McGill University faced with harboring an enclave of Hamas

June 18, 2024 • 9:30 am

Reader Alan Garcia-Elfring, a recent Ph.D. graduate of Montreal’s McGill University (he didn’t have qualms about my using his name) sent along an email from the university President about a rather disturbing Instagram post from the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights [SPHR] McGill Instagram site.) The first link goes to the post itself, but I’ve put a screenshot below in case they take it down. Have a gander:

I haven’t dug much further, but it looks as if there’s an encampment at McGill and they’re holding a summer program that seems to turn the encampment into a branch of Hamas.  This has caused a kerfuffle promoted by both the press and the understandably disturbed Jewish community of Montreal. For example, here’s one report from CTV News in Montreal (click to read):

An excerpt:

Pro-Palestinian activists who have been encamped on McGill University’s downtown campus since April launched what they call their own summer school on Monday, despite controversy over photos of armed fighters used to promote the program.

The encampment’s youth summer program promises “revolutionary lessons” and political discussions over the next four weeks, including a series of lectures on Palestinian history, the resistance movement and the role of the media since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

But on Friday, federal and provincial politicians called for the encampment to be dismantled after posters for the summer program were published online featuring photos of Palestinian resistance fighters wearing kaffiyehs and holding rifles. The photos date from around 1970, and the militants appear to be reading copies of Chairman Mao Zedong’s “The Little Red Book.”

“Enough is enough, this is hate speech and incitement to hate, pure and simple!” federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller posted on X. “De-escalation at McGill has clearly failed. This needs to end!”

Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Dery said the poster was tantamount to “provocation, explicit incitement to violence, even indoctrination.”

Insp. David Shane of the Montreal police told reporters Monday that while the poster doesn’t target any particular group, “it’s clearly in very poor taste and it’s likely to make people feel unsafe.” He said police have opened an investigation and have “been in contact with the RCMP.”

. . .As of Monday morning, online registration for the summer program had closed. Karim said 50 to 80 people have signed up for the first week of lectures, which will take place every afternoon. Organizers, she added, were surprised by the number of registrants, and may open up more spots in the weeks to come.

Most of the attendees will be students, Karim said. ” 1/8They 3/8 were really interested in the idea of being able to come here and get educated on Palestine.”

Members of the encampment have said they will not leave until McGill ends its investments in companies tied to the Israeli military and cuts ties with Israeli institutions. The university has made offers to protesters, the most recent of which included to review its investments in weapons manufacturers and grant amnesty to protesting students. Members of the encampment rejected that offer, calling it “laughable.”

I don’t know how much of this is considered “free speech” (Canada doesn’t have a First Amendment), nor whether the encampment itself violates university rules. At any rate, the poster and press response got sufficient attention that McGill’s President had to write the following letter to the university community (click to read, though I’ve transcribed the letter below):

Dear McGill community,

On the evening of June 12, a group called Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) published a notice on social media platforms featuring masked individuals holding assault rifles, which called for participation in a “revolutionary youth summer program” on the lower field next week. Their stated aim is to “educate the youth of Montreal.”

This is extremely alarming. It has attracted international media attention, and many in our community have understandably reached out to share grave concerns – concerns that I share.

It should go without saying that imagery evoking violence is not a tool of peaceful expression or assembly. This worrying escalation is emblematic of the rising tensions on campuses across North America, where we have seen many incidents that go well beyond what universities are equipped to manage on their own.

As such, today we have reached out to municipal, provincial, and federal public safety authorities, flagging this social media post and other recent activities as matters of national security, and requesting all appropriate interventions to ensure the safety of our community.

I want to emphasize that this is only the latest escalation in SPHR’s longstanding strategy of intimidation and fear. This is the same group that described the October 7 Hamas assault and taking of hostages as “heroic.” SPHR has invoked offensive antisemitic language and imagery, and claimed responsibility for the harassment of McGill community members. Their incendiary rhetoric and tactics seek to intimidate and destabilize our community.

