"As you rightly say in the video, the students gave us the courage to act as we needed to. They reminded us that the most important weapon any nation possesses is its conscious, educated youth—those who will ultimately rebuild and lead it."
June 10, 2025
To the CBC News team,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) to thank you for your recent video titled “What happens when a university faculty votes to divest from war?”
It was truly encouraging to see important overlooked context included in this segment—points we have long urged Canadian media outlets to acknowledge in their coverage. Among them was the International Court of Justice’s 2024 advisory opinion, which concluded that Israel is violating international law by denying Palestinians their right to self-determination, and that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories—including East Jerusalem and the West Bank—is unlawful. The video also referenced a UN resolution from September 2024, which called on Israel to comply with international law, withdraw its military occupation, cease all settlement activity, and evacuate settlers from occupied Palestinian land. It shouldn’t be rare to see this context presented in mainstream media, but it is - unfortunately.
I was especially grateful for the moment around 7:12, when someone spoke in defense of the student encampments and said, “The students gave us an opportunity for us all to act as we needed to.” I was working at CJPME when the unprecedented university encampments began at Columbia University in New York City last year—a mass uprising of the next generation rejecting their universities’ complicity with Israel’s genocide against Palestinians — and sending a clear message to their administrations: you do not dictate who lives and who doesn’t.
Most mainstream media portrayed the university students at the encampments as chaotic, antisemitic, and violent - stripping them of their voices and dismissing their demands to divest from and disclose ties to weapons manufacturers complicit in Israel’s occupation and genocide of Palestinians. As you rightly say in the video, the students gave us the courage to act as we needed to. They reminded us that the most important weapon any nation possesses is its conscious, educated youth—those who will ultimately rebuild and lead it.
All of that to say, thank you for framing the students in a positive light - something that has been painfully rare in a media landscape that has overwhelmingly misrepresented them.
Lynn Naji
Media analyst
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East