RE: “Carleton taking sides on Israeli apartheid,” Oct. 27-Nov. 2, 2011

Anti-Israel protest of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) is nothing new at Carleton. This past week, posters have sprung up on campus calling for Carleton to remove its support from a JNF fundraising dinner in Ottawa.

The posters are the work of Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA), which accuses Carleton of fundraising for apartheid. In a release on SAIA’s website, they further accused the JNF of being “a notorious organization that has assisted in the ethnic cleansing, dispossession and colonization of Palestinian land for over a century.”

SAIA’s description of the JNF is pretty typical of anti-Israel histrionics. The JNF exists today as an environmental organization which, according to their website, has planted a quarter billion trees around the world. It helped ensure Israel’s status as one of the only countries to exit the 20th century with more trees than it began it with.

Let’s not forget SAIA’s last two attempts to push their anti-Israel agenda at Carleton. In February, SAIA submitted a motion to the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA), which called for Carleton’s divestment in companies they accused of enabling “apartheid” and “war crimes.” When their motion was ruled out of order, its supporters started yelling and elevators and fire exits were blocked, CUSA councillor Andrew Post said at the time. Campus police was called upon to allow pro-Israel students and councillors to leave.

A month later, SAIA further attempted to address the issue with Carleton’s Board of Governors. Only 10 student observers — five from the anti-Israel and five from the pro-Israel community — were to be allowed into the room, which led to SAIA supporters forcefully shutting down the meeting. Board members, like the student councillors the month before, were escorted out by security.

SAIA’s tactics do nothing to further dialogue on campus. Even their very name suggests an immovable beginning point of de-legitimization of the home of 8 million Israelis — Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or otherwise.   

If you ask any Israeli what they want the most, they’ll tell you it’s peace. I only hope that everyone at Carleton strives to promote a just peace in the Middle East that sees Palestinians and Israelis living as peaceful neighbours.

—Hashem Hamdy,
fifth-year political science
president of the Israel Awareness Committee