By Michael Regenstreif
A decade ago, on September 9, 2002, then-former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who was returned to the position in 2009 – was scheduled to speak at Concordia University in Montreal. The speech never happened because the pro-Palestinian group on campus – abetted by a sympathetic student government and more than a few fellow travellers from outside the university community – staged a violent riot, which prevented the speech from taking place when the RCMP decided they could not guarantee Netanyahu’s security, should he travel the few blocks from his hotel to the campus – even under their protection.
The riot, which included a number of specifically antisemitic events, was, arguably, the worst black eye sustained by any Canadian university in recent memory. It also brought to public consciousness the difficulties, uncomfortable situations and prejudice with which many Jewish students have been faced on our university campuses as the campaign to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state has gathered momentum over the years.
Two years ago, here in Ottawa, Carleton University established the Commission on Inter-Cultural, Inter-Religious and Inter-Racial Relations on Campus to investigate such relations on campus and make recommendations that would “contribute to a better context for dialogue and understanding on the Carleton campus and in the surrounding community.” The commission membership included Carleton students, faculty and staff, and representation from the broader community.
The commission report was issued October 10 and paints a generally good picture of relations on campus. Two groups, though, were shown to face greater levels of misunderstanding, if not actual discrimination in their relations on campus: aboriginal students and Jewish students and faculty members.
Most of the problems faced by Jewish students and faculty members were shown to be related to anti-Israel activities that evolve into expressions of antisemitism, including verbal and physical harassment, as well as anti-Israel positions adopted by student and faculty associations, which have nothing to do with their respective mandates, and by fears borne of the unbalanced power relationship faced by students in their relationships with professors and teaching assistants who are anti-Israel activists.
The commission makes a number of recommendations for improving the situation, including a new mechanism for students with concerns about academic responsibility and ethics and mandatory cultural awareness training for faculty, staff and students.
To specifically address the concerns of Jewish students, staff and faculty, the commission recommends establishing a Jewish Issues committee by Equity Services, which would “provide a venue for conversation, problem-solving and education.”
The commission report was received favourably by Jewish student organizations and by the greater Jewish community. Jonathan Freedman, local chair of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said, “Carleton can serve as a model for universities across the country struggling to preserve civility on campus – not just regarding the Middle East, but when it comes to various hot-button social and political issues.”
As might be expected, the report was not met with the same response from anti-Israel quarters. In a letter to the Ottawa Citizen, Carleton sociology professor Peter Gose, who identifies himself as being anti-Israel, wrote the commission “explicitly joins the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism in conflating antisemitism with criticism of the State of Israel.”
But Gose is wrong. Neither Carleton’s commission nor the Parliamentary Coalition equates legitimate criticism of the State of Israel with antisemitism. But, to say that anti-Zionism is sometimes, and all-too-often, not a shield for real anti-Semitism is disingenuous.
That was certainly borne out in a tweet four weeks ago by anti-Israel activist Greta Berlin, co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement, a few days before she spoke here in Ottawa. “Zionists operated the concentration camps and helped murder millions of innocent Jews,” she posted to the Free Gaza Movement’s Twitter account. She later said the posting was an accident, meant only for her personal Facebook list – as if that made it all right.
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