The genocidal actions of Zionism have sent shockwaves around the world, leading people of conscience into the streets in protest of both the actions of the Israeli State and the complacency and even full support from our own governments and institutions.
In early 2024, a student group at the University of Manitoba, Students Supporting Israel (SSI), invited a speaker to give a talk titled “What Led to the Israel-Hamas War.” The invited speaker, Bassem Eid, is a Palestinian Zionist who has made a name for himself spreading anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia as a commentator on Israeli TV and radio as well as in the right-wing misinformation outlet PragerU.
Recordings of Eid’s tirade against Palestinians and Muslims can be found on social media. He can be heard making sweeping generalizations about Muslims based on dubious anecdotes and doubting the reality that over tens of thousands of Palestinians have been murdered in Gaza by Israel in its latest major escalation of ruthless violence. While he was making these egregious statements and many others, it became clear that the Zionist organizers of the event had every intention to allow Eid to spew his hate-filled anti-Palestinian racist rhetoric unobstructed.
The University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) does not have a policy against anti-Palestinian racism. Spurred on by the recent event, a motion was put forward to adopt the Arab Canadian Lawyers’ Association’s (ACLA) definition of anti-Palestinian racism – a comprehensive and respectable definition which ought to be adopted across all institutions. UMSU had previously swiftly adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism — a definition that conflates Judaism with Zionism and considers that all criticism of Israel is antisemitism. Yet, UMSU has failed to adopt any anti-Palestinian racism definition. Motions to adopt the ACLA definition were repeatedly put forward and either withdrawn, forced into delay, or thrown out. An ad hoc committee was struck to consult with interested parties, but never reported and was dissolved.
As elsewhere, students at the University of Manitoba have mobilized broadly in solidarity with Palestine and were targeted for disciplinary action by the administration. The student union’s failure to act to defend the rights of its members, both Palestinian students and those in solidarity, is symptomatic of a lack of democratic structures within the union. As Young Communists in the student movement, we must struggle to build the broadest possible mobilization and strengthen internal democracy, so that our student unions can be a progressive force that represents the interests of its student base.
No to Anti-Palestinian racism! Yes to a fighting student movement!