Canadian Universities vs. Israeli Apartheid

Canadian Universities vs. Israeli Apartheid

by ROBERT FANTINA

The Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement is fast becoming the bane of Israel, with even that nation’s Prime Murderer, Benjamin Netanyahu, singling it out as one of Israel’s countless ‘existential’ threats. Several wealthy Zionists in the United States have pledged millions of dollars to counter the movement, and even the U.S. government is beginning to propose and pass laws attempting to limit its effectiveness. In Canada, the NDP purged all officials sympathetic the human rights struggles of the Palestinian people in preparation for this month’s elections, hoping, apparently, to shore up support from the Zionist bloc (if such a thing even exists in Canada).

Unfortunately for Israel and its adoring minions in U.S. and Canadian governance, a people’s movement against blatant injustice can’t be legislated away. Canadian institutions of higher learning have embraced Palestinian rights, and many of them have active chapters supporting the human rights struggles of the Palestinian people against the barbaric cruelty of Israel. Stark evidence of this is seen in the recent actions of the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario. The UW has five ‘sister’ universities in Israel, and UW students are none too pleased about their ugly and disreputable relatives. On Thursday, October 8, they presented a petition to Maaz Yasin and Carly McCready, two executives of the Federation of Students, the undergraduate student union, signed by over 4,000 undergraduate students, demanding that the Federation of Students hold a referendum about severing its ties with Israeli schools.

The catalyst for this may have been a statement made in March of 2014, by Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo while visiting Israel to participate in ceremonies marking the newly-formed association between the UW and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. There, he made this amazing statement: “I am personally, and on behalf of my institution, proud to come to Israel because the Technion is a natural partner – it represents all the values, vision, ambitions and commitment towards excellence that we share”. Enough students were appalled by his remarks, especially pertaining to shared ‘values’, that they signed the petition in numbers larger than have ever been gathered on any petition at the UW previously.

The petition, in part, reads as follows. Each point shows how over 4,000 UW students believe that their school and the Israeli schools differ in ‘values’. Some explanatory comments have been added.

“Whereas Palestinians’ right to education is systematically obstructed, and thousands of Palestinian students and teachers are prevented from reaching their schools due to military checkpoints and roadblocks, the illegal apartheid wall, and the frequent closure of cities;”.

Read more here:
[link to www.counterpunch.org]