Canadian Jews condemn 'Israeli Apartheid Week'

[QueerJustice]

By The Associated Press
TORONTO - Jewish groups are condemning the University of Toronto for permitting an Arab student club to hold a weeklong series of lectures entitled, "Israeli Apartheid Week."
The program, organized by the Arab Students' Collective, begins Monday with lectures about the roots of what the students call Israel's ethnic cleansing and segregation of Palestinians.

"We're trying to educate people on the fact that Israel is an apartheid state and not simply a military occupier of the Gaza," said Hazem Jamjoum, a member of the student group. "Today we'll talk about the origins of the conflict, the 1948 war, when the first half of Palestine was colonized."

The students set up a mock Palestinian refugee camp on campus in an attempt to show passers-by the conditions in which they say many Palestinians have lived since the war.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/534375.html

[QueerJustice]

1. Calling it...

"Israeli Apartheid Week." is designed for one purpose only...To inflame passions against Canadian Jewish students on campus....


``Canada has been named one of the five countries with the highest rates of anti-Semitic incidents, along with France, Britain, Russia and Germany. The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada more than doubled since 2000, with 584 incidents in 2003, according to B'nai Brith.``


Not a great honor....

[Djinn]

2. freedom of speech is a great thing

if a group wanted to set up Nazi Appreciation week, or Grandmother Killers Week they should be allowed to, the thing about beleiving in free speech is that you also have to defend the rights of people to say stuff you find abhorent.

[QueerJustice]

3. Yes again I find myself in agreement with you....

I agree that they should be allowed to continue...

Even if you disagree with them (as clearly I do) The way to oppose this is with counter argument....

[Djinn]

4. agree - it's the only way

my mind actually changed on this issue a few years ago (actually more than a few years but who's counting!)

When David Irving had his entry to Australia denied I was all for it, figured the last thing Australia needed was another racist (despite what certain posters beleive there isn't a big anti-smitic feeling in Aust but's there's still plenty of rednecks) but over the years I've realised that stopping people from talking just makes them act like martyrs - and it's so easy to shoot down a Holocaust denier - if the falsehood is debated openly in the public arena then the public gets to see the rebuttal as well as the insane claim. (not that I neccesarily disagree with the claims made by this student group - havn't looked into what they're saying that much)