Israel and Free Speech in Canada
by Regan Boychuk
... as Ottawa’s apologetics for Israel have risen to new heights, so has university repression and media demonization of Palestine activism.
A few recent examples illustrate the lengths to which Ottawa is prepared to go for its relationship with Israel:
1. Neither the government, nor the media responded when made aware that a Canadian member of the Christian Peacemaker Team was “spat at, kicked and stoned by young Israeli settlers” while Israeli soldiers looked on as he waited to check his documents at an Israeli army checkpoint near the Beit Hadassah settlement in the West Bank city of Hebron in March 2007.[2]
2. During Israel’s widespread attacks on Lebanon in 2006, a vacationing Canadian family was killed when the Israeli air force attacked their family’s home in the Lebanese town of Aitaroun.[3] The incident garnered little attention in the Canadian media and no protest from the Canadian government.
3. During the same assault on Lebanon, the Canadian government also neglected to complain when a 7-hour Israeli attack on a UN post that involved 14 bombs and 19 artillery shells (amidst constant UN protests to the Israeli military) ultimately killed four UN observers, including a Canadian.[4]
In parallel, Canada’s ideological institutions have sunk to new depths to quell debate on the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Access to Information Act requests have produced a series of internal emails demonstrating “Canada’s top academics, Interim Vice President and Provost, and the Vice Provost of the University of Toronto – people who are expected to be ardent defenders of freedom of expression – conspired, and knowingly used a false excuse, to shut down a simple conference for students about Palestine solidarity organizing” in 2008. The same internal emails reveal administration collaboration with ‘pro’-Israel groups and make “It is clear that the people in charge of security in various universities are putting together ‘plans and strategies’ for Israeli Apartheid Week” in 2009.[5]
more
... as Ottawa’s apologetics for Israel have risen to new heights, so has university repression and media demonization of Palestine activism.
A few recent examples illustrate the lengths to which Ottawa is prepared to go for its relationship with Israel:
1. Neither the government, nor the media responded when made aware that a Canadian member of the Christian Peacemaker Team was “spat at, kicked and stoned by young Israeli settlers” while Israeli soldiers looked on as he waited to check his documents at an Israeli army checkpoint near the Beit Hadassah settlement in the West Bank city of Hebron in March 2007.[2]
2. During Israel’s widespread attacks on Lebanon in 2006, a vacationing Canadian family was killed when the Israeli air force attacked their family’s home in the Lebanese town of Aitaroun.[3] The incident garnered little attention in the Canadian media and no protest from the Canadian government.
3. During the same assault on Lebanon, the Canadian government also neglected to complain when a 7-hour Israeli attack on a UN post that involved 14 bombs and 19 artillery shells (amidst constant UN protests to the Israeli military) ultimately killed four UN observers, including a Canadian.[4]
In parallel, Canada’s ideological institutions have sunk to new depths to quell debate on the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Access to Information Act requests have produced a series of internal emails demonstrating “Canada’s top academics, Interim Vice President and Provost, and the Vice Provost of the University of Toronto – people who are expected to be ardent defenders of freedom of expression – conspired, and knowingly used a false excuse, to shut down a simple conference for students about Palestine solidarity organizing” in 2008. The same internal emails reveal administration collaboration with ‘pro’-Israel groups and make “It is clear that the people in charge of security in various universities are putting together ‘plans and strategies’ for Israeli Apartheid Week” in 2009.[5]
more
posted by willtotruth @ 9:49 AM
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