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CUPE Ontario Plans Academic Boycott of Israel
Jewish groups accuse union of racism, one-sidednessby Ari Altstedter
http://www.theontarion.ca/viewarticle.php?id_pag=2162
The Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees is creating controversy with a proposed resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
“What gave rise to it was a bombing of a university in Gaza, what we thought was a just atrocious act,” said Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario referring to the Dec. 29 bombing of Islamic University in the Gaza Strip.
Ryan said the boycott is not against individual academics but against institutional activities, like fund raising, partnerships, investment and joint projects.
More than just a condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza, Ryan said the boycott is a response to “what we figure is really the cause of all of this … the 40-year occupation.”
Ryan admitted that the boycott would be a largely symbolic act with limited material effects, but contended that this did not detract from its effectiveness as a form of protest.
“It does create pressure inside Israel to start a debate about why are we being boycotted,” he asserted.
The reaction to the proposed resolution from Jewish groups has been predictably negative. B’nai Brith Canada, which calls itself “the Jewish community’s foremost human rights agency,” has issued a press release calling the boycott plan “blatant and openly discriminatory.”
“It singles out Israel as a pariah state, it demonstrates an ongoing systemic discrimination that CUPE has manifested against Israel and the Jewish people,” said Frank Diamant, B’nai Brith’s Executive Vice President in an interview.
Ryan is dismissive of such accusations saying, “this is exactly the tactic used by these lobby groups [B’nai Brith] all the time to shut down debate and democracy … the big weapon in their arsenal is name calling. They call people racist, they call people anti-Semites, if you happen to be Jewish, they call you a self-hating Jew.”
Diamant defended the bombing of Islamic University saying, “I doubt very much that Mr. Ryan can give us assurances that there was no weaponry in the institution that he’s referring to.”
Since its announcement at the beginning of the month, the proposed boycott and Ryan himself have been creating controversy in the news. According to a Jan. 10 article in the Toronto Star, Ryan compared the Israeli strikes on Gazan academic institutions to acts perpetrated by the Nazis, a statement he subsequently apologized for. Further controversy came when, in a Jan. 14 Toronto Star article, Ryan was quoted as saying, “we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the (Islamic) university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general.”
This article also states that Ryan subsequently changed the proposal to focus less on individuals and more on institutions.
“The statements that have been forthcoming from him and the actions that he proposes are one sided,” said Diamant, “not taking into account the suffering of the Jewish people in Israel, the ongoing targeting by terrorists of Jews in Israel.”
Ryan responded to the accusation that the boycott was essentially one-sided, saying that it is a reflection of the situation. While he condemned the rocket attacks on Israel as “an atrocious violation of human rights,” he summarized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as such: “there
Ryan went on to clarify that the Palestinians are unarmed meaning that they do not have an army.
