No Room for Anti-Semitism or Islamophobia

Israel, in continuing to defend itself from attacks launched by Palestinian terrorists, in the process gains critics who see its self-defence as murderous oppression of vulnerable people whom their 'defenders' have deliberately placed within danger zones they themselves create to enable them to use the deaths of innocents as slander-fodder. There is no reasonable solution to impossible situations. And what Israel faces in an intractable enemy sitting next door and determined to erase it from the map of the Middle East through an ongoing violent offensive is decidedly impossible.

What Israel's critics would ideally like to see is Israel and its citizens absorbing the abuse and the threats to survival that accompany it. Israel has become a punching-bag for those international left-wing bodies like unions of all stripes, and from those within left-leaning academia who once supported the fledgling state when it became a victim of surrounding militaries determined to destroy it. Israel's endurance and determination to fight back gained it not admiration and applause but opprobrium.

It went from presenting as the victim, to the oppressor. An oppressor because it managed to defeat the combined armies of surrounding Arab nations, and the depraved suicidal attacks of terrorists claiming to represent the interests of Palestinian Arabs who pledged themselves to martyrdom in the greater interests of committing mass atrocities to the glory of Islam demanding jihad to conquer a perceived enemy. Not, however, a country that wished to live in peace with its neighbours. Among neighbours who could not conceive of a Jewish state having the effrontery to live among Arab states.

Israel's presence is a reproach to the ancient and still resonant Islamic injunction against any geography once consecrated to Islam falling into non-Muslim hands. Israel represents a failure of the surrounding Islamic countries to remove a living, thriving, 'alien' presence that Islam rejects. Entering the fray the Ontario branch of the Canadian Federation of Students has voted unanimously to pass a motion to censure Israel for what they consider to be its treatment of Palestinians. In representation of 300,000 university students, the Ontario federation passes judgement on a nation striving to survive.

The motion to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement supporting Palestinians and casting blame on Israel for perennially damaged relations between a Jewish State and its Arab neighbours, even while it is Israel that has been constantly attacked, necessitating that it defend itself, "endorses a number of solidarity tactics that have been called for by Palestinian civil society", in the words of The Canadian Federation of Students, Ontario branch executive member, Anna Goldfinch.

The issue was brought forward through a resolution brought by the Ryerson Students' Union whose president, Rajean Hoilett, calls for university and colleges in Ontario not to "remain complicit" [with Israel's attempts to protect itself and its people] through punishing the country in boycotting investments and ties with academic institutions supporting or profiting from what he claims to be "Israeli war crimes". To wit: the struggle to survive.

Several panel discussions where Ryerson students will be offered the opportunity to speak of their views on the conflict, will be planned by the union, according to the RSU president. At these events, he assures anyone interested, it would be made clear that there "is no room for anti-Semitism or Islamophobia", amply demonstrating his skill at deliberately disingenuous racism.