Yuchen Pei on Nostr: PEN America gets captured: organization accepts Palestine as a member and rejects ...

PEN America gets captured: organization accepts Palestine as a member and rejects Israel; Jewish chief executive resigns after accusations of being a “Zionist” and not signing on to Israel’s “genocide”

https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2026/02/19/pen-america-gets-captured-organization-accepts-palestine-as-a-member-and-rejects-israel-jewish-chief-executive-resigns/

> The decline of PEN American was first evidenced to me when, in 2015, it decided to give a “freedom of expression” award to the magazine Charlie Hebdo, many of whose writers (and a few others) were killed in an attack by al-Qaeda, presumably for making fun of Islam and Muhammad. The award was formally called the “PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award”, and was to be conferred with other awards at a literary gala banquet.

> But six PEN members refused to be “table hosts” at the banquet, and then 139 other members (now 242) signed a letter taking issue with the award. Why? Because although Charlie Hebdo is well known to be an “equal opportunity offender,” whose metier is mocking everyone, including politicians and religions, those PEN members said that it was a no-no to mock Islam because its adherents were “already marginalized, embattled, and victimized.”