Dear UMSU,

This is a personal statement, and it does not represent any group or organization.

I am sending this to you hoping that you would uphold principles of debate as paramount to any personal or reductionist approaches to policy. Students in Canada, and the West in general posses a privilege that people in the Arab world are dying for right now – a privilege that allows them unconditional and to a certain extent uncensored access to a vast amount of knowledge and information regarding events happening all around the world. As students in the West, we have access to professors that we will respond to our inquires within a very short period of time. Each university has at least four of five libraries with books that span all types of knowledge, and that present all points of views. We have access to the fastest internet in the world giving us a very valuable tool to ask questions, investigate events, conduct research and be able to reach an informed opinion. New buildings are being built on every university campuses primarily to facilitate our learning process, to enrich our experiences as university students and to produce academics with perspective.

We also have student unions with access to huge sums of money allocated to provide us with facilities to eat, meet, drink, socialize, hang out, debate and exchange opinions. These unions are meant to fight on behalf of the student in order to attain the highest level of education while lessening the burdens that students in conflict-ridden areas have on their shoulders. The student union is a space for constructive engagement, and is it a quintessentially political space designed specifically to send a political message that sometimes may appear “controversial.”

The Palestinian cause is a just cause. It is a cause grounded in a firm conviction that the Palestinian people faced an historical injustice that affects – till today – the daily lives of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories (the West Bank and Gaza), in the refugee camps, and in the diaspora. Over 750,000 Palestinians were – within a very short period of time – forcibly uprooted from their lands, and expelled to neighbouring countries (see Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine). A combined effort by the Zionist movement and the leaders of the dictatorial Arab regimes ensures that they remain stripped from their internationally accepted and protected right to return. When the Zionist movement realized that the so-called “Palestinian problem” is not going to magically disappear they opted for a system of control similar to the one adopted by the Apartheid regime in South Africa. A system that demands separating Palestinians not from Jews only, but from their own lands, and in certain cases, from their own families. For example, a Palestinian from the West Bank is separated by a racist law from his Israeli Palestinian wife.

To be able to farm his land, a Palestinian must gain a permit from his occupier in order to access a land that lies on the other side of an 26 feet high wall. The wall is not built on the internationally recognized 1967 borders, it is built inside Palestinian territories often dissecting villages, school and university campuses. Imagine a very high wall going through the campus of the University of Manitoba – I suspect that any Canadian student would stand idle when faced with such a travesty.

Fighting against racism, subjugation, occupation and Apartheid should not be labelled as controversial. It should be encouraged. I understand that student representatives are busy citing laws and bylaws that are meant to maintain constructive dialogue. I also understand the importance of making everybody feel safe, but by ignoring the fundamental principle of allowing students to advocate for rights that Canadian students would not under any circumstances sacrifice, UMSU committed a grave crime.

UMSU has set a very dangerous precedent that takes into consideration only one side of the story. By accepting a racist ideology as a “nationality” for Jews, UMSU is ignoring a very long tradition of fighting anti-Semitism. Jews in Europe faced the most atrocious of crimes primarily because they are Jews. When Zionism as a political ideology was first introduced to European Jewry, it was rejected almost unanimously by all European Jews. They feared that this new political ideology will strip Judaism from its essence. They feared that by politicizing their struggle, political Zionists will cause them more damage than good and will cause further alienation, stigmatization and death. Aha’ad Ha’am (a prominent Jewish thinker) was adamantly against these efforts. Letters from other Jewish intellectuals were sent to the leaders of this new strand of Zionism warning them about the ramifications of their efforts.

A large segment of the Jewish populations continue till this current day the efforts to expose Zionism for what it is – a racist ideology bent on the ethnic cleansing of an entire population to attain political objectives.

SAIA is not a controversial group. Fighting against Israel Apartheid is not controversial. And this is a fact that must be understood by student unions very clearly. Zionist strategies of citing violations of certain laws should be rejected and put within the appropriate historical and political context.

Muzzling the efforts of SAIA is not a matter of violating the law or upholding thereof. It is a matter of abusing certain systems of governance to attain insidious political outcomes. Using the law is merely part of a grand strategy to obfuscate a political reality and human tragedy in Palestine.

