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March 7, 2003
Debate rages on campus
UBC meeting reflects national concern over Mideast.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
In the first of a two-part series, the Bulletin looks
at criticism of Israel at university campuses – in British
Columbia and across Canada.
Jewish British Columbians have watched with anxiety as campuses
in Eastern Canada became enflamed in conflict over the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Now, West Coast campuses are embroiled in the same debate
and observers are watching and waiting to see how far Israel's critics
will go.
First indications are that British Columbians are keeping cooler
heads than some of our eastern compatriots, but the issue is not
likely to go away and an impending war in Iraq seems destined to
increase the pitch of debate over foreign affairs across the country.
Critics of Israel have been extremely active in British Columbia
in recent months, organizing countless public events to air their
views of Mideast affairs. Local Zionists have held their own meetings,
most notably a series of Townhall gatherings, at which strategy
for defending Israel in the public discussion has been central on
the agenda.
A meeting at the University of British Columbia (UBC) last Friday,
however, was one of the first determined efforts by defenders of
Israel in the Lower Mainland to confront the accusers – and
the meeting remained civil and peaceful, a hopeful sign that calmer
West Coast sensibilities may yet trump the heated debate that led
to rioting in Montreal and disruptions on other North American campuses.
The UBC meeting was organized by the campus New Democrats, and featured
NDP members of Parliament Svend Robinson (Burnaby-Douglas) and Libby
Davies (Vancouver-East). And while it was the first recent meeting
at which large numbers of Zionists confronted pro-Palestinian presenters,
it was done with a degree of respect that both sides praised afterward.
Hillel, the Jewish student group on the UBC campus, organized a
substantial number of supporters to attend the meeting, and they
arrived early, taking almost every seat in the room. In anticipation
of voicing dissent, Hillel members had prepared sheets of paper
with the words "I disagree" printed on them to distribute
to the crowd. Rather than cat-calling or heckling, audience members
simply held up the signs in unison when speakers ventured into controversial
territory.
Robinson, who has been one of Canada's most outspoken public critics
of Israeli policy, told the Bulletin after the meeting that
he was pleased that audience members remained respectful. He was
disappointed, he said, that the large number of critical audience
members present and the room's limited capacity prevented more UBC
students from attending. Though some supporters of Robinson and
Davies managed to get standing-room places in the small lecture
hall, many more were left standing in the hallway outside.
The lunch-hour event was not without its drama, though, as Bernie
Simpson, a prominent member of the Jewish community and a former
NDP member of the B.C. legislature, took a seat in the front row.
Simpson had a very public intra-party spat several years ago that
resulted in a slander suit laid by Simpson against Robinson over
comments Robinson had made about Simpson's role in NDP fund-raising.
The matter was settled out of court in 1996. At the UBC event, Simpson
offered critical assessments of the speakers' views to assembled
media and audience members after the formal part of the afternoon
devolved into smaller, impassioned debates.
During the forum, Robinson stated his view that terrorism, such
as the bombing of an Israeli pizzeria, is equally unjust and inappropriate
as Israeli army incursions into Palestinian neighborhoods. He reiterated
his demand that Israel end its presence in disputed Palestinian
territories.
"This occupation is fundamentally illegal," said the MP,
who referred to Israel's actions against Palestinians as "brutal,
illegal and dehumanizing," while some in the audience held
up hand-written signs reading "Disputed, not occupied."
Robinson received some support, even from the Zionists in the crowd,
for his comments against Iraq's on-going anti-Semitism and his acknowledgement,
as a gay man, that he would not have the same rights in Arab countries
as he does in Israel. Robinson also condemned autocratic Middle
East regimes like Saudi Arabia.
"Some of the most corrupt and brutal regimes are in the Middle
East," he said.
The outspoken Robinson has taken a very public interest in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, as he has on a range of other issues including First Nations
rights and the environment.
His parliamentary colleague, Davies, recently took a trip to the
Middle East, paid for by Palestine House, a Palestinian nongovernmental
organization based near Toronto.
She spoke of the collapsed infrastructure and economy of Palestinian
territories where, she said, average annual incomes have been halved
to about $900 from $1,800 and that unemployment in some areas is
100 per cent. Speaking with Israelis and Palestinians, she said,
made her aware that individuals on both sides go about their lives
with a "fear of death" from either suicide bombers or
the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
Robinson and Davies were joined by two other pro-Palestinian speakers.
Khaled Barakat, a member of the Palestine Solidarity Group, raised
hackles in the audience when he referred to former prime minister
of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu as a "war criminal."
He compared the status of Palestinians with those of other historically
oppressed groups.
"I feel like the African-American students in the 1960s who
went to school in Alabama," he said. "I feel like a black
South African [under apartheid]."
Barakat also said Israeli democracy is a democracy for Jews, but
not for Arabs and insisted that the only solution to the impasse
is for Israel to withdraw from the territories.
Gabor Mate, a Jewish Vancouverite who has been a prominent critic
of Israeli policies, urged audience members to resist forming opinions
reflexively, and urged them to take a reflective approach, leaving
aside preconceived notions on the subject.
All four speakers expressed the fundamental view that any peaceful
settlement must be prefaced by the removal of Israeli troops and
an end to the occupation.
Cross-country check-up
While the UBC meeting brought two sides together for a spirited
but respectful meeting, the atmosphere across Canada remains remarkably
tense. University campuses – always an incubator of strongly
held views and contrarian ideas – have become the focal point
for activists in Canada who are lobbying this country to take sides
against Israeli government policy.
