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“Two wrongs don’t make a right, and two rights make nothing but trouble."
Coinciding with the start of “Israeli Apartheid Week” on campuses across the country, the National Post is taking a front-page look at the controversial event.
Running from March 1 to 8, the protest, which started in 2005 in Toronto, is set to take place in more than 40 cities worldwide. For students on all sides, even those who try not to get involved, on-campus tension leading up to and surrounding the event can get extreme.
According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish organization, the event is “a worldwide campaign to demonize Israel and intimidate students and faculty who support the Jewish State” that has “grown in scope and viciousness.”
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Around the world those critical of Israel’s attacks into the Gaza refugee enclaves have been facing intimidation and even arrest. For students at Carleton u, this recently hit home. The Ottawa Sun reported that some Carleton university students may face expulsion and other sanctions from Carleton’s administration for “hurtful and discriminatory” actions.
These actions? The Sun reports that “Students Against Israeli Apartheid made waves last week when posters depicting an Israeli warplane firing a rocket at a Palestinian child were circulated around campus, and promptly ripped down.”
But hold on here, artistic licence aside, just how far from reality is such a depiction?
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MONTREAL — The McGill University student union was obliged to shelve a proposed anti-Israel resolution after a motion brought by opponents was carried at a general assembly last week.
SSMU president Kay Turner
By a vote of 436-263, undergraduates agreed that the resolution should be “postponed indefinitely” because the Student Society of McGill University (SSMU) is not the appropriate forum for debate over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. SSMU president Kay Turner told The CJN that the decision means the resolution is “effectively killed,” but does not prevent a similar resolution being put forward for consideration at a future SSMU general assembly. |
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Carleton University and the University of Ottawa have banned one Israeli Apartheid Week poster from their campuses because it included an image that was “inflammatory and capable of inciting confrontation.”
This poster was banned from Ottawa university campuses
The decision, first made by the Carleton administration on Feb. 8, came after the group Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) put up 100 posters throughout the school by political cartoonist Carlos Latuff depicting a helicopter labelled “Israel” firing a missile at a teddy bear-holding toddler labelled “Gaza.”
Carleton’s equity services ordered that the posters be removed from campus, because they “could incite infringements of the Ontario Human Rights Code,” said Carleton spokesperson Lin Moody.
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Re: “Student councils must decide where to draw the line on free speech”
Jan. 23, 2009
To the editor:
What a testament to the age of sensitivity we live in that this debate has been in the paper for what seems like months now. I clearly don’t have much ground to stand on, however, because I have chosen to respond to it.
I should preface with the statement that I am about as liberal as they come. I think that people who use the term “gay” to refer to something they don’t like or “fag” to talk about a person they don’t like are ignorant and lazy about people’s feelings. I also think that the term “genocide” to describe abortion is just silly. However, my method of dealing with such terms is choosing not to use them myself and correcting friends and others when they do use them. As for deciding where to draw the line on free speech, give me a break.
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"The suppression of honest discussion [about Palestinian-Israeli issues] in Canadian and American Universities is due to organized lobbying by North American organizations who believe anything the Israeli Government says" -Michael Keefer, department of English and Theatre Studies
Over 300 university professors from across Canada, including Guelph's own Michael Keefer of the department of English and Theatre Studies, have signed an open letter protesting alleged attempts by university administrations to silence pro-Palestine groups on Canadian campuses.
The open letter was prompted by an article written by Lisa Schofield for the online news outlet Rabble.ca, which uncovered 250 emails between University of Toronto administrators outlining an attempt to prevent Palestine solidarity activities from taking place at U of T in October 2008.
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"We're not asking for anything revolutionary -- just do what you would do in all other situations. If you condemn others, condemn Israel" -Rami Alhamad, co-organizer of Guelph Israeli Apartheid Week
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) came to Guelph this week featuring various events about Israel and the Palestinians. IAW was started in Toronto five years ago as a means of encouraging support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to put pressure on the state of Israel to end what some call the oppression of Palestine.
BDS refers to how external groups can lend their support to Palestine by taking away financial contributions to the state of Israel, boycotting business with Israel, and urging sanctions against the state.
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As Israeli Apartheid Week wraps up, I’m left wondering what effect it had on the general population. Most of us are apathetic on every issue, ever more so on controversial issues like this conflict.
I’ve never taken anything out of these awareness weeks. Both sides rant their propaganda and pretend that all the fault belong solely to the other side.
Thankfully, at McMaster, the peace is kept. Last year’s incident, in which accusations of hate speech were levelled at demonstrators and the police were called, was the result of bus loads of Torontonian radicals coming into this campus and trying to destroy the civility they so despise.
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Former member of the African National Congress and anti-apartheid activist Ronnie Kasrils has adamantly claimed that South African apartheid was not as "obscene" as the military lockdown on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Kasrils gives the keynote address at the fifth annual Israeli Apartheid Week, which takes place on campuses across the globe from March 1 to 8.
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By BILL KAUFMANN, SUN MEDIA
With clashes expected on eastern Canadian campuses next week during anti-Israel protests, university activists in Calgary are hosting a noted Palestinian to speak on the recent, violent Gaza siege.
