“A lack of will to act has put McGill in a situation that other Canadian universities avoided by taking resolute action. Elsewhere illegal encampments were quickly removed.”
Article content
An anti-hate group says McGill has shown weakness in its response to a six-week-old pro-Palestinian encampment on the university’s downtown campus.
In a letter to McGill president Deep Saini, United Against Hate Canada questioned “the university’s weak-kneed response to anti-Israel protests and its supine attitude in the face of increasingly maximalist demands from a relatively small, masked and totally unrepresentative group of protesters.”
Advertisement 2
Story continues below
Article content
The letter was signed by the group’s director-general, Marvin Rotrand, a former Montreal city councillor who, until February, was the national director of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have been camped out at McGill since April 27. They want the university to withdraw investments from companies linked to what they describe as the genocide of Palestinians and sever relationships with Israeli universities.
Saini has called the encampment an “unlawful occupation.” But his efforts to have the camp dismantled have been stymied.
He asked Montreal police to take down the camp, but the department said it has no plans to intervene as long as the protest remained peaceful. A university request for a court order also failed.
On Tuesday, McGill made a new offer to the protesters. It proposed to review its investments in weapons manufacturers and grant amnesty to protesting students. The offer included a review of direct equity investments in entities that earn most of their revenues from the production of military weapons.
The protesters rejected the offer, calling it “laughable.”
Article content
Advertisement 3
Story continues below
Article content
In his letter, Rotrand said McGill is “ceding to escalating pressure from protesters who are calling on the university to be complicit in the false accusations of genocide against Israel. The university is now offering to consider the shameful demands to punish Israel and has actually proposed an amnesty to the protesters.”
Instead, he said, McGill should “boycott, divest and sanction all nations, businesses and institutions that fund Hamas as well as cut ties with all industries and academic institutions that have links with the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other terrorist entities.
“A lack of will to act has put McGill in a situation that other Canadian universities avoided by taking resolute action. Elsewhere, illegal encampments were quickly removed.”
Several university encampments are still in place across Canada, including at the University of Toronto, the University of Victoria and the University of Ottawa.
Rotrand said the United Against Hate Canada board of directors “hails from numerous communities and is particularly concerned by the unprecedented upsurge in antisemitism witnessed in Canada over the past months.”
Advertisement 4
Story continues below
Article content
“It is time for McGill to stand with its Jewish students who have been victimized for months now on campus. It is time for McGill to stand with the Canadian public, which is horrified with on-going terror and the efforts of Hamas supporters in Canada to delegitimize Israel’s right to defend itself and to free the hostages kidnapped and brutalized by Hamas.”
Tension on campuses has mounted since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.
The conflict started on Oct. 7 when about 1,200 Israelis were killed in an attack from the Gaza Strip by Hamas, described by the Canadian government as “a radical Islamist-nationalist terrorist organization.”
Since then, Israel has repeatedly attacked Gaza, with the Palestinian death toll surpassing 36,000, according to the Health Ministry of Hamas-run Gaza.
Recommended from Editorial
Advertisement 5
Story continues below
Article content
Article content