MPP Jama moves forward representing Hamilton-Centre as an independent, vowed to sue Premier Ford for libel, fight censure in the legislature
On Tuesday Nov. 14, Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama opened her independent office, resuming in person hours and case work for the first time since her recent removal from the New Democratic Party caucus.
During her speech at the opening of the office, Jama outlined her goals moving forward as an independent and her plans to address her current censure in the provincial legislature.
Jama’s removal from the NDP party on Oct. 23 came two weeks after she released a statement on Oct. 10 calling for a ceasefire by Israel in Gaza. She also called for Canada to call for a ceasefire, for Israel to stop restricting water, food and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza and for an “end to all occupation of Palestinian land.”
Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles stated that Jama’s removal was due to some of the actions she undertook following her statements on the Israel-Hamas conflict having “contributed to an unsafe work environment for staff.”
On the same day as her removal from the NDP, the Ontario legislature passed the Ford government's motion to censure Jama. As a result, Jama cannot be recognized by the Speaker to partake in discussion in the parliament. At her speech at the opening of her independent office, she stated that the Ford government would cease her censure if she removed her initial statements and apologize and that she would not concede to these demands.
While speaking, Jama also revealed that she did not learn of her removal from the NDP from party leader Stiles directly, but through a general email that was sent out to all party members informing them of her removal.
I found out at the same time everyone else did, as I was rolling into my seat.
Sarah Jama, MPP, Hamilton Centre
Jama addressed questions regarding her ability to represent her Hamilton Centre constituents as a result of being barred from speaking in parliament, in which she made clear that she is currently pursuing legal action against her censure.
“I have no intention of sitting there censured. I'll be doing everything I can to prove that it was an illegal censure,” said Jama.
I have no intention of sitting there censured. I'll be doing everything I can to prove that it was an illegal censure.
Sarah Jama, MPP, Hamilton Centre
Furthermore, Jama affirmed that she would be pursuing legal action against Premier Ford for libel, in response to his accusations of antisemitism against her.
Jama emphasized that moving forward from her party removal and censure, she is focusing on representing the people of Hamilton Centre and working for the issues which she has always been committed to. Jama stated that she is presently concerned with addressing the rising cost of living, accessibility for disabled individuals especially in the midst of the recent transit strike and childhood poverty in Hamilton.
My priority is to focus on Hamilton Centre and the people here who need support.
Sarah Jama, MPP, Hamilton Centre
Jama stated her independent office is now open to the public from 9am to 4pm every day other than Wednesday for her constituents to come in and voice their concerns.
After extended consultation, the McMaster Student Union has worked alongside the Student Representative Assembly to address concerns and represent students affected by the Israel-Hamas conflict
In the council room in Gilmore Hall on Nov. 12, McMaster’s Student Representative Assembly met for meeting 23J. Representatives met to discuss a motion put forward in support of students at McMaster University affected by the violence in the Middle East, as well as routine reports from the various faculty caucuses.
The statement, co-written by MSU president Jovan Popovic and vice-president Adam F. El-Kadi looks to address the ongoing Israel/Hamas conflict. In a memo to SRA members ahead of the meeting, El-Kadi wrote that he and the president had taken the time to meet with multiple student groups and individuals who have reached out to create a statement that accurately represented students.
“[This motion] was the result of multiple rounds of consultation with student groups from various backgrounds and outlooks. We have actively sought input from our diverse student body, in advance of offering a resolution to define the sentiment of student government at McMaster University,” said El-Kadi.
[This motion] was the result of multiple rounds of consultation with student groups from various backgrounds and outlooks. We have actively sought input from our diverse student body, in advance of offering a resolution to define the sentiment of student government at McMaster University.
Adam F. El-Kadi, Vice-President (Administration), McMaster Students Union
The statement's draft was read before the SRA and noted a rise in both anti-Palestinian and anti-Israeli racism at McMaster, in Hamilton, and internationally. The statement also claimed that commentary on social media has resulted in a number of reported threats towards Palestinian and Israeli students at McMaster.
