Bloody Likely, It Is
Here's CUPE at it again, spreading the contagion of the noxious social drug of anti-Semitism under the guise of righteously supporting a ban on Israeli academics in response to Israel's self-protective military advance into the Gaza Strip. This provincial university workers' union, through its resolute president, Sid Ryan, is still doubtless furious over its previous resolution (50) of 2006 being soundly rejected, as a boycott, divestment and sanctions initiative imposed against Israel as a sign of displeasure over its brutal "occupation" of Palestinian lands.
According to Mr. Ryan and others of his ilk within the union, only those Israeli academics who unequivocally distance themselves from Israel's offensive in Gaza should be invited to teach, visit or lecture at any of Ontario's universities. "In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general."
To be put to a vote at the February conference of the committee. "Clearly international pressure on Israel must increase to stop the massacre that is going on daily", according to Janice Folk-Dawson, chair of the university workers committee. One wonders where and when the protests against the ongoing barrage of rockets, took place, within the union. It somehow missed the news media. Did the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees forget to agitate abroad over Hamas's ongoing rockets hitting Israel?
The Islamic University of Gaza had a laboratory wing dedicated to the production of rockets, a rather peculiar use of a university setting. Its curriculum included a bias in favour of terrorism against the State of Israel, turning out committed jihadists to join the ranks of Hamas. Rather an unusual state of affairs for an institution that, if it even remotely reflects similar institutions elsewhere, would be dedicated to enlightened education, exploiting academic advances, not encouraging jihadists-in-training.
The free exchange of academic activity on the international scene has little to do with world conflicts. Other than to encourage informed discussions, and possibly attempt to produce a workable plan for a solution to the conflict. The partisan introduction of obviously judgemental bias, the denunciation of one party over another in lieu of rational debate leading to a greater understanding of the problem in the round, produces no reasonable resolution for anything.
Sid Ryan's inflammatory condemnation, implicitly marking out the State of Israel as an aggressor of monumental proportions with no right to take any self-protective action is clearly informed by a deep-seated ignorance of history and anti-Semitism, declarations to the contrary aside. If he is so morally outraged at the loss of innocent lives, it should be a balanced outrage. Was there a move to ban intellectual academic exchanges with Russian scholars during the invasion of Afghanistan?
Did American academics face censure and banning when the United States invaded a foreign country that held no menace for the safety and security of the U.S., and in the process of the invasion and the later occupation was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis? It is splitting hairs to claim that the direct condemnation of Israel alone does not represent anti-Semitism, because the ban is not directed at Jews in general, only Israelis.
The simple fact is, it would be difficult-to-impossible in the present age, to attempt by any means whatever to outlaw the presence of Jewish intellectual thought and process anywhere in the academic world; a situation that was not always so, including in Canada, and within Ontario. So animus can be re-directed without fear of being labelled anti-Semitic, through the simple and virulent expedient of targeting only Israeli academics.
The message has been nuanced, it is more subtle than it once was, but the target remains the same.
According to Mr. Ryan and others of his ilk within the union, only those Israeli academics who unequivocally distance themselves from Israel's offensive in Gaza should be invited to teach, visit or lecture at any of Ontario's universities. "In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general."
To be put to a vote at the February conference of the committee. "Clearly international pressure on Israel must increase to stop the massacre that is going on daily", according to Janice Folk-Dawson, chair of the university workers committee. One wonders where and when the protests against the ongoing barrage of rockets, took place, within the union. It somehow missed the news media. Did the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees forget to agitate abroad over Hamas's ongoing rockets hitting Israel?
The Islamic University of Gaza had a laboratory wing dedicated to the production of rockets, a rather peculiar use of a university setting. Its curriculum included a bias in favour of terrorism against the State of Israel, turning out committed jihadists to join the ranks of Hamas. Rather an unusual state of affairs for an institution that, if it even remotely reflects similar institutions elsewhere, would be dedicated to enlightened education, exploiting academic advances, not encouraging jihadists-in-training.
The free exchange of academic activity on the international scene has little to do with world conflicts. Other than to encourage informed discussions, and possibly attempt to produce a workable plan for a solution to the conflict. The partisan introduction of obviously judgemental bias, the denunciation of one party over another in lieu of rational debate leading to a greater understanding of the problem in the round, produces no reasonable resolution for anything.
Sid Ryan's inflammatory condemnation, implicitly marking out the State of Israel as an aggressor of monumental proportions with no right to take any self-protective action is clearly informed by a deep-seated ignorance of history and anti-Semitism, declarations to the contrary aside. If he is so morally outraged at the loss of innocent lives, it should be a balanced outrage. Was there a move to ban intellectual academic exchanges with Russian scholars during the invasion of Afghanistan?
Did American academics face censure and banning when the United States invaded a foreign country that held no menace for the safety and security of the U.S., and in the process of the invasion and the later occupation was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis? It is splitting hairs to claim that the direct condemnation of Israel alone does not represent anti-Semitism, because the ban is not directed at Jews in general, only Israelis.
The simple fact is, it would be difficult-to-impossible in the present age, to attempt by any means whatever to outlaw the presence of Jewish intellectual thought and process anywhere in the academic world; a situation that was not always so, including in Canada, and within Ontario. So animus can be re-directed without fear of being labelled anti-Semitic, through the simple and virulent expedient of targeting only Israeli academics.
The message has been nuanced, it is more subtle than it once was, but the target remains the same.
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Canada, Politics of Convenience
posted by Pieface | 6:49 PM
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