PEN America has insisted it continues to defend Palestinian writers and regards Israel's actions in Gaza as "a genocide", after its outgoing president accused the organisation of sidelining Palestinians and resigned in protest, the organisation told The New Arab on Tuesday.
The literary and free expression organisation issued the response after Dinaw Mengestu, the Ethiopian-American novelist and president of PEN America, announced he was stepping down, saying the organisation had repeatedly failed to uphold its commitment to defend free expression equally and had diminished the Palestinian experience.
Mengestu said the final breaking point came after PEN America published 'A Silent Moratorium', a report examining the experiences of Jewish and Israeli writers in the wake of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, while, he argued, failing to fairly represent Palestinians and misunderstanding the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Writing in a statement published on Instagram, Mengestu argued the report reflected a broader institutional failure.
“Across the report’s seven pages, terminology relayed to Jewish and Israeli identity appears more than 100 times, whole the word Palestinian is used six times-three times in reference to an anonymous Palestinian students quoted at the outset, and once in an extended quote from a Jewish student that concludes with, ‘I would never say Palestinians are terrorists’,” he wrote.
He noted that Israel was mentioned 52 times throughout the report, arguing that PEN America had failed to understand BDS as a legitimate form of dialogue.
Mengestu said his frustration had stemmed from PEN America's inability to defend free expression consistently, adding that he found the organisation instead "support[ed] suppression through its indifference".
“Like many other writers who have reached out to me, I am walking away from it permanently, and I will do everything I can now to help make something better,” he concluded.
The report at the centre of the dispute drew on interviews with around 30 Jewish and Israeli writers, literary agents and translators, who described harassment, de-platforming and professional isolation following Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Mengestu's resignation has renewed scrutiny of PEN America, which has faced sustained criticism from writers and activists for failing to defend Palestinian voices with the same urgency as others while Israel's onslaught on Gaza has continued.
His departure was widely praised by supporters online.
"Thank you for doing the right thing. It is astonishing how much they are committed to conflating the ideology of Zionism with the traditions of Judaism and Jewishness. Until PEN addresses this it’s better to build elsewhere," one Instagram user wrote beneath Mengestu's statement.
The latest controversy comes after Writers Against the War on Gaza launched a boycott of PEN America in August 2024 over discrimination against Palestinians and failures to defend free speech.
The boycott ended in December 2025 following the departure of then-president Suzanne Nossel.
Responding to The New Arab , PEN America said it had respected Mengestu's decision and confirmed that Executive Vice President of the Board Tracy Higgins would lead the organisation on an interim basis while the board begins the process of appointing a new president.
"We're grateful for Dinaw Mengestu's leadership of and contributions to PEN America, and we respect that he's made a decision he believes in," the organisation said.
It rejected suggestions that it had retreated from defending Palestinians.
"PEN America remains dedicated to defending writers under threat, including Palestinian writers. This piece neither revisits nor revises PEN America's prior work on Gaza. We remain an organization that believes what has happened there is a genocide," the organisation told TNA.
It highlighted that the organisation had directed more than half a million dollars in emergency assistance to Palestinian writers and artists in Gaza and in exile, published a report documenting the Israeli military's destruction of Gaza's cultural life based on interviews with Palestinian writers, artists and cultural workers, translated and published the work of Palestinian writers, and defended the free expression rights of Palestinian writers, scholars and pro-Palestinian activists on university campuses.
Addressing Mengestu's criticism of its position on BDS, PEN America said it has long opposed cultural and academic boycotts while simultaneously defending the right to engage in them as protected speech.
"PEN America has long opposed cultural and academic boycotts while also defending the right to engage in them; those two commitments aren't in tension," it said.
The organisation added that it rejects any interpretation that its report characterises BDS as discriminatory conduct rather than protected speech, noting it has consistently opposed legislative efforts to suppress the right to engage in boycotts.