The New Chutzpah: Canceling Palestinian Solidarity in Canada

War/Peace  •  August 18, 2024  •  Judy Haiven

Many of you know that the Yiddish word chutzpah means extreme self-confidence or audacity. It is defined here: a young man murders his parents then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan. The new definition of chutzpah is Israel – the Jewish state – killing 186,000 people in ten months, denying it, then getting Jews around the world to also deny it.

The longer Israel’s war on Gaza goes on, the more frenzied and desperate pro-Israel Jews in Canada become. A few months ago pro-Israel Jews pleaded for the release of the hostages, and tried to pressure Netanyahu to release the Jewish hostages. But the powerful in Israel, led by Netanyahu, turned a deaf ear and refused to even consider some kind of hostage/prisoner exchange beyond a very limited one in November 2023. Now we seldom hear a word about the hostages. In fact the pro-Israel community is so slavish toward Israel that whatever those in power in Israel say – well Canadian Jews are merely Israel’s echo chamber. The pro-Israel Jews just go along with it. No matter how ridiculous, dangerous, or dishonest.

Why Do Some Jews Go Along With Genocide?

But why? I don’t recall one other war, or one other public issue that we Canadians are forbidden from talking about, prevented from taking action against, labelled as terrorists, or Hamas lovers because we demand a ceasefire. We demand Israel stop it’s heinous genocide against millions of mainly women and children in Gaza and the West Bank.

But if we dare speak against Israel, or in favour of Palestinians, we can be fired, harassed, doxxed, denied jobs, not allowed to graduate, and more. In this column, I’ll look at the many aspects of the “cancel culture” used by those in the pro-Israel establishment and their friends such as evangelical Christians.

You will have to bear with me. This is a detailed account of pro-Israel individuals and institutions such as B’nai Brith and the Simon Wiesenthal Center that have taken on the duties of stopping any discussion about or sympathy toward Palestinians.

First I want to mention these facts:

1. The pro-Israel Jewish community in Canada denies that Israel has wantonly killed at least 40,000 Palestinians – overwhelmingly women and children – in cold blood since October 7. The Lancet claims the figure could more likely be 186,000 – which includes all the people who died in the collapsed buildings, and those who have died of injuries, disease and starvation which Gazans have had to endure for many months.
2. The pro-Israel Jewish community also denies that in the Gaza strip, Israel has destroyed more than 412,000 buildings, mostly homes, 80% of schools, virtually all 18 hospitals (only 3 are partially open), all 12 Gaza universities, 241 mosques, and many churches.
3. Another thing the pro-Israel Jews deny is that Israel has deliberately slowed or stopped food and water deliveries to Gaza, causing mass starvation. Without food and water shipments, Israel has forced all Gazans to drink polluted water and many to eat grass and leaves. Now in Gaza, there is evidence of Polio. The UN reported in June an increase in Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis. Many people are also noting the spread of a highly contagious skin disease in Gaza.

I don’t think one Canadian Jew has lost a business, a profession, a career, a home, a job, an opportunity because of antisemitism

Canada’s pro-Israel Jews (in denying or ignoring all of the above) have found a way to try to get a very different message across and to keep debate away from Gaza. Their message is that Jews in Canada are facing horrifying cases of antisemitism. An antisemitism so vile and pernicious that not one Jew we know of has lost his or her job. No Jew has lost their place in medical school or any professional school, their livelihood, their housing, their supply of water or food, their opportunity to pray and live in any community in Canada. No Canadian Jew has lost their ability to practice law, dentistry, engineering, science, medicine or any other profession. Not one Jew in Canada has been wounded, maimed or killed because they are a Jew.

The pro-Israel Jews stoke the lie that they are the ones under fire, and refuse to reference or even think about the genocide of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank – savagely killed by Israel– the state that claims to speak for all Jews worldwide.

This world is topsy-turvy.

• Students who oppose Israel’s genocide have their tents ripped down, get arrested and find their student status in jeopardy because the establishment Jews complain to the universities that they don’t want the tents or any reminder of Palestinians’ lives on campuses.
• Some students who support Palestinians human rights are told that they cannot graduate, are barred from interning or articling jobs if they dare to wear a keffiyah, or sign a letter for a ceasefire

Let’s look at some of the areas in which those who support Palestine or dare to question or oppose Israel have felt the full weight of pro-Israel forces cancelling them, and trying to destroy them. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it is a list of what the pro-Israel groups have done to stop free speech, and to punish anyone who supports the Palestinians.

