stifling Palestinian dissent in the country” by not allowing El-Kurd to speak.

The statement made no acknowledgment of his statements encouraging violence and wishing death upon Israelis and Jews.

In late April, Georgetown University’s law school hosted a talk which included El-Kurd, ignoring concerns from Jewish students and advocacy groups.

AntisemitismEuropean antisemitismGermanyMohammed El-Kurd