Two Statements on the War on Gaza and Canada
PCAAN Statement on the Attack on Palestine
Palestinians will not be erased.
The Palestinian Canadian Academics and Artists Network (PCAAN) is appalled at the wholesale erasure of the shock and grief experienced by the Palestinian Canadian community at this time. The inalienable need for liberation, the right of self-determination, and the inviolable belonging of the Palestinian people to the land, as inscribed and reinstated in countless UN resolutions, have been negated by the Canadian establishment. In the face of over 75 years of apartheid, 56 years of occupation, and a 17-year blockade, this is mind-blowing.
PCAAN condemns the failure and refusal of the Canadian government to comply with its obligations under Geneva IV: parties to this convention are obligated to protect occupied peoples and prohibited from transferring their own populations into occupied lands. They are not encouraged to hide their failures to comply using “unprovoked attack” narratives. Such narratives, provided without context, are also used as a pretext for the government’s refusal to act in accordance with its own stated foreign policy on illegal Israeli colonial occupation.
In its current applause and support for Israel’s alleged “right to defend itself,” Canada is enabling Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools and universities, and the deprivation of 2.3 million people from food, water, fuel, and electricity. In the words of Francesca Albanese (UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967), supporting the intentional starvation of civilians when part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population is extremely concerning because it amounts to the commission of war crimes and, potentially, a crime against humanity. Canada’s history of shielding Israel’s impunity includes refusing to acknowledge, following the findings of major international human rights organizations, that Israel is imposing a structure of apartheid on an indigenous population. Apartheid is a crime against humanity.
Repeating endlessly that such a state has a right to self-defense does not make that crime go away: it comes down to claiming that the state has a right to commit crime. Likewise, reiterating ad nauseam that Hamas is a terrorist organization does not make the root causes of violence go away: it comes down to claiming that Israel has the right to boundless state violence, to state terrorism, whereas Palestinians, as an occupied people are denied the right recognized in international law to armed resistance. The regurgitation of the terrorism trope obfuscates the history, depth, and incommensurability of Israeli atrocities: 75 years of massacres, torture, “bone breaking”, sniper mutilations, carpet bombing, white phosphorous bombing, the bulldozing of refugee camps, targeted assassinations, night raids, child arrests, collective punishment and home demolitions, toxic waste dumping in the occupied West Bank, calorie restriction in Gaza, poisoned wells, theft of water and land confiscation. As chapters of Israeli state formation, all of the above followed from the 1948 extinction of 500 towns and villages, and the dispersal or violent elimination of two thirds of the Palestinian people; the inaugural yet ongoing acts of Palestine’s Nakba.
The concomitant suppression and censorship of today’s protests, in line with Canada’s shameful condemnation of the non-violent Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement, the labelling of the Palestinian flag as support for terrorism, the surge in harassment and defamation of Palestinian students and faculty on Canadian campuses, fueled by Canada’s disgraceful adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s weaponized definition of antisemitism, have fanned the flames of misinformation and encouraged the lies at the heart of the racial contract and colonial project of the Israeli state. Until this project of eliminating and replacing the native is stopped, and its effects recognized and rectified, we fear Israel’s genocidal intent will be realized. •
This article first published on the PCAAN website.
Statement in Response to University of Toronto VP-International’s “Message to the Community on the War in the Middle East”
To: President Meric Gertler, Vice-President Communications Christine Szustaczek, Vice-President International, Joseph Wong, Dr. Kelly Hannah-Moffat, and Dr. Alison Burgess:
As members of the University of Toronto community, we write to express our shock and disappointment at the statement released by the University of Toronto’s Office of Vice President International on October 9, 2023. Our university speaks about the importance of inclusion, compassion, and care for all equity-deserving groups, yet the statement made no mention of attacks on Palestinian civilians, and also failed to acknowledge the context and impact of the ongoing occupation of Palestine.
We, as University of Toronto community members of all backgrounds, have three significant concerns about the University’s statement:
- This statement mentioned only the attacks on Israeli civilians. It did not acknowledge the latest militarised violence enacted upon Palestinian civilians, which at the time of the statement had already seen renewed bombarding of Gaza neighbourhoods, as well as the Israeli decision on October 8th to disconnect Gaza’s access to water, electricity, fuel, food and humanitarian aid. This assault has killed more than 1,800 Palestinians since October 7th, 2023 – at least 500 of whom are children. Many University of Toronto community members are from Palestine or have loved ones in Palestine. Some of these loved ones are now missing, injured, or dead. These members of our community need and deserve acknowledgment, concern, support, and care.
- The statement failed to acknowledge the brutal, untenable conditions that Israel has long imposed on Palestinians, which have been decried specifically as crimes of apartheid and oppression by major human rights authorities including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. The events of the past week are a direct result of these ongoing conditions, and by failing to provide this context, the University has contributed to the villainization of Palestinians – the impact of which is already being felt by our students, staff, faculty, and alumni.
- A statement on events in Israel-Palestine was only made when there was a mass attack on Israelis. However, Gaza has been subjected to a 17-year blockade, as well as multiple Israeli bombardments resulting in large numbers of civilian deaths:
- 2008 – 1,385 Palestinians killed, including 318 children
- 2012 – 168 Palestinians killed, including 33 children
- 2014 – 2,251 Palestinians killed, including over 1,500 children
- 2018 – 214 Palestinians killed, including 46 children
- 2021 – 230 Palestinians killed, including 67 children [Source: Visualizing Palestine]
- Furthermore, the ongoing Israeli occupation commits daily acts of violence against Palestinians, including the killing of civilians, infliction of life-altering injuries, sexual violence, house demolition, and arbitrary detention. These atrocities received no comparable statement of support from the President’s Office or International Office.
We, the undersigned, decry and mourn the loss of civilian lives, Palestinian and Israeli. We ask that Palestinians’ lives, traumas, and families be valued by the University of Toronto equally with Jewish people and other equity-deserving groups.
The University of Toronto has stated a commitment to the equity, diversity, and inclusion needs of all students, faculty, and staff. However, the exclusion of Palestinian community members from your statement has already resulted in:
- Palestinian students, staff, and faculty at U of T facing heightened anti-Palestinian racism in the form of threats, hostility from classmates, silencing, and suppression;
- Arab and/or Muslim U of T community members who are not Palestinian also becoming targets of anti-Palestinian racism, as anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia operate in tandem;
- Other U of T community members who support Palestinian human and civil rights feel scared, silenced, and alienated.
These issues have arisen not only from the University of Toronto’s most recent statement, but also from the University’s broader neglect and erasure of Palestinian community members as an equity-deserving group.
To address these serious issues, we, the undersigned members of your community, request that the University of Toronto:
- Release a statement explicitly acknowledging both recent and long-standing violence against Palestinians, and affirming their right to safety, dignity, and freedom.
- Publicly support and reaffirm the academic freedom of faculty who are vilified for speaking about Palestine based on their scholarly expertise.
- Support Palestinian community members as an equity-deserving group, including: outreach to Palestinian community members, inviting all community members to report incidents of islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, and offering expanded mental and emotional health support to impacted Palestinian students.
- Commission a Presidential, Provostial, and Vice-Presidential Working Group to make recommendations to support the University’s response to anti-Palestinian racism, just as the University has commissioned working groups to address antisemitism, anti-Black racism, and anti-Asian racism.
We ask that the university uphold its integrity as Canada’s leading research institution, and its commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, by providing a public response to this letter by Thursday, October 19, 2023. •
