"Levitt’s framing appears to deliberately delegitimize pro-Palestinian advocacy through baseless comments by Steve Paikin and Van Jones made at the Spirit of Hope marquee event."
Dear Editor,
I take issue with Michael Levitt’s recent article, which conflates the pro-Palestinian university encampments of summer 20204, which where organized in response to Israel’s military assault on the Gaza Strip, with antisemitism.
Levitt’s framing appears to deliberately delegitimize pro-Palestinian advocacy through baseless comments by Steve Paikin and Van Jones made at the Spirit of Hope marquee event. Both speakers characterized the student encampments as manifestations of antisemitism, ignoring that students were protesting Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza.
This type of framing matches what the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association defines as anti-Palestinian racism. These comments defame Palestinians and their allies, in this case university students who advocate for Palestinian human rights, as inherently antisemitic or sympathetic to extremism. By equating the two, Palestinian perspectives are silenced in regards to Israeli occupation, apartheid, and the documentation of genocide in the Gaza strip as concluded by numerous human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the United Nations.
It is disappointing that the Star would publish this bad-faith commentary demonizing students as antisemitic without evidence. Doing so only contributes to a media climate where these students face unfair hostility.
Anthony Issa
Media Analyst
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East