Are Jews safe on university campuses? 

Well, it’s a trap — the president at University of Toronto says protests can go on if they are “peaceful” and there is no “hate-speech”.

Is it “peaceful” if pro-Israel thugs deliberately provoke the Palestinian supporters in order to justify police arrests of the tenters? Does hate-speech include phrases that make Jews “uncomfortable” because the message is to condemn Israel for its brutal war on Gaza? 

Universities try to shut down criticism of Israel

Up to yesterday, when police raided encampments across the US and arrested more than 2,100 pro-Palestine activists in campus encampments in the US, only one has had an “issue”.  That one is at UCLA in Los Angeles, where pro-Israel members of United Jewish Coalition, in partnership with the right-wing Israeli American Council (IAC) attacked pro-Palestine demonstrators with pepper spray, sticks, stones and metal fencing in a bit to “bust up” the peaceful sit-in.  The Israel-supporters also hurled fireworks at the encampment.  On the IAC site, the IAC thanked the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) for all their help—though the LAPD came to take apart the camp and arrest more than 140 students and faculty about four hours after the IAC began its pogrom.  The Israeli American Council purports to speak for the more than 800 Israeli immigrant families in the US including the 250,000 Israelis and Israeli-Americans who live in Los Angeles.  The IAC, according to its website, unites Jewish organisations worldwide in support of Israel and to combat antisemitism.  It brags that its  “secret sauce” of “Israel in its heart and Israeliness in its spirit”.   UCLA became unsafe because of the IAC attack on Tuesday night and Wednesday – in other words the pro-Israel lobby did its job – to shut down and silence any support for Palestinians. 

Jews are safe on campus– but those who support Palestinians are not

The fact is that only one campus is unsafe – and it’s unsafe for the pro-peace, pro-ceasefire activists– not for the Jewish students we usually hear about being in danger.  The police backed up the pro-Israel mob and destroyed the peace encampment at UCLA.

In fact, Jews are very safe, especially here in Canada.  Let’s get real here and ditch the phony propaganda. Canada has not had one credible report of a Jew being beaten, or stalked or prevented from participating in campus activities or any aspect of  life such as a career, a job, or access to  services on or off the campus.  There is no verified example of a Jewish student being followed, harassed, physically threatened or physically attacked.  Of course, given the fact that Israel, which claims to represent all 15 million Jews worldwide, has killed 34,000 mainly unarmed Palestinians, 70% of them women and children, rendered more than 1000 children amputees, and buried more than 8,000 Gazans in the ruins of their homes  — homes collapsed due to Israeli missile attacks–  it wouldn’t be out of line to expect some pushback against pro-Israel sentiments at the encampments.  

Yesterday, I watched CBC News Network.  I saw peaceful young people sharing food and coffee, sitting on deckchairs, decorating their folding tables with Palestinian flags and keffiyeh scarves on the iconic green park of King’s College Circle at the University of Toronto campus. Suddenly, around 1 pm, I saw an older woman wade into the crowds – there was no sound suddenly on the CBC – but she motioned to the protesters to listen to her.  Suddenly, when the sound was back on, I saw the protesters stand back from her, they tried to evade her and clearly didn’t want to engage with her.  As she tried to provoke them, the protesters tried to avoid her.  Many went back to eating and reading.  Others yelled at her.  

Had I been there, I would have told her to form her own protest group somewhere else on the grounds – but I notice that is not the way the establishment pro-Israel community does things.  It seems they prefer to go behind everyone’s back – to go to court to fight for injunctions against pro-ceasefire demonstrators as they tried to do earlier this week in Montreal—but were denied.  They prefer to call the university higher-ups and demand pro-Palestinian encampments be taken down for “safety” sake.  They like to involve the police by creating stories about threats and violence by the tenters.  

But other than name calling and an exchange of bad words, there have been no reported incidents of Jews facing danger from the pro-Palestinians on or near any Canadian campus. 

So why are organisations including CIJA, B’nai Brith, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center plus “Honest Reporting” keeping on with these deliberate lies?  For the same reason that right-wing media such as The National Post, and the Fraser Institute continue to publish articles that dispute that hundreds of children died and were buried on the grounds of dozens of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools.  

Three years ago the mainstream media was full of accounts of the discovery of more than 1700 child graves on the sites of former residential schools across Canada.  Ground penetrating radar verified that hundreds of First Nations’ children had been buried in unmarked graves over the more than 120 years of Residential Schools.  Of course some youngsters must have died due to accidents or illnesses, but there is evidence that many children were beaten, purposely pushed down the stairs, deprived of food and water – and met their deaths at the hands of school officials who were often members of the clergy.   But in virtually no cases were the Indigenous families informed of the deaths of their children, grandchildren or brothers and sisters.   It was a cover up. 