In recent months, some members of the McGill community have chosen to advocate for their views through open dialogue and peaceful protest. Regrettably, SPHR is not among them.

Next Steps

  • In addition to our appeals to public safety authorities at all levels of government, we will further increase the presence of security staff near the encampment and elsewhere on campus.
  • We continue to pursue legal action to bar SPHR from using the McGill name on social media platforms and elsewhere, and we are working with legal counsel to explore a range of additional measures.
  • We will pursue internal disciplinary processes.
  • We have called upon the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), the independent student union that includes all undergraduate students as members and lists SPHR as an affiliated “club,” to publicly condemn this “summer program,” sever their relationship with SPHR, cease any disbursement of funds to them, and affirm SSMU’s commitment to the well-being and success of McGill students of all identities, beliefs, and lived experiences. We have indicated that, should SSMU fail to take these steps, this will be interpreted as their endorsement of SPHR’s activities.

As a campus community, we need not all share the same views, but it is imperative that we share a common respect for the limits of acceptable behaviour. SPHR’s actions have far surpassed that threshold. We will continue to deploy any and all measures available to us, within the bounds of the law, to keep our community safe.

Sincerely,

Deep Saini

President and Vice-Chancellor

The President is threatening to remove SPHR from being what we at Chicago call a “recognized student organization,” which here gives a group the rights, among other stuff, to use the University name, hold events at the University and get funding. I’m not sure whether that applies at McGill, nor whether the poster above constitutes some kind of violation. But if the encampment violates University rules, blocks off space and creates an atmosphere of exclusion and threat, then McGill might take action. They say they’re pursuing “internal disciplinary processes,” implying that University restrictions have been violated.

There’s a large Jewish community in Montreal (Steve Pinker was part of it and went to McGill as an undergraduate), so of course this is bound to create a fracas. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, the poster by itself seems to me free speech (though unwise speech). But there are those other activities as well as the encampment itself. . . . Weigh in below.

18 thoughts on “McGill University faced with harboring an enclave of Hamas”

  1. As a McGill alumnus I sent Principal Fortier an email asking that the pro Hamas camp be removed. Please consider contacting her.

    suzanne.fortier@mcgill.ca

    Suzanne Fortier
    Principal and Vice-Chancellor
    McGill University
    845 Sherbrooke St W
    Montreal, QC H3A 0G4

      1. The university president’s statement, “As a campus community, we need not all share the same views, but it is imperative that we share a common respect for the limits of acceptable behavior. SPHR’s actions have far surpassed that threshold.” is, in my view, a fair and reassuring one for members of the campus who don’t share SPHR’s opinions.

        I’ve no idea why this comment posted up here. I didn’t intentionally tag it to anyone’s comment. Pardon me, Mark.

    2. Fortier is president of NSERC. A crystallographer, was a great scientist, now the chief cheerleader for antiracism, decolonization, indigenization, and affirmative action in Canadian science funding.

  2. It seems pretty clear that this either is, or is very closely tied to, a known terrorist organization. Their activities are also interpretable as a campaign for recruitment into this organization. It isn’t even subtle. I don’t know Canadian laws, but shouldn’t that be sufficient cause for arrests?

    1. Agreed about arrests. I favour bulldozers and batons. Would tear up the landscaping but a small price to pay.

      It’s funny and hard to understand the differences among Canadian university campuses. At my sleepy suburban campus we got lots of little Palestinian flags stuck in the lawns during convocation week, but nothing more. The facilities folks (mostly older underpaid South Asian ladies) picked them all up like dandelions overnight, and now we’re back to regular programming.

  3. It is some comfort that the terrorists are targeting at least teens in wokestan Canada. I used to have a lot of love for our friends to our north but they do do some silly things these days don’t they?
    (Got a comment, Leslie?) 🙂

    Anyway… at least in Canada it is teens. Like an IQ sorting mechanism.

