Israel Hate Week at Ryerson...

Here's a first-person account...

I went to last night’s IAW opening event at Ryerson University in Toronto. It featured Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, confused Jew Naomi Klein, and CUPE Ontario VP Ajamu Nangwaya, a South African who was a victim of South Africa Apartheid so he knows quite a bit about real Apartheid, but obviously has no idea about what is going in Israel.

Their messages were exactly what you’d expect: Israel is an Apartheid state, Israel committed a massacre in Gaza, Israel is a racist regime, Israel is occupying the indigenous people of Palestine, Israel bombs schools, Israel kills babies, the Canadian government and the university administrations are racist, blah blah blah. Completely one-sided, closed-minded rhetoric presented by the side that as they put last night is “committed to open dialog”.

A complete irony that most people in the crowd are probably too thick to have realized is that the moderator of the event had no idea how to pronounce the word Apartheid - she kept pronouncing the th wrong. And this wasn’t an accent issue, she just genuinely had no idea how to pronounce it. It just goes to show you how much they really know about what Apartheid is. If you didn’t even take the time to learn how to pronounce the word, then isn’t it safe to assume that you never even took the time to learn what it is? Apartheid is completely misrepresented by these people, and it’s such a shame to the true victims of South African Apartheid.

One notable thing that was said by Ajamu was that “a lot of people are no longer afraid of being called Anti-Semite for standing up for peace and justice”. How noble. Who knew that telling a Jewish child that you’re going to f—in kill them was standing up for peace and justice?

He also made plenty of references to the “racist, capitalist” system in Canada and claimed that “as a working class activist, as a person who is committed to socialism, wherever people are oppressed, I am with them”. He also kept eerily referring to Sid Ryan as “Brother Ryan” - who by the way got a standing ovation.

And this brings me to the point I really want to make. The people involved in this movement are all on the fringe extreme left. This kind of talk is, I am sorry to say it, completely out of touch with reality. Who still refers to themselves in Marxian terms?

And I’m not just talking about the organizers and the speakers being on the fringe extreme left. That’s expected. The good news is that a quick analysis of the demographics of the entire crowd really speaks volumes for the so-called success and growth of this movement. The crowd was almost completely made up of two groups: muslim/arabs, and middle aged Caucasian ex-hippies. I’m talking like 60-year-old-woman-with-pink-hair-donning-a-kaffiyah hippy (be sure to see the pictures at the end of this post). I’d say that the majority of the attendees fit into one of these two groups. So for all their talk of the movement picking up momentum and growing, the reality is that the only people who take them seriously are themselves, and the only people attending these events are people who were already convinced.

At one point while we were waiting for the speakers to come out, a spontaneous chant of “SO! SO! SOLIDARITY! SO SO SOLIDARITY!” erupted in the crowd. When they act like they’re at a football game, they are showing regular, mature thinking members of society who they really are.

Mainstream Canadians do not think we are in a working class struggle. Mainstream Canadians do not think that capitalism is racist. Mainstream Canadians do not break into chants in the middle of lectures. And so it’s safe to say that most likely, mainstream Canadians are not going to believe the lies of people who act in this way.

I look forward to attending more of these events, so I can witness more of their debauchery. It really is the best defence for the Israeli side. Better than I as a pro-Israel activist could ever do. Thank you CAIA.