Restraining Anti-Israel University Protests -- Too Little, Too Late

"[Our campuses remain open; protest activities] must not interfere with the ability of students, faculty, librarians and staff to learn, teach, research and work."

"Our preference is to start with dialogue. Those who contravene university policy or the law risk the consequences set out in various laws and policies such as the Code of Student Conduct, which could include suspension."

McGill University Statement

"Everybody in Quebec has to respect laws, and right now these encampments are illegal."

"We have to respect the law. And I want to make sure that the police officers ensure the laws are respected."

"[The Quebec Superior Court rejection of a request from two McGill students wanting the protesters barred from within 100 metres of the school; however] if  you read the decision, they say clearly that [the encampment is] illegal."

"We're all worried about what's happening in Gaza. People can show their [position] in demonstrations -- these are legal. But they cannot have encampments on a university site."

Quebec Premier Francois Legault

Police stand between counter-protesters and a protest encampment in support of Palestinians, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, at McGill University’s campus in Montreal, Quebec, Canada May 2, 2024. REUTERS/Peter McCabe

 

Those in authority in government and university administration must surely be aware that appeasing those who insist with little experience and a lot of arrogance that they are entitled to disrupt and disengage from the social weal in executing protests relating to a foreign country -- that also happens to be a bastion of democracy in a region of autocrats, dictators, kingdoms and oil sheikhdoms where human rights and democracy are absent, espouse an agenda inimical to the values of the West -- and reason will not prevail. 

 

Submitting to their demands results in greater demands all of which run counter to reason.

"We have many, many students, many undergraduate students, graduate students from all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of religions ... all here."

"We also have a number of faculty who are supporting us."

Erin Mackey, protest organizer, UofT Occupy for Palestine

What she failed to mention, however, is that many unauthorized personnel, outsiders from the universities under siege by 'pro-Palestine' orgies of expressions of contempt and hate for the State of Israel, and determined to make life as miserable as possible for Jewish students on campuses across Canada. Outsiders representing professional agitators linked to Muslim extremist groups and terrorist groups in the Middle East from whom they take their marching orders as loyal and rabid Jew-haters and enemies of Israel.

 

Protesters gather in an encampment set up on the University of Toronto campus in Toronto on Thursday, May 2, 2024. The demonstration has entered its second day.peaceful. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press)

 

From years of celebrating the 'Nakba' of Israel's founding, in the name of free speech on university campuses, and the steady infiltration of Muslim students studying in Canada eventually taking up positions on university faculties planning and supporting annual BDS events and spreading the canard of Israeli genocide on Palestinians, the suborning of students' minds, empty of historical facts and actual events, prepared to take up the popular chants of 'from the river to the sea' to be part of a brave new movement linking to antisemitism, the stage was set for today's massive anti-Israel protests.

In Toronto, as in Montreal and Vancouver and elsewhere across Canada, tents, banners and Palestinian flags have cropped up festooning campuses; signage crude and baldly antisemitic stating Jews not permitted entry on university grounds where 'pro-Palestine' agitators harass, insult and threaten Jewish students, society looks on passively and governments at every level claim 'this is not who we are', while the landscape of encampments and calls for Jews to 'go back to Poland', presumably to the death camps ring out.

In Toronto, informed by the school administration that the tents and protesters, some sporting keffiyehs, are given until 10 p.m. to vacate the encampment, little interest is evinced; they have no plans to leave. They have been given written notice acknowledging the university respects the right to assemble and protest but such unauthorized activities as encampments "are considered trespassing". The protesters are not the least bit impressed. Why should they be? Their actions and activities have had no pushback in the past.

Midweek ,a request from two McGill Jewish students seeking a judicial assent in barring protesters at the encampment from within 100 metres of any of the university's buildings were informed their request was rejected. A counter-protest by pro-Israel groups was scheduled for the sixth day of the encampment's presence, bringing a police presence to monitor proceedings. 

Members of the Jewish community counter-protest outside a protest encampment set up in support of Palestinians, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, at McGill University’s campus in Montreal, Quebec, Canada May 2, 2024. REUTERS/Peter McCabe