I, therefore, urge UMSU to consider these points, and reverse its decision to ban SAIA, and make it part of their mission to fight war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of human rights in Canada, Palestine and in every corner of earth.

Regards,
Omar Shaban

In yet another effort to muzzle speech that exposes Israeli war crimes and atrocities in occupied Palestine, Zionists at the University of Manitoba in the university’s Student Union (UMSU) passed a resolution to ban the Student Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) and its activities from campus on April 11, in a 19-16 divided vote, against the legal advice of the student union’s lawyer.

This ill-worded resolution claims that most “Jewish and Israeli members of the UMSU are Zionists which … are supporters of Zionism, international movement for the support of Israel.” It further claimed that “Zionists are a ‘group of persons’ which national characteristics, Israel being a nation-state.”

Based on these two premises, the UMSU concluded that Zionists are being ‘discriminated’ against and are a subject of ‘harassment’ because of “abusive and unwelcome conduct or comment undertaken or made on the basis of such national characteristics.” It should be noted that this happened shortly after a student union elections campaign focused on silencing supporters of Palestine.

Aside from the obvious fact that there are many factual, and, indeed, grammatical errors in this resolution – indicative of the lack of research and thoughtfulness on behalf of the drafter, and the lack of debate on this topic – the resolution couldn’t be further from the truth.

Many Jews and Israelis – students at the University of Manitoba or otherwise – are not Zionist, and this statement attempts to conflate religious identity and national origin with a specific, and racist, political ideology.

To make such a claim to falsely lump an entire community of believers under the banner of racist political ideology whose fundamental objective is to dispossess Palestinians, ethnically cleanse them and occupy their lands.

Because Zionism is a racist ideology, various Jewish authors and intellectuals have been voicing their objections to its aims. One prominent Israeli Jewish author who has challenged Zionism is Ilan Pappe. In his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappe declaimed that: “Until the occupation of Palestine by Britain in 1918, Zionism was a blend of nationalist ideology and a colonialist practice.”

The Zionist movement in Palestine was inconvenienced by the existence of the Palestinians on what they regarded as their ancestral homeland which prompted them to design a sadistic plan bent on eliminating this existence. According to Pappe in the same book, to dissuade Palestinians from fighting for the land, Plan C was adopted outlining a serious of punishments:

“Killing the Palestinian political leadership.
Killing Palestinian inciters and their financial supporters.
Killing Palestinians who acted against Jews.
Killingsenior Palestinian officersand officials [in the Mandatory system].
Damaging Palestinian transportation.
Damaging the sources of Palestinian livelihoods: water wells, mills, etc.
Attacking nearby Palestinian villages likely to assist in future attacks.
Attacking Palestinian clubs, coffee houses, meeting places, etc.”

Zionism is the political ideology that led to the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland, and continues to deny Palestinian refugees their right to return to the present day, and has justified occupation and ethnic cleansing for over 65 years on a racist and discriminatory basis.

This is the Zionism that the UMSU decided to protect; and instead of conducting proper research, opted for a decontextualized and narrow definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary – something that does not fit an academic institution such as the University of Manitoba.

Free Speech in Canada?

This is not the first time supporters of Palestine were muzzled on Canadian campuses. Previous failed campaigns to engender similar results were thwarted at McMaster University in Hamilton, York University in Toronto, Carleton University in Ottawa and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

These attempts ranged from outright banning of clubs, to banning their activities to simply characterizing their events as “controversial” to impose higher standards and dissuade students from participating in them.

Similarly, Canadian politician like Jason Kenney, Michael Ignatieff, Joyce Murray, and many others are on record for labelling of pro-Palestine activists as chauvinistic anti-Semites on a mission to eliminate Israel from existence.

According to Seriously Free Speech, “there is a concerted effort both in Canada and internationally to suppress open discussion on the subject of the Palestine/Israel conflict. This effort manifests itself in the media, in educational institutions, and in government, and includes attempts to criminalize or otherwise stigmatize criticism of Israel.”

Facts:
Jewish students across Canada are neither intimidated, nor are they targeted for their beliefs by SAIA or SPHR. In fact, many of these groups’ members are Jewish and are proud to voice their opposition to Zionism and the illegal practices of Israel in occupied Palestine.

