PEN Succumbs to the Anti-Free Speech Mob

Mr. Kirchick is a contributing Opinion writer.

In 2015, after Islamist gunmen murdered a dozen people in an attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, I joined the American chapter of PEN International, PEN America. It is the most respected writers’ organization in the country; past presidents include Dorothy Thompson, Norman Mailer and Salman Rushdie. When PEN awarded the surviving staff of Charlie Hebdo its Freedom of Expression Courage Award later that year — lauding the magazine for “its dauntlessness in the face of one of the most noxious assaults on expression in recent memory” — it acted in the best traditions of its august history which, since its founding in 1922, has meant refusing to bend to political pressures.

Many writers felt differently. Denouncing the magazine’s caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, 242 members of PEN signed an open letter against the prize. “Power and prestige are elements that must be recognized in considering almost any form of discourse, including satire,” the letter stated. “The inequities between the person holding the pen and the subject fixed on paper by that pen cannot, and must not, be ignored.”

The signatories’ assertion that Charlie Hebdo was some sort of Gallic cartoon version of “The Turner Diaries,” a foundational text of white supremacy, showed ignorance of French culture, French politics and the French language. For instance, their claim that the publication was “selectively offensive” to Muslims willfully ignored the fact that out of 523 covers published during the preceding decade, seven mocked Islam, while 21 mocked Catholicism and over 300 skewered political targets.

But the actual content of Charlie Hebdo didn’t matter. Voicing opposition to PEN at that moment was a political gesture to prove one’s membership in the community of the virtuous. That PEN didn’t cave to this small but vocal minority signified fidelity to its founding principles.

Alas, that PEN no longer exists.

The proximate cause of PEN’s demise can be traced to a statement it released on Jan. 29 condemning the cancellation of shows by an Israeli comedian, Guy Hochman, in New York City and Beverly Hills. Mr. Hochman, who was deployed to Gaza along with the Israel Defense Forces as something akin to a U.S.O entertainer and who has made disparaging comments about Palestinians, stands accused by the Hind Rajab Foundation, a pro-Palestinian organization, of “war crimes” and “clear, repeated and public incitement to genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza.” Among Mr. Hochman’s controversial remarks, according to the Foundation, was his call for the “conquest, expulsion, and settlement” of Gaza.

Last month, following a 40-page dossier compiled by the foundation, Canadian authorities detained Mr. Hochman at a Toronto airport and interrogated him for six hours. After being released without charge, Mr. Hochman performed his show while protesters demonstrated outside the venue.

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