New Yorker invites antisemitic streamer to annual festival, prompting ADL rebuke

Piker has also defended Hezbollah and Houthi terrorists and said that “America deserved 9/11.”

By Matthew Xiao, The Washington Free Beacon

The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday blasted the New Yorker for inviting anti-Semitic streamer Hasan Piker to its annual festival, warning that the magazine is giving a platform to rhetoric that “normalizes antisemitism, reinforces bigotry, and launders terror.”

“The New Yorker’s decision to platform Hasan Piker is the latest example of mainstream media normalizing his brand of antisemitism and anti-Zionism,” the ADL wrote in a series of X posts after the magazine announced that Piker will join a round-table discussion at its cultural festival next month.

“Piker’s toxic and extreme rhetoric opposing Zionism and the Jewish state normalizes antisemitism, reinforces bigotry, and launders terror,” the ADL’s post goes on—”and it has no place at a conference devoted to prominent influencers.”

The left-wing New Yorker will host the multi-day festival in New York City.

The round-table discussion that Piker is scheduled to attend will focus on “how the internet has reshaped political life” and its implications “for the future of democracy.”

Piker, a far-left streamer whose videos have millions of viewers on Twitch and YouTube, has denied the atrocities that Hamas committed during its Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, dismissing reports of the terror group’s sexual violence as “rape fantasies” and “hallucinations,” Jewish Insider reported.

In a stream last year, Piker said that “it doesn’t matter if fucking rapes happened on October 7—like, that doesn’t change the dynamic for me even this much.”

The streamer has described Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” labeled a Jewish man a “bloodthirsty, violent pig dog,” and compared Zionists to Nazis, according to Jewish Insider.

He has also defended Hezbollah and Houthi terrorists and said that “America deserved 9/11.”

Piker has drawn fire even from Democrats. Rep. Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), for example, accused Piker of engaging in “textbook antisemitism,” urged Twitch to sever ties with the streamer, and posted clips on X of Piker spewing anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Torres wrote in a letter to executives at Twitch and its parent company, Amazon, that Piker’s remarks contributed to “an explosion of Jew-hatred on social media” following the October 7 attack.

“[Piker’s] appearing at a festival alongside such notables as Salman Rushdie, who lived for decades under threat of death from the Iranian regime, is deeply ironic,” the ADL wrote in its posts, “considering that Iran supports Hezbollah and the Houthis, two groups that Piker has openly admired and celebrated.” Piker has gone as far as to compare the Houthis to Anne Frank, the ADL reported.

“These extreme statements, and others, should permanently disqualify him from appearing at any major media festival,” the ADL added.