Medicine

• There are at least 10 doctors in the Toronto area who have been suspended or lost their jobs, or faced possible discipline because they used social media to condemn Israeli genocide.
• The “whisper campaign” includes targeting medical students and profs who signed open letters for a ceasefire, or posted against genocide social media. In the last couple of years Dr Ritika Goel is one of 3,000 healthcare professionals, a professor at the Temerty School of Medicine at the University of Toronto who had signed an open letter to express solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza – where Israel had killed Palestinian doctors and bombed clinics. She was labelled as pro-Palestinian, and “antisemitic” but sympathetic to terrorism and more – though she is a medical professor at the University of Toronto’s Temerty School of Medicine. She had friends willing to help her fight, so she was able to retain her position.
• Dr Yipeng Ge was tossed from his medical residency program by a pro-Israel doctor who didn’t like Ge’s posts in support of Palestine. Ge was then taunted and humiliated because of his stance when he was the student representative on the board of the Canadian Medical Association. He was suspended from that role as well. Ge, who has a medical degree from the University of Ottawa, had gone to Harvard for training. He has also done medical/humanitarian work in Gaza.
• Dr Gem Newman the Univ. of Manitoba’s medical school valedictorian called out medical professionals and associations for “deafening silence” on the humanitarian crisis there. College of medicine dean Dr. Peter Nickerson, called Newman’s remarks “divisive and inflammatory,” Businessman Ernest Rady, who donated $30-million in memory of his late father an early U of M medical graduate who was Jewish. Rady was furious and called the Newman speech “hate speech… and lies.” He demanded that the film of commencement – notably Newman’s speech – not be posted on social media.
• Arij Al Khafagi was suspended from the Univ. of Manitoba nursing program because she dared to criticize Israel in her social media posts – “condemning the Israeli government and the military for the atrocious acts that they were committing.” Al Khafagi was the president of the U of Manitoba’s Nursing Students’ Association. Her suspension lasted 3 months – until an investigation decided she was “not antisemitic.” She was then reinstated, and noted, “I don’t have an agenda of hate or bias or anything. I share the perspective of unity and humanity.”

• Dr Ben Thomson, a nephrologist at the Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital north of Toronto, was disciplined by his hospital for posting pro-Palestinian social media. He dared to say that there is no evidence of Hamas decapitatingbabies. He was suspended from practice for months, and he had to move house because of threats he received including this: “This message is for Dr. Ben Thomson. Remove your post regarding Israel. It is disgusting, you are a disgusting human being, you do not know what you’re saying, and if you do not remove it, I advise you and the rest of your staff to stay out of your office.” He is now suing the hospital and some of the doctors.

Law

• Law firms in the Toronto have announced they won’t give jobs to articling students mostly from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and York University who signed a letter in support of Palestinians. More than 74 law students signed an open letter for a ceasefire. A retired chief justice from Nova Scotia exonerated these students of antisemitism, but don’t hold your breath waiting for those law firms to reverse their decision.
• Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General required TMU law students applying for jobs to sign a form saying they did not sign an open letter in support of Palestine in October.

Culture

• The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) was forced to revise wording of exhibit on Palestinans’ dispossession for a show in Oct. 2023, “Being and Belonging”
• The ROM stopped its art show Death, Life’s Greatest Mystery which profiled Palestinian artists who portrayed the culture around Muslim death and burial; it was only allowed to go ahead, when the ROM also featured Jewish burials.
• Indigenous art curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario Wanda Nanibush left her job of nine years after supporting Palestnians’ rights after Oct. 7. It’s not clear if she was fired, but she definitely was harassed because of her pro-Palestinian politics.
• A number of artists and curators accused the Art Canada Institute (ACI) of trying to suppress Lands Within, a photography exhibit that amplified the voices of a group of Arab and Muslim artists. The online art platform, which is part of the University of Toronto, demanded that some of the photos be subject to a last minute “sensitivity review” to ensure they would not offend. Many artists withdrew from the show and it was cancelled in Nov. 2023. Artists also withdrew from projects with the ACI, because the ACI’s executive director Sara Angel supported a letter that targeted former Art Gallery of Ontario curator Wanda Nanibush (see below).
• Two women who were marshals at a pro-Palestine rally were assaulted, one knocked to the ground, by a man more than twice their age in St John’s NF. In 43 weeks of marches in support of Palestine, this has been the only violent act.