The statement further made reference to the casualties of the conflict and echoed comments made by the United Nations condemning the actions of both the Israeli and Hamas government, ultimately calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
During the meeting, Popovic and El-Kadi resolved to promote peaceful events at McMaster via the MSU Clubs Department and requested that the university accommodate students affected by the conflict by way of leniencies towards deadlines and course work.
Popovic and El-Kadi also joined nations around the world condemning the violence perpetrated by both belligerents in the conflict and called for a ceasefire in Gaza to allow for humanitarian aid.
Popovic and El-Kadi pledged to make a financial contribution of $15,000 split evenly between the Palestinian Children's’ Relief Fund, Hamilton’s Anti-Racism Resource Centre, Hamilton Jewish Family Services and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement on behalf of the students union.
In his address to the SRA after the motion was presented, Popovic discussed the time that had been put into crafting the statement, consulting with many student organizations on campus and taking their priorities into consideration.
“Everyone was taken into account and everyone has points in this motion that can be attributed directly to their advocacy and contributions.” said Popovic.
Everyone was taken into account and everyone has points in this motion that can be attributed directly to their advocacy and contributions.
Jovan Popovic, President, McMaster Students Union
Representatives at the meeting were then given time to draft and put forward amendments to the statement, including changes to language and facts being presented with updated sources.
The amended statement was put to vote and passed at 9:04pm, with 21 voting in favor and 5 abstaining. The statement was released in an Instagram post by the MSU on Wednesday and the full statement was posted to the MSU website.
Other topics discussed at the meeting included the change in management of McMaster's TwelvEighty, the Grind and the Union Market. All three will now return to self-operation under the MSU which promises better food, better prices and better portions. Popovic addressed actions being taken with regards to Generative AI use by students, saying that the new regulations are restrictive and some of the tools the university is set to use to detect AI use may harm students unfairly flagged by unreliable detection software.
In light of the ethnic cleansing and violent dispossession of Palestinians, social media activism has never been more important
By: Shehla Choudhary, Contributor
cw: genocide, ethnic cleansing, violence
On May 16, nearly 1000 protestors gathered at Hamilton City Hall and marched through the downtown core. Similar demonstrations occurred in Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square and Mississauga’s Celebration Square. These massive turnouts were facilitated by online advocacy, organized and advertised through social media outlets.
The objective of the demonstrations, although constantly portrayed as an incredibly complex situation, is rather simple: to stop the violent and illegal evictions of Palestinians from their homes; to cease the relentless airstrikes resulting in the murder of Palestinian civilians; and to end the occupation of the current open-air prisons known as Palestinian territories.
The situation escalated and garnered worldwide attention when earlier this month, eight Palestinian families joined the roster of forceful evictions in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in order to enable Israeli settlements that are illegal under international law. This area is accustomed to such occurrences, having seen similar displacements earlier in 2009.
Demonstrations in protest of the expulsions quickly occurred throughout the neighbourhood and were immediately met with police violence. Despite warnings from Hamas promising consequences if Israel continued attacks in Sheikh Jarrah and east Jerusalem, this pattern of oppression further manifested through attacks on worshippers at Al Aqsa mosque. This involved excessive Israeli force using stun grenades, rubber bullets, live bullets and tear gas. Following Hamas’ rocket strikes, an 11-day onslaught of Israeli airstrikes was unleashed upon the occupied and blockaded Gaza strip, killing at least 248 Gazan civilians, including 66 children and wounding more than 1900. It is estimated that the rocket fire killed at least 12 people in Israel.
Social media activism, commonly exercised through retweets on Twitter and story posts on Instagram, has gained traction throughout the past year. Sparked by the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, it has exponentially contributed to the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, but has also been met with criticism.
Social media activism brings with it concerns of “slacktivism,” otherwise known as performative activism, in which individuals share posts simply to appease followers, without taking any substantial actions to further the cause. While performative activism can be hurtful, as exemplified by worries of drowning informative posts under the BLM hashtag on #BlackoutTuesday, refraining from posting due to the fear of being perceived as “hopping on the bandwagon” is also deeply hindering.
