Concordia University's recent announcement that it will be forming the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies -- courtesy of a $5 million donation from the Azrieli Foundation -- raises some interesting questions.
Specifically, it raises questions pertaining to the idea of the university being bought by those with personal wealth and an interest in backing their favourite cause.

Supporters of this Institute argue that it will be politically neutral and judge projects, speakers and visiting professorships exclusively on academic merit.

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.

In Ottawa, students from Carleton University have spent years building a grassroots movement for social justice in Palestine. Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at Carleton University launched a campaign over one year ago calling on the university to divest its pension fund from four companies that are complicit in breaches of international law and human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories, followed by the implementation of a Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) policy.