The activists dig in, and everyone gives in
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During the week of Yom ha-Shoah, the commemoration of the Holocaust, activists taunted a memorial march that was making its way from the Auschwitz death camp in Poland to the nearby crematoria at Birkenau. In Athens, Greek riot police dispersed a braying mob that was trying to break into a hotel where some Israelis were reported to be staying, at Omonia Square.
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In Gaza and in Tel Aviv, Palestinians and Israelis were in turns elated and then tormented by rumours of a ceasefire that turned out to be like a mirage in the desert. And in Canada, owing to “safety and security considerations,” there will be no public ceremony attending to the raising of the Israeli flag on Israel’s Independence Day May 14, the City of Ottawa announced Tuesday.
“This decision is based on recent intelligence that suggests hosting a public ceremony poses a substantial risk to public safety.”
In keeping with Ottawa’s custom of hosting flag-raising ceremonies and other such events in honour of 190 countries around the world, the flag will be raised, but Ottawa is telling everyone to stay away. It would be unsafe to attend. “The City must prioritize the safety of its residents, visitors, and employees.”
Ottawa’s capitulation followed a widely-circulated harangue issued by the “Ottawa 4 Palestine” group, advising that “the shameless Zionists along with disgraceful city council members are planning to raise the genocide flag in city hall to commemorate the 76 years of occupation, land theft, Zionist terrorism and injustice.”
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Rather than merely announce a protest at the flag-raising ceremony, Ottawa 4 Palestine explicitly invited its supporters to “shut it down.”
Ottawa complied in advance.
On the far side of the country, University of British Columbia president and vice-chancellor Benoit-Antoine Bacon sent a letter to students and faculty on Tuesday reassuring everyone that the UBC administration was “actively monitoring” a fenced encampment of about 100 anti-Israel activists who took over MacInnes Field last week.
“This protest is part of a broader movement that started in the United States and has now spread to Canada. Students are looking at a world in crisis and at their core, the campus protests are seeking the end of violence in Israel and Palestine.”
The end of violence in Israel and Palestine is not quite what the encampment’s organizers say they’re after. The “People’s University” is demanding that UBC Endowment Fund shed its investment in Israel’s “settler-colonial occupation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide of Palestinians.” Their demands also include the university’s submission to a global academic boycott of Israeli universities, and a commitment from UBC to keep police away from the campus.
Nevertheless, Bacon said the university community should be expected to “peacefully co-exist” with the activists making these demands, and UBC has invited the encampment’s representatives to discuss the university’s investments.
There is nothing to discuss, an encampment spokesperson told a CBC reporter last week. “We’re not really hear to negotiate. We’re here until our demands are met.”
And so the activists dig in.
UBC doesn’t even hold direct investments in Israel. The UBC Endowment Fund is managed by external investment managers, and investments in “problematic” companies comprise what Bacon estimates to be less than one per cent of the Endowment Fund’s assets.
The UBC encampment was heavily promoted by the Samidoun network, the Vancouver-headquartered overseas recruitment and propaganda arm of the terrorist-listed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Neither Samidoun, the PFLP or Hamas are “seeking the end of violence in Israel and Palestine.” Ottawa 4 Palestine certainly isn’t.
The U.S. Anti-Defamation League identifies Samidoun as one of the key instigators behind the civil disturbances that have erupted across the United States since last October’s bloody Hamas-led pogrom in Southern Israel, the event that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Shortly after activists began setting up the UBC encampment last Wednesday, the Vancouver Police Department arrested Samidoun international coordinator Charlotte Kates as she was leaving the campus. In a prepared statement, Samidoun reported that “VPD officers nabbed Kates while she was on the bus” leaving UBC.
Kates is facing charges under Section 319 of the Criminal Code, which provides jail terms of up to two years for the public incitement or wilful promotion of hatred. The charges arise from a bloodcurdling harangue Kates delivered on April 26 at a rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
“Long live October 7” she shouted.
“We stand with the Palestinian resistance and their heroic and brave action on October 7 . . . Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Islamic Jihad is not a terrorist organization. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is not a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization. These are resistance fighters. These are our heroes. These are those who are sacrificing so that we can live and speak and struggle and fight. These are the people whose blood is being shed to defend humanity and to defend the world.”
After being briefly detained and questioned last Wednesday, Kates was released on condition that she stay away from protests, rallies and demonstrations while Vancouver’s major crimes squad completes its investigation. Kates is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 8.
It is not clear how broadly her release conditions can be interpreted, however. Over the weekend, Kates participated in a webinar sponsored by the PFLP-aligned Masir Badil coalition, which Samidoun co-founded in October, 2021. The webinar’s keynote speaker, introduced by Kates, was Hamas politburo member and foreign-relations chief Osama Hamdan.
During his remarks, Hamdan stated that even if a ceasefire with Israel is reached in Gaza, “this doesn’t mean that the confrontation will stop,” Hamdan said. Hamas would remain devoted to Israel’s destruction and would turn its attention to fomenting violence in the West Bank, “our priority in the next stage.”
Hamden also applauded Russia and China for protecting Hamas at the United Nations Security Council against the “criminalization of the resistance.”
In a prepared statement, Samidoun described Kates’ arrest in similar terms. It’s all about the “criminalization of the resistance.”
The VPD’s criminal investigation of Kates is “an attack on the Palestinian people, part of a longstanding effort by Israel and its imperialist allies to criminalize and de-legitimize Palestinian people, their political organizations and their allies.”
Except it isn’t. It’s a vanishingly rare exception to an almost iron-clad rule in Canada: Instead of criminalization, outright capitulation.
National Post
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