Hasan Piker to speak at Cornell — as experts warn Ivy League school becoming ‘hotbed of antisemitism’
Israel- and US-hating Twitch streamer Hasan Piker is set to speak at a sold-out Cornell University event planned by woke student organizations – as experts warn the upstate Ivy League school continues to be a “hotbed of antisemitism.”
The Students Not Bombs Campaign – a student coalition demanding Cornell sever its ties to Israel – announced this week the controversial Turkish-American influencer will take the stage at the campus’ Sage Chapel on Sept. 24.
The free event is open to all Cornell students, staff and faculty, and more than 450 people have already registered.
Piker, 35, will also stream his presentation.
Organizers from campus groups Justice for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace and Cornell’s Young Democratic Socialist Association (YDSA) did not disclose what the hatemonger will talk about – but his past comments targeting Jewish people and the US have sparked outrage.
“Inviting someone like Hasan Piker to our community is not conducive to generative philosophical dialogue,” sophomore Sofia Eliasi, 18, of Cornellians for Israel, told The Post.
“It is simply an invitation for students to emulate his behavior by finding their own antisemitic stages to preach from.”
The campus’ Hillel chapter wrote, “The University is a place to learn, to argue, to explore, and to debate. Mr. Piker’s views, however, go against our values as Americans and Jews, and this hateful rhetoric is repulsive.”
A petition by SAFE Campus, a Jewish advocacy group, urged Cornell, state and federal officials to call off the event.
Piker notoriously justified the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, saying the massacre that killed roughly 1,200 innocents was a “direct consequence of Israeli actions” and that “it doesn’t matter if f–king rapes happened on Oct. 7.”
He’s called Jews “inbred.”
The longtime ally of Mayor Zohran Mamdani infamously said during a 2019 livestream that “America deserved 9/11.”
Another resurfaced clip shows Piker shouting: “F–k the Constitution. I wipe my a– with the Constitution. It’s a piece of paper. F–k the Constitution. F–k this country.”
And in an interview published Thursday, the prominent surrogate for Michigan Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed claimed that the US military “pound for pound” has committed more acts of terrorism than Al Qaeda, the Islamist network behind the 9/11 attacks.
But some students said trying to prevent Piker from coming to their campus isn’t the answer.
“We should not be, as a community, welcoming Hassan Piker – in any sense of the word,” senior Davian Gekman, 21, said. “But also, I do believe that debate should not be shut down. Kicking or trying to stop Piker from coming onto this campus does not serve the good of the Jewish community or the good of supporting Israel in my eyes.”
Mardi Singleton, 32, another Cornell student, said she plans to attend the event despite “strongly disagreeing” with most of Piker’s stances.
“I want to hear his views firsthand and better understand the perspectives of those who support him. I hope that others who share my concerns will do the same while remaining respectful of his right to speak and of our peers who have come to listen.”
Piker has sparked similar controversy at the University of Texas, where college Democrats invited him to speak at yet another sold-out event Sept. 30.
The New Jersey native has previously spoken at University of Southern California and Dartmouth University.
“Just as university students would not invite a Jan. 6 rioter, nor recognize them as part of normative political discourse, they should apply that same standard to figures on the left,” said Josh Appel, Manhattan Institute policy analyst.
“That they don’t, speaks to the rotten core of the university system.”
Dr. Carole Lieberman, a psychiatrist who wrote two books on terrorism, warned that Piker’s invitation to Cornell specifically reflects the university’s alarming tolerance for antisemitism.
She described the college — which welcomed back law professor Russell Rickford after he was filmed at an off-campus rally cheering on Hamas after Oct. 7 — as a “hotbed of antisemitism.”
“First, one of their students, Austin Franco, refused a job interview online, by writing, ‘Not interested in working for a jew…’ Now, it’s Hasan Piker, a more in-your-face antisemite, who famously said America ‘deserved’ to be attacked on Sep. 11, 2001,” she said.
“So, to pretend ‘hate speech’ is harmless will have dire consequences when America is caught unprotected and vulnerable again. We are more in danger now – from the inside – than we were on 9/11.”
A Cornell spokesperson said the university is committed to “free and open” expression and that school officials will respond “appropriately” to reports of discrimination or disruption at the event.
Justice for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Cornell’s YDSA and Piker did not return requests for comment.