The following article is taken in whole from the Honest Reporting Action Alert of May 6th, 2024, underscoring yet another avenue of enmity towards Jews and Israel. Even a library!!
Centennial College is a publicly funded college based in Scarborough, Ontario which calls itself a “worldly institution.” However, its online library guide to “Understanding Israel-Palestine” is anything but worldly, showing a narrow, one-sided anti-Israel worldview which promotes the literature of terrorist supporters as academic reading material.
This is despite its membership in the Canadian Federation of Library Associations, which says “libraries provide, defend and promote equitable access to the widest possible variety of expressive content and resist calls for censorship and the adoption of systems that deny or restrict access to resources.”
Unfortunately, Centennial College does not come close to living up to these ideals. Their library guide, including its list of reading material and list of human rights organizations, is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian (anti-Israel), a far cry from the “widest possible variety”.
Written by both Muslim and Jewish pro-Palestinian authors, the reading material that Centennial College promotes presents students with a one-sided view of the topic it purports to address.
It also includes pro-terrorism authors, a curious choice for authoritative education on any topic. For example, it includes Ahed Tamimi’s book, “They called me a Lioness”. Tamimi is a Palestinian protest figure who wrote on social media, following Hamas’ October 7 genocidal massacres: “We will slaughter you and you will say that what Hitler did to you was a joke, we will drink your blood and eat your skulls. Come on, we’re waiting for you.”
Another author is Palestinian-American Ramzy Baroud, who wrote, “My Father was a Freedom Fighter”. Baroud is also president of the Palestine Chronicle, which supports the narrative that Israel is causing genocide in Gaza, using its homepage as a front to provide Hamas’ repudiated casualty figures under the banner: “The Gaza Genocide”.
Another author included is Sunaina Maira. Her book, “Boycott! The Academy and Justice for Palestine” writes a supposedly “triumphalist account of the (BDS) movement” and her involvement in it. The Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement was founded by Omar Barghouti who has explicitly stated that the goal of the BDS movement is to end the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations, is considered antisemitic to the core and which has received a public endorsement from the terror organization Hamas.
Not only are these dubious sources included, but there is very little to balance them out. The Jewish authors that are included are themselves largely pro-Palestinian in their views, for example, Shir Hever, who wrote, “The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation” is the coordinator for the military embargo coordinator of the Palestinian BDS movement’s Boycott National committee (BNC).
Zalman Amit, who co-authored “Israeli Rejectionism”: A Hidden Agenda in the Middle East Peace Process with Daphna Levitt, demonizes Israel and is a supporter of BDS, is also included.
Norman Finkelstein, one of the most prominent anti-Israel activists whose anti-Israel views have extended to denying the proven existence of tunnels in Gaza and has been condemned for defending Hamas’ attacks on October 7, also has his book, “The Holocaust Industry” referenced.
Deborah Ellis’ book, “Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak” includes her interviews of Palestinian children, one of whom who says her sister, a suicide bomber, is in heaven, as well as a boy’s statement that he wants to kill an Israeli to “feel strong”. These views are referenced as valid, respectable feelings in her book, which Canada’s Jewish community has argued promotes violence.
Jimmy Carter, former president of the United States, gets his book on the list, too. “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” is troublesome in its use of Carter’s former title for authenticity while omitting some key facts about how Israeli-Arabs have full equal rights alongside Israeli-Jews.
Marc Lamont Hill’s “Except for Palestine, The Limits of Progressive Politics” is a forum for his pro-Palestinian views. Lamont Hill, an American academic, has been condemned for being a defender of Hamas who links support of the Palestinian cause with support of minorities in the United States.
The list goes on. It is scandalous that a publicly funded Canadian community college promotes authors who call for the destruction of Israel and who publicly promote vitriolic anti-Israel ideologies.
In the Centennial College library guide, Israel is portrayed as the aggressor and Palestinians are portrayed as innocent victims.
This unconscionable use of public money must be protested by Canada’s media and Canadians writ large. If not in the name of the real Israeli victims of Hamas terrorism, at least in the name of the truth.
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