There is no denying the significance of material contributions. However, in the context of the current movement for Palestine, productive social media exposure is just as, if not more, important. What the Palestinian cause needs most at the moment is the sharing of infographics, videos and interviews that have led to conversations and protests, while directing the international gaze and scrutiny to Israel’s actions.
"There is no denying the significance of material contributions. However, in the context of the current movement for Palestine, productive social media exposure is just as, if not more, important."
Shehla Choudhary
Palestinians have long argued that Western media consistently fails to accurately represent the ongoing apartheid inflicted upon Palestinians. Mainstream media’s misrepresentation of events paints the aforementioned issue as a conflict, a clash and a war. These words carry the implication of two equal parties engaged in an armed fight, avoiding the reality of state-sponsored Israeli militia with police officers occupying and attacking civilian men, women and children.
This veiled journalism is not surprising, considering the strong allyship of North American countries with Israel. Examples can be seen through examining Canadian-Israeli arms sales and the $3.8 billion dollars of yearly military aid that the United States provides Israel. Portrayal of events in Palestine in Western media usually carries a one-sided and biased perspective.
The coverage from Palestinians amounts to cell phone coverage of protests, bombings and police inflicted violence. In addition to social media posts by not only journalists and activists, the West also sees regular civilians currently enduring settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing.
By resharing these posts and raising further awareness, social media has drawn attention to Palestinian activists such as Mohammed El-Kurd. El-Kurd has since been invited for interviews by many mainstream news organizations and successfully addressed their biases while providing an accurate picture of the situation in Sheikh Jarrah.
Further illustrating the relevance of social media activism to this cause is Israel’s targeting of towers housing media offices in Gaza. Israel justifies its attacks on civilian residential buildings, hospitals and COVID-19 testing labs by citing alleged Hamas presence, often without providing evidence to back these claims.
The demolition of the al-Jalaa tower and the al-Awqaf building, hosting multiple media offices, is yet another attempt to suppress Palestinian voices. These attacks, which many have urged the International Criminal Court to investigate as war crimes, are undoubtedly instigated by Israel’s failure to control the narrative due to overwhelming Palestinian support online. In light of these attacks, our responsibility to ensure that the voices of the oppressed are continued to be amplified through our social media platforms becomes increasingly evident.
The issue of Palestinian apartheid, which has long been painted as historically intricate and irrelevant to a regular citizen in the West, has now become reframed as a human rights issue relevant to everyone. Infographics taking over Instagram and videos shared on Tiktok have allowed accessibility to content that clarifies Israel’s tactics to shut down these conversations, such as incorrectly equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and using pinkwashing to dehumanize Palestinian victims.
Consequently, these conversations have revealed the prevalence of Zionism in our social circles and opened the doors to debate that illustrates the problematic nature of taking a neutral stance. Remaining uneducated, ignorant and silent despite available and plentiful information, or using nonspecific language while refusing to condemn Israel is choosing the side of the oppressor.
This shift in public perspective regarding the urgency of this matter has empowered people to ask questions. I have personally had multiple conversations with McMaster students hoping to learn more as a result of content shared to my social profiles. This exemplifies that resharing posts is not a passive display, but a medium for reaffirming true allyship.
The impact of social media pressure in this struggle for liberation has already been witnessed: due to public scrutiny, Israel’s Supreme Court proceedings for the Sheikh Jarrah evictions have been postponed. Under the pressure of worldwide protests organized through social media outlets, various government officials, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, called for a ceasefire.
However, the movement has not yet accomplished its goals. Despite agreeing to a ceasefire on May 21, Israeli forces continued with violent attacks on worshippers at Al Aqsa mosque in east Jerusalem. The ceasefire does not end the blockade of Gaza or the siege of Sheikh Jarrah.
