Feb 28, 2009 04:30 AM
BY
(16) TORONTO STAR
Article is on the Web at:
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/594497
OTTAWA – Emotions are running high at Carleton University and other campuses across Ontario as students and administrators struggle to balance the age-old right to protest with the need to defend other individual rights.
Students protesting against Israel's role in the recent attacks in Gaza say their right to freedom of speech is being stifled by a Carleton administration that is overly sensitive to outside pressures from Jewish organizations that warn about creeping anti-Semitism.
Graphic posters advertising next week's Israeli Apartheid Week were pulled down Feb. 10 by Carleton University staff, who say the group Students Against Israeli Apartheid had not received prior approval. Staff were also concerned the posters might contravene the Ontario Human Rights Code.
"To make the link between anti-Semitism and being against Israeli government policies is ludicrous," said Jessica Carpinone, a spokesperson for Students Against Israeli Apartheid, adding there are Jewish students in the group.
Similar tensions have been recorded at the University of Toronto, York University and Hamilton's McMaster University.
The original posters, depicting an Israeli gunship firing missiles at a little Palestinian boy carrying a teddy bear and emblazoned with the word Gaza, were taken down and replaced with a more sanitized version showing a lone Israeli and Palestinian separated by a wall.
"I just want to be really clear that the university did not ban any events associated with Israeli Apartheid Week. The posters that were removed did not have the necessary approval" to go up, said Carleton spokesperson Beth Gorham.
The post-secondary school's equity services staff determined the poster might contravene the Ontario Human Rights Code.
"It is the university's duty to make sure any communications or posters that go out do not include things that could potentially cite infringements of it (the code)," she said.
Alan Borovoy, of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, has accused Carleton of sanitizing debate and sent a letter to university president Roseann O'Reilly Runte stating the human-rights reason given for taking down the posters was completely off-base.
"You would have to stretch yourself into a pretzel in order to apply the (Ontario) Human Rights Code to this situation. It talks about employment, accommodation, housing ... none of those really are at issue here," he told the Star.
Borovoy said what it amounts to is a university restricting freedom of speech, which he calls an "outgrowth of the political correctness syndrome."
"We are talking about the right to castigate the behaviour of ... foreign governments or even our own government. ... Universities are supposed to be a storm centre of controversy and debate. This kind of stuff looks like an exercise in the attempted sanitization of the university."
But Jewish organizations argue the anti-Israeli protests have gone beyond lively debate and morphed into fomenting hatred toward Jewish students and members of Jewish communities.
Noah Kochman, of the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students, said threats and intimidation of Jewish students on campuses have increased.
"Some of the harassments and some of threats and some of the blatant anti-Semitism that we've seen, especially since the Israeli operation in Gaza, is horrible and is not in line with Canadian values," he said in an interview.
"Academic freedom entails criticism of any democracy or any society, but where we draw the line ... is when students are harassed, threatened and when there is clear anti-Semitic bigotry."
Bernie Farber, chief executive officer the Canadian Jewish Congress, said there has always been passionate debate between Canadian Jews, Canadian Palestinians and others over events in the Middle East.
"But it has never evolved into the kind of anti-Semitism that I have seen happening both on the streets of Toronto and on university campuses," he said.
Farber said he blames in part campaigns like Israeli Apartheid Week.
"Other than the Holocaust, the most pernicious, vile and evil racist event that transpired in the 20th century was the racist regime of South Africa ... and so when the term apartheid is applied to the Jewish state of Israel, it demonizes the Jewish state and demonizes anybody who supports the state of Israel. ... It is terribly inflammatory," he said.
In advance of Israeli Apartheid Week, which begins tomorrow, B'nai Brith Canada called on York University to provide a safe and secure environment for all students.
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