‘Next time we’ll have a plan on how to deal with the Zionists’

Emotion consumed a panel discussion at Concordia on the Israeli boycott movement last Thursday, organized as part of the so-called Israeli Apartheid Week, when representatives from pro-Israel organizations accused the speakers of censorship and racism.

Disruptors were denied room on the boycott information table for their own pamphlets, which organizers said were racist. Representatives of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research said they would be filing complaints with the university.

Panellists from student association ASSÉ, the Quebec teachers’ union and member associations of CSN, FNEEQ, and Lebanese-Palestinian solidarity group Tadamon spoke about their reasons for boycotting Israeli products and institutions.

Toufic Haddad, a journalism student at New York University and editor of the pro-Palestine publication Between the Lines, was invited to recount a history of Israeli apartheid and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.

Question period disintegrated into emotional outbursts and tirades.

“It soon became apparent that many of the guests had come simply to state their own opinions,” said Samantha Banks, co-president of Hillel-Concordia. “We decided to leave.” She said Hillel was not associated with the group that verbally confronted the speakers.

“It’s pretty self-evident there are hardened Zionist opinions in the room,” said Haddad. “There’s a reason they’re flustered by the discussions today. It’s because they know their ground is getting indefensible.” He said the debate was about colonialism—not religion—and “the way Israel is strangling Palestinian society.”

“I sat here and listened to your bullshit for so long. You can sit here and listen to mine,” said Rachel Yane, a board member of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research. “I feel like you want to say Jews but then it would sound like anti-Semitism.” She berated the speakers for their recount of the Zionist movement before walking out of the room.

“None of you have mentioned terrorism—Palestinian terrorism,” said Jackie Douek, also from the CIJR. “Terrorism is a large part of what’s going on in the Middle East. That’s something that wasn’t addressed. Israeli students are getting killed.”

Haddad countered that he opened the talk with a reference to violence in the Palestinian resistance, pointed out terrorism is a politicized term and added Katyusha rockets don’t compare with the systemic violence of the state of Israel.

“We wanted to have a debate on the boycott instead we had to have a debate on whether Israel is a ‘bad’ country,” said event organizer Mary Foster. “It was a disaster.”

“It’s a war of ideas and that’s what it’s about and we’re going to fight it and we’re going to fight it to win,” said Haddad.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement was called by a coalition of 170 Palestinian organisations in 2005. It gained more sway in the European workers unions than in North America, although, the political Ontario branch of Canadian Union of Public Employees, representing 200,000 people, elected to join the BDS campaign in 2006. FNEEQ-CSN, which represents 25,000 university and CÉGEP teachers, followed suit. And this January, postal workers in Ontario approved a boycott motion to come before the national union in April.

FNEEQ’s president Ronald Cameron said the BDS movement is small.

“There’s a kind of molecular appearance,” he said. “Support for the BDS campaign in the workers’ union is just starting and every time a union stands for that it’s a big controversy.” He said the teacher’s union campaign is primarily educational, but also boycotts the Indigo-Chapters chain, which was linked with the Israel Defence Forces.

Cameron said the CIJR has the right to distribute material and explain their opposition to the boycott, “but that was not the place to make their point. It’s not the way we can make a fair discussion.”

© 2008, The Link