May 11th: Academic Boycott Debate - York University

Hosted by the York Centre for International and Security Studies

Academic Boycotts and Contemporary Conflict

Boycotts have emerged in recent decades as a favoured means of grassroots opposition to certain politics and practices. Often these boycotts are directed at firms or industries in the name of environmental or humanitarian goals. In the past few months, framed as an attempt to build on the successes of a similarly structured campaign against historic South African apartheid, calls for boycotts have been raised in response to Israeli action in Gaza. These calls have included a request for the boycotting of Israeli academic institutions. Boycotts raise fundamental issues for universities and other academic institutions: how do boycotts affect the university's commitments to free speech and inquiry, which are central to our functions? To what degree are public universities state institutions, and so appropriate targets for boycotts which oppose state policy? Are boycotts sustainable and peaceful ways for intellectuals to intervene in conflicts, or are they counter-productive? With this series, YCISS invites the community to explore these and other issues by presenting a range of perspectives for consideration and discussion.

Having now featured separate seminars by both Omar Barghouti and Edward Beck, YCISS invites the community to come together for a respectful yet rigorous debate about issues that the boycott raises for Canadian Universities.

A Debate on the Academic Boycott of Israel

This panel-style debate will explore themes of academic freedom and repression in relation to calls for an academic boycott of Israel, with an emphasis on the role and responsibilities of Canadian universities.

Dr. Abigail Bakan
Dr. Costanza Musu
Dr. Clive Seligman
Dr. Alan Sears

Monday, 11 May 2009
4:30-6:30pm
Moot Court, Osgoode Hall
York University

May 5th: Medecine, War and Occupation: The Case of Gaza

"Medicine, War and Occupation: The Case of Gaza" with Dr. Ghada Karmi

May 5th 2009 at 7:00PM – Free

University College Rm. 161
15 Kings College Circle, University of Toronto

Dr. Karmi is a physician, academic and author based at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.

Sponsored by: NECEF, Health Studies Program (UofT), Canadian Arab Federation, Canadian Friends of Sabeel, Science for Peace

UCSB Professor Faces Bogus Charge of Anti-Semitism

SOLIDARITY ACTIONS REQUESTED:

* Email the UCSB Chancellor and responsible authorities on campus to express your outrage and register your protest (see sample letter and email addresses below)

* Sign the petition http://www.petitiononline.com/cdafsb/petition.html

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PROFESSOR WILLIAM I. ROBINSON, UC CALIFORNIA (from Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UC Santa Barbara)

Dear colleagues,

UCSB has become the latest front in the war against Academic Freedom.

Professor William I. Robinson, a Sociology and Global Studies professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been attacked by the Anti-Defamation League and two of his former students. In January of this year, he forwarded an email condemning the Israeli attacks on Gaza. The email contained an editorial by a Jewish journalist condemning Israel's actions in Gaza as well as juxtaposed images of Nazi atrocities with congruent images of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. The email was an optional read for students, intended to spark conversation by relating contemporary events to conceptual ideas discussed in class.

One week later, the ADL wrote him a letter charging him with anti-Semitism and sundry violations of the Faculty Code of Conduct (none of which were coherent claims). Another week passed, and the Academic Senate Charges Officer then notified him that two of the students in the class to which he circulated the email had filed complaints against him.

The complaints are that 1) critique of Israel is evidence of anti-Semitism and 2) the Israeli-Palestinian issue should not be discussed in a class on Globalization.

This case has already escalated way too far. Throughout the process, the Charges Officer violated several elements of the charges procedure, shirked his responsibilities, and ultimately acted as a co-complainant by fabricating charges that were not raised by the students. The charges have reached the Committee on Committees, which is now in the process of convening an ad hoc Charges Committee to assess the complaints against Professor Robinson.

