FYI:Questions raised about Montreal visit
By JANICE ARNOLD
VIDEO: cbc.ca
MONTREAL - The suspension of Mideast-related events by Concordia University after violent protests forced the cancellation of a speech by former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu penalizes Jewish students who want to stage pro-Israel activities, an organizer of the event says.
"Concordia deserves a lot of credit for its willingness to host [Netanyahu], but it has made a mistake. A moral equivalency is being drawn which is inappropriate," Rabbi Reuben Poupko said.
"What Concordia should be doing is shutting down Arab or Palestinian activism, and the Jewish students should be rewarded with additional platforms,"
Yoni Petel, president of Montreal Hillel, which sponsored Netanyahu's Sept. 9 appearance, said he understands the need for a cooling-off period, but feels the moratorium gives the protesters what they wanted.
"It's infringing on the rights of everyone. The rioters have managed to take away the freedom of not only the pro-Israel camp, but also the moderate Arab camp."
The night after the violence, in which protesters smashed glass windows of the downtown Henry F. Hall Building and threw chairs and other objects at police who responded with pepper spray and batons, Concordia rector Frederick Lowy announced a "period of restraint" that will last until further notice.
No university space may be used for speeches, rallies, exhibits or information tables on the Mideast conflict. The administration will meet with student leaders to develop a "long-term policy" on such activities, Lowy said.
One of the first events cancelled by the moratorium, the Montreal Gazette reported, was a lecture on the Mideast peace process last Thursday evening by American academic Norman Finkelstein, who is well-known for his anti-Zionist views.
Finkelstein's speech, organized by the Concordia Student Union (CSU), was to have been replaced by a forum headed by Lowy and CSU president Sabine Friesinger titled Free Speech, Tolerance and Diversity: Where Do We Go From Here?
Lowy called the protest, whose organizers made it known well in advance that their goal was to stop Netanyahu from coming on campus, "a shameful and distressing event."
Besides the damage to property, Lowy deplored the "intimidation" and "jostling" of some students and visitors as they entered the Hall building to go to the main hall were Netanyahu was to speak.
Lowy promised to prosecute those who provoked or engaged in violence or vandalism, and to have their student status reviewed. Police have already charged five people.
The day before Netanyahu's Montreal appearance, about 250 people protested peacefully outside the venue where he spoke in Winnipeg. Protests were similarly peaceful the following day in both Ottawa and Toronto, where a police presence physically separated a large and vocal pro-Israel demonstration from about 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside the Toronto Centre for the Arts.
The Montreal demonstration was officially organized by the Quebec Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East, which considers Netanyahu a war criminal. Though largely made up of Arab students, one of the group's key organizer, Aaron Maté, is Jewish.
Maté, who is also a CSU vice-president, was among those arrested.
The demonstrators, who filled three blocks around the university, attracted a significant number of leftists, as evidenced by their posters.
Petel said Hillel is compiling its own evidence for police of the "hundreds" of people who were "heckled, spat upon, kicked and shoved" as they went into the Hall building.
One of those attacked was 73-year-old Thomas Hecht, chair of the Canada-Israel Committee, Quebec region, which was an event co-sponsor.
"This is Europe 1939 all over again," said the Czech-born Hecht. "I was kicked, spat upon, told this is not your country, it's a Palestinian checkpoint. I was found guilty just because I had come to hear [Netanyahu]. This is fascism; it's not civil behaviour," he said.
Rabbi Poupko and Petel are requesting a review of what they feel was a failure by the police and university security to contain demonstrators. They believe it was particularly egregious that 200 demonstrators made it inside the building, stationing themselves on the escalators and mezzanine beside the auditorium where the event was.
"There was even one demonstrator standing on a police car shouting his hatred, and the police did nothing," said Petel, who said he has no regrets about bringing Netanyahu to Concordia.
Concordia professor Frederick Krantz said demonstrators "outmanoeuvered" the riot squad and succeeded in blocking the single entry to the hall, on Bishop Street. Krantz said the police "generally stood by" as people "ran the gauntlet" to enter.
Krantz said Concordia should set up a "blue-ribbon" panel to examine how the university handled this "debacle."
