Israel – Palestine and Academic Freedom

 

Faculty 4 Palestine webinar.

Last January 19, I attended a Zoom webinar organized by a group called Faculty 4 Palestine under the title “Palestine Prohibited.” The event featured six speakers from different Canadian universities. It was moderated by two other professors. The premise of the webinar is that the academic freedom of professors, students and activists at Canadian universities has been limited when it comes to talking about the conflict in Gaza and the Palestinian cause in general.

The event is part of a campaign to fight what they consider censorship and intimidation, especially from what these professors call the pro-Israeli lobby in Canada, more precisely, in the language of these academics, the Zionist factors.

Everyone who spoke at this event shared elements of speech that they repeated ad nauseam during the two hours of the webinar. They called Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza genocide. They said that in Israel is also carrying out a “scholaricide” (it would mean an “educational genocide”) because, according to them, the IDF would have destroyed universities, schools, museums, killed teachers and students. They stated that anti-Palestinian racism exists and that Islamophobia is reaching levels never seen before on Canadian campuses. The anti-Palestinian and anti-Islam rhetoric is being nourished with stereotypes identifying Arabs and Muslims as terrorists. All the speakers said that we are living in an era of neo-McCarthyism in which professors and students who support the Palestinian cause are penalized, their right to free expression is limited through lawfare against people and organizations, and pressure is put on universities when donors withdraw and threat to withdraw funding. 

All of them advocated promoting an academic boycott against Israeli educational institutions and professors, and are supporters of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) because, according to the speakers, Israeli universities and companies are part of the system of oppression against the Palestinians in what they consider the colonial enterprise and “Israeli apartheid.”

The speakers insisted that scholars must leave behind their fears and join the denunciations against what they consider Israel's crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. They recommended that content linked to Palestine should be incorporated into all courses, from law, humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.

There was also consensus in denouncing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. The speakers criticized the definition when it refers to denying Jews their right to self-determination, for example, alleging that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour, or applying a double standard by asking Israel for behaviour not expected or required of any other democratic country, or using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism (for example, slanders such as murder of Jesus by the Jews or blood rituals) to characterize Israel or Israelis, or even to draw comparisons between current Israeli policy and that of the Nazis. According to the panellists, these definitions seek the “weaponization” of anti-Semitism to suppress freedom of speech and intimidate those who criticize Israeli policy or Israel as a “racist, colonizing and oppressive state” in the words of the speakers.

Surprisingly, the speakers denounced DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) officers in universities for not being more active denouncing Israel and Zionism, and supporting the Palestinian cause. For them, there is no DEI with it comes to Palestine.

What is not said, says a lot

The webinar was an activism event, not an academic one. Although they were all professors associated with universities in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, what they said there corresponds to a biased, and not very scholarly informed, view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The omissions of the moderators and panellists are as striking as their rhetorical topics, all of which were very homogenous and took care of repeating over and over. No one mentioned Hamas or the other Palestinian armed groups. Not once was there any reference to other regional actors such as Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. The only reference to the massacre committed on October 7, 2023 was in passing mentioning the “attack” like an insignificant occurrence. Israeli hostages do not exist for the panellists. Only something was said about it when talking about a situation that arose at a university in Montreal when Jewish groups wanted to put up posters of the hostages at an activity of pro-Palestinian activists (certainly a provocation in the “poster wars”).

But one could not expect more from a non-academic event about this conflict. No one presented a more nuanced version. I am not referring to a defence of the Netanyahu government, nor a blind defence of the actions of the State of Israel. No one remembered that there were 1,200 people murdered on October 7, most of them civilians, many of them women, who were raped and brutalized, and children. Or that among the hostages there is still a baby, and the elderly. That the video recorded by the attackers show their atrocities, and the demonstrations of joy of Gazans with the arrival of Israeli hostages and corpses. No one mentioned the broader historical perspective. The role of Hamas’s terrorism to derail the Oslo Accords, as in the infamous Sbarro bombing in Jerusalem. 

By not referring to Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, and the other Islamist forces in the Strip and the West Bank, the organizers and exhibitors decided to remove any type of agency from the Palestinians. The leadership of Hamas, corrupt, violent and motivated by a policy of hatred against Jews (Hamas constantly declare it and it is in their founding documents), is for these Canadian activists a force of resistance. Is there nothing to blame Hamas for? Academic silence from Faculty 4 Palestine.

I'm going to say it very clearly. Everyone has the right to express their point of view about the Israel-Palestine conflict. I do not agree that anyone should be suspended from the university for expressing their opinion on the matter. I understand that many of these views are expressed from a genuine sense of solidarity with the Palestinians. However, what I heard for two hours on January 19 was pure propaganda, without any academic value, full of stereotypes, prejudices, simplifications and omissions. They are not “Faculty,” but activists for Palestine. More honesty would be appreciated.