The ceasefire does not end the illegal Israeli occupation and settlements on land internationally recognized as Palestinian territory. The ceasefire does not end the displacements of individuals who can trace their entire lineage to Palestinian land. The ceasefire does not end the demolition and stealing of ancestral homes. The ceasefire does not end the decades-long apartheid. The need for continued social media activism, reshares and reposts, within the McMaster community and beyond, has never been more apparent.
As of Wednesday, June 16, the ceasefire has been broken and Israel has launched airstrikes in the Gaza strip.
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By: Biran Falk-Dotan
I’ve been a student at McMaster for three years, and every year the same controversy comes up. One side claims that Israel is a tolerant and peaceful nation; the other side blames Israel for the oppression and deaths of Palestinians. Each year, The Silhouette publishes multiple Opinions articles on this issue. During my time at Mac, this issue and Boycott Divestment Sanctions dominated two MSU General Assemblies, taking precedence over matters that were immediately relevant to McMaster students. My claim is going to be unpopular with both sides: as students, we should focus on other things.
The Israel/Palestine problem is complicated. On one hand, many Palestinians live in poverty and suffer legitimate oppression, but on the other hand many of Israel’s actions are in response to a real security threat. Everyone agrees that there is a problem, but nobody can agree on the solution. Should it be a one-state or two-state solution? Should other states actively accept Palestinian refugees? The MSU has endorsed a boycott, but boycotts must have specific policy goals in order to be meaningful. We should acknowledge that there is no widely accepted solution.
Even if the solution were clear, the Israel/Palestine issue has no implications for the personal, social, or academic activities of McMaster students. Case in point: BDS passed last year, and what difference does that make to McMaster students? The only people affected are those who are now unable to buy certain products, and those whose relatives live in Israel/Palestine. Meanwhile, we have plenty of important issues on campus that are not getting enough attention. Tuition fees, mental health support, and campus accessibility are all relevant and important topics that are compromised by us shifting our limited attention to Israel/Palestine. As McMaster students, we should focus first and foremost on the issues that affect us and our communities.
“We can’t just do what is good for us,” you might object, “we need to address humanitarian issues around the world.” My response might surprise you: I agree. On average, a few hundred people die annually due to Israeli/Palestinian violence, and that is a reprehensible loss that I take very seriously. However, I think there are more pressing conflicts in the world.
For each Palestinian who dies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, about 100 Syrians die in the Syrian civil war. China executes thousands of people every year, often for non-violent offenses. Over 3000 civilians have died in the Yemeni civil war in only a year. There are dozens of grievous human rights abuses around the world in states like North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Ukraine, Iran, Ethiopia, Burundi, and others.
Each of these results in greater loss of life than in Israel/Palestine, yet these abuses receive little attention on campus. If we really want to improve the plight of oppressed peoples globally, then each of these problems should receive at least as much attention as Israel/Palestine.
In fact, if our aim is simply to save lives, military conflicts are not even among the chief concerns. In 2015, over 200 million people had malaria, and nearly half a million died of it, even though it is easily treatable. According to the World Health Organization, five million deaths (including 1.4 million child deaths) occur every year because of polluted drinking water. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the world, and it is also treatable and preventable. In fact, even in Israel/Palestine, more people die of car accidents each year than of military violence and terrorism combined. If our aim is to save lives, I think we need to start looking at the options most readily available to us. By investing in medicine for the poor, we can save more people with greater certainty, and without divisive debates.
If our aim is to save lives, I think we need to start looking at the options most readily available to us.
Every life is important and each life is equally valuable. For that reason, I think our humanitarian efforts should focus on situations in which we can save the most lives, and in that respect the Israel/Palestine argument is only distracting us from the worst problems and the problems we can effectively address. The McMaster community, including the MSU, should focus on issues that are relevant to McMaster students, not the issues where a few small groups of people have made lots of noise.
Photo Credit: Jon White/ Photo Editor
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By: Lina Assi & Yara Shoufani
Each year, Israeli Apartheid Week takes place across more than 150 universities and cities. IAW aims to raise awareness about Israel’s ongoing settler-colonial project and apartheid policies over the Palestinian people.