Based on patently absurd and malicious claims, the charges should have been dismissed out of hand from the beginning. Further consideration of the charges by the Academic Senate serves only to sanction politically-motivated attacks on academic freedom. The longer this case is pursued, the worse its chilling effect; it will spread fear among those who wish to present controversial and critical subjects. Even though the original complaint is regarding Israel/Palestine, the rights at stake extend beyond this specific topic. Academic freedom is a right that enables scholars to express diverse perspectives over contentious topics, free from the intimidation of political repression campaigns. If the case against Professor Robinson continues to go forward, it will lead down a slippery slope that may expose academics to repression tactics for addressing controversial issues such as stem cell research, evolution, feminism, LGBT rights, etc. It is incumbent upon members of the UCSB campus and the broader academy to roundly oppose this silencing campaign.

This is an obvious attack on Professor Robinson’s academic freedom, one that ominously recalls similar campaigns against other critics of Israel across the nation. This is part of a broader campaign to automatically vilify and attack any and all critiques of Israel’s policies and practices through unfounded use of the term “anti-Semitic.” A critique of the Israeli state, its policies, and the leaders responsible is not and should not be considered an affront to Jewish people as a collective, the Jewish religion, or Jewish heritage. In fact, conflating the state of Israel with the Jewish people essentializes the assorted political opinions of a diverse religious group by reducing them to the set of policies espoused by the prevailing regime.

For more information on the case, including continuing updates, http://sb4af.wordpress.com.

If you wish to contact the student campaign, please email: cdaf.ucsb@gmail.com.

Thank you for your time,
Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UC Santa Barbara

***

Send an Email:
The e-mail should be addressed to UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang and cc’d to the following faculty and administrators involved in the case. Please copy and paste the addresses.

To: henry.yang@chancellor.ucsb.edu

CC: mgscharl@math.ucsb.edu, gene.lucas@evc.ucsb.edu, moliver@ltsc.ucsb.edu, mazer@lifesci.ucsb.edu, joel@geog.ucsb.edu, joel.michaelsen@senate.ucsb.edu,sarah@isber.ucsb.edu, butler@chem.ucsb.edu, scott@theaterdance.ucsb.edu, hcallus@music.ucsb.edu, gaulin@anth.ucsb.edu, spieker@gss.ucsb.edu,stemmer@mrl.ucsb.edu, caselle@lifesci.ucsb.edu, goulias@geog.ucsb.edu, amar@lawso.ucsb.edu, Stephanie.smagala@senate.ucsb.edu, ettenberg@psych.ucsb.edu,hualee@ece.ucsb.edu, mithun@linguistics.ucsb.edu, zok@engineering.ucsb.edu, helen.henry@ucr.edu, cdaf.ucsb@gmail.com

To Whom It May Concern,

I am a dismayed [undergraduate/graduate/alumna/faculty member] at [your university] writing you to express support for Sociology and Global Studies Professor William I. Robinson. As you may know, Professor Robinson and academic freedom have come under recent attack on the UCSB campus. Toward the end of February 2009, Professor Robinson received notice from the Academic Senate’s Charges Committee that two of his students had filed charges against him. The students alleged that an email forward he’d circulated to his class, criticizing Israel’s then-ongoing siege on Gaza, comprised anti-Semitism. These charges are patently absurd and should be dismissed out of hand before further damage is done to the university’s purpose and reputation.

I demand the immediate dismissal of all of the charges against Professor Robinson as frivolous, unfounded, and malicious. Any further consideration of these baseless attacks is unacceptable. I join other students and faculty in pledging that we will not accept any resolution of this matter that is unfavorable to Professor Robinson and academic freedom.

I also insist that the attack on Professor Robinson’s academic freedom, one that ominously recalls similar campaigns against other critical academics across the nation, be publicly condemned. This condemnation is essential to preserve full and fair discussion within the most important of the U.S.’s civic institutions. Any genuine consideration of these absurd attacks will have a severe chilling effect on the production and dissemination of scholarly research in all disciplines. Further, the attacks must be condemned to protect faculty and students from wasting valuable time and energy defending themselves against frivolous allegations and political repression.

In fact, a critique of the Israeli state, its policies, and the leaders responsible is not and should not be considered an affront to Jewish people as a collective, the Jewish religion, or Jewish heritage. Conflating the state of Israel with the Jewish people essentializes the assorted political opinions of a diverse religious group by reducing them to the set of policies espoused by the prevailing regime. The charge of anti-Semitism is made in bad faith; its real purpose is to automatically vilify and stifle any honest critiques of the state of Israel’s policies and practices.