Education

• Students who participated in the McGill encampment were called “antisemites” by the university administration threatened with not being allowed back to classes, or not graduating.
• The pro-Israel lobby, despite no physical evidence, says students are scared by the pro-Palestinian encampments at at least a dozen universities across Canada. All but one encampment have now been shut down.
• A school board in the London, Ontario area has banned t-shirts that read “Free Palestine,” though “Free Ukraine” is acceptable.
• A student in a high school in (near Toronto) was addressed by a guidance counsellor in a “harmful and discriminatory anti-Palestinian racist language.” The teacher was sent home for “likening a student to a terrorist for wearing a Keffiyeh.”
• The Toronto District School Board has persecuted Javier Dávila because, as part of his job of sending information to the teachers, he sent materials that supported the Palestinian cause. He was suspended by the Toronto Board. This is his third complaint before a tribunal at the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
• In what is being billed as an “example of anti-Palestinian racism in Windsor, a video circulated on social media shows a young woman denied entry to a St. Clair College facility for wearing a keffiyeh.In a video posted to social media in May, a security can be heard telling the person recording she is not allowed inside the St. Clair College Centre for the Arts in Windsor, Ontario – ostensibly for wearing a keffiyeh, which he refers to as a “scarf” in the video. “I know what it means. You’re not allowed in here,” the guard was heard saying.

• Seven students who stayed at the encampment to pressure the University of Waterloo to cut all financial and academic connections to Israel were sued by the university for $1.5 million, for property damage, trespass and intimidation. One of the encampment leaders calls this bullying and intimidation by the administration. The university would only drop the lawsuit if the students abandoned and shut down the encampment. So that is what they had to do.
• 13 pro-Israel faculty members are taking Simon Fraser University Faculty Union to court for passing motions that support Palestine and a ceasefire.
• An Ottawa student was suspended for posting a Palestinian flag on their online profile.
• City police removed a student at Humber College in Toronto for putting up stickers which said Boycott Israeli apartheid.
• McGill University and the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) revoked the McGill name from the student group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR). Prompted by McGill’s Vice-provost, it seems the students’ society, fearful of other sanctions, agreed to to this.
• In October, student groups at McGill University, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University, and York University held rallies and published statements showing their support for the people of Palestine and calling for an end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. In response, each university administration condemned the statements and threatened to decertify the student unions. On Oct. 13, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather demanded York University decertify its three student associations to maintain a “safe space for Jewish and ‘pro-Israel’ students on campus.”

Employment

• Four waitresses from a Moxies in Toronto were fired for applauding a pro-Palestine rally as it went by the restaurant. They were fired because B’nai Brith decided to contact the restaurant management and complain about “antisemitism.”
• Dozens of Jewish doctors used a “black list” to deny residency places to students who may have supported Palestinians
• Birju Dattani was denied the job as the CEO of the Canadian Human Rights Commission when B’nai Brith, Canadian Friends of Simon Wiesenthal backed up by the federal Conservative party revealed that Dattani sat on a panel with pro-Palestine speakers – when he was a grad student in the UK.
• The CBC has disciplined and stopped reporters and producers from exposing what Israel is really doing in Gaza.
• Zahraa Al-Akrass, an on-air reporter, was fired from Global TV because she posted pro-Palestinian comments on social media
• Yara Jamal was a video editor at CTV in Halifax. She was fired because she (a Canadian born in Palestine) “sympathized” with the Palestinian cause.
• Wanda Nanibush, Indigenous curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, criticized Israel’s genocide. After nine years she left the Gallery, but many think she was let go because of her outspoken support for Palestinians.

Politicians

• In Victoria BC, city councillor Susan Kim was able to keep her job by a thread after Victoria City Council lambasted her for signing an open letter that called for a ceasefire in Gaza, and “liking” a tweet in support of Palestinians. An investigator found that she did not draw the line between being a councillor and a private citizen. So far punishment is pending.
• Sarah Jama (Ontario NDP-MPP) was forced out of the NDP caucus because of her stand on Israel. She was accused by the caucus colleagues of being antisemitic, and pro-Palestinian.
• Marat Stiles, leader of the Ontario NDP, was forced to grovel an apology to the Jewish establishment for daring to tweet that at a recent craft fair she attended, she liked “beautiful Palestinian embroidery.” She was pressured by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre to remove her post.
• In April 2024, the speaker of the Ontario legislature banned anyone from wearing a keffiyeh in the legislative chamber.
• The Speaker at the Ontario legislature also ordered MPP Sarah Jama to leave, as she was wearing a Keffiyah. When she did not go, he barred her from voting that day.

This article first published on the Judy Haiven substack website.