IAW’s goal is to tell the world of the Palestinian struggle, one which is so often erased in mainstream media. Apartheid is a system of racial segregation. In Israel, this includes military control over the West Bank, two distinct identification systems, separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians and military checkpoints which only Palestinians are subjected to. These restrictions on movement have impeded access to health and education. Palestinian houses are demolished for “Israeli only” settlements, and an apartheid wall — eight times the size of the Berlin Wall — separates Palestinians not only from Israelis, from the world and from one another. Israel’s system of settler-colonialism and apartheid has dismantled Palestine into fragmented pieces of land, destroying the Palestinian economy and social structures.
Israeli Apartheid Week brings the occupation onto campus, so to speak. It aims to show students that there is no Israeli-Palestinian “conflict” because the word implies that the two sides are equal. There is instead an occupied and an occupier; an illegal, inhumane, brutal, military occupation.
There is no Israeli-Palestinian “conflict” because the word implies that the two sides are equal.
On March 15 at 6:30 p.m. we are hosting Eran Efrati and Maya Wind for a free lecture. Eran is an ex-Israeli soldier, and Maya is an Israeli peace activist whose refusal to join the military led to her imprisonment in Israel. We hope the stories of Eran and Maya will show McMaster students that Israel’s occupation is not only being resisted against by Palestinians, but by small groups within Israeli society as well.
We will also be recreating apartheid on the BSB lawn through displays of the apartheid wall, settlements, roads, prisons and even the blockaded Gaza Strip. We hope this display will show students that there is no such thing as neutrality in the face of injustice.
Both Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and McMaster Muslims for Peace and Justice will be tabling in MUSC to talk to students about Israel and Palestinian resistance movements, such as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. This educational week is one that is endorsed by many Hamilton movements and student clubs, including Independent Jewish Voices, McMaster Muslim Students Association, McMaster Womanists, McMaster Indigenous Student Community Alliance, United in Colour, Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War, CUPE 3906, Young Communist League and McMaster Middle Eastern Student Society.
The diversity of these clubs reminds us that Israeli Apartheid Week is about more than the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. It’s part of a movement of students who stand for peace and justice, and against colonization, occupation, racism and violence.
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By: Mindy Chapman
I believe that the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination. I also believe that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination. As a Jewish woman living in diaspora, I feel a deep connection to my historic homeland, Israel. During my one visit there, I experienced the magic of Jerusalem and of praying in the same places my people have been praying for thousands of years. I experienced the intense feelings of belonging, homecoming and spiritual and religious freedom. During my lifetime in Canada, I’ve experienced the yearning and longing, not just for the people of Israel, but for the physical land, soil and trees as well. These powerful feelings affirm not only my own connection to the land, but my understanding of the connection that Palestinian people feel to the land as well. I recognize the existence of another group of people that might feel the exact same way that I do.
Sustainable, long lasting peace is an attainable goal. However, it will only be achieved through coexistence, mutual respect and shared understanding. Learning to love one another as human beings, and to understand and respect one another’s stories and perspectives, is the first step to living side by side and amongst one another in peace.
I have often been told that it is wrong to divide the world into simplified categories like “us” and “them.” I’ve learned that there is an “us” and “them.” There are Jews and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis, who seek to further the divide between us, and there are those who strive to build a better future for the children of Israel and Palestine.
In Israel, efforts that strive to create a shared society from the top down, as well as the bottom up, are well underway. Government initiatives that require the teaching of Arabic in Jewish schools are helping create broad societal changes by providing Israeli children with the tools to communicate effectively with their Palestinian counterparts. Organizations such as Hand in Hand and PeacePlayers are making real changes on the community level. Both organizations run programming that connect Israeli and Palestinian youth through a shared experience. Hand in Hand does this through multicultural schooling and PeacePlayers through after school recreation activities.
There is an “us” and “them.” There are Jews and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis, who seek to further the divide between us, and there are those who strive to build a better future.
