November 19, 2010

York University: Willfully Ignorant or Just Plain Biased?

The nasty side of York University, and frankly Canadian academia as a whole, has once again veered its ugly head. The university had invited George Galloway to speak to students. In response, and as a way to reach out to the large, ignored Jewish community at York, Rabbi Aaron Hoch of the Village Shul sent an email out to his mailing list. In the note he asked that his following "take part in protesting this outrage." He noted that York University President Mamdouh "Shoukri has again showed his amazing tolerance for anti-Semitism and lack of vigilance regarding the feeling of safety for Jewish students on campus.” The story, of course, doesn't end there as the university has now threatened to sue the Rabbi. (As if they didn't already have a bad image in the Toronto Jewish community.)

So who is George Galloway? A former British MP, he has been a vocal detractor of Israel and supporter of Palestine, among other things. In 2009 he organized the Viva Palestina (http://is.gd/hm3R7), an aid convoy to the Gaza Strip following the flotilla incident. He also donated £25,000 to Hamas, which he claims was for aid purposes.(http://is.gd/hm5tK) Then in March of 2009 he was deemed inadmissible to Canada on 'security grounds.' The Canadian courts upheld that his donation to Hamas constituted explicit support of a terrorist organization.(http://is.gd/hm5GV). On an American radio show he said the following regarding Zionists:




"The reality is these people have used Jewish people, and they have used them with this ideology of Zionism, to create this little Hitler State on the Mediterranean, to act as an advance guard for their own interests in the Arab world, and we're all paying for it, the Palestinians have paid for it, the Arabs have paid for it, and now the American people are paying for it, and why should we? We don't want to live our lives in a permanent state of warfare and division." (http://is.gd/hlX2T)





Eventually he was allowed into Canada, and York University's president jumped on the opportunity to invite him to speak. The man is a provocative individual and inflammatory in any sense of the word. Should he be allowed to speak in Canada? Probably, unless it can be shown that he is a security risk. Is it an outrage that York U invited him to speak? Slightly, considering their past, but definitely not shocking. 

What is truly outrageous is the reaction from the university. Universities should be about the free flow of ideas from all backgrounds, and to this end having anybody speak from a particular perspective is a good thing. But when a university repeatedly sides with one point of view and denies the other point of view protest, there is a problem. If Mr. Galloway was invited to speak for the benefit of hearing another side to a very heated and important debate, this would be acceptable. But the university's fierce reaction to the planned protest suggests otherwise. 

Further, York U has a bad history of anti-Israel behaviour - with its acceptance of the incredibly hateful Israel apartheid week (http://is.gd/hmbuL) - and an even worse record of on campus anti-semitism. The Rabbi's letter has become a rallying point for York U's Jewish community. From a National Post article on the subject:

"Rabbi Hoch, of the Dan Family Village Shul, said he has since been flooded with emails from people who are “giving voice to their frustrations.” Those frustrations, he said, are born from the “intimidation” of Jewish students on campus, which he said culminated last year after a swarming by pro-Palestinian students of a group of Jewish students, who wound up barricaded inside the school’s Hillel lounge." (http://is.gd/hmbiE)

Worse still, a member of this mob that attacked a group of innocent Jewish students, Krisna Saravanamuttu was elected president of the student federation. He obviously disagrees with the Rabbi’s characterization of Mr. Galloway as an “activist for terrorist organizations,” and said “those seem like baseless accusations to me.” Fact is, those accusations have a very solid base. Mr. Galloway is on record as a financial supporter of Hamas, a terrorist organization designated so by the EU, The US, Canada, and others. 

Canadian universities are a joke. Bastions of hardcore leftist ideology. Our tax dollars fund these pits of humanity and its a fucking shame. It's a shame that our money funds this hateful, classless and unacademic behaviour. It's mostly a shame that York U doesn't get it. Look, I understand and believe that universities need and deserve public funding. But it's wrong to take public funding and then silence the public from protesting your activities, plain and simple. So, is York U willfully ignorant or just biased? That's a no brainer.

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