Hamas-tagging: The emerging tactic to persecute pro-Palestine activism
An image of Hamas’ flag.
Written by: Marthad Umucyaba
A Canadian university’s social justice centre has launched a lawsuit against a Zionist society in British Columbia, after it allegedly tried to share a pro-Hamas message in the centre’s name.
A contractor working for Hillel BC Society (HBC) is alleged to have posted “I love Hamas” stickers attributed to SJC, prompting the already charged political environment of UBC to explode. The UBC, an instinctually colonial institution, removed the stickers, but did little else for the SJC’s reputation. So, the SJC turned to the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), who helped file the lawsuit against HBC for defamation.
Intimidation campaigns against pro-Palestine youth in the universities has become a more common and frequent occurrence. Speakers for Palestine have also been silenced, and barred from speaking under pressure from pro-Israel student groups in Canada. The far-right National Post, for example, has written multiple op-eds calling for indoctrination of the youth and deportation of pro-Palestine international students.
The lead up to the lawsuit
Hillel British Columbia is a Zionist student lobby group that, in its own words, “enable[s] Jewish young adults to explore their Jewish identity and relationship with Israel in a pluralistic and inclusive community.” It seems their contractor did not get the memo about the “inclusive” nature of Zionism. On November 20, 2023, he later went on to attach mass produced stickers across posts and boards throughout campus with the words “I love Hamas” and the underlying black caption “UBC Social Justice Centre”, attributing the love of Hamas to the SJC.
This led to harassment of SJC members, which has lasted from late November up until now. The NCCM finally intervened on February 9, 2024, and supported a lawsuit by SJC against HBC after the UBC refused to deal with HBC’s misconduct. Since the lawsuit is primarily against HBC, it will be interesting to see how involved the organisation was in getting the stickers made and getting them distributed, and how much funding and support they get from UBC, despite the claims by HBC of non-involvement in their early November 20, 2023, statement on Instagram.
Parallels with the UNRWA smear campaign
Israel decided to strike back at the UN after being ordered by the UN’s International Court of Justice not to commit genocide against the Palestinians, and after six of eight provisional measures requested by South Africa against Israel were granted using UNRWA evidence. Israel, in conspiracy with NATO, launched a reactionary smear campaign associating the UNRWA and certain employees with Hamas.
The UNRWA chief, Philippe Lazzarini, openly and shamelessly admitted to using a “reverse due process”, as in he fired the accused workers before substantiating any of the claims by Israel. It should be noted that Israel was allowed to vet all of the employees before they were hired last year. Either Israel is admitting that their surveillance of Palestinians and infamous intelligence services are not as omniscient as they claim, or that they knew the Palestinian workers were innocent and simply accused them in order to establish a pretext to remove evidence gathered by the UNRWA. And of course, Mr. Lazzarini has found no evidence until this date, so compensation to the terminated workers will definitely have to be paid soon.
Even though the UNRWA played along and fired the requested workers, NATO also needed a pretext to help remove incriminating evidence against them for aiding and abetting at the International Court of Justice, so the largest backers of Israel, especially Canada, Germany, and the United States, also removed the funding from UNRWA as well. Much like the smearing of SJC, UNRWA was also simply associated with Hamas by pro-Israel and pro-NATO voices, even though UNRWA in particular further persecuted its own Palestinian workers, in order to distance itself from Hamas.
Red-tagging in the Philippines and comparisons with the HBC smear campaign
The Communist Party of the Philippines has waged an ongoing armed struggle against the current US-puppet Philippine government since 1968. It is well recognized and supported amongst the farmers in the countryside for the same underlying economic reasons that the farmers in China supported the Communist Party of China when it was formed in 1921, which is debt slavery through serfdom. Serfdom is still effectively practised due to the strength and influence of a small number of powerful landowners controlling 80 per cent of the effective countryside wealth.
Naturally, due to the internal conflict, the Philippines government has first tried to delegitimize the movement amongst the masses by blaming it for false flag attacks on civilians. These attacks were the pretext to labelling it as a terrorist organisation. The United States has of course registered the party as a terrorist organisation as well. With this thinly established pretext, any opposition to the government is labelled as originating from the Communist Party of the Philippines. This is famously called “red-tagging”.
Hamas-tagging and its implications in Canada
“We received with strong condemnation the statement issued by…Mr. Phillipe Lazzarini…he announced the…decision to terminate contracts…based on ‘Zionist information’...We strongly condemn the termination…based on information from the Zionist enemy…the statement confirms that these allegations are without completing…a fair and impartial investigation…We strongly condemn the…description of our…resistance as terrorism…It is clear that UNRWA has been subjected to blackmail by countries that support Zionist terrorism under the pretext of continuing financial support…and this is what we have repeatedly warned against.”
The SJC lawsuit, along with the NATO campaign against UNRWA, demonstrates NATO’s developing repressive tactics against those opposing the NATO ethnic cleansing plan. Much like the McCarthy era with communism, the population will have to be silenced or pressured into demonising Hamas. There have to be legal mechanisms in place against support for Hamas. Then finally, anyone opposed to the ethnic cleansing plan and/or genocide of the Palestinians will have to be associated with Hamas.
It will soon no longer be relevant whether a pro-Palestine activist or organisation is explicitly pro-resistance, explicitly pro-Hamas, or even generally anti-genocide. All of these groups are on track to being grouped into the same category, Hamas-tagged, and persecuted in the same way. In that vein, hypocritical opposition to Hamas, while simultaneously opposing the genocide in Gaza, will no longer have a meaningful self-preserving impact.
The underlying reason for that is all of these voices, despite the difference in messaging and tactics between them, are all fundamentally opposed to NATO’s ethnic cleansing plan in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas-tagging, using the illicit and arbitrary labelling of Hamas as a terrorist organisation, can now become the perfect pretext to persecute the anti-colonial movement in Canada and crush opposition. The SJC’s lawsuit against Hillel BC Society will thus be a good barometer of how much of the de facto rights of the people in Canada, particularly of Muslims and Palestinians, have diminished, and how quickly they will deteriorate over time.
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Marthad Shingiro Umucyaba (formerly referred to as Christian Shingiro) is a Rwandan-born naturalized Canadian expat. He is known for his participation in Communist/anti-imperialist national and international politics and is the radio show host of The Socially Radical Guitarist.
He is also a freelance web developer in Hong Kong, China, striving to provide “Socially Radical Web Design at a socially reasonable price”.
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