The Israeli army is currently carrying out a genocide in Gaza, has maintained a brutal military occupation of the Palestinian territories for decades, enforces an apartheid system that institutionalizes the ongoing dispossession, dehumanization, subjugation, degradation, humiliation of the Palestinian people.
To the CityNews newsroom,
I am writing on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) regarding your recent segment on the protest by pro-Palestinian students in Toronto against an event organized by Students Supporting Israel, featuring former Israeli soldiers as part of the “Combat on Campus” tour.
Absent from your coverage was the crucial context explaining why it is profoundly problematic to host former members of the Israeli forces on campus. The Israeli army is currently carrying out a genocide in Gaza, has maintained a brutal military occupation of the Palestinian territories for decades, enforces an apartheid system that institutionalizes the ongoing dispossession, dehumanization, subjugation, degradation, humiliation of the Palestinian people.
Inviting former Israeli soldiers to Canadian campuses under the guise of “education” provides a dangerous platform for individuals complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity, apartheid, military occupation, and collective punishment to reframe their atrocities and massacres educationally. For many Palestinian and Arab students in the diaspora, whose families have been injured, killed, displaced, or traumatized by the ongoing Israeli aggression, such events are extremely unsafe, insensitive, and harmful.
Your segment should have included this context and recognized that former Israeli soldiers are not neutral speakers, but representatives of an ongoing occupation and system of oppression that continues to dispossess Palestinians as well as other communities in south Lebanon who are materially affected by Israel’s genocidal violence.
Lynn Naji
Media Analyst. Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East