    In any Palestinian jurisdiction the kill-the-Jew learnin’ starts in kindergarten.
    How cute – all those little 5 year olds dressed as liberators of the holy al-quds.
    (See memri.org)
    How do they pick who in the class play is going to play the hostages I wonder – with the yarmulkes and all? “Now Tariq! Quit messin’ around or you’ll have to play the zionist and be beheaded at our end of year play and what will your mom say?”

    Oy vey.

    D.A.
    NYC

  4. Illiterate middle-class kids playing war, safe in the shelter of their campus. Far from Gaza and the real fighting, the summer camp, the thrills and the plastic guns. These students are so stupid and unhappy that there’s no point in telling them: they won’t understand.

  5. McGill has already been to a Quebec Court last month seeking an injunction against the trespassers on its property, which the Court denied. The Montreal police have indicated they will do nothing, therefore, unless the criminal law is violated, and even then they will arrest individual lawbreakers but not clear the encampment. The University is within its rights as a landowner to remove the trespassers itself but lacking a campus police force analogous to the UChicago it has not the muscle to do so. And factions within McGill are sympathetic.

    In the lower left corner of the screenshot is “Tiohtia:ke Popular University.” This means the local Mohawk indigenous people are involved in the occupation for their own agenda and McGill might as well kiss its land good-bye. The police will do nothing.

    The University of Toronto goes to Court tomorrow to see if it will have any better luck asserting its property rights to enforce university policies against camping on its land. But like McGill, it has no muscle and will rely on the Toronto Police, who I have to say have been most diligent in protecting the larger Jewish community from violence. But they don’t want to be seen squashing protests involving trespassing that our Courts seem to regard as protected. We can go to jail for saying the wrong thing but we can’t be arrested for obstructing private or public property. Something disquieting is starting to sink in here.

    1. Leslie maybe this all stems from the 1960s idea that uni campuses enjoy some kind of extra-territoriality. Like an embassy or something which struck me as strange even in Australia in 1990! Like Canada, Australia has the ability to import the most retarded American ideas.

      We see it with these sewage smelling encampments and the conceit that universities have some kind of police-like jurisdiction (thinking of sex crimes here).
      As far as I know only military bases are set up like this.

      This extra legal jurisdiction was a mistake from the get go as I see it.

      D.A. (J.D.)
      NYC

  6. Nihilism / anarchists – just pushing the boundaries, transgressing obsolete societal morals in the name of progress 🙂

  7. Students performing a “revolutionary” charade is an old story. In the late 1960s, the US enjoyed the Weatherman faction of SDS (John Jacobs, Bernardine Dohrn, David Gilbert, et. al.) whose act was to imagine themselves as an American Viet Cong. I believe there was an equivalent production in Canada, where a few failed U of T sociology students acted out an imaginary alliance with the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ). As I recall, they were briskly suppressed by the government of PM Pierre Trudeau, after the real FLQ kidnapped two officials. [Come to think of it, maybe Hamas and al Qaeda got the idea of kidnapping from the FLQ.] My recollection is that one of the student imitators, in court, demanded that his trial be conducted in French, even though he himself was ignorant of the language except for a slogan or two. Perhaps Leslie recalls some of this ancient burlesque.

  8. Sounds like the Gaza Solidarity Movement is aiming to colonize McGill.
    They want to transform the space into one of revolutionary education?
    These groups certainly seem very well funded….

  9. Have an amazing summer at McGill University’s Camp Runamoka where you can hang with Hamas! Our curriculum offers amazing life skill development and how to avoid living under an apartheid state.

    Learn how to pitch a tent on a college campus. Take our tunneling 101 course and learn how to dig without getting repetitive stress injuries. Move tons of supplies undetected underground. Travel to downtown Montreal and test your ability to spot a Jew. Join our River to the Sea Club and meet new friends.

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