Faculty union to vote on military divestment at dismay of pro-Israel community

Ryan Moore, News Editor
Featured image courtesy of Michael Zusev, Photo Editor

The York University Faculty Association is getting ready to vote on endorsing the YU Divest campaign, a motion to prohibit York from investing in the arms trade.
Last month, the YUFA Executive took up a request from members of Amnesty International at York to support the campaign.
Seventy-six organizations now support the YU Divest campaign.
This development has garnered a response from Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, who have been vocal in their disapproval over the YUFA Executive, urging Jewish students not to attend York.
YUFA will vote on divestment motion on March 4.
Presidents of Hillel and Hasbara at York released a joint statement also condemning the YUFA Executive, claiming
YU Divest originates from the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions movement.
The YUFA Executive reviewed its vote in favour of endorsing the YU Divest campaign on February 12.
“By a margin of 11 to one, the Executive reaffirmed its position based on the clarification, also made at the last Stewards’ Council, that such an endorsement is not an endorsement of BDS,” reads the press release.
“Again, the cause we would be supporting is the general one of having the York endowment fund divest from weapons firms from any state or doing business with any state.”
YUFA will vote on the divestment motion on March 4.

Student Centre Mural

Roger Waters of Pink Floyd recently wrote to York in support of freedom of expression regarding the mural “Palestinian Roots” in the Student Centre. The mural garnered recent media attention when high profile media mogul Paul Bronfman retracted his donations from the university because the mural was not removed.
Faculty members also released an open letter in support of free speech on campus in regards to the mural. The petition was co-initiated by professors Jody Berland and Ricardo Grinspun, who is a member of Senate.
President of the Campus Conservatives York University, Willem Hart, spoke about the mural with Ezra Levant on The Rebel. Hart told Excalibur he thinks many of the faculty signatories are from BDS supporters.
“The mural is just a symptom of the bigger problem at York University, namely BDS,” he says.
“By endorsing and teaching such a blatantly false, one-sided, and bigoted narrative about the complexities of Israeli-Arab geopolitical history, they forfeit their legitimacy not only as academics, but as fair arbiters about the conflict. Of course a professor who supports boycotting Israel will have no issue with a painting glorifying Palestinian terrorism.”
“The fact is that BDS goes against Canadian values,” says Hart.
“It is a contravention of Ontario law to discriminate against persons by their place of origin, which is exactly what BDS promotes in blacklisting Israeli academics, institutions, and artists. It goes against the spirit of our pluralistic, inclusive society, as BDS and Israeli Apartheid Week activities merely masks the underlying harassment and violence against Jewish students on campus.”
Berland says she does not know if anyone who signed the letter also supports BDS. She didn’t ask them and they haven’t discussed it.
“Whoever said that may infer an anti-Israeli or even anti-Semitic bias to the faculty concern with public space and free expression at York, and I would strongly contest this idea,” she says.
“I simply oppose a double standard when it comes to the freedom of expression (insofar as the expression does not promote hatred of others).”
Berland offered the following:
“For instance, no one protesting the Palestinian painting because it might offend or unnerve Jewish students protested the insulting pictures of Islamic figures that have circulated widely in Europe (sometimes with tragic effects); as I pointed out to one of my colleagues, I did not hear pro-Zionist colleagues objecting that Danish or French cartoonists — who were most definitely promoting hatred of others — were offending or degrading people of another religion. In my opinion pro-Zionist students and colleagues seem to be very, very quick to latch onto any criticism of Israeli military policies as being anti-Semitic, while being very lax about insults or threats to people of other religions. The result is sometimes the opposite of what they fear: critics of Israel are targeted, maligned, and even suspended from York, while charges continue to circulate (despite having been publicly rejected by my Jewish Studies colleagues in the humanities [department]) that York is anti-Semitic.”
“Be that as it may, the separate coalition of student clubs and organizations arguing that York U should divest itself from arms manufacturers include a wide variety of groups, and under no circumstances can it be considered to be motivated by religious or anti-religious or anti-Zionist views. I began my university education in the late 1960s, and it was common then (as it has been in other times in the 20th century) for students to object to universities profiting from arms sales or other engagements with military activities. I am happy that young people today are coming to the same view, regardless of their religion.”
“Similarly, I think people who oppose Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and the ways that Palestinians are being isolated, punished, and reduced may or may not support BDS initiatives. I would be careful not to put all critics of Zionist militarism into one category of thought.”
Grinspun, who co-initiated the letter, added to Berland’s comments:
“When we ask for signatures from colleagues we don’t test their views on issues not covered in the letter. All we ask is if they agree with the letter. If they – the ones you cite labeling themselves as ‘pro-Israel students’ – want to engage in that harmful game of sorting people into different groups (acceptable/not acceptable, support/not support BDS, etc.) so be it. We do not engage in such behaviour. The letter speaks for itself and does not require additional parsing.”
“Regarding the context for this, I am a Jewish person and I do not assign right-wing Jewish organizations the right to represent my views on anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is too serious a matter to allow Hillel, Hasbara, and their friends to use it as a manipulative tool to silence the critics of the Netanyahu policies and to restrict freedom of expression in campus. Doing so is disparaging to the victims of anti-Semitism, which is a real scourge, which must be tackled seriously and is something very different than the movement defending Palestinian rights.”
Hasbara at York offered a response to Excalibur regarding the letter in support of free speech:
“I regret that this is the impression left by the disappointment of pro-Israel students, but it’s honestly unfounded,” says Rena Silver, political liaison of Hasbara at York.
“There is nothing about our discomfort with the mural that has to do with ‘sorting people into different groups.’ As a member of Hasbara at York who identifies as a Liberal, I also find it problematic to be sorted into a group labelled conservative. That being said, I am no more able to define as an individual the meaning of left wing or right wing than my Judaism qualifies me to define anti-Semitism. Let’s leave that to Webster’s Dictionary which defines anti-Semitism as ‘prejudice and hostility towards the Jewish people.’ This has nothing to do with criticisms of Netanyahu or any legitimate discourse of the state of Israel … this is about anti-Semitism. Free speech is of course a Canadian value that I hold dear, but this crosses the line into hate speech, and even more-so as a Canadian, it is unacceptable.”