York University/Ontario government persecution of student associations continues Canadian tradition of persecuting university activists
Caption: Logos of York Federation of Students, York University Graduate Students Association and the Glendon College Student Union.
Written by: Marthad Umucyaba
As if forgetting York University’s own Department of Sociology’s shameless fundraising drive for the Nazi-honouring Ukrainian Canadian Congress, York University hypocritically condemned the joint Palestine solidarity statement made by the York Federation of Students, the York University Graduate Student Association, and the Glendon College Student Union (Statement pg. 1-2), declaring that ‘free speech is not absolute’.
Jill Dunlop, the Minister of Ontario Colleges and Universities, backed threats made against the student unions, demanding they ‘retract the statements’, Provincial House Speaker Paul Calandra, member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, also denounced the way Palestinians in Canada and other anti-colonial youth used their right to freedom of expression.
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC) party, incidentally, is the most infamously corrupt provincial party in Canada. The PCs are also the most blatantly racist party in Ontario in terms of its policies towards immigrants, being shamelessly biased for Ukrainians and against non-white immigrants.
This incident shows that the pro-colonial right wing and liberal racists of all NATO countries are finding common cause with the goal of political repression of domestic anti-colonial struggle and solidarity, and the larger NATO goal of anti-Palestinian genocide and suppression of the Middle East, as has been a well-established Canadian political tradition.
The ‘Harmful’ Statement from the Student Unions
Caption: These three images are of the full statement of the York Federation of Students, York University Graduate Students Association and the Glendon College Student Union.
This statement, notedly, does not explicitly mention Hamas’ successful surprise attack on Israel. It does, however, accurately characterise Israel as a criminal settler colony which Palestine has a right to resist, and commended the ‘strong act of resistance’ on October 7. Naturally, this was unacceptable to prominent Canadian Zionist organizations and the leadership of York University, who denounced the statement as ‘anti-semitism’.
The myth of ‘Israel’s right to self-defence’
“Israel has a right to defend themselves and anyone who suggests otherwise…should really reconsider what they’ve done and what statement they’ve put out.” – Ontario Provincial House Speaker Paul Calandra
There are two aspects of this myth that need debunking, and that the Palestinian solidarity movements in Canada and around the world have been eloquently debunking, despite a massive pro-colonial and rightist mass media in opposition to the truth of what’s going on.
The first aspect is that Israel is defending itself, and the reason for the support of the ‘Great Democracies’ behind Israel is the fact that Israel is simply retaliating to attacks from Hamas. The second aspect is that there is an inherent right of the Israeli nation to exist, and as a consequence, an inherent right for it to exist by ‘self-defence’.
The first myth does not have to take much effort to debunk. Even the UN, an organisation controlled by NATO, admits through multiple resolutions that the settlements installed in the West Bank are illegal. Those illegal settlements, as well as multiple attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque by both the settlers and the Israeli military, were the root cause of the war Hamas waged on Israel on October 7. In Islam, attacking a holy site, especially the Al-Aqsa Mosque, makes war against the attackers incumbent upon a Muslim. If the mosque is attacked, it is an affront upon the religion which automatically requires a Muslim to fight the aggressor:
“And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing. And fight not with them at Al-Masjid-al-Haram, unless they fight you there. But if they attack you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.” - Surah Al-Baqara Ayat 191, Holy Qur’an
Settlers, on top of being granted military training through conscription, are given arms (for example by fascist Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir) and use those arms to facilitate the theft of property from Palestinians after terrorising them and firing those weapons (1:02-1:13).
Naturally, this happens with the complicity of the now Puppet administration of the Palestinian Authority (PA) which engages in ‘security cooperation’ with Israel led by the thoroughly corrupt Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), with Mahmoud Abbas as its head. This, incidentally, also debunks the ‘innocent civilian’ narrative.
The second aspect of this myth can be explained by the war crimes outlined in the plans of the creation of Israel to begin with, known as Plan Dalet. This plan is a summation of previous colonial action plans such as the September 5, 1945 ‘Plan B’, the May 1946 ‘Plan 1’ and the Yehoshua plan of 1948. The entire military doctrine can be summed up with two incredibly blunt and shocking quotes:
“(e) Enemy cities will be besieged according to the following guidelines:... 3. By disrupting vital services, such as electricity, water, and fuel, or by using economic resources available to us, or by sabotage.”
“4. Mounting operations against enemy population centres located inside or near our defensive system in order to prevent them from being used as bases by an active armed force. These operations can be divided into the following categories:
Destruction of villages (setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris), especially those population centres which are difficult to control continuously.
Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it. In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.
The villages emptied in the manner described above must be included in the fixed defensive system and must be fortified as necessary.”
Support for Israel’s ‘right to self-defence”, or even defence of Israel’s ‘right to exist’ is automatically an open endorsement of Israel’s right to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing. It’s a settler colony built solely on this basis. There’s no UN mandate for Israel’s existence, either, despite this being a popular myth as well. The rights of Palestinians and the continued existence of Israel are in direct contradiction. And that is a known fact to NATO, which is why not a single US or Canadian state representative will admit to a Palestinian right to self-defence.
