Several Ted Talk fellows, including Filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky, resigned from the public speaking organisation to protest the inclusion of Harvard Alumni Bill Ackman and journalist Bari Weiss in an upcoming event, because, they claim, they both “defend Israel’s genocide in Gaza”.
In 2012, I was selected as a TED Senior Fellow. Today, along with Lucianne Walkowicz @RocketToLulu, I quit all association with TED over their decision to invite genocide apologists Bill Ackman and Bari Weiss to speak. You can read the full letter here: https://t.co/hvoZqup8id
— Saeed Taji Farouky (@saeedtaji) January 24, 2024
Naturally, the Guardian’s Chris McGreal sprang into action to write a piece sympathetic to Farouky, in a Jan. 24 article titled “Ted fellows resign from organisation after Bill Ackman named as speaker”.
The piece begins thusly:
The Ted organisation has been hit with resignations and criticisms after naming the controversial activist billionaire Bill Ackman, who was instrumental in forcing out Harvard’s president over antisemitism allegations, among its main speakers at this year’s conference.
Four Ted fellows, led by the astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz and the filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky, resigned from the group on Wednesday, accusing it of taking an anti-Palestinian stand and aligning itself “with enablers and supporters of genocide” in Gaza.
“2024 main stage speaker Bill Ackman has defended Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and has cynically weaponised antisemitism in his programme to purge American universities of Pro-Palestinian freedom of speech,” the pair wrote to Chris Anderson, who leads Ted, and Lily James Olds, director of the fellows programme.
Later, in his own voice, McGreal adds:
Ackman has taken stridently pro-Israel positions, including justifying the scale of the attacks on Gaza in which more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly civilians, and the forced removal [sic] of about 2 million Palestinians from their homes.
First, as we noted on these pages last week in response to an op-ed in the Guardian on the row at Harvard, the university’s president, Claudine Gay, didn’t resign over antisemitism allegations, but over dozens of reported examples of plagiarism throughout her academic career. Further, the role of Ackerman, an alumni and donor who’s Jewish, according to detailed reports in both the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, was minimal.
McGreal later notes that Farouky and the other Ted fellows who signed the letter also called out the female Jewish journalist Bari Weiss. The letter describes Weiss, a political centrist and feminist who’s the founding editor of The Free Press, as having “a long, sordid, and well-documented history of anti-Palestinian speech”. But, if you follow the link in the letter, it shows that the ‘evidence’ of Weiss’s “anti-Palestinian” speech – even if we accept that criticising Palestinians is a moral crime – is non-existent.
Further, the letter reveals that what Farkouky and company mean when they accuse Ackman of being a “supporter of genocide” is the fact that he expressed support for Israel’s war against Hamas, the proscribed antisemitic terror group which engaged in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
To put Ackman’s view in perspective, a recent Harvard CAPS-Harris poll showed overwhelming American support (80%) for Israel in its war against Hamas, with 74% agreeing that Hamas’s attack on Israel was genocidal in nature. So, per Farkouy’s logic, 80% of Americans are extremist “genocide supporters” who should be banned at Ted Talks.
Unsurprisingly, we found that its Farouky who appears to have extremist views. On Oct. 8, the day after Hamas’s massacre, Farouky posted on X his view that while Hamas’s ‘indiscriminate killing and kidnapping’ was not justified, terrorist violence against Israel (in general) is indeed justified, necessary, moral and legal.
We can understand two things simultaneously 1) armed resistance to occupation and colonisation is legitimate, both morally and legally, and a necessary part of the liberation movement, and 2) indiscriminate killing and kidnapping is both immoral and illegal.
— Saeed Taji Farouky (@saeedtaji) October 8, 2023
Two months later, he affirmed his support for “violent resistance”.
The west bank is internationally recognised occupied territory. Under international law, occupied people have the right to armed resistance and defence. This also isn't Hamas. Jake just makes it absolutely clear that anything short of total Palestinian surrender is unacceptable. https://t.co/UmKTLoO6h5
— Saeed Taji Farouky (@saeedtaji) December 6, 2023
As the Guardian has been pushing the Palestinian-led ‘Israeli genocide’ libel continually since Hamas’s mass murder, rape, torture and mutilation of Jews on Oct. 7. it’s not at all surprising that they’ve published a piece legitimising a narrative effectively characterising anyone who supports Israel’s right to defend itself as a genocidaire. We’re all ‘genocide supporters’ now!
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It’s good to see these Israel haters finally resigning from institutions of Western thought rather than infiltrating them, as they have done over the past several decades.
What is “anti-Palestinian speech”? It sounds chillingly Orwellian. Another reason to be relieved about, and even celebrate, the withdrawal of these ignorant, lying, miscreants from any part of the fabric of modern intellectual life.
“The West Bank is internationally recognized occupied territory.” That’s nice, but it doesn’t necessarily make it occupied under international law. It doesn’t even make it “the West Bank.” Certainly, under int’l law Israel would have the right to rule the disputed area until a peace is negotiated with the parties to the conflict over this territory, formerly ruled by Jordan, from which Israel was attacked, at minimum. I don’t believe “occupied people” applies to this case for several reasons, but more to the point, “resistance” does not include murder and the committing of atrocities against civilians anywhere under int’l national law. That’s perfectly clear and rock solid.
But “Palestinian” propaganda has always sought to muddy the waters. That’s why it’s good whenever these propagandists start withdrawing from events, because they hate Jews so darned much they can’t share a stage with them. Jews armed with facts are like kryptonite to them.
The UK is in a pickle of its own making through its importation of another large, competing civilization into its midst. For one thing, it complicates any efforts to separate itself from this lingering love affair it’s been having with medieval antisemitism.