Bodies found wearing scrubs, hands zip-tied behind their backs; catheters and splints…

Today’s cover up is the mass graves in Gaza. I need to say, this is not an exact analogy.  But, Al Jazeera, plus independent journalists and charity workers in Gaza have reported on the mass graves on the grounds of at least two large Gaza hospitals, Al-Shifa and Nasser Medical Centre.  Both hospitals were virtually destroyed by Israel’s bombs; now Palestinians are sifting through the ruins and digging for their lost relatives – whether they were health care workers, or patients.  Many bodies in the mass graves wore scrubs; some were found with their wrists zip-tied behind their backs– someone executed them. Some bodies had bullet holes in them.  Others were naked except for catheters, splints even medical tubes sticking out of them, an indication they had been hospital patients.  The bodies of children were also found. 

Much like the right-wing establishment in Canada (including former Canadian senator Lynn Beyak) rejected the idea that the children’s deaths were covered up at residential schools, Israel denies that their troops killed 400 people and dumped them in mass graves.  Of course 400 dead are a tiny number relative to the cold blooded murders of 34,000 Palestinians by Israel.  But just yesterday The Jerusalem Post noted “The idea that Israel carried out mass summary executions and covered them up in mass graves is preposterous.” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Nadav Shoshani called the reports “fake news.” 

No matter, sowing doubt, trash talking or disrespecting dead victims and constructing a situation in which those with power always remain on top — is always hurtful. 

The UN is demanding an independent investigation of the mass graves —which without Israel’s full co-operation, we know will probably never happen. 

How do we allow the denials by the same kind of extreme racist and right-wing, anti-Indigenous people in our country to be turned against the Palestinians? The settler-colonial mentality is still alive and well in Canada as it is in Israel.  For instance, in Canada over the last eight years, only 13 of the 94 Calls to Action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have been implemented.  

Other than the decision by the ICJ, we have seen few investigations or reports that have shown Israel is a terrorist state

In Israel, the powers that be insist that Jews are the original citizens of the region, that they deserve a Jewish country “from the river to the sea.” Aside from the interim decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), we have seen hardly any committee or investigation by Israel or its allies that reveal Israel as the terrorist state that it is:  

So far there has been 

1. No serious investigation of the deliberate drone strikes on the seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers last month despite the fact that 3 of the victims were British and one was a Canadian national  
2. No official investigation about the 400 victims in Gaza’s mass graves
3. No investigation about how all 12 universities in Gaza were totally destroyed by Israel
4. No meaningful inquiry into how three Israeli hostages, half dressed, carrying a white t-shirt tied to pole and yelling in Hebrew for help– were killed on sight by IDF soldiers
5. No proof of Netanyhu’s claim that at least 13,000 of the killed Palestinians were terrorists 
6. No inquiry into the five units of the Israeli security forces responsible for gross violations of human rights in the Occupied West Bank.  Not only that but the US refuses to bar any of the units from receiving U.S. military assistance. 
7. No investigation into the deaths of at least 224 aid workers in Gaza who have been killed in the last six months, 179 of whom worked for UNRWA  
8. No investigation into the deaths of 97 journalists’ who were targeted by Israel 

If you listen to the people who support Israel, you might conclude that a student protest against the mass killing in Gaza is worse than the killing itself.

So how safe are Jews on Canadian campuses? As safe as anyone who wants to avoid facing up to the reality of what is really happening in Gaza.  Jews are as safe as anyone who wants to continue to bury their head in the sand.  It’s a matter of comfort:  those sympathetic to Israel don’t want to be confronted with the 34,000 dead Palestinians, maimed children and mass graves.

They don’t want the unpleasantness of justifying the 34,000 death toll. They feel uncomfortable. But that’s not the same as BEING unsafe.

The reason there are complaints by some Jewish people, the pro-Israel organizations and their media, is because the Jewish Establishment wants silence, wants to silence talk about Palestinians and what is happening in Gaza. If you listen to the people who support Israel, you might conclude that a student protest against the mass killing in Gaza is worse than the killing itself. Those who support Israel  think it is more important to shut down the truth, than to demand a ceasefire, or an end to Israel’s murderous war on Gaza.  

Featured image at the top: Cartoon (dated Oct. 2023) by Emad Hajjaj known as Abu Mahjoob (Jordanian). For more about him, read here.