In order to promote these incredible initiatives and advocate for the building of a shared community, Israel on Campus is running our first Coexistence Week. By bringing attention to the organizations that are creating positive change in Israeli society, we hope to encourage the innovation and support for similar initiatives. We can no longer allow hateful rhetoric and closed-mindedness to further the divide between us. It is time to work together, learn from one another and build the shared society we want to live in: founded on diversity and coexistence, abounding with peace.
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After a long and controversial campaign, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign’s demands became an official part of the MSU’s purchasing policy following last year’s General Assembly. However, one full term following the vote, the MSU and BDS McMaster have yet to produce a final list of companies to divest from.
The BDS movement identifies itself as a non-violent campaign that seeks to divest from all companies involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. The campaign was met with opposition from Israeli student groups, and garnered comments from the former Harper government condemning the movement and its policies as instances of hate crime. However, the BDS campaign at McMaster has been slightly revised, only boycotting companies involved in specific illegal settlements, and not all Israeli companies.
In mid-September, members of the BDS McMaster, a group of about 15 students along with about 200 volunteers, were tasked with forming a comprehensive purchasing list for the MSU. The current MSU vendors list is made up of almost 3,000 companies and individuals that the MSU both purchases and receives money from. Individual BDS members and volunteers researched about 200 different companies each, primarily using online search engines, and occasionally contacting companies to further inquire about their involvement in occupied territories. The estimated number of companies to be affected by the policy has not been finalized.
BDS McMaster group member Lina Kuffiyeh explained, “This list basically has everything and we have to spend so much time figuring out which companies we should boycott because the list is so huge.” Kuffiyeh expressed the desire for a smaller list from the university that excludes students that have given money to the MSU.
While there are no clear plans for future initiatives for the group, Kuffiyeh hopes that the enthusiasm for the campaign will continue after it has been fully implemented. “A lot of students take the BDS movement personally,” stated Kuffiyeh. “I know it’s personal to me because I still have family back home in Palestine who are directly targeted by the occupation so I hope it continues to resonate with students on campus. I also hope students realize that BDS isn’t just about Israeli occupation, it actually relates to a broader umbrella of ethical purchasing.”
The small group of BDS students are currently verifying the companies that are slated to be boycotted, while also juggling academic responsibilities. Members of the group are aiming to have the list completed by the end of the school term, or January at the latest.
Photo Credit: Alex Young
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“Give the ball back, fucker.”
He brandishes his knuckles. He spits on the ground. He is six.
“Heard what I said?”
I shuffle my feet in the ground and squeeze the ball in my hand. It is a bright orange, the kind that glints even in the weakest of sunlight. Besides for the colour, it is plain. Nothing seems particularly attractive about it in the slightest. Even when under my grip, it bends and reshapes poorly. I continue to compress and decompress, the elasticity giving way underneath my fingers. He continues to speak.
“It isn’t your ball.” He takes a step forward.
I stop squeezing. I tell him how I found this ball here at my feet. It rolled my way while I was wandering the playground. I picked it up and played with it for some 40 days. This was its new history. Didn’t that matter anything?
“No. I was given it by my teacher.”
I whisper. “And I was given it by chance.”
“That was then. This is now. I’m taking it back.” He doesn’t flinch when he says it. A civil war could be going off, and he wouldn’t notice. His world is the ball and the ball, the world.
I dig my feet in the ground again. He steps forward. I ask him how could I be sure if it was his ball at all.
“Because it is, shithead.” My six year-old mind wonders what a shithead looks like. I imagine a sentient toilet bowl. But lacking such visual stimulation, I just look in front of me at the boy whose face is contorted and red.
I continue to press the orange ball between my fingers. “Do you mind if I play with it or not for a while? Or maybe we can toss it around in a game of catch?”
“It’s mine. What don’t you understand?”
“Well, how it’s yours.”
He takes another step forward, and swings. The six year old hits like a trained boxer. I fall to the ground.
Things blur. The ground licks my lips. Liquid iron tickles my tongue.
Before I can reorient, he is on top of me. His left hand raises and lands on my chin. His right, my left cheek. There on the ground, part of me can’t help but wonder if he’s done this before. He’s a professional. He wastes no time.