Considering all Jews as Zionist, and labelling as such in mainstream media and various academic institutions is an explicit act of anti-Semitism. Not only does it strip Jews from the agency of selecting their own worldviews and ideologies, but it also makes them liable for the racist attitudes perpetuated by the Zionists.

If students, academics and politicians are truly interested in the promotion of human rights, then they should voice their unequivocal support of all the efforts conducted by SAIA and SPHR.

If students, academics and politicians are interested in debate on this particular issue, then they should conduct their own research first instead of relying in flimsy arguments and propaganda campaigns and narrow one-line definitions from a dictionary.

My reminders for the Zionists:

Zionists and their supporters must understand one simple piece of information. It is impossible to muzzle criticism of Israel, and it is impossible to put a stop the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli Apartheid. Students and academics who are at the forefront of the struggle against Israeli Apartheid are people who have conducted immense research, thought very carefully about the consequences of their actions and are well-aware that Israeli actions are immoral and illegal.

Any effort to muzzle free speech will be counterproductive. Students who support Palestinians and their inalienable rights are more adamant than ever to make it abundantly clear that the fight against Zionism will not interrupted via a single ill-worded resolution that will ultimately have no effect on the ground.

Canadians are becoming more aware of the issues. They have access to the internet and alternative media. They are aware of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinians, and they are aware of the plight of the Palestinian people in the refugee camps and the diaspora.

Around the world, ever-growing numbers of people are learning about Palestine and taking action to halt official and corporate complicity in Israeli war crimes. When Israeli officials cause the death of a single Palestinian, there are lawyers around the world committed to seeking justice and accountability in international courts.

Despite all the efforts of those who would silence Palestinians and their allies, the reality is that the truth will not be silenced, and justice for the Palestinians will be attained.

Omar Shaban is a third generation Palestinian refugee from the Nahr El-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon. He is the former president of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at UBC and a member of the organizing committee of Return and Liberation: Conference of the Palestinian Shatat in North America.

Originally posted on the Conference for the Palestinians in the Shatat website.

Obama’s speech in Ramallah reaffirmed my conviction that the conference that will be held in Vancouver in May is more important than ever – and this is why.

With an extremely patronizing and condescending attitude, and with a saviour mentality, Obama barged into the Palestinian territories unwelcomed to preach to Palestinians on how to go about resisting the occupation. He stood by the side of the PA’s unelected President Mahmoud Abbas surrounded by American flags with an annoying smirk on his face bragging about American support for the creation of “an independent and sovereign state of Palestine.” Note how he chose the preposition “of” instead of “in” indicative of the general American attitude towards Palestinian national self-determination, which demands that Palestinians forget about their sentimental, national and historical attachment to all of Palestine, settle for whatever is left and establish what may look like a state.

He then continued with commending Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad – Palestinian Authority officials who are widely recognized as willing puppets and symbols of corruption, exploitation and subservience to a settler colonial agenda. Brushing aside all the efforts of the Palestinian civil society and grassroots organizations at maintaining the existence of the Palestinian national identity, actively resisting the ongoing occupation of Palestine and serving the Palestinian community day after day, Obama insisted on highlighting what he referred to as “the progress they [Abbas and Fayyad] made,” which could not have been accomplished without the measly donations provided by USAID.

“Ramallah is a very different city” that suits what Obama wants Palestine to look like – the bastion of corruption, embezzlement and exploitation of Palestinian sweat and blood. “Palestinian security forces are stronger and more professional” and, I should add, are better at executing their mission – repressing Palestinian activists and dissidents, shutting down blogs and news websites that speak out against the occupation, arresting and jailing Palestinian youth and torturing armless young men, women and elders.

He then decided, as a bad guest, to feed the division between Ramallah and Gaza – by employing the standard and infamous divide and conquer techniques that give legitimacy to the colonial intermediary (the PA in Ramallah) and demonize what the Palestinians last elected as an authority (the government in Gaza). Ramallah’s puppet rulers who appealed to the morals of the occupiers are the the way forwards, whereas those who resist occupation “have blocked progress for so long.”

