That is the outcome of the court battle at the University of Toronto. Over 60 days ago students pitched tents on King’s College Circle on U of T’s downtown campus to protest the university’s silence on the genocide in Gaza. The students wanted U of T to open its books to reveal its investments – notably companies that supply arms, weapons and bombs to the Israeli military as well as banks that invest in Israeli companies such as weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems. Students wanted divestment from financial ties to arms-makers, suppliers, funders and companies that operate in the occupied West Bank. Students also wanted to sever academic ties to Israeli institutions –including universities, something the U of T President Meric Gertler insisted was “antithetical to the university’s fundamental mission and values.”
The university applied for an injunction to order the end of the encampment. The judge ordered an injunction based on “trespass”—the hundreds of students and supporters of Palestinians were trespassing on the private grounds of the University of Toronto. That doesn’t sit well does it? Outside the courthouse, encampment spokesperson Erin Mackey noted, “The University of Toronto would rather call the police on its own students than divest.”
The encampment has been ordered to disband by 6 pm Wednesday, July 3.
The genocide targeted by protesters is largely one-sided. From October 7, 2023, It’s only the Palestinians who have been slaughtered—40,000 in nine months.—including 15,000 children. There have been more than 87,000 seriously injured and there are still more than 10,000 Palestinians who are missing (many buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings). Palestinians have been killed and maimed by one of the largest and best equipped arms in the world, the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF).
The injunction clears students from accusation of antisemitism
While the injunction’s main part is disappointing, anti-genocide Jewish groups, Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), the Jewish Faculty Network (JFN) and the United Jewish People’s Order (UJPO) nevertheless won a big victory. Based largely on the arguments of these groups, Ontario Superior Court Justice Markus Koehnen agreed that there is no evidence the encampment participants have been violent or antisemitic as argued by the university and several pro-Israel groups. For months members of the establishment Jewish community had insisted the encampment rendered that area of U of T “unsafe” for Jews and Jewish students and faculty.
On the main issue, the judge, ruled that the encampment has taken away the university’s ability to control what happens on the area known as King’s College Circle.
To be confronted with a court decision that denies the Jewish community’s insufferable focus on their own “feelings” rather than the massive humanitarian catastrophe created by Israel in Gaza must be a put-down for the pro-Israel Jews.
Israeli society is “in total denial”
And it’s not the Jews in Israel who are terribly affected or suffering; we know this because many journalists have written that Israeli Jews show very little interest in what is going on a mere 71 km from Tel Aviv. One of Israel’s leading journalists Gideon Levy (of Ha’aretz) interviewed last month by Al Jazeera said, “Israeli society is living in total denial” about what is going on in Gaza. This denial, he insists, is massaged and pushed by Israel’s craven media.
“I would love to see one debate in Israeli media in which the question will be raised,” said Levy. “Did we commit crimes of war in Gaza or not?”
It does not look as though the tap of billions of dollars of aid, weapons, bombs and more (from the US, Canada and western Europe) will be turned off any time soon. All of the threats and warnings by members of the UN, have not counted for much. The last “ceasefire” took place in the last week of November 2023. Since then Israel has been relentlessly bombing and killing throughout Gaza – a strip that is only 41 km long and 10 km wide. More than 2 million people live there, sleeping on the pavement, in the ruins of collapsed buildings, under tents made of plastic bags. The Gaza Strip has nearly 80% as many people as the City of Toronto, but only 57% as much territory. Today’s news revealed that more than 2 million Gazans have been displaced and have nowhere safe to go.
Left: Dr Adnan al-Bursh, murdered by Israel (Twitter); right: Dr Abu Salmiya (left) after his recent release from 7 months in prison. Photo taken at Nasser Hospital, in Gaza (BBC).
