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Press release from Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation


CAEF is demanding an end to campus antisemitic activism

 

For Immediate Release

Toronto, Ontario, March 24, 2020


The Virus of Antisemitism Must Also be Contained


The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation has initiated correspondence with five universities in Ontario which annually allow hateful, antisemitic, fraudulent material to be presented by student associations that want to destroy Israel, the nation state of the Jewish people. These student bodies, such as the Students Against Israel Apartheid with agreement from the York University Student Federation, U of Toronto Graduate Student Association, Ryerson’s Students for Justice for Palestine, and others, present anti-Israel lectures and other biased material with false claims of Israeli misdeeds, in particular an “occupation of Palestinian land,” a genocide against Arab Palestinians, discrimination against Arabs living in Israel, mistreatment of Arab children and more.


NONE OF THEIR CLAIMS ARE TRUE. Their list of lies is tremendous and grows annually, primarily provided by a central organization that equates Zionism, the Jewish aspiration for a home in Israel, with racism. Nothing that they promote has any veracity, nor do they provide a shred of evidence. Their hateful rhetoric is akin to the disgusting antisemitic language used by Nazis in Europe pre-WW II and during it to generate hate towards Jews and we saw where that led.


CAEF is asking each university administration, their governing councils and ultimately the provincial government to look more seriously at the damage done by these hate fests which last a week to a month under the scurrilous banner of Israel Apartheid Week. These bodies demonize Israel and call for their respective university to boycott Israel academically, economically, and culturally and impose sanctions. However, the founder of the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) campaign has repeatedly stated that the real goal is the entire destruction of Israel. This is tantamount to calling for genocide of the Jewish people!


These annual displays of hatred have a damaging effect on Jewish students who are harassed and bullied, threatened and discriminated against. There have been numerous examples in Canada of the negative impact on Jewish students and the Jewish community as these hostile, bigoted messages are shared on many social and traditional platforms. American studies, such as the AMCHA Initiative have linked an increase of physical attacks against Jews with the degree of support for BDS amongst university faculty, many of whom present a personal anti-Israel bias and support the discriminating student bodies. The anti-Israel faculty also lack any proof of their malicious claims and ignore the reality of a multi-faith, multi-racial functioning democracy in the Middle East which provides the safest, most human rights-based society for Muslims and Christians, Druze, Circassians, as well as Jews. NO other country in the Middle East protects and supports the LGBTQ population and provides equal rights for men and women.


While no government in Canada has taken this inflammatory and discriminatory rallying cry seriously and neither has any university, they are ignoring the damage caused by the Israel Apartheid Weeks including their planned misinformation campaigns which encourage prejudice and hate rather than any understanding of the truth about Israel, about the Arab-Israeli conflict and about Jewish rights to their homeland in Israel as originally granted in 1920 by the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers, approved by the League of Nations in 1922 and established in 1947 by a majority vote of the United Nations, post WW II.


History is not being taught. Hate is. Many universities in Canada have great and productive relationships with Israeli universities and individual academic exchanges, which benefit all Canadians. However, by allowing IAW to continue unabated and unchallenged, the institutions are giving its claims credence where none is deserved. This is not defensible as ‘free speech,” any more than anti-Black campaigns, anti-LGBTQ campaigns, or anti-Muslim campaigns would be.


CAEF states ENOUGH is Enough! Stop the hatred!


The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation is a registered Canadian charity, operating for almost 20 years, educating Canadians about the truth about Israel, Jews and the Jewish people, building interfaith relations, defending freedom of expression and justice for persecuted minorities.


Here are links to the CAEF letters sent to University of Toronto, Ryerson University, York University, Ottawa University and McMaster University and responses received to date.


For further information, contact Irving Weisdorf, President, irving@caef.ca or 416-561-9902


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