[Insert personal message]

Sincerely,

[your name and contact information]

U of O Professor Dismissed: Administration opposes his views on Palestine - Israel

To read Prof. Rancourt's statement and to sign the petition in support of him CLICK HERE

For further information, updates, and access the petition link, please go to the newly updated website: http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/

The following excerpt (and endnote) from Prof. Rancourt's statement is particularly important for grasping the links to Palestine:

It appears that among the real reasons for the university’s attempts to discipline me since September 2005 and for its recent most harsh actions against me under President Allan Rock’s mandate might be the administration’s opposition to my political views about the Palestine-Israel conflict, which, starting in 2005, I have expressed in articles, on radio, in my blog postings, at public venues, and in my classes. In September 2005 the dean cancelled my Physics and the Environment course following a complaint (regarding an email comment about Zionism), channelled through the university’s Canadian Studies Institute director Pierre Anctil to the VP-Academic. A complaint against an invited speaker in the course, Professor Michel Chossudovsky – who spoke about Middle East geopolitics, from the Jewish Student Association then gave rise to a sustained but failed attempt to discipline me. In 2006 I invited two Canadian-Palestinian speakers to address the class in my Science in Society course. This was followed by a damning January-2007 editorial in The Ottawa Citizen and I was subsequently removed from teaching all the first-year courses that I had developed. The Ottawa Citizen is a CanWest newspaper and its director is a member of the university’s Board of Governors. CanWest Global Communications Corporation is a staunch advocate and supporter of Israeli policy. In 2007 I criticized the university’s official position on the academic boycott of Israel on my UofOWatch.blogspot.com blog. The repression against me intensified when new university president Allan Rock, a staunch supporter of Israeli policy, arrived on the scene in July 2008. I was disciplined for the UofOWatch blog with an unpaid suspension in September 2008, by a decision of the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors (EBOG). The latter suspension was followed by many more severe actions against me (see below) and is being used by the university as an argument in my dismissal.

[ENDNOTE 3]: Allan Rock’s ardent support for Israeli policy is evidenced both in his political career and in his actions on campus as president at the University of Ottawa: In 2004, under Martin’s Liberal government and as Canada’s Ambassador to the UN, Allan Rock changed Canada’s longstanding foreign policy on Israel from abstaining on human rights resolutions for Palestine to being one of the few countries in the World that vote with the US and Israel against UN human rights resolutions for Palestine. In July 2008 the media reported that Allan Rock participated in a trip to Israel “partly financed by the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA)”, along with five other Canadian university presidents. The media reported that Mr. Rock’s visit “yielded immediate results” as “the University of Ottawa agreed to launch an exchange program in law.” After a few months in office, President Allan Rock announced his plan in October 2008 for the University of Ottawa. This plan included what he calls putting “Canada’s University in the service of the World”. In explaining it to students on October 24, 2008, he talked about exchange programs. When one student asked if Palestinian students would be allowed to participate in the exchange programs with Israel, Mr. Rock stated that he could not answer that. In the fall of 2008, the University of Ottawa chapter of the independent student-run Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) took a principled stand in line with its mission statement and refused to sponsor a Hillel event due to that organization's stated unqualified support for Israeli policy. Allan Rock responded by pressuring the student union (SFUO) president to write a letter condemning OPIRG. A letter from the SFUO president delineated the administrative relationships between the SFUO and OPIRG and this letter was made public by Allan Rock on his president’s “Rock Talk” blog. Allan Rock also publicly stated that he would look for an “administrative” mechanism to deny OPIRG student-levy funding (which has been approved by a student referendum). In 2009 the Rock administration banned a student poster announcing Israeli Apartheid Week – a move widely criticized in some media such as the CBC and in the student media. This type of interventions by a president of the University of Ottawa in the affairs of student groups and associations was unprecedented. It is consistent with the increased political influences in recent years from pro-Israel-policy groups on Canadian campuses – documented in the media, such as in this CBC-Ottawa radio report: http://cbc.ca/ottawa/media/audio/allinaday/20090220carleton.ram

International Appeal in Solidarity with Palestinian Arab Railway Workers in Israel

Support Arab railway workers in Israel in their struggle to keep their jobs! Call on Israel Railways to revise its new policy requiring army service as an employment condition!