Israel frees a physician hero, and kills another doctor
Two days ago Dr Abu Salmiya was released from an Israeli prison after seven months. The mainstream media claims it’s a “credit” to Israel that he was released; Israel claims it was because of overcrowding in the prisons. Dr Abu Salmiya was the medical director of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza—which Israel totally destroyed in late March 2024. The world knows he should never have been abducted and imprisoned by the Israelis to begin with. After his release he said not only was there a lack of food and water in Israel’s prisons, but that many medical staff who had been jailed with him had died in prison. For instance in April, Dr Adnan al-Bursh, head of orthopaedics at Al Shifa hospital died in detention. Said Dr Abu Salmiya,
“We were subjected to severe torture, and my little finger was broken. I was repeatedly subjected to being hit on the head, causing bleeding many times. There was almost daily torture in the Israeli prisons. When prisoners’ cells were raided, they were severely beaten every day.”
Just two days ago, Dr Hassan Hamdan and his entire family were killed in their home by an Israeli missile strike. Dr Hamdan was the head of Burns and Plastic Surgery at Nasser Hospital in Deir Al Balah.
A week ago Gaza’s Director of Ambulance and Emergency, Hani al-Jafarawi was killed by an Israeli airstrike on a health clinic in Gaza City. Hani al-Jafarawi, described as a “pillar” of Gaza’s health system, is reported to be the 500th medical worker killed by Israeli forces since October 7. This is more than the total number of healthcare worker deaths recorded across all countries in conflict in 2021 and 2022 combined.
These are deliberate killings, not happenstance, and not mistakes. According to Relief Web, a service of the UN’s OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) the Israeli military has conducted more than 435 attacks on healthcare in Gaza.
Back to U of T…
Let’s get back to University of Toronto. In late 2023, 555 Jewish physicians who work in research hospitals affiliated with University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine (TFOM) demanded the right to work “openly as Zionists” and “free of any sort of censure”. What does this mean? You need to know it is the physicians who call themselves “Jewish physicians” in DARA (Doctors Against Racism and Antisemitism) –not me. In the DARA letter, the doctors stated that leaders in academia have issued statements that “collide with equity, diversity and inclusion for Jews, or which make Jews feel unsafe and unwelcome.” The letter does not specify which statements it refers to. The signatories of the letter from DARA (Doctors Against Racism and Antisemitism) called for Jewish faculty to “[receive] the same consideration and protection that the TFOM provides to other minority groups.” Something tells me there was not much concern for racism experienced by non-Jews and people of colour.
So Jewish doctors in Toronto (they specify that’s how they want to be known), who are pro-Israel, feel unsafe. Yet there has been not one reported incident or threat to any Jewish doctor in that city. In fact Dr David Jacobs, a well-known pro-Israel Toronto radiologist, posts vicious things on his Twitter feed. Recently he condemned a U of T professor for daring to say that Israel was a settler colonial power; he calls out her course CTL 133H Settler Colonialism and Pedagogies of Liberation (see below). He says it is racist to suggest Jews are colonizers in their own homeland. He claims there is an effort to whitewash the antisemitism that has been rampant at the U of T; he insists (without evidence) that the dismantled encampment will leave behind “abandoned vile antisemitic banners.” Dr Jacobs is supports the Tories and is a proponent of privatized health care.
Two weeks after Oct 7, 2023, according to Dr Tarek Loubani’s site, “Jacobs and other doctors were part of a highly organized harassment campaign fomented in private groups and involving pressure from organisations like CIJA and B’nai Brith.” That pressure led to the suspension of Dr Ben Thomson from Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital, just outside of Toronto. Thomson, on social media, had advocated against the dehumanization of Palestinians. As Toronto Star columnist Shree Paradkar noted: “At a time when many institutions are stifling voices who support Palestinians, this could well be a litmus test for whether and when employers can punish such employees for publicly expressing their views.”Dr Thomson is suing the hospital
New appointment to U of T’s Governing Council
Dr Jacobs was recently designated the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council appointee to the University of Toronto’s Governing Council. That means Ontario’s Conservative government is validating, rewarding and encouraging his vitriol.
However, there have been serious threats, firings and discipline meted out to dozens of non-Jewish doctors in Toronto and Ottawa who have dared to support Palestinians and their right to not be killed by Israel.
For more on this read my newsletters, here, here and here. And read Shree Paradkar’s excellent article in the Toronto Star here.
Image at the top: Taking down the encampment at University of Toronto, 3 July 2024 (Credit: CP24)
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