Hirram Sasser, Executive General Counsel for First Liberty Institute, said the Sonesta Nashville Airport Hotel’s decision to break its contractual obligation to host the 2024 Israel Summit next week is an of discrimination.
The 2024 Israel Summit, scheduled to be held on May 20-22, was originally planned to be hosted at the Sonesta Hotel until hotel leadership contacted one of the summit’s sponsors, HaYovel, notifying the group that they were dropping their contract to host the event, citing “threatening” calls and messages.
Local groups including Palestine Hurra Collective Nashville, a pro-Palestine group, and Nour Nashville, a community organizing group that advocates for the “Palestine cause,” were among the organizations that publicly called for its members to call the Sonesta Hotel’s general manager and demand they make the decision to back out of hosting the Israel Summit.
In a letter to Troy Carver, the general manager at the Sonesta Hotel, Sasser – who represents HaYovel – said the hotel’s decision to drop its contract to host the summit is “unlawful religious discrimination in a place of public accommodation,” as previously reported by The Tennessee Star.
Sasser (pictured above) echoed that argument during Monday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, adding that the hotel is not only breaking the law, but also siding with “pro-terrorists” by breaking its contract to host the summit.
“There’s been some people that are agitating out there – you see it on the college campuses, now, it’s being directed to this type of conference and other events around the country. All you have to do, and all that Sonesta seemed to be willing to do in the beginning, is just beef up security and everything will be fine. So for them to do this complete 180 turnaround and say ‘No, we’re going to cancel the event,’ I don’t think they quite understood that we’re actually a nation of laws and that, unlike some other places around the world, you actually have to follow federal law and you have to follow the state law,” Sasser said.
“The Civil Rights Act and its equivalent in Tennessee do not allow for this kind of discrimination for the hotel to adopt the discrimination of those agitators and basically choose the, what I would call the pro-terrorist folks’ side of the issue and then cancel the people who love America and who are fighting for freedom,” Sasser added.
Sasser said that if the Sonesta Hotel decides to stick to its decision to break its contractual agreement to host the summit, it will “be held responsible.”
“It’s an absolute travesty what’s going on…We’re a nation of laws and the Sonesta Hotel has to follow the law. They’re not allowed to follow the mob. They need to restore the rights of HaYovel to be able to have their event… I fully expect them to honor their contract and to follow the law because if they don’t, then they’re going to be held responsible,” Sasser said.
When it specifically comes to security concerns surrounding the event, Sasser said the best way to counter protesters and agitators is to “beef up security, press on, and go forward.”
“At the end of the day, it’s really simple. We don’t allow a heckler’s veto to happen in this country. We don’t shut down speech. We don’t shut down events because somebody says that they have a problem with it. What you do is you beef up security, press on, and go forward. Otherwise, we would never be able to have freedom in this country. That’s the way the law is written and that’s the way we’re supposed to operate,” Sasser said.
In the case that the Sonesta Hotel refuses to reverse course and hold the event, Sasser said the summit’s organizing parties will resort to looking for alternative venues to accommodate approximately 400-500 people traveling from across the nation and from overseas.
“We’re hoping maybe someone steps up…We need a conference center. We need hotel rooms. We need 300 hotel rooms and a conference center for 400 to 500 people,” Sasser said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Hiram Sasser” by First Liberty Institute and “Sonesta Suites” by Sonesta Suites.
