Confronting the Censorship of the Palestinian Struggle
Op-ed by Elias Ayoub and Moe Alqasem
For decades, Palestinians have demanded three things: an end to the Israeli military occupation of their land, the right to return to their homes, and the right to self-determination. However, the Zionist movement which created the state of Israel was and continues to be the driving force behind the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the slogan: “A land without a people for a people without a land” which suggests that Palestinians don’t really exist.
The dehumanization and vilification of the Palestinian people by both the media and Western governments has manufactured consent to allow for the expansion of the Zionist settler-colonial state and the erasure of the Palestinian people. The complete political and legal impunity that the state of Israel and its supporters benefit from, is a disturbing reality that has been normalized into society for decades. Prioritizing the Zionist demands for a Jewish-only homeland in all of historic Palestine erases Palestinian livelihood and deems all their forms of resistance, whether violent or not, to be unacceptable; the mere humanization of Palestinians by mainstream media can sometimes shock the public.
The Events at York University
On November 20th, the far-right Zionist student group Herut Canada invited members of the “Israeli Defense Forces” (IDF) to York University. Palestinians are all too familiar with the atrocities committed by the IDF: the occupying force responsible for their repression, dispossession, and displacement. The Israeli military occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank began in 1967, and is illegal under the Fourth Geneva Conventions. Yet, this antagonistic relationship between Palestinian students and an army that systematically dehumanizes and violates their rights was overlooked or completely ignored by York University. The IDF is treated as a neutral body and its war crimes are effectively sanitized when a university welcomes them to their campus. Furthermore, the IDF on campus helps to normalize Israeli violence against Palestinians. Did York not understand the hostile environment this would bring to Palestinian students?
This event attracted Zionists from Toronto, including extremist right-wing groups such as the Jewish Defense League (JDL). The JDL has a reputation of intimidation, harassment, and violence against students and activists in the broader Toronto community. York University’s administration preemptively sent them a letter on November 20th, warning them that they would be considered trespassing and removed if they attended.
Many York students and community members emailed the administration requesting that the event be cancelled because having Israeli soldiers and JDL members pose a security threat. Not only does the presence of IDF soldiers threaten the safety of Palestinian students, but it also threatens that of other marginalized groups, as the IDF trains with police departments and other human-rights-violating armies across the world. A few York students asked to meet with University administrators regarding the event and their grievances weren’t taken seriously. When the York administration refused to listen to the students and human rights activists, it became certain that a protest was the only way their voices could be heard.
Needless to say, there was tension between the protesters representing the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli crowds, which quickly turned violent when individuals in the Zionist crowd began assaulting students. The pro-Palestinian and human rights activists gathered on the first floor of Vari Hall and then proceeded to the second floor where they were immediately met with violent JDL members and other supporters of the Zionist event, some of which were dressed in Israeli military shirts and ‘Make America Great Again’ hats.
It didn’t take long for the Zionist crowd to begin hurling homophobic, racist, sexist, and transphobic remarks at the protesters. Later, students were also subjected to physical assaults that resulted in the injury of one Teaching Assistant, the humiliation of other students, attempts of ripping the Hijabs off Muslim women, threats of rape, and other forms of harassment which were completely ignored by York security and by the mainstream coverage of the event. Instead, it was the Palestinian protesters who were vilified by the media and the politicians, and York University’s administration managed to release vaguely written statements in an attempt to avoid responsibility.
Even with the presence of the Toronto Police on November 20th, attacks instigated by the Zionists and the JDL were not prevented. Rather, the actions of the protesters were immediately denounced by politicians like Doug Ford, Justin Trudeau, John Tory, and they were accused of being anti-Semitic for the mere act of protesting the presence of IDF soldiers and Israel’s crimes more broadly, meanwhile, the violence of the far-right Zionist crowd was completely overlooked.
The biased narrative of violence
Mainstream media often provides a myopic discourse on all forms of Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation to be illegitimate or violent. It regularly portrays marginalized people as violent while also completely disregarding the structures of violence responsible for their oppression. Even if Palestinians and their supporters engage in non-violent action, they are met with backlash and often times violence from the pro-Israel supporters. The discourse shifts to claiming that “clashes erupted” and both sides are to blame even if the violence is one-sided. This narrative ignores the colonial violence that is facilitated by the Israeli state while also shifting the blame to the colonized and oppressed people.