The other part of me is leaking out bit by bit by bit.
I jut my hips upwards and wiggle. My knee frees from under his, and I slam it into his side. He winces. For a few seconds, he is caught in between an inhalation and an exhalation, neither breathing nor not. A sound comes out from him like two freight train colliding - just the awkward moment of pause between life and death.
He scurries to his feet and tries to breath in all the oxygen his little lungs can load. Blood has seeped into my eyes. I try to clear my eyesight for his next onslaught, but the dirt on my hand only clumps on the wound. In a few moments, I’m blind. In a few other moments, I figured, I’d be dead.
This is it. I think. Six years of life go by. It isn’t much, but it’s enough. It’s all I know, all I have.
I wait lifeless, my limbs at my side. It is only a matter of time.
Only a few more seconds.
Right here.
Now.
It’s coming.
Okay. Maybe he just needs to catch his breath.
I listen around me, but I do not hear panting. Instead, I hear patting on the ground and mumbling. I focus and hear, “Where is it? Where is it?”
With my eyes closed, I ask, “What?”
He says, “The ball.”
"Oh."
In the violence and name-calling, the punches and the verbal abuses, I had forgotten about it. It was just a ball after all. I guess absentmindedness can be forgiven.
It might even be expected. God willing, of course.
Edward Lovoquintanilla
Pro BDS
Within the occupied territories of Palestine, Palestinians are continually displaced from their homes; their olive harvests uprooted; mothers, sisters, and daughters are abused; children are arrested without trial; living in disconnected ghettoes that bear a stark resemblance to South Africa’s bantustans.
Along with Palestinian civil society, prominent South African anti-apartheid activists Bishop Desmond Tutu and the late Nelson Mandela have called upon us to endorse the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Its aim is to pressure the state of Israel to put an end to its military occupation of the Palestinians and its discriminatory policies.
Noble students around the world stood by the side of Nelson Mandela and the ANC as they endorsed the BDS campaign against the apartheid regime of South Africa. We must now do the same, as we are called upon to endorse BDS.
The student unions’ support of Mandela was instrumental in the struggle for black liberation. Mandela recognized the essential link between Israel and South Africa, as the former did not abide by the UN arms embargo against the latter. Birds of a feather flock together: Israel and South Africa, as well as their oppressed peoples.
Let us stand together against the oppressive Israeli regime and pressure them into ending their military occupation of and discriminatory policies towards the Palestinian people.
------
Alon Coret & Sarah Silverberg
Against BDS
BDS (Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions) is a hateful and illegitimate campaign that seeks to hypocritically single out Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. In this light, BDS has no place on our campus. The MSU should not be taking political stances on complex and polarizing issues that stand to divide our student body. This movement runs counter not only to peace and progress, but also against the values of mainstream, Canadian students who value moderation, peace and tolerance.
While offensive and discriminatory in its rhetoric, the BDS campaign on Canadian campuses is failing, and has had no practical impact on university decisions. In fact, not a single North American university administration has endorsed BDS, and the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) just this year signed a Memorandum of Understanding with its Israeli counterpart calling for increased collaboration.
BDS has been criticized across the political spectrum by Canada’s three largest political parties. For example, it was deemed “grossly unacceptable” by NDP leader Thomas Mulclair. It has also been rejected as a tactic by well-known critics of Israel, including Norman Finkelstein, who deemed it a “hypocritical, dishonest cult.”
Even the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is opposed to BDS: “We do not ask anyone to boycott Israel itself… We have relations with Israel, we have mutual recognition of Israel.”
If BDS were selectively imposed on Israel, it would collectively punish every Israeli (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Druze, Atheist) regardless of their political views.
This is unacceptable. This includes Israeli goods, Israeli agriculture, and Israeli academics. It seeks to burn bridges, rather than build new ones; it seeks to censor universities, knowledge and free speech; it unfairly discriminates against an entire people based on their nationality and nothing else. For all intents and purposes, it undermines the rights and views of anyone who supports Israel and believes in their right of self-determination. It has also led to hate crimes on other campuses; surely we do not want such an atmosphere to be created here.