How odious is Obama’s audacity of political manipulation and disregard of the day to day suffering of the Palestinian people? how odious is his contempt to the Palestinians’ right to elect and choose who governs them? And how odious is his rejection of the Palestinians right to resist a vicious occupation that has been going on for 65 years?

It needs to be made very clear that the Palestinians do not need Obama or anybody to lecture them on how to resist the Israeli occupation; and this is why this conference is very important. Travelling from all across the world, Palestinian activists will congregate in Vancouver to express solidarity with the Palestinian people, bring to light the plight of the Palestinians in the shatat especially in the refugee camps, discuss and create more efficient methods at fighting the general Zionist discourse which promotes colonialism and imperialism, dismantle the myths that the current leadership of the PLO and PA try to perpetuate, and build a united vision for the future.

This conference is going to reject Obama’s condescending attitudes. It will send him and his allies in Canada and Europe a clear message that the Palestinian people is not in need of his measly USAID which when compared to aid he gives to Israel is less than a drop in the sea.

Palestinians inside and outside of Palestine do not need a war criminal to tell them that they have “the talent, the drive, and the courage to succeed in their own state” – they already know that.

As we say in Arabic: بدناش جميلتك ..

Originally posted on the Conference for the Palestinians in the Shatat website.

The following article was written by Omar Shaban, a member of the Conference organizing committee and of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights at UBC (SPHR-UBC), the conference hosting group at the University of British Columbia.

This article was inspired by the poorly written article in UBC’s official newspaper The Ubyssey.

There is no doubt that when an oppressor – no matter who they are – fails to make a good “moral” case as to why they are oppressing a certain person, or a group of people, this oppressor will try to find ways to reconcile between what they perceive as a necessity to oppress and the necessity to rebrand this oppression as a necessity. This is especially true when it comes to the Zionist oppression of the Palestinian people inside and outside of Historic Palestine. The Zionists have always tried to work on the two fronts I mentioned above: the necessity to oppress and the necessity to rebrand the oppression as a necessity.

The Necessity to Oppress:

The perceived necessity to oppress is a very distinctive feature of the Zionist movement inside and outside of Palestine. Since the beginning of the Zionist project, earlier Zionists had no qualm with inflicting suffering and misery upon another population in order to advance their narrowly defined political project. From the perspective of Theodore Herzl, it was absolutely acceptable for the Zionists to displace an entire population, remove them from their roots and replace them with an entirely alien population using false rhetoric such as “a land without a people for a people without a land.” Successive leaderships of the World Zionist Organization expressed similar sentiments – sentiments that were later transformed into actions that culminated in the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians from their land. The oppression of the Palestinian people continued to be a necessity for the the Zionist project even after the creation of the Israeli state on stolen Palestinian land. For Israel to be a democracy and Jewish at the same time, the state must maintain a Jewish majority which means two important things: 1) keeping the Palestinians who were forcibly expelled from Palestine in 1940s outside of Palestine, and 2) creating laws, rules and regulations to control and exclude the Palestinian who remained inside of Palestine.

Zionist rhetoric maintains that the Jewish state has, since day one, been facing an existential threat levelled against her by the brutal totalitarian regimes of the Arab world. Right after what they term as “the declaration of independence” (independence from whom? I am not sure), the newly born Jewish state was “invaded” by Arab armies bent on the inhuman objective of eradicating the only Jewish state in the entire world. The Jewish state has had to defend itself from her haters after this failure of an invasion numerous times – first the Zionists had to find methods to ward off the attacks of the Palestinian Fida’iyeen (self-sacrificers) whose activities were sporadic and disorganized, then they had to deal with a resurgent Palestinian National Liberation Movement represented by Fatah, then they had to fight the Arab armies in 1967, then an increasingly popular Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine in the late 1960s and early 1970s, then a united Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1980s and an Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the late 80s and early 90s. Because of this imminent threat against Israel, because of the numerous and systemic attacks against it, and because this state is isolated in a sea of Arabs who are fuelled by hate and anger, Israel has a right to not only defend itself, but also attack whom it perceives as a threat – and that can be combatants and freedom fighters as well as their support base which includes civilians, their properties, their schools and playgrounds and their entire livelihood.