The normalization of daily Israeli violence against Palestinians, and the relative blindness of mainstream Western media to Israeli violence results in emboldening right-wing violence in occupied Palestine and in the West. Palestinian human rights are protected by International Law, yet when they advocate for those rights, whether in Gaza or at York University, they are portrayed as “terrorists”, “violent” or “anti-Semitic”.
This prescriptive narrative of “clashes” was used to refer to the events of November 20th at York University. A single video clip from the staircase of Vari Hall of back-and-forth pushing and shoving was looped, showing the momentary scuffling without describing the context. This decontextualized frame can lead to a misleading narrative that gives space to the false narrative of anti-Semitism and shifts the blame onto Palestinians.
In contrast, other video evidence that has surfaced from the protest, shows exactly what happened on November 20th - the unwarranted verbal and physical attack of legitimate political expression. Zionist protestors shoving, insulting, and attacking Palestinian students and their allies in complete and clear view of the Toronto Police and York security. But those incidents weren’t mentioned, let alone labelled as “acts of violence,” as if the violence from the side of pro-Israel supporters does not fit the same criteria, a dangerous double-standard. The racist, Islamophobic, homophobic and sexist slurs that were thrown at Palestinians and their allies, such as the references to them as “monkeys”, were all overlooked or given the cover of “free speech.”
Weaponizing accusations of ‘Anti-Semitism’ as a means of silencing Palestinians
The reduction of every act of protest against Israeli settler-colonialism to simply “anti-Semitism” is a dangerous strategy aimed to protect Israel from all forms of criticism. This rhetoric is upheld by various states and institutions that abide by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism which conflates the critique of the State of Israel and anti-Semitism. This conflation is dangerous in many ways because it will overlook
actual anti-Semitism that is fostered by white-supremacy, and Palestinians will be blamed for it in their struggle for self-determination.
In Canada, the federal government revealed an anti-racism strategy which used the IHRA’s working definition of anti-Semitism. Progressive Jewish organizations have been outspoken on the IHRA working definition. Independent Jewish Voices claimed that the definition is problematic and poses a threat to freedom of expression in Canada. Over 40 Jewish groups worldwide oppose it as well, Jewish Voice for Peace says the definition acts as a “shield for Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law”.
Legislating against Palestine solidarity seems to be a goal for some of Israel’s closest allies.
In the United States, Trump is moving to use the IHRA’s definition to apply Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Israel from its critics by effectively saying that Judaism is a nationality or a race and thus criticizing Israel becomes an “official” form of anti-Semitism. This will threaten the federal funding to university campuses where the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has a presence, essentially targeting Palestinian activism on college and university campuses.
The smears that were launched against the pro-Palestine crowd on November 20th were entirely baseless and unfounded. One of the accusations that the crowd chanted “go back to the ovens” came from the Jerusalem Post which supposedly obtained the information from Shar Leyb - one of the IDF soldiers who spoke at York University. He claimed he heard it while they were setting up for the event without offering any credible proof of it. Shar Leyb is a member of an Elite Death Squad in the Israeli army known as “Duvdevan”, which acts as an undercover unit that impersonates Arabs/Palestinians, carries out extrajudicial killings, kidnappings against Palestinians. Not surprisingly, with all the cameras that were present that night from both sides and the security cameras at York, no evidence was provided, odd.
More than just being a cheap tool used to shut down any criticism of Israeli violence, the blurring of the lines between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism effectively misrepresents the reality of anti-Semitism and serves no purpose of actually combating it. Rabbi Yakov Rabkin once wrote: “To fight anti-Semitism, it is crucial to dissociate Jews and Judaism from the State of Israel and its behaviour. Our parliamentarians should affirm the right of all Canadians to criticize Israel like any other country in the world, without the fear of being labelled as anti-Semitic. This would be a sure way to rid Canada of the scourge of anti-Semitism, new and old.”
When York University allowed the IDF onto campus, a military that carries out kidnappings, raids, demolitions, and mass killings – it gave the message that the experiences and safety of Palestinian students and other racialized students are not a priority.
The events that unfolded at York University are just microcosms of a greater phenomenon: the parameters of free speech for Palestinians are constantly being limited while Israel and its supporters are granted unquestionable political immunity and freedom of speech. There is a responsibility for York University, and all academic institutions, to stand on the side of justice and truly protect the free speech of their students, Palestinians included. There is no possibility of justice when the universal reaction towards the protests of Palestinians is punitive, as if the very act of shouting their demands is somehow violent, and that advocating for freedom is somehow anti-Semitic.
