Why was I investigated for sharing an article critical of Zionism by the ‘free speech’ organization PEN America?

“Finally, disciplinary action will be taken against anyone who violates this policy up to and including termination.”

This was the second line of a response sent by senior leadership to me and all my coworkers at PEN America in an email thread on June 26, 2024. I started the thread by posting a link to an article titled “What Unlearning Zionism Can Teach American Jews about Israel and Palestine” to my organization’s listserv channel for disseminating interesting articles that are relevant to our work as a free expression and literature organization.

I imagined that my org’s response to Oren Kroll-Zeldin’s article might spur on fierce discourse among staff. In the article, Kroll-Zeldin documents his journey in gaining new perspectives on Israel/Palestine and branching out from Zionist ideologies. Discourse–even if contentious– that PEN America needed, as controversy continued to embroil the organization following Hamas’ October 7 attack. These controversies included outcry about not providing historical context for Israel’s ongoing genocide, to using force to throw out a protester at an event, to failing to make space for pro-Palestinian writers at events. 

But my post led to no discourse, just a threat.

To me, the threat was silly, not in its emptiness, but rather in its context: that those words can come from an organization that prides itself on safeguarding free speech. PEN America swiftly walked back its threat in a follow-up email, regretting that the threat came across as chilling. Within that email was a paragraph that noted that the first email was prompted by Jewish and non-Jewish staff that felt the article attacked the way they defined their religious activity, though the word “antisemitic” was never used. 

I did not immediately process the implication of these complaints. My immediate thought was that my organization needed to carve out spaces for MENA voices to shepherd conversations like this and to express themselves as they witnessed a genocide unfold in Gaza. And yet a question lingered: why can’t we have these conversations?

I quickly learned that I was not alone and that PEN America was not alone as a liberal organization that leverages its power to suppresses pro-Palestinian voices.

In July of 2024, I interviewed the Lebanese-American poet Yahia Lababidi about his latest collection, Palestinian Wail. I learned in my interview with Lababidi that his initial publisher dropped his book over the use of words like genocide and murder, claiming these terms “prejudged a legal matter” and could create a scandal for the publisher. Palestinian writers Susan Abulhawa and Rabea Eghbariah experienced similar censorship from their publishers (The Guardian and Harvard Review respectively): singular words– “genocide,” “holocaust,” “Nakba,” or “intifada”—derailing the publishing of their writing. 

I began tracking more instances of pro-Palestinian censorship after my interview with Lababidi. I knew that pro-Palestinian suppression was not limited to publishing. In December of 2023, a Roosevelt Island couple protested the inclusion of pro-Palestinian children’s books in an indigenous people display for “Read Palestine Week” at their local New York Public Library. The couple checked out five books (Linda Sarsour’s We’re in This Together, Aya Ghanameh’s These Olive Trees, Reem Kassis and Noha Eilouti’s We Are Palestinian, Hannah Moushabeck and Reem Madooh’s Homeland, and Anne Laurel Carter and Akin Duzakin’s What the Kite Saw) with the intention of holding on to the books indefinitely to prevent them from being checked out. “I think there’s a difference in talking about Palestine as a nation, and the Palestinians as a people,” author Aya Ghanameh told me when I asked why this censorship happened, “and when we do that through mainstream outlets (like These Olive Trees with Penguin Random House) it directly contests dominant Israeli narratives that the Nakba never happened, and the Palestinian people did not and do not exist. That’s what’s scary to them.”

Shortly after this incident, NYPL employees received an email from the Directors of Branch Managers with new guidelines on displays, with NYPL workers feeling that these new guidelines chilled discussion on Israel-Palestine–both internally and externally. As a result, the NYPL did not incorporate pro-Palestinian censorship for its Banned Books Week 2024 programming, missing out on an opportunity to normalize having censored pro-Palestinians in conjunction with banned book authors and exploring their intersection. 

In December, my union chair informed me that my organization would be investigating me for a harassment complaint. She did not tell me the nature of the complaint, only that there was one. The following day, I talked to HR about the complaint. I received no further explanation of the complaint, just that the investigative lead would email me to schedule a meeting over Zoom. Anxiety got the best of me, and I quickly scheduled something for the following week. Over Zoom in my apartment, I introduced myself to the investigator, trying to conceal my anxiousness. When the investigator revealed that the complaint stemmed from an article posted on PEN’s listserv, I eased up.  