From the Zionist perspective, oppressing the Palestinian people is a necessity because the mere existence of Israel as a Jewish state depends on it. There is no other way to maintain a democracy for the Jewish people other than through the exclusionary policies of Apartheid and ethnic cleansing, occupation and siege. Disobeying the law – international and even Israeli law – becomes justifiable and an acceptable Kantian norm whereby the “ends justify the means.”

The Necessity to Rebrand this Oppression as a “Normal” Necessity:

Over the past hundred and so years, the Zionist quest to rebrand and promote the necessity for oppression has undergone an extremely significant transformation. In the beginning, the Zionists sought to convince the leaders of Europe of the worthiness of their “cause” using the language of Realpolitik and necessity. The leaders of Europe must support the Zionist project despite their flagrant anti-Semitism because it is in their political and economic interest to do so. From the perspective of earlier Zionists, this necessity had to become the norm; a norm that allows them to operate around the political and economic structure of Europe, as well as within this structure. If the Zionist project is indeed a political and economic necessity, then the only intelligible course of action is to support it and this is what happened. It began with the Kaiser of Germany allowing Herzl to present his ideas, to the political leaders of Switzerland allowing him and his supporters to hold their first conference in Basel, to supporting and facilitating Zionist immigration to Palestine, to convincing Britain to promise the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and eventually to creating a Jewish state after a long campaign of systemic ethnic cleansing.

Now the quest to promote Zionism is taking place on University campuses. Barely an event organized by a Palestinian solidarity group on university campuses passes without invoking the need to have “constructive and meaningful dialogue” and forgetting about the divisive issues and focusing on moving forward and achieving “peace” (whatever that means). This insistence on “constructive dialogue” is indicative of a strong desire by the Zionists to pacify and neutralize any resistance to advancing the Zionist project. University students are now taking the lead and initiative to debunk all the Zionist myths – historical and current – about the reality of the situation in Palestine. The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel is gaining ground in virtually every higher education institution all across the globe as students are becoming more aware that the last bastion of Western imperialism is an entity that should not be allowed to exist in its current form. More students are becoming more aware of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and of the systemic racism Palestinians with an Israeli citizenship face on a daily basis, and of the unjust and inhumane repression that Palestinian refugees have been enduring in their host countries for six and a half decades. This increased awareness of the Palestinian predicament is making the Zionist promotion of their project more difficult as it poses a moral threat to the very foundations of this project.

Thusly, rebranding the oppression of the Palestinians as a necessity becomes a necessity. Every crime perpetrated by the Israelis against the Palestinians and the areas where Palestinians are is framed within the context of self-preservation, protection and fighting an existential threat. Israel, which is facing this existential threat, cannot be reduced to a mere colonial entity created for the sole purpose of advancing the geopolitical interests of Western powers in the region – there is more to this “tiny state.” It is a state for its Jewish citizens who share a collective identity and a shared history represented by food, dance, culture, and music. These citizens are not merely political and military objects necessary for the maintenance of the regime, they are global citizens with achievements that span all disciplines, cross borders and boundaries and challenge pre-conceived notions. This elaborately fabricated structure which includes economic, financial, scientific and educational institutions was put in place by a people who have been yearning for emancipation for thousands of years; an emancipation that they finally attained in Palestine – a land which was apparently empty and a desert before the Zionist settlement in it.

Such is the discursive dichotomy of the Zionist modus operandi. It is a dichotomy based on rewriting history, falsifying facts and disseminating propaganda to promote and legitimize a racist ideology. And this is why we can’t be friends with the Zionists. The fundamental premise of any friendship – no matter how deep or shallow it may be – is a mutual understanding, a shared empathy and a genuine sympathy with the experiences of the other. Such a framework does not exist when it comes to the Zionist oppression of the Palestinians. The relationship between the Palestinians and Zionists is that of an oppressed with their oppressor. In this case, the oppressor is not only seeking to eliminate the Palestinian national existence from both consciousness and history, but it is also seeking to normalize this eradication through a vicious campaign that depends on an interdependent duality – 1) the legitimization of oppression and the existence of the oppressor and 2) the delegitimization and demonization of the oppressed and their mere existence.