The idea behind Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) is to hook kids on hatred of the Jewish state while they are still wet behind the ears in their knowledge of Middle Eastern history, and vulnerable to the sophisticated play on emotions and pity these fulltime activists with no respect for truth bring to bear on their “victims.”

It struck me as risibly hypocritical to see them all hot and bothered last week when Hasbara invited Israeli consul General Amir Gissin to speak at York University. Unwilling to subject him to the usual disruptive savaging Palestinian groups – particularly SAIA – routinely apply to pro-Israel speakers, Hasbara insisted on reserved seating. SAIA went ballistic, accusing Hasbara of “racial profiling.” SAIA put out a statement: “SAIA believes the university is a space for open public debate, freedom of expression and thought, and one of the rare spaces to question systems of power, authority, and oppression. York University cannot be allowed to begin using police and security to ban students from attending public events on our own campus.”

“Open public debate”? Let me take you back to last year’s Israeli Apartheid Week on the University of Toronto campus. SAIA set up a full day session of anti-Zionist brainwashing for high school students. They had some other name for it but that was what it was. Nobody but high school students were allowed into the building, and even they had to have identity cards. Profiling? Ya’ think? Nobody else was allowed in: no teachers, no parents, no older siblings. I can’t think of anything creepier or more inculpating than a closed-door session to which youngsters only are invited to listen to adult fanatics spewing hatred. So SAIA should just shut up about profiling, since they are the worst offenders in Canada in that department. If they knew the meaning of shame, they would stop lecturing real democrats on the nature of fairness or justice. But shame, like integrity, truth and fairness can only mean something to people with a conscience. And people with a conscience are the first to be “profiled” right out of SAIA.