Open Letter and Petition to Revoke Ban of SAIA and Hammam Farah at York University

[Members of the York University Board of Governors walking out on Students Against Israeli Apartheid during a board meeting. Image screenshot from video below] [Members of the York University Board of Governors walking out on Students Against Israeli Apartheid during a board meeting. Image screenshot from video below]

Open Letter and Petition to Revoke Ban of SAIA and Hammam Farah at York University

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following open letter was issued by Students Against Israeli Apartheid - York University to York University in Toronto, ON on August 7, 2013]

RE: Attempted intimidation of student activists, anti-democratic invocation of University regulations, and abuse of administrative power, April 30, 2013 and May 3rd 2013

The York University community of progressive student activists and allies around the world have documented your dissemination of messages of intimidation to participant speakers of the Palestine solidarity rally on March 27, 2013 in Vari Hall. 

We have also documented the York administration’s unwarranted and unjust invocations of sections 3(1) and 5(1) of the Trespass to Property Act, which have restricted Hammam Farah, a York alumnus, from entering York University, as well as the withdrawal of the University administration’s recognition of Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA).

We fervently denounce your actions as anti-democratic. Your claim that York University encourages freedom of expression and lively debate of controversial issues is laughable at best. Many members of the York community are aware of the University`s underhanded measures to regulate debate of controversial issues. These include previous undemocratic amendments to the Temporary Use of University Space policy (TUUS) and the 2010 Vari Hall renovations. Your predecessor, Rob Tiffin, admitted to Excalibur that the purpose of the renovations was to impede collective student expression in Vari Hall, contrary to the aspirations of the building’s architect, Raymond Moriyama.

York University`s Senate Policy on Disruptive and/or Harassing Behaviour in Academic Situations and the Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities, like TUUS, are at present incompatible with a critical democratic environment because there is no exception to provide for peaceful protests of a disruptive nature. This is an issue that SAIA has already brought to the attention of the TUUS office, and we expect that it was brought to your attention as well.

We once again cite the Canadian Civil Liberties Association`s letter addressed to you on January 10, 2013, which stated that:

York University is a well-respected institution of higher learning and, as such, is well placed to encourage critical thinking and questioning, even when this takes a form that may result in some level of inconvenience or interference with the everyday workings of the University. Events that are simply noisy, disruptive or cause some inconvenience are often still peaceful and, in many cases, such disruption is a core component of the nature of the protest or the message being conveyed.”

By this letter, the student movement is giving you notice that you have failed to comply with basic democratic values. Your actions have demonstrated that York University only encourages freedom of expression and lively debate when the questions regarding the University`s investments are not up for discussion. 

We will continue to exercise our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. We will continue to speak out, to protest, and to push for the divestment of university funds from weapons manufacturing companies. We refuse to be silenced and we refuse to be complicit. 

We call on the University Administration to rescind its trespass notice against alumnus and activist Hammam Farah, to reinstate SAIA as an official student club, and to make a firm commitment to work with students to ensure that freedom of speech and freedom of association are upheld.

We urge you to take this matter seriously to ensure that you comply with basic principles of democracy in the future.

Sincerely,

Students Against Israeli Apartheid - York University
York Federation of Students
York University Graduate Students’ Association
Afghan Students’ Association at York University
International Socialists at York University
Middle Eastern Students’ Association at York University

Ontario Public Interest Research Group - York University
Socialist Fightback Club at York University
Syrian Revolution at York University
York University Tamil Students’ Association
Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights
Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign Vancouver
Canadian Boat to Gaza
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid

Dundee University Action Palestine Society - Scotland
Faculty for Palestine
Free Palestine Subcommittee of the National Lawyers’ Guild US

Glasgow Caledonian University Students for Palestinian Rights - Scotland

Glasgow University Palestine Society - Scotland
Independent Jewish Voices Canada
McMaster Muslims for Peace and Justice
One Democratic State Group – Gaza
Palestine House Community Centre
Palestine Solidarity Network – Edmonton Canada Palestine Association
Palestine-Israel Working Group of Nevada County (California)
Palestine Student Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)
Peterborough Coalition for Palestinian Solidarity
Progressive Student Action Front in the West Bank and Gaza
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Seriously Free Speech Committee

Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights – University of British Columbia

Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights – Western University

Students Against Israeli Apartheid – University of Toronto Mississauga
Students Against Israeli Apartheid – George Mason University
Students for Justice in Palestine – Brooklyn College

Students for Justice in Palestine – College of Staten Island
Students for Justice in Palestine – Cornell University

Students for Justice in Palestine – Hunter College

Students for Justice in Palestine – John Jay College

Students for Justice in Palestine – National, ad hoc steering committee
Students for Justice in Palestine – Ryerson University
Students for Justice in Palestine – University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Students for Justice in Palestine – University of Houston
The Canadian Arab News
The Muslim Gazette
Toronto Students for Justice in Palestine (University of Toronto Scarborough)
Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada (Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance)
University Teachers’ Association – Gaza
US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)
US Palestinian Community Network
Voice of Palestine Radio

We Are All Hana Shalabi student network - Scotland

Fatah Youth Movement – Palestine

- An-Najah National University
- Birzeit University
- Al-Quds University
- Arab American University
- Hebron University
- Palestine Polytechnic University - Bethlehem University
- Al-Rawda College
- Al-Arroub College
- Modern University College
- Alumma College
- Palestine Technical College Al-   Arroub

 

 

Student Youth Movement in Al-Quds Open University in the following branches:

- Jerusalem
- Bethlehem
- Hebron
- Jericho
- Ramallah

- Alezarieh


- Nablus
- Salfeet
- Toubas
- Qalqilia
- Jenin

- Toulkarem
- Bedia
- Doura
- Yata
- Biet Sahoor

 

Student Councils in the following Universities:

- An-Najah National University
- Birzeit University
- Al-Quds University
- Arab American University
- Hebron University
- Palestine Polytechnic University
- Bethlehem University

- Al-Rawda College
- Al-Arroub College
- Modern University College
- Alumma College
- Palestine Technical College
- Al-Arroub College


Student Councils in the following Al-Quds Open Universities:

- Jerusalem
- Bethlehem
- Hebron
- Jericho
- Ramallah
- Nablus

- Salfeet
- Toubas
- Qalqilia
- Jennen
- Toulkarem

- Bedia
- Doura
- Yata
- Biet Sahoor
- Alezarieh

 

Video of the York University Board of Governors walking out as student protesters read an open letter to the Board defending students’ civil liberties:

Petition Calling on the University to Restore Students against Israeli Apartheid’s Club Status and to Revoke the Ban of Alumnus Hammam Farah

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412