The most public dispute has been at Concordia University, in Montreal,
where former Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu was prevented
from addressing a meeting in September. The incident, in which anti-Israel
rioters smashed university property and intimidated Jews, led to
a conflict on campus that has spread into a national incident and
will ultimately, it seems, be settled by the courts.
In the aftermath of the riots, university officials banned any meetings
dealing with this contentious issue. Adding fuel to the figurative
fire was a move by the Concordia Student Union suspending the funding
and privileges of Hillel, the campus Jewish students' group. The
student board justified its actions based on a section of the society's
bylaws that prohibit foreign military organizations from recruiting
on Concordia's campus. Hillel had, allegedly, permitted a brochure
promoting a summer program with the IDF on an information table
it had set up.
That conflict took another step last month, when Canadian Jewish
Congress was granted intervener status in the case Hillel launched
against the Concordia Student Union in Quebec Superior Court. Hillel
initiated legal action against the CSU against the discriminatory
disenfranchisement of their campus club. A court date has not been
set.
Jack Silverstone, national executive vice-president and general
counsel for Congress, met with the Bulletin last week to
discuss the approach his organization is taking to developments
on campuses across the country.
Concordia, he said, could be the precedent-setting case in Canada
on the limitations of a student government's role in political issues
like these.
"We believe this case has the potential to establish in a quantitative
way the parameters for proper conduct of a student government,"
said Silverstone.
The issue that motivates CJC's involvement, he said, is not so much
the details of internal student politics, but the overall tenor
of debate that such bodies can create.
"We have to have a situation on Canadian campuses that [is]
an atmosphere free of threats," he said. The situation at Concordia,
he argued, stepped over the boundaries of free expression. But the
lawsuit is not about limiting expression, he stated.
"We have nothing against lively debate, but there has to be
civility," he said. "Not only do we not discourage vigorous
debate, we encourage it."
Central Canadian cases
Silverstone, who is based in Ottawa, is keeping abreast of activities
on campuses across the country, he said, although monitoring activities
is more difficult in areas with a small Jewish population and little
organized Jewish activity, such as in parts of Atlantic Canada.
Aside from Concordia, the atmosphere at Queen's University, in Kingston,
Ont., is something CJC is watching closely, as was an incident at
York University in Toronto, which was resolved satisfactorily, he
said.
In the Toronto case, an outspoken American defender of Israel, Prof.
Daniel Pipes, was slated to speak on campus, but some activists
issued what Silverstone characterizes as threats.
"There was an attempt made by certain Palestinian[s] and other
supporters to say 'Look, if he comes on campus, there will be trouble,'
" according to Silverstone. (Silverstone also believes there
are a handful of foreign students in Canada who spend many years
taking occasional courses toward a degree, but who spend most of
their time here as professional agitators.)
The University of Toronto has been one of many in North America
on which faculty and others are agitating for their universities
to divest from Israel and essentially blackball Israeli academics,
said Silverstone.
The situation faced by Jewish students in Canada has resonance for
university administrators everywhere, he argued. Campuses need to
be places of free discussion that ensure an absence of bullying
and intimidation, he said.
"What happened at Concordia didn't happen overnight,"
said Silverstone. It built over a period of time and has reached
a point where students at Concordia, he said, are afraid to wear
kippot or display Magen Davids. It is time for students and their
parents, faculty, administrators and community leaders to take a
hard look at what's happening, he said.
Silverstone stressed that, despite the problems, the situation must
be put in perspective. These incidents are not the same as the institutional
anti-Semitism that limited Jewish enrolment in universities up until
the latter half of the 20th century, nor has it reached a tipping
point from which we cannot return.
"This is not 1933 Germany," he stated, but added, "I
think our community has been shocked by the deterioration of the
situation."
Clashes out in the west
Most of the campuses across the Prairies have not suffered the kind
of wrenching conflicts experienced at Concordia, said Silverstone,
but British Columbia is clearly becoming a centre of emerging tension.
Simon Fraser University, with campuses in Burnaby and in downtown
Vancouver, has a reputation as a politically active campus and it
is not surprising, in some ways, that the Middle East issue first
caught fire there.
The student newspaper, the Peak, has been criticized for
more than a year for repeated inflammatory and unbalanced approaches
to the issue. (See Bulletin cover story in the Dec. 14, 2001,
archives at www.jewishindependent.ca.)
While the content of the newspaper has been a cause for concern,
eyebrows were also raised by a uniformly anti-Israel panel that
spoke at a university-sanctioned event Feb. 8. Elliot Campbell,
a Simon Fraser University student and the campus representative
for Hillel, wrote of his experiences at the conference in the Bulletin
on Feb. 21. He has also been one of the few voices speaking out
on that campus against the distorted information that is apparently
prevalent there.
And, although the meeting on UBC's campus last week went smoothly,
the head of Hillel there said his members are increasingly concerned
about the pitch of debate.
Eyal Lichtmann said the Palestinian perspective on campus is so
pervasive that it is discouraging for students to even attempt to
refute it, an attitude Lichtmann said he is trying to combat. Though
students have not expressed to him explicit fear for their safety,
he said, there is a degree of intimidation that students report.
Lichtmann acknowledged that some students do not want to participate
in public events on campus because they are not comfortable being
identified as defenders of Israel in the current atmosphere.
Lichtmann said most of UBC's students probably do not have firm
opinions on the Middle East, but the ones who speak up most vocally
are vociferous critics of Israel.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and commentator.
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