The demonstrators began congregating on the street at 9:30 a.m. for Netanyahu's noon-hour speech and by 10:30 there were about 350 of them, but the atmosphere appeared calm as protesters chanted slogans and held Palestinian flags.
By 11 a.m., those with tickets made available to the public were allowed past tight security and into the building.
But when the hall was only half-full, Lowy announced that a demonstration outside had grown out of control.
Netanyahu never left the Ritz Carlton Hotel four blocks away. Shortly after 1 p.m., one hour after the speech was to begin, Lowy announced to the 650-member capacity audience that the Montreal police, RCMP and Netanyahu's security personnel had decided it was "not advisable" for him to come to the campus.
At that point, police were in a physical confrontation with demonstrators inside the building and right outside the hall where Netanyahu was to speak.
Lowy made clear that it was not the administration that had cancelled the event. In a later press release, the university said the decision was made when police felt they could not guarantee the security of the audience or anyone else in the building.
(Later that day, Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay issued a statement that Concordia made the decision to cancel when it deemed Netanyahu's security would be in jeopardy.)
Lowy, nevertheless, was heckled and shouted down by the disappointed audience. They started clapping and chanting, "We want Bibi [Netanyahu's nickname]." One young man in a kippah urged everyone to go outside the hall and take on the protesters.
Petel and Concordia Hillel president Patrick Amar pleaded with the audience to "keep your heads, unlike those outside," and "make Bibi proud." Amar called the demonstration a "viper's nest of anti-Semitism."
Most then spontaneously stood up and sang Hatikvah. When Lillian Vineberg, chair of the Concordia board of governors, announced that police had used tear gas (police later said it was pepper spray) on the protesters, the crowd applauded and cheered.
History professor Stephen Scheinberg said those who barred Netanyahu were "Islamist fascists" who seek to suppress freedom of speech. "We have scored a victory, not them. We have shown that they are an enemy of democracy."
Rabbi Mordecai Zeitz of Congregation Beth Tikvah urged students to "not get down in the gutter with those outsideŠ It has always been the calling card of the Jewish people to be a little different. When we have to rough and tumble, I tell you we can, but not now.
"We have to get the message to the press that we were peaceful and dignifiedŠ Let's walk out of here with our heads held high. We represent freedom of thought, dialogue and discussion."
The audience spent almost another hour inside the hall until police gave permission to leave.
At a press conference later, Netanyahu said he was "glad" that his appearance had been called off, because it gave Canadians a glimpse of the "mad zealotry run amok" that Israel must contend with.
"What you saw is a small example of what the larger war on terrorism is about," he said. "These people hate the freedoms we cherish and seek to extinguish them anyway they can." He compared the demonstrators to those who cheered when the World Trade Center towers crumbled.
"This was not a demonstration, which is a part of democracy. What we had was a coercive riot to prevent the airing of the truthŠ our facts against their myths."
Netanyahu said that those who had tried to stifle him had failed "because instead of speaking to 600 people, I can speak through you [the media] to 30 million people." He insisted that he had been prepared "until the last moment" to keep his date at Concordia. He said he would accept another invitation to speak there if it was made.
Netanyahu firmly rejected a suggestion that inviting him to Concordia was "waving a red flag" given the history of tensions at the university over the Middle East.
"The cause of the problem is the rioters who want to prevent basic rightsŠ If there is a situation at Concordia, clean it upŠ It's unacceptable to have a hornets' nest in the halls of academia, which is supposed to be a place of open debate."
Canadian Jewish Congress denounced the riot as "mob rule."
"This violent form of censorship has no place in a free and democratic Canada," said CJC national president Keith Landy. "Denying a foreign dignitary a platform, especially at a university where free speech is supposed to be sacred, is completely unacceptable. This amounts to a heckler's veto."
CJC Quebec region president Joseph Gabay, who was in the audience, said the "ugly incident is particularly regrettable because the students from Concordia Hillel worked diligently and responsibly with the university administration to ensure that this type of trouble be avoided."
B'nai Brith Canada called for sanctions against the organizers of the demonstration for "purposefully creating an atmosphere of violence, intimidation and incitement."
With files from JTA |