Ah, this is bullshit, I thought. 

For an hour, I answered questions about whether I had considered how the article might offend “a supporter of Israel, ” whether my relationships with colleagues had changed, and about the “tensions” at PEN America post-October 7. I pointed out the glaring power imbalance: so much of the tension at PEN America came from senior staff not heeding the advice of junior staff on the issue of Gaza. 

I told the investigator that I did not post Kroll-Zeldin’s article to single out any staff member. “I found the article interesting in relation to the current cultural climate,” I said when asked why I posted the article. That was true: the article provided insight into the foibles of my organization without using its name. I can say now that I did target my organization, though. I wanted my organization to decouple itself from liberal Zionism. What was clear now with this investigation was how pervasive liberal Zionism was at PEN America.

We finished the interview in two days. Much to the chagrin of my union rep, it was unclear if I could be disciplined following the interview. 

I continued cataloging Palestinian censorship. Spite partially fueled me now. I was especially excited to interview Jasbir Puar, the author of The Right to Maim, which looks at how Israel uses maiming–debilitation–to control the Palestinian population. In fall of 2023, pro-Israeli advocates—Stand with Us, Jewish Leadership Project, and Amichai Chikli—weaponized the phrase “blood libel” against Puar. Pro-Israel groups latched onto false claims that Puar wrote about Israel engaging in organ mining despite the fact that the book does not broach the subject, leading liberal colleagues and her employers to distance themselves from Puar. The “real mechanism of repression,” Puar told me are “these kind of quiet moments where liberal colleagues who do not want to, you know, mess up their own careers or come out on the side of Palestine or become affiliated with me because I’m seen as toxic or pariah.”

Recent examples show how extensive this mechanism of repression is. In 2023, Bard College faced pressure from the ADL and the Israeli consulate to cancel a course titled Apartheid in Israel/Palestine with writer and reporter Nathan Thrall. In February, New York Governor Kathy Hochul dissolved two Palestinian Studies positions at Hunter College. In March, President Donald Trump made a public decree that funding must stop for universities that allow “illegal protests.” Columbia capitulated to Trump’s decree, expelling, suspending, and revoking the degrees of twenty-two students who participated in protests—this in the wake of ICE’s detaining of Mahmoud Khalil.

It is just a documentary. I repeated this in my head as I stared at my phone, my YouTube app opened to Benny Brunner’s The Great Book Robbery, a thrilling documentary that looks at Israel’s theft of 70,000 Palestinian books and the attempts to set them free. It was extremely relevant to PEN America’s mission—it was PEN America’s mission. And yet, I hesitated to post it to our listserv. I embodied what British-Palestinian author Selma Dabbagh called self-censorship. She described this as a writer’s consciousness about what is possible to be published. For Palestinian writers, this is amplified as just stating their identity could offend. 

The investigation went into February and encompassed more people. I knew there was a high probability that I would be reported again if I posted The Great Book Robbery—that I would have to explain to my family again that I was being investigated for harassment. After studying cases of pro-Palestinian censorship, I knew now that when someone expresses concern over Zionist ideologies or reductive perspectives towards Palestinians there is, concomitantly, a voice that decries those concerns as antisemitic. But I also knew if my organization was going to advocate for pro-Palestinian writers and effectively lend its voice and its resources to mitigate the current Trump regime, it could not borrow those same tactics to silence one of its own.

I sent the link. 

Six days later, the investigator emailed me to set up another interview. I was to be investigated—again—for creating a hostile work environment. This time it was for a documentary. Again, I had my union rep for the meeting. The investigator’s tone was a little less formal—I was a repeat offender at the principal’s office. 

I do not know what our investigator will find when he concludes the entirety of the investigation. My investigation has been resolved, and I will not be facing disciplinary actions, but the investigator told me that he would be taking a holistic approach to the investigation, making recommendations for the entire organization, which hopefully makes note of the exodus of Muslim employees in the past year. Regardless, what is clear is how liberal organizations need to decouple themselves from Liberal Zionism, and the organizations that protect it, so that safe spaces exist-not just to protect Israel/Palestine discourse, and free speech. 

My investigation was not a glitch—it is a systematic feature. The system needs to be overhauled, especially in liberal organizations, lest those organizations that claim to be defenders of free speech find themselves complicit in Trump’s goal of writers and free thinkers at risk, especially in the wake of Israel’s breaking of the ceasefire.