The University of Maryland business school added Palestinian political analyst Bassem Eid, who has criticized Palestinians’ “right of return” to their homeland, to its scheduled panel about Middle East negotiations, despite receiving backlash against the event’s original speakers.

The panel, scheduled for Sunday, originally featured former Israeli politician Einat Wilf and Egyptian writer Dalia Ziada. In response to the speakers, more than 960 university community members have signed a letter demanding the business school cancel the event, citing “biased agendas that spew racist ideologies.”

This university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, which organized the letter campaign, wrote in an Instagram post on Feb. 6 that Wilf and Ziada “share the same pro-Israel sentiments which are racist and dehumanizing” to Palestinian and Muslim students.

Eid’s addition was not related to the letter campaign, this university confirmed to The Diamondback Thursday.

Eid was born in East Jerusalem and founded the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group in 1996. The group monitors human rights violations committed by the Palestinian National Authority, which has legal control of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

Eid told The Diamondback on Thursday that he does not think many Palestinians are “asking for the right of return” to their homeland after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War following Israel’s establishment. A Palestinian state is not “available right now,” Eid added. During the Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, about 700,000 Palestinians were forcefully displaced from their homes because of the war, according to the Associated Press.

Eid has also been an outspoken critic of divestment movements targeting Israel, according to his website. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel awarded him the Emil Gruenzweig Memorial Award in 1992.

Eid’s addition comes after students called on this university to add a speaker to Sunday’s panel who supports Palestine, The Diamondback previously reported.

[UMD students urge business school to cancel Middle East panel over controversial speakers]

Students at this university do not have the “mandate” to speak on behalf of Palestinians when they are living in the United States, Eid said, adding that he is qualified to speak about Israel and Palestine because he lives in the West Bank.

This university’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter wrote in a statement to The Diamondback Thursday that Eid’s addition “seems like malicious compliance” to student demands for a speaker supporting Palestine.

“Just because a panel is diverse does not mean it expresses a variety of opinions or does not endorse racist views,” the chapter wrote in the statement.

Conversations around Palestinians’ right to return to their homeland have increased since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages in its 2023 attack, according to the Associated Press. Israel declared war on Hamas the next day and its military has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians since, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire agreement in January. The ceasefire’s current phase is slated to end in early March, the Associated Press reported last month.

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Sunday’s panel discussion aims to highlight the business applications of historical dispute negotiations in the Middle East, according to the business school’s website.

But several students who took part in Students for Justice in Palestine’s letter campaign criticized Wilf and Ziada’s “openly racist and bigoted” views toward Palestinians, The Diamondback previously reported.

Wilf has previously opposed Palestinians’ “right of return” and mocked Palestinians who were forcefully displaced during the Nakba on X.

Like Wilf, Ziada has been a vocal supporter of Israel’s military actions in Gaza and supported U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to deport “Hamas sympathizers” on college campuses.

“I expect to see some people who are respecting each other and hope to see people … who have dignity towards the others,” Eid told The Diamondback.