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February 20, 2009
Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) calls for protest of Carleton University's harrassment of student organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week by Diana Ralph (IVJ) Our IJV Steering Committee has voted to endorse the March Israeli Apartheid Week events organized by Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) at Carleton. We believe that the students have exercised appropriate and laudable initiative in organizing this event. It will bring world-renowned speakers, including Omar Barghouti and Ronnie Kasrils to Carleton and raise opportunities for the kind of cutting-edge academic discourse that Carleton should encourage. However, with virtually no explanation, Carleton President Roseann Runte and Provost Feridun Hamdullahpur have banned and confiscated the SAIA poster announcing Israeli Apartheid Week, and threatened to punish SAIA students with expulsion, claiming that they have somehow violated the Ontario Human Rights Code. SAIA has since decided to change the poster to protect the program. However the students are still vulnerable to harassment and intimidation. I am writing to ask you to write emails of support for SAIA. I am attaching our IJV letter which you can use as a model. Some of you may be offended by events which equate Israeli policies with Apartheid. I hope that you will still stand up for free speech and for academic discourse. Independent Jewish Voices respects a wide diversity of views, and encourages respectful discussion. Criticizing Israeli policies is NOT anti-Semitic. The Israeli government claims to speak for all Jews, and characterizes any criticism of Israel as “the new anti-Semitism.” We believe that Canadian universities should not condone this ethical smokescreen. No one group or country speaks for Jews. More and more Jews world-wide, as well as in Israel, oppose oppressive Israeli policies. To responsibly raise critical concerns about the discriminatory, illegal, and brutal policies of another country is an ethical imperative, which our universities should support. You can see the SAIA poster advertising Israeli Apartheid Week (http://apartheidweek.org/en/outreach). It accurately portrays the experience of residents of Gaza (as well as many other Palestinians): Besieged, starving civilians imprisoned behind walls and targeted by Israeli war planes. In the January assault on Gaza, a large proportion of the casualties were children like the one portrayed in the poster. This poster does not demean or attack Jews, and it does not promote hatred of Jews. It is not anti-Semitic. It appropriately criticizes actual Israeli behaviour condemned by the UN and almost all countries (sadly not including Canada). In the face of threats and confiscation of the poster, SAIA members have decided to change their poster. However, they still need our support. We endorse the Carleton Israeli Apartheid Week programme. We urge you to email Carleton President Roseann Runte presidents_office@carleton.ca and Provost Feridun Hamdullahpur provost@carleton.ca to express your support for the members of Students Against Israeli Apartheid and for free speech. Please copy your letters to saia.carleton@gmail.com. Letters of protest sent to Carleton University President.
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