Calgary's Palestinian-Canadian Student Society predicts the March 3 visit by Gaza journalist Laila El-Haddad to the U of C won't provoke the heated discord seen in the East, said the group's vice-president, Christopher Venus.
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Life under occupation: Palestinian journalist and blogger comes to Edmonton as keynote of Israeli Apartheid Week
Bryan Birtles /
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On her blog, Laila El-Haddad describes herself as a Palestinian from Gaza, a journalist, a mother and a Muslim. Splitting her time between Gaza and the United States, her work in journalism focuses on the plight of Palestinians in Gaza while her blog melds the personal with the political, focusing on the commonplace in Gaza as well as the extraordinary circumstances faced by Palestinians as they attempt to live their lives under the Israeli occupation. She will be delivering the keynote address of the inaugural Israeli Apartheid Week in Edmonton, being held from March 2 - 7 as part of a series of events organized in more than 40 cities around the world. El-Haddad spoke with Vue about her life, her work and the Israeli occupation.
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Re: “Student councils must decide where to draw the line on free speech”
Jan. 23, 2009
To the editor:
When I was a student at McMaster University last year, there was a controversy over the use of the word apartheid to describe the wall that had been built around Palestine. The use of such a loaded word, carrying with it references to racism, was offensive to some and the use of the word in posters advertising a week of activities related to the situation in Israel-Palestine resulted in the posters being banned and a much livelier discussion of the issues. Similarly, in reading the article about a pro-life club being lent support by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, I was struck by the use of the term genocide to describe abortion.
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OTTAWA (CUP) – Just over a week after Carleton University administrators banned a poster advertising Israeli Apartheid Week, the University of Ottawa’s (U of O) communications office decided to prohibit the same poster, citing its “confrontational” nature. The Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) group’s posters were originally approved by the office on Feb. 13. Andrée Dumulon, U of O’s director of communications, said the poster should not have been approved in the first place. The poster depicts a cartoon of an Israeli helicopter firing a missile at a small child, whose shadow spells the word “Gaza.” Dumulon said the image conflicts with the university communication office’s posting regulations, which states “Posters with words or images that incite violence or confrontations will be denied posting privileges.”
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 by Joshua Blakeney* - It was the finest and most dignified event in Jewish history when, in April and May of 1943, the beleaguered inmates of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against their fascist occupiers. A song by the partisans spoke of the brave Jewish prisoner’s dilemma: “they could die on their knees or fight and live forever.”
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 Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) was established in 1999 as a result of a merger between two student organizations based at Concordia University and McGill University in Montreal; the Concordia Centre for Palestinian Human Rights (CCPHR) and the McGill Palestinian Solidarity Committee (PSC). It was after a three month long discussion that the two boards decided to merge and to consolidate their resources to the furthering of the Palestinian struggle for human rights...
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The Concordia Council for Student Life (CCSL) awards were presented last Friday at Loyola campus in front of a crowd which organizers said was one of the largest of recent years. The annual awards honour faculty, staff and students who have gone beyond their normal responsibilities and made outstanding contributions to student life and services. |
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{mosimage}Marchers brave chill to denounce war: More than 300 at downtown protest.
More than 300 pro-Iraqi and pro-Palestinian demonstrators paraded in downtown Montreal yesterday against the war in Iraq and the Israeli occupation of land captured in 1967. |
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{mosimage} by Shannon Montgomery from the the Charlatan (Carleton University Newspaper) Members of the student group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) erected a mock checkpoint in Baker Lounge on March 27, eliciting quickly-muted demonstrations by Jewish students. “We’re bringing the occupation into Carleton,” says Laith Al-Masri, a volunteer with the SPHR. Al-Masri says students who wished to enter the SPHR display had to have their IDs checked and their bags searched. Some people were admitted, while others were “refused entry for no reason.” |
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December 2002, pages 52-53
Special Report {mosimage}By Delinda C. Hanley
Ottawa’s commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre and the second anniversary of the al-Aqsa intifada on Sept. 27 and 28 could be a blueprint for a successful rally. Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), al-Awda, and other community and human rights organizations worked together to put on a spirited and informative show they called “Unite for Justice to End Israeli Colonialism.” The mover and shaker behind the rally, SPHR, is a two-year-old nonprofit student association based in Montreal. It has organized numerous lectures, movie nights, information tables and plays on university campuses across the country to educate Canadians about human rights issues faced by Palestinians. |
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{mosimage} By NELLY ELAYOUBI, Ottawa Sun THOUSANDS showed their support yesterday in a protest held to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinian people and their struggle for human rights.
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This letter was originally published in theLink Concordia University newspaper comment by Ian Orti To the organizers of the speech by Benjamin Netanyahu: I am just writing to thank you for inviting the inspiring Benjamin Netanyahu to Concordia during orientation week. Together you brought national exposure to the illegal occupation of Palestine back to the mainstream media during a time when the fight for Palestinian sovereignty has been clouded by the unelected American President's crusade to forcibly colonize and exploit a brutally impoverished war-torn country. |
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{mosimage} by Mike Buckthought About 200 protesters gathered on Parliament Hill on May 15, asking the federal government to support the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. The demonstration was organized by Carleton's Middle East Discussion Group and Montreal's Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR). |
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