The BDS campaign delegitimizes, demonizes, and applies a double standard against the State of Israel. It is not about peace, since it blames Israel exclusively for the conflict in the Middle East; it emboldens the Palestinians in their non-compromising stance, further reducing the chances of a peace agreement.
BDS promotes a single story, which dangerously ignores the balance of voices needed when addressing such a complicated situation. If you are a critical thinker, an open-minded global citizen, a supporter of liberal values, and a student interested in dialogue and learning – say no to BDS.
In a recent book attacking academics that support Palestinian human rights, Professor Alan Dershowitz writes, “Many supporters of Israel – and I count myself among them – care deeply about the Palestinian people. I am pro-Israel and pro-Palestine. I want to see a vibrant, democratic, economically viable, peaceful Palestinian state…”
‘What a fair-minded guy’, I naively thought to myself back then. Little did I know that this deceptive mantra has long been deployed by apologists for Israel and sympathizers of its war crimes. It represents accurately Israel’s long standing two-faced propaganda tactic: pretend to be an advocate for peace to the Western world while continuing the unending oppression of the Palestinian people.
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Knowingly or naively, many are inclined to adopt this flawed dogma because, on the outset, it appears as a fair stance to the uninformed. The major flaw in this idea of being pro-Israel and pro-Palestine is the following: it ignores that Palestinians have been living under Israel’s brutal military occupation since 1967. Approaching its 50th anniversary, the occupation is the longest and one of the bloodiest in modern history. Israel continues to usurp Palestinian land to build colonies for the exclusive use of its Jewish population; barring Arabs access to their own land. It continues to implement draconian apartheid laws on these occupied people to maintain absolute domination. The military check-points, the Separation Wall, apartheid roads, permit systems – the list of injustices is never ending.
Israel’s intention to control Palestinian territory is no secret, as highlighted in the Drobles Plan which was adopted by Israel’s cabinet. It states: “there must not be the slightest doubt regarding our intention to hold the areas of Judea and Samaria (i.e. the West Bank) forever… State and uncultivated land should be seized immediately for the purpose of settlement in the areas located among and around the population centers with the aim of preventing as much as possible the establishment of another Arab state in these territories.”
As is evident by the shrinking map of the Palestinian territories, the Drobles Plan has been implemented to a tee - all the while Israel has been pretending to negotiate a ‘peace processes’ for two decades now. Former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, Meron Benvenisti, observed that, “It goes without saying that ‘cooperation’ based on the current power relationship is no more than permanent Israeli domination in disguise, and that Palestinian self-rule is merely a euphemism for Bantustanization [i.e. dividing land based on race].”
Israel’s continued air, land and sea blockade of Gaza has made this Palestinian strip inhospitable. The UN declared that if the current siege continues, Gaza will be unlivable by 2020 – that’s only 6 years away. Sewage treatment plants are broken down and can’t be repaired due to the blockade; untreated sewage now pollutes the Mediterranean. This has rendered 90 percent of water there undrinkable. The Israeli army regularly conducts raids to destroy agricultural produce in order to squash any nutritious growth. Fishermen are shot at for fishing in the ‘wrong places’; same goes for the farmers. Students are barred from studying because their schools have been shelled; winners of scholarships abroad are denied leaving the occupied territory. This is some of what is happening in Gaza; the injustices in the West Bank haven’t even been mentioned here.
In the face of such brutality, how can one pretend to keep silent about the perpetrator of these atrocities? How is one expected to stay ‘respectful’ and not express outrage? The path of co-operation and dialogue can happen when two parties are on some sort of equal footing. However, in a conflict where one side is armed with the military and financial arsenal of the world’s superpower, it becomes a moral obligation to support the oppressed.
So it comes down to the following: you can delude yourself into thinking you are being fair-minded by arguing for both sides of the conflict; or you can join the global movement to put pressure on Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories and comply with international law. The choice is yours.