A short history of Canadian persecution of university activists on Palestine and beyond
York University, while shameless in its pro-colonial and pro-genocide position, is not the only Canadian university to have this terrible reputation among the student unions.
Concordia University tried to invite known war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to speak in front of the students in September of 2002. A contingent of largely Arab and Muslim students responded by writing out a detailed arrest warrant and criminal charges under the ICC, and rightfully moved to have him arrested. (12:46-14:41) The chaos that ensued, as a result of unlawful violence on the protesters and rightful retaliation in self-defence, prompted the pro-Zionist and pro-colonial university administration to move for prosecutions from the police and a rewrite of the Concordia University policy to facilitate arbitrary expulsions of students.
The anti-BDS bill passed by the PC government in December 2016 was a direct attack against the student unions throughout Ontario and their push for BDS.
The University of Toronto has also condemned its Graduate Union over the latter’s support for BDS as recently as March 2022, and has even threatened to withhold funding.
Next month, McGill University intimidated the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), its student union, into not following the policy by calling it unconstitutional. McGill did this by threatening to cut off the student payments which fund the student union the “Palestine Solidarity Policy” with 71 per cent was honoured.
In October 2023, McGill revoked the right of the Solidarity with Palestinian Human Rights organisation to use the McGill name, as a sanction in response to their declared support for Palestine’s right to self-defence, in support of Israeli apartheid.
This month as well, the Toronto Metropolitan University’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law and the Abolitionist Organising Collective were smeared by the right-wing Toronto Sun newspaper. They were publicly chastised even after caving to TMU pressure and taking down their endorsement letter. The unhinged pro-colonial article spouted debunked lies about the surprise attack by Hamas, relying on nothing other than anti-Arab racism and anti-Muslim bigotry from its readers
The University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of International and Public Affairs, led by Margaret Mccuaig Johnston, is even pushing to have their own students arrested. This is reminiscent of the mass arrests of students during the G20 protests of 2010.
The pro-colonial and anti-Arab racist vitriol in Canadian university administration was always sugar coated under the veneer of ‘shared democratic values’ and denouncing ‘anti-semitism’. The only difference is, now the white supremacist and racist educators are doing away with the ‘caretaker of education’ pretence and openly siding with the repressive system.
Birds of a colonial feather stick together
“There will be no authorisation for protests. The major general has proven he is upholding this with an iron fist. We’re not in a situation where we will allow all sorts of people to come and test us. And this means we must fix the problem in a serious manner without being lenient. Whoever wants to become an Israeli citizen, welcome. Whoever wants to identify with Gaza is welcome. I will put him on buses heading there now.” - Israeli Chief of Police Kobi Shabtai (0:18-0:43)
“We’re a nation of religious freedom…freedom of expression. We all have a right to debate and disagree without being targeted in our schools, workplaces, and our communities.” - President Joe Biden of the United States of America, after announcing $100 billion dollars more in funding for Ukraine and Israel in the pro-colonial struggle of ‘democracies vs autocracies’ (10:05-10:13)
In ‘self-defence’, and ‘defence of democracy’, Israel deliberately targeted residential areas using white phosphorus, an illegal chemical weapon, and highly explosive bombs (0:03-0:35) known as bunker busters, using the ‘tunnels’ as a pretext. The most infamous war crime committed by Israel so far in this conflict, has been the bombing of the Al-Ahli (Baptist) Hospital. Many crimes and bombings of hospitals were committed before that, but the Western press decided to give it attention because it wasn’t a Muslim hospital this time, but a Christian one.
It was also infamous for having killed more than 500 victims in one blast, as the deadliest single bombing so far. Israel was thus forced to deny responsibility of the incident, however, even rightist and pro-colonial British state media Channel 4 tore the explanation that Israel gave to shreds (0:36-3:46). Canada is still shamelessly siding with the Israeli narrative, however.
NATO will go by the party line initiated by the most genocidal nation in existence, the United States, which is secretly directing Israel to commit all of the current war crimes, as has been done before with their proxy war on Yemen, and in their direct wars throughout the Middle East. Israelis that oppose the war crimes will be ‘sent to Gaza’ by the Israeli police. Within Canada, Palestinian students and other supporters of Palestinians’ right to anti-colonial struggle will be condemned, and if outright support for Hamas is shown, will risk being prosecuted.
And all of this over imaginary atrocities from Hamas and doctored propaganda from a pro-colonial press. Meanwhile the world slowly begins to see via strong journalism that in fact Hamas is more cautious and more caring towards Israeli hostages than the IDF is. The propaganda is an integral part of what China, in eloquently describing the Five Eyes in a Global Times article, called the ‘Axis of White Supremacy’.
Putting a spotlight on this harsh reality, especially involving their criminal genocidal project in the Middle East known as ‘Israel’, has shown both an opportunity, and a grave danger, in exposing the ‘Great Democracies’, especially the settler colonies, for what they truly are. May the courage of this generation be rewarded.
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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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