This policy is clearly discriminatory: it disqualifies Arab workers because Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel are exempt from service in the Israeli army. The appeal was developed in cooperation with Arab railway workers who have been sacked as a result of this policy.

This appeal has been endorsed by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and many others.

To read a brief and informative Backgrounder on the issue, and to Download and endorse the appeal, go to:

http://www.laborers-voice.org/article_details.aspx?TopID=964&catid=46

Write a protest letter to Israel Railways
Copy-paste the sample letter below or write your own message to:

Yitzhak Harel, CEO

Israel Railways

Fax: +972 (0)3 6937480

Email: pniyot@rail.co.il

CC your email/fax to Sawt el-Amel:

Sawt el-Amel

Email: laborers@laborers-voice.org

Fax: +972 (0)4 6080917

Sample letter to Israel Railways:

Dear Mr. Yitzhak Harel,

I am concerned about Israel Railways’ new policy requiring army service and weapons training as an employment condition for guards at level crossings. Since Arab citizens of Israel are exempt from obligatory army service, it can be assumed that all or most Arab crossing guards will be laid off as a consequence of this policy decision.

This contradicts the fundamental right of workers to equality and non-discrimination in employment, and consequently, the policy should be revised.

I would much appreciate to hear your position on this issue.

Sincerely,

Protest ROM decision to display stolen antiquities

Dead Sea Scrolls stir storm at ROM
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/616059

SEE BELOW FOR ACTION ITEMS!

The Dead Sea scrolls, confiscated from East Jerusalem during Israel's 1967 military invasion and occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, are coming to Toronto. The move is part of Israel consul general Amir Gissin's official "Brand Israel" campaign that attempts to 'rebrand' apartheid Israel beyond its systematic repression of the Palestinian people.

Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of precious artifacts have been illegally removed by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, Israeli soldiers, and illegally operating antiquities dealers from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. These removals of the joint cultural heritage of the region are in direct contravention of at least four international conventions or protocols on the
treatment of illegally obtained cultural goods.

Please stand up and let the ROM know that you do not accept the right of museums to display illegally obtained artifacts stolen from occupied territories. The history of such theft and dispossession is a sad legacy of colonial history that Canada and its museums have also been complicit in. It is time to begin reversing this legacy by canceling the current exhibit in accordance with the precepts of international law and refusing to allow the ROM to be politicized for the rebranding of an apartheid state.

For more information please contact the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid at:
endapartheid@riseup.net

SUGGESTED LETTER:

Dear Mr. William Thorsell:

I am writing to express my concern about the ROM's decision to host the Dead Sea scrolls in cooperation with the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA). Since its foundation, the IAA has repeatedly contravened international agreements, protocols and conventions on the proper and ethical handling of cultural artifacts and has been complicit in the systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people.

As you are certainly aware, the transfer of the Dead Sea scrolls from the occupied West Bank into the custodianship of the IAA was effected under military duress and violates international legal norms regulating the handling of cultural goods that are the heritage of humanity. Such removals are part and parcel of a longstanding stripping and transfer of cultural goods from the
occupied territories by the IAA, Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and independent and illegally operating local antiquities dealers.

I am also concerned that the ROM's Distinguished Lecture Series is hosting a number of scholars that have been complicit in the IAA's aformentioned violations of international law. Such violations have been committed in the interest of forwarding a narrow nationalistic agenda and do nothing towards fostering an environment for a just and lasting peace in the region. This
Lecture Series is being organized without the input of prominent Palestinian scholars in the region or of scholars critical of the ways in which the IAA has mishandled the joint cultural heritage of the region.

