Manchester venue cancels event featuring the writing of Gaza-born author

A Manchester theatre has been forced to cancel a show featuring Palestinian poetry, after a pro-Israel Jewish group accused the featured author of antisemitism.

The Voices of Resilience show was due to take place in the Manchester city centre on 22 April and was set to be an evening of poetry and writing by Palestinians living in Manchester and in Gaza.

Prior to the announcement of the cancellation, a letter seen by MEE was sent to the venue by the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester (JRC), calling for it to be cancelled.

The JRC accused the featured author, Atef Abu Saif, of engaging in "shocking and antisemitic Holocaust denial".

The claims brought in the letter fall under the highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which states that any comparisons made between the actions of Israel and Nazi Germany are antisemitic.

Saif, who has served as the Palestine Authority's culture minister since 2019, recently published a book about his eyewitness account of seeing his family killed in Israel's war on Gaza.

The event venue, HOME, said in a statement that the event space was a "politically neutral space".

"Our concern for the team at HOME, our audiences and artists, and their safety is paramount. In the face of recent publicity around Voices of Resilience, we have cancelled this event," the statement said.