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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.
"We have a great relationship with Hillel, a Jewish organization -- it's not as angry here as it is out east," said Venus.
El-Haddad will speak from the perspective of a mother of two in Gaza during Israel's recent assault and blockade that's left about 1,300 Palestinians and 14 Israelis dead.
Venus said the woman, who's worked for Aljazeera, the newspapers The Guardian and Washington Post, will humanize long-suffering Palestinians from a female vantage point.
It's about what it's like being a mother under occupation, family life in that situation -- how they got through it and how they survived it," said Venus.
He said some campuses in Ontario have prevented or discouraged so-called Israeli Apartheid Week events, but Venus added his group's ability to invite speakers to the U of C has never been blocked by administration.
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