Finally, the Canadian Jewish News has noted that Israeli consul general in Toronto Amir Gissin's "Brand Israel attack arsenal" includes the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition. The aim of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Brand Israel campaign, is to shift the attention away from Israel's systematic violations of international humanitarian law by presenting a more 'benign' vision of Israel to a Canadian public increasingly wary of Israel's war-crimes and apartheid policies towards the Palestinians.

I urge you to stand in solidarity with the growing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement internationally - launched by Palestinian civil society in the summer of 2005 - that seeks to peacefully put pressure on the Israeli government to end its abuses of international law. Taking a clear and principled position that emphasizes the ROM's commitment to international law and to the fostering of consensual methods of international cooperation can only strengthen your institutions standing. Anything else would be an abdication of responsibility to the Palestinian communities most adversely affected by Israeli policies of dispossession, occupation and racial discrimination - policies exemplified in the recent history of the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves.

Sincerely,

________________

SEND PROTEST LETTERS TO:

Fill out the form at: http://www.rom.on.ca/about/contact.php

Or mail your letters to:
Visitor Services Department
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 2C6
Canada

Visitor Services, Switchboard
416.586.8000

April 15th: Launch of the Freedom of Expression Campaign!

Defend the right to speak, educate and organize for Palestinian solidarity and human rights!

Join us ..

Wednesday, April 15
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
The Bahen Centre, Room 1160
40 St. George Street (north of College Street)
University of Toronto

What's going on ... ?

BANNED FROM CANADA ... George Galloway's Canadian speaking tour on "Resisting war from Gaza to Kandahar"!
CUT ... funding for settlement programs and language services at Canadian Arab Federation!
REMOVED ... Israeli Apartheid Week posters at Ontario universities!
ATTACKED ... union leaders and members for supporting research and education on boycott of academic institutions!
TARGETED ... students and faculty doing public education on campuses!
THREATENED ... discussion of Israel/Palestine at Toronto District School Board!

What can you do about it ...?

Attend this launch ... hear testimonials, support the campaign, and learn how to get active in your organization or community

Moderator: Sherene Razack (SESE)
Speakers: Canadian Arab Federation, Canadian Union of Public Employees, Faculty4Palestine, Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid

... and teachers, students, workers, community activists

Sponsored by:
* Canadian Arab Federation
* Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education (OISE-University of Toronto)

April 6th: Health Crisis in Palestine: A Panel of Canadian Health Care Professionals give First Hand Accounts

Presented by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East Right to Health Taskforce presents

Monday, April 06, 7:00 p.m.
Leslie Dan Pharmacy Building
Room B250
144 College Street, Toronto
Free admission.

Dr. Harry Shannon, Epidemiologist in Hamilton, spent one week in Gaza and has written provocative articles for the Hamilton Spectator.
Dr. Miriam Garfinkle, Family Physician in Toronto, is a strong and long time peace activist on health issues in Palestine.
Dr. Jim Deutsch, Psychiatrist in Toronto, has visited and worked in the West Bank in the area of mental health.
Judy Deutsch, Social Worker in Toronto, President of Science for Peace visited the West Bank and presented a paper on mental health.
Dr. Abdel Rahman Lawendy, Orthopedic Surgery Resident in London, traveled to Gaza as part of the international medical team and worked in a hospital in Gaza during this latest crisis in January, 2009.

For countless years now, world-renowned organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF and others have documented the effects of occupation on the physical and mental health of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. As the years pass, the health violations only continue to escalate, both in the West Bank, where access to health care is difficult at best and especially in Gaza, where a brutal blockade imposed as collective punishment by the Israeli government has denied Palestinians even basic supplies such as food and water, let alone health care. This blockade has been directly blamed and condemned by various health groups such as the International Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and many more. Health is a human right - one that an occupying power is obligated to provide for the civilian population according to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Come and learn about the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and hear first-hand accounts from Canadian health care professionals and researchers of all backgrounds who have traveled to Palestine -- one since the recent war -- and seen the damaging effects that this occupation has on the Palestinian civilians. We will be having a panel discussion and encourage participation from health care professionals and other citizens alike. To learn more, please see the five part series published in the Lancet (a prominent UK medical journal) being released this month entitled Health In the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

For more info please see the CJPME Website: http://www.cjpme.org/