In the face of peaceful and increasingly effective Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) events on Canadian campuses, the pro-Israel lobby is pulling out the big guns to attack IAW organizers and defenders. Michael Ignatieff, Joe Volpe, John Baird and Jason Kenney have all issued libelous allegations against the 2011 IAW, claiming falsely that it promotes anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students and faculty. In fact, Israeli Apartheid Week events have respectfully welcomed open discussion. In many cases, Jewish students and faculty take leading roles in organizing IAW events, because they are deeply troubled by the Israeli oppression of Palestinian people, which is done in the name of all Jews.
Independent Jewish Voices, a pan-Canadian Jewish human rights organization, endorses Israeli Apartheid Week because we believe Israeli policy fits the 1973 United Nations' International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid which defines the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial/ethnic group of persons over any other racial/ethnic group of persons and systematically oppressing them."
We are very concerned that intimidation and ideological interference on the issue of Israel and Palestine is being used to lower the protections of academic freedom.
We applaud Rector Nick Day's principled courage in challenging Michael Ignatieff's attack on IAW. And we condemn attempts by a small group of pro-Israel Queen's students to impeach him. We also repudiate Principal Woolf's interference and silencing of discussion around Mr. Day's letter and IAW. It is shocking that Principal Woolf has collaborated in a witch-hunt against a student Rector for challenging the position of a political party leader.
We urge Principal Woolfe to apologize to Mr. Day and to stand in support of free speech and respectful dialogue.
Sincerely,
Diana Ralph
For Independent Jewish Voices Canada
I applaud the Independent Jewish Voices for standing in support of Nick Day. I also applaud all members for their stance on condemning practices by the State of Israel.
It's so important for all to realize that criticizing Israeli policies is not anti-Semitic, nor against the Jewish people as a whole. Many Jews are standing up for what is right and just, May the numbers grow, both of Jews and others around the world, to end oppression and unfair treatment of Palestinians - as well as other groups suffering simply because of their ethnic origin and location in our world.
Aw, isn't that cute, Israeli Apartheid Week "respectfully welcomed open discussion."
Does framing the conversation from the start negatively as "apartheid" give any real hope to finding a solution all parties will agree to? Negotiation 101 people, honestly.
Maybe Iraq or Libya should issue a news release condemning those against participating in "Female Apartheid Week" or OCAP should start up "Rich People Apartheid Week."
You know what scares me the most? These so-called "academics" who hide behind their bullshit normative assumptions and fancy yet deliberately-misleading words like "apartheid" along with other delusions of grandeur all thinking their ideas a) matter and b) will make a difference in a complex thousand-year-old issue occuring halfway across the world.
I don't have the answer to this problem but as a Canadian and a Jew I will say that the solution will not start with IAW or any other divisive and negative "campaign."
ridonkulous,
The answer to the 'problem' of human rights violations is to oppose them and label their perpetrators and enablers as such. That doing so is divisive or sounds 'negative' to your tender ears is no mark against it.
Tried unsuccessfully to sign petition
[Click:http://www.petitiononline.com/querect/petition-sign.html] in
support of Queens rector Nick Day's criticism of Israeli human rights
abuses [Click:http://www.rabble.ca/news/2011/03/response-michael-ignatieff-his-statement-about-israeli-apartheid-week]...please
add our signature and comments below...
[Please Post]
We think Queen's University Rector Nick Day should be our next Prime
Minister ...and we hold Harper & Ignatieff in contempt for ignoring
Israeli war crimes that continue to dispossess millions of
Palestinians while vocal Canadian critics of Israeli foreign and
domestic policy are libeled...it's what Jewish intellectual Noam
Chomsky describes as the "big attack on the universities" when they
dare to speak out against Israeli Apartheid...Chomsky unpacks the
standard dogma behind the question - "Are you biased against Israel?"
when analyzing its context using a simple test, that asks,
" ...do you think that Israel should have the same rights as any state
in the international system? No more, no less. That’s neutral. That’s
what it means not to be biased against, say, Luxembourg. Well, nobody
asks that, because the answer’s going to be 100 percent agreement in
the Middle East departments of the universities and the media and so
on, so therefore that’s not a good answer. What lies behind it is the
belief that Israel, the U.S. offshoot in the Middle East, should have
rights far beyond those of any state in the international system.
That’s called unbiased. And that’s what mainstream opinion is: Israel
should have what’s called the abstract “right to exist.” No state has
a right to exist, and no one demands such a right. For example, the
United States has no such right. Mexico doesn’t respect the right of
the United States to exist, sitting on half of Mexico, which was
conquered in war. They do grant the U.S. rights in the international
system, but not the legitimacy of those rights.This concept “right to
exist” was in fact invented, as far as I can tell, in the 1970s when
there was general international agreement, including the Arab states
and the PLO, that Israel should have the rights of every state in the
international system. And therefore, in an effort to prevent
negotiations and a diplomatic settlement, the U.S. and Israel insisted
on raising the barrier to something that nobody’s going to accept.
Certainly, the Palestinians can’t accept it. They’re not going to
accept Israel’s existence but also the legitimacy of its existence and
the legitimacy of their dispossession. Why should they accept that?
Why should anyone accept it? But that’s what’s called “neutrality” and
being “unbiased.” It shows in all sorts of other ways. So what they
mean by unbiased is approximately what they would have meant in the
Kremlin. Yes, that’s very dangerous and the fact that that’s even
contemplated is outrageous, and the attacks against the universities
as well. These really reflect a totalitarian instinct, in my opinion,
and of course they’re dressed up under the name academic freedom and
so on, but anyone who’s read Orwell knows what that means.' [Click:
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200506--.htm]
Kudos to Nick Day for refusing to be silenced when exposing
Ignatieff's (& Harper's) hypocrisy concerning the Middle East -VIVA
VIVA PALESTINA!
Sincerely,
Davis Mirza & Rhonda Costas
Toronto, ON