This follows on the heels of a similar motion which was soundly defeated at Oxford.This is all the more strange considering how pro-Israel the Canadian Government is and anti-Israel the British government is. Ted Belman
The Jewish Tribune explains:
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A pro-Israel student has confirmed a report by Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) that the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU) has passed a motion to endorse boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
The student, who asked to remain anonymous, described the machinations of the anti-Israel activists as a “blindside.”
The annual general meeting of the UTGSU was held the evening of Dec. 10, which was the second day of Chanukah.
In addition, the anti-Israel motion was not on the agenda, but it was accepted as additional business by the meeting chair after the meeting began, he said.
He said the room appeared to be stacked with students who supported the BDS movement and knew about the motion in advance.
According to the report by SAIA, which was posted on the far-left website Rabble.ca, the resolution states, “Be it resolved that the Graduate Students [sic] Union endorse Palestinian civil society’s 2005 call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions by calling on the University of Toronto to refrain from investing in all companies complicit in violations of international law. This includes any company that: profits from the illegal occupation of Palestinian land; directly benefits from the construction of the Wall [sic] and Israeli settlements; is economically active in settlements, and profits from the collective punishment of Palestinians.
“This would include the companies BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Hewlett Packard.”
The Jewish Tribune was unable to reach anyone at the UTGSU for comment. According to its website, its offices had closed for the winter break at the time this story was filed.
The electronic Intafada reported
Following on the heels of a similar resolution passed last month by the Graduate Student Association at nearby York University in Toronto, Canada, the University of Toronto’s Graduate Student Union passed a resolution on Monday in favor of the Palestinian-led call for boycott, divestment and sanctions to be adopted by the university administration.
In a press release from Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at the University of Toronto, and published on the website of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), students say that 97 percent of the graduate students present at the vote favored the resolution.
The press release reads, in full:
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On 10 December 2012, the University of Toronto’s Graduate Student Union (GSU) voted overwhelmingly in favour of a resolution to endorse the global campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), at their annual general meeting. Over 150 graduate students were present at the meeting, of which approximately 97% voted in favour of the motion, with only a few students opposed.
The resolution states “Be it resolved that the Graduate Students Union endorse Palestinian civil society’s 2005 call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions by calling on the University of Toronto to refrain from investing in all companies complicit in violations of international law. This includes any company that: profits from the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, directly benefits from the construction of the Wall and Israeli settlements, is economically active in settlements, and profits from the collective punishment of Palestinians. This would include the companies BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Hewlett Packard.”
The resolution was adopted in support of Palestinian rights and opposition to Israel’s illegal military occupation of Palestine and its violations of international law under the Geneva Conventions, as affirmed by the International Court of Justice in 2004. By divesting, the University of Toronto will fulfill its legal obligation not to invest in companies or organizations that are complicit in human rights violations, and will help force Israel to comply with international law.
In March 2011, Students Against Israeli Apartheid at the University of Toronto launched a divestment campaign addressing the university’s investments in companies that assist in, and profit from Israeli apartheid and the occupation of the Palestinian territories, with a specific focus on BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Hewlett Packard, which provide the Israeli occupation with weapons and technology.
In passing this resolution, U of T joins York University, University of Regina, Carleton University and universities around the world, who have all passed similar resolutions at their student unions.
The passage of this resolution is a milestone in divestment activities in North America and will hopefully pave the way for a broader campaign which demands that the University of Toronto divest from any and all companies profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation.
A number of Canadian universities are anti-Jews. The Jewish community is not that big. There are probably a lot more Muslims than Jews.
But I do .I am willing to bet there has not been one debate or criticism by these same students in UT about what is happening in Syria [ over the last 2 years] or the killings in Bangladesh & Pakistan recently. They know exactly what they are about and it has a name!
@ David Barrett:
Don’t blame the students,they are STUDENTS. Where are Candian Jewish Groups to enlighten them?
Just shows you how ignorant and ill-informed Canadian students at UT are!
@ yamit82:
If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything,I said this before but you mock it, but it is so true. I have writen it in my soul with a branding iron. ” A light unto me feet”.
Now thats a crock of you know what.
The very reason I have stated many times Israel is in need of a super PR program to dispel this notion along with the false accusations perpetuated by the liberal left media and the Arab world.
BTW, likewise it is important for Isralis to continue to build communities throughout Judea and Samaria.
Yamit has a good idea.
Apply elsewhere and cut off donations.
Time for Jewish students and alum along with supporters to fight back.
Jewish activists should initiate a campaign aimed at Jewish Students and fair minded non Jewish pro Israel potential UT students to apply and accept admission to other universities. The message should be published in every possible media vehicle and forum.
Jewish alumni should cease donating to the University and their actions should be well published.
When will there be a group formed called Students Against islamic Apartheid?
They should be boycotting companies which do business in islamic countries.
I have really had it with the crackpot left’s control of the universities and colleges, the media, government, the culture etc. And I’m even more disgusted with spineless conservatives failing to form any resistance to the left’s onlslaught against every institution in the west.
President Naylor from U of T is of Lebanese background and his brother is an apologist for jihadis
http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.ca/2013/03/israel-apartheid-week-tale-of-two.html
strategies and tactics,lawfare, PR. In a democracy a majority is unnecessary if you game the system. While the jews are busily investing and directing their energies to jewish organizations who help everyone but the Jews, like the ADL, the enemy is focusing his strategies and tactics against Israel in lawfare and PR. While Jews like Adelson sink 100 mill into romney the enemy accomplishes a lot more with less money.
The enemy is ruthless, they must be dealt with ruthlessly.
