Global Santa Fe cancels event with Israeli diplomat over pushback

Mar. 20—A local organization's upcoming talk with an Israeli diplomat at a resort near Tesuque was canceled this week due to backlash from local pro-Palestinian organizations.

Global Santa Fe was scheduled to present Livia Link-Raviv, the Israeli consul general to the Southwestern U.S., on Tuesday at the Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado Santa Fe. Link-Raviv, based in Houston, represents Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. This would have been her first visit to New Mexico since her appointment in 2021.

Global Santa Fe CEO Shawn McQueen said Four Seasons made the decision to cancel her talk because it did not feel it could guarantee the safety of speakers or attendees after both the resort and the organization received more than 100 phone calls and emails opposing the event.

The event cancellation — which has drawn outrage among many local people — was the second in as many months in the Santa Fe area due to opposition from groups critical of Israel amid the war in Gaza. Alternative rapper Matisyahu's concert, scheduled last month at Meow Wolf, was abruptly canceled after a surge of complaints about the show because of the artist's support for Israel. Meow Wolf said workers were concerned about their safety.

Similarly, a social media post from New Mexico Jews for a Free Palestine asked people to call the Four Seasons resort to complain about Link-Raviv's talk and provided several phone numbers.

"Link-Raviv represents a government actively committing genocide," the post said. "Her actions and speech are part of justifying these ongoing crimes against humanity."

The post continued, "We don't want racist hate and genocide apologia in our community, we want this to be a safe place for everyone!"

But harassing and even threatening phone calls from some people pushing for the cancellation raised safety concerns, McQueen said, noting a Four Seasons catering manager received a call on a personal cellphone and "felt quite harassed."

Only a couple of calls rose to the level of threatening, she added.

McQueen said her first priority was to keep people safe, but she felt "heartsick" the event was canceled.

There has been "extreme language" in the calls and emails Global Santa Fe has received, she said, with some people accusing the organization of being complicit with genocide and others accusing it of caving to "fascists."

Several people have canceled their membership with the group because they felt the organization failed to fulfill its mission.

McQueen said Global Santa Fe offered Link-Raviv the option to be interviewed in a secure location and have the talk broadcast over Zoom to anyone who wanted to listen, but she declined.

Global Santa Fe board member David Shulman, who had sponsored the event with his wife, said he thought it would be valuable for the community to hear Link-Raviv's point of view about the conflict in Gaza.

"Freedom of speech to me is a very important value, and it isn't only for the speaker, it's also for the listener," he said. "When you create a policy of harassment and intimidation to prevent somebody to speak, the entire community loses."

Teresa Davis, a member of New Mexico Jews for a Free Palestine, said an "alphabet soup" of organizations were involved in protesting the event, including Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine and the Santa Fe Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine.

The Four Seasons' decision to cancel Link-Raviv's over security concerns was "a bit disappointing," she said. "We don't believe we pose a security threat. At the very most we had planned a very peaceful protest outside the doors of the event."

Davis said she was unaware of people calling workers' personal cellphones and was disturbed by what she described as "a real tendency lately to depict peaceful protest as potentially violent."

Her group is "very committed to dialogue" but does not think Link-Raviv is a good faith interlocutor, she said, adding, "We're not really interested in debating with someone who won't acknowledge the basic facts" of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The conflict in Gaza has been a hot-button issue in Santa Fe since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, with groups on both sides holding vigils and demonstrations. Several people have appeared at recent Santa Fe City Council meetings urging councilors to approve a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Councilor Alma Castro said she has had such a resolution, co-sponsored by Councilor Pilar Faulkner, in the pipeline since Feb. 12 but does not know when it will be introduced.

McQueen said Castro had asked Global Santa Fe to cancel Link-Raviv's talk last week.

Castro said, however, she had reached out to McQueen to learn more about the event after hearing concerns about it from more than a dozen constituents.

"I suggested that this probably was a sensitive topic and it wasn't super helpful to go about it in a way that could appear as partisan," Castro said, and that it would be better to have "folks from both sides" on the stage.

"We don't want to limit the ability to have hard conversations. We just want to be respectful," Castro said.

Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber, who had criticized the cancellation of the Matisyahu concert, said he thought the cancellation of Link-Ravi's talk was an "unfortunate, missed opportunity" for the city.

Protests of Israeli policy in Gaza are "completely legitimate," he said, but Santa Fe should also be a place "where a responsible, respected member of the Israeli government could have a platform to both offer the Israeli point of view and then respond to tough questions."

Jewish leaders in the city had more pointed remarks.

Rabbi Neil Amswych of Temple Beth Shalom described the decision to cancel the talk as "intolerance under the guise of tolerance."

"Jews do not speak in one particular way, and nobody has a right to try to silence any kind of Jewish voice," he said. "If you disagree with somebody about an event, don't go to the event."

Since December, Amswych has been delivering a presentation called "The Israel-Hamas War: A Jewish View" to various local faith communities. Some venues have been contacted in advance by people trying to get the talk canceled — so far unsuccessfully, he said.

"The fact that people who don't even know what I'm going to say in my presentation, the fact that they try to pressure venues to get me not to speak, shows that this is a really disturbing, profound act of censorship," he said.

Organizations planning events should be more prepared for protests, Amswych added, questioning the level of the security risk. "Are people realistically going to storm the Four Seasons hotel and commit acts of violence against the speaker? No, I don't believe they are," he said.

Alonet Zarum Zandan, co-chairwoman of the Jewish Community Relations Coalition of New Mexico, said she was "profoundly sad that something like this happened again in Santa Fe."

Silencing Jewish and Israeli voices in Santa Fe is harmful to democracy, which thrives when civil discourse and conversations are able to occur, she added.

"I'm sickened by it," said Rabbi Berel Levertov of the Santa Fe Jewish Center.

Levertov described what he sees as a double standard in which pro-Gaza events are allowed to take place while pro-Israel events are protested or canceled.

"The good citizens of Santa Fe should not tolerate this," he said.

Link-Raviv said she had been looking forward to visiting Santa Fe.

"As Consul General, and particularly in sensitive times, one of my duties is to share knowledge and information, and that was the purpose of my participation in this encounter," she wrote in an email. "Despite the cancellation, I remain highly committed to continue cultivating the ties between Israel and New Mexico."

McQueen said Global Santa Fe needs time to reflect and figure out how it can continue its mission.

"We really are committed to making sure that we have a place for people that don't necessarily agree to have a dialogue," she said. "... But perhaps this just isn't a topic where folks could sit down [and talk], not now."