"Withdrawing from Goethe Institute’s Hamburg conference where they first invited and then disinvited Palestinian journalist and poet Mohammed El-Kurd. [The] reason is even more offensive. Apparently Kurd is not respectful enough towards Israel," Hanif said in a tweet today.
He further said: "Mohammed El-Kurd's house was taken over by settlers when he was eleven. Kurd and his sister Muna have been protesting since they were children. [I] have not read much [about] Goethe but I do not think he wanted the world to be respectful towards a ruthless apartheid regime."
He also attached a link to read Kurd's poetry collection and asked the public to decide who is being "disrespectful" in this case.
Earlier on June 17, the institute had said: “After some consideration, the Goethe Institute decided that Mohammed El-Kurd was not an appropriate speaker for this forum. In previous posts on social media, he had made several comments about Israel in a way the Goethe Institute does not find acceptable.”
The conference will focus on the impact of far-right movements and their global entanglements.