This is nothing new,
In the 1930’s the Nazis called it JUDENREIN.Another link to that era was the anti-semitic attitudes of much of the university inteligencia in the 1930’s.James Conant,president of Harvard,was a high profile anti-semite & admirer of the Nazis before WW2(perhaps even during the war years?) .In Germany,a whole body of University studies centered around Nazi”Aryan Theory”.So much for all of the lofty nonsense emanating from today’s Universities about their noble & enlightened mission to bring true wisdom to the masses!When they attack Israel they really attack Jews.It’s a very good business,university types can make a very nice profit in petro-dollars by encouraging this nasty behavior on campus.
We Jews cause much this problem ourselves.As long as American & Canadian Jews stay smarmy & passively take this trash they will continue to receive more of it.If attacked,we must fight back,there are no good alternatives!
Recall the reaction of the world after the 1967 war? It was largely positive – tiny Israel, the David in this conflict, defeated the combined might of every Arab army which possessed a viable military force able to wipe out the Jews on every front. The world was with Israel because it was so obvious that Arab countries were blessed with lots of land and resources and yet they had always been in a continuous war with Israel – not for land – but because they could not stand to have Jews; Jews with a 3000-year biblical and historical claim, anywhere near them. The West, at the time a much saner place than it is today, viewed Israel’s victory as their victory – the classic victory of freedom over oppression. There was the same kind of euphoria in America when WWII ended with the defeat of Naziism.
The feelings of pride and glory about the defeat of Naziism still remain (more or less) intact today. The feelings of support for Israel have disappeared. We can attribute the changes in attitude to the rise of leftism and Islamism in the world in the past 40 years. Immigration has been very generous to people from the Middle East, some claiming to have been oppressed and yet when their children enter university they long for the homeland of their parents and grandparents (who obviously did not educate them on the reasons they had to escape or move to America). These students have become the soldiers for Islam which means Islamic supremacy against the ancient enemy of Mohammad – the infidels who are considered by Islamists to be non-believers and inferior.
The second reason why history is being rewritten with Jews and Christians being omitted and vilified is because leftists have grown more radical with the growing freedoms and prosperity they enjoy in Western society. There is a psychological contagion that makes these people ungrateful for their freedom and long for totalitarianism as a way to punish those who provide for them and guard against the “-isms” which threaten the society the leftists question and despise for no reasons that make sense to rational humans.
The problem is that our institutions and governments have grown morally weak and cowardly. They refuse to speak up on behalf of freedom and some institutions go after people who defend freedom in any vocal ways – and here I am thinking of the quasi-judicial/governmental Human Rights kangaroo courts who use their leftist-leanings to defeat freedom and free speech when that free speech happens to be expressed by anyone to the right of their members.
And now with Obama navigating at the helm for a 2nd term – the leader of the free world is thwarting freedom wherever he can – at home and in many other parts of the world. Obama’s favorite sound in the world is the call to prayer as he remembers it from his youth. To me that is the sound of people being rounded up for brainwashing and torture and an American president should not be glorifying Islamism.
In the current environment it is no wonder that universities are turning on free countries and siding with totalitarian regimes (and instructing their students and academics to do the same) – we are being indoctrinated and overtaken without a shot being fired. An Israeli victory in 1967 is now viewed as “occupation” even though the vanquished are the real oppressors who have been allowed to dictate the terms and who are slowly inundating the victors with the support of leftists world wide.
Firstly, Arabs are building on land in Judea and Samaria at at rate much greater than Israel on the same land. Secondly, Arabs have said that their future “state” will be Jew-free – a racist and inhumane policy that even a grad student at the University of Toronto might find prejudicial. Thirdly, the land that U of T students are so concerned about was put under Israeli control by the UN after Israel was attacked by several Arab countries in 1967 in a war of aggression (pending a return to a peaceful conclusion which never happened)… and prior to that Jordan illegally occupied the “West Bank” as it is popularly known. Finally, when an aggressor starts a war(s) and looses, they also lose the right to dictate the terms of the settlement – this has applied to every war and every country throughout history and it must also apply to Israel or else those who want to punish Israel with anomalous persecution must admit to their own biases against the people of Israel and towards all Jews.
The issue of BDS must be met with a strong BDS response. Those who are carrying out this tactic think that it has no consequences because Jewish organizations are committed to dialogue and eternal silence on most challenging issues of the day. If there are no easy political solutions, they avoid taking action and avoid controversy. I am not sure what they are being paid to do but it is not activism. And the rabbinical responses are equally quiet and filled with excuses. Those who are knowledgeable and able to educate and respond to the misinformed leftists and Islamists are missing in action.
Frankly, the efforts of a few (with followers who go along for the social benefits ride and have not a clue about the history and background of the issues they pretend to know) leftists, Jewish anti-Semites sponsored by the United Church, Marxist academics looking to regain the spirit of 1960’s activism, and Islamists who know damn well that both Israel and their new homes in America are vastly superior to the totalitarian violence they came from – are ineffective. Israel, in its quiet way, is giving them all the finger with its success, its humanity, and its freedoms (which are exclusive to Israel in a region of terrorists and racists).
If we look at those appointed to university posts, including U of T’s President Naylor, we find that anti-Semitism is sometimes the prerequisite for employment, not academic or managerial acumen.
I would recommend that students avoid U of T until they decide to get back to serving all students equally and not singling out Jews for subjugation to Islamist extremism and leftist prejudice because in a classroom setting a Jewish student is considered less of a human being than anyone else because the views of the academics are so skewed, subjective and prejudicial. They are based on ignorance and peer pressure to hate Jews and Israel.