Bergman put forth a motion denouncing the comments and calling on the Parti Québécois (PQ) members who donated to the site to stop their financial support. The PQ did not sign onto the motion.

The website published an article on March 23 entitled “Are there any Québécois Jews?” The piece claims that there are no Jews who are real Quebecois because, among other reasons, they do not speak French with the right accent, do not subscribe to French newspapers like La Presse, and do not recognize famous French figures. Some comments on the website include declarations that Jews “control the banks” and caused the recent financial crisis.

“The Quebec I know and love is tolerant, accepting, and against all forms of racism. This is the Quebec that my party believes in…we must stand up and condemn the site because nobody in our society should tolerate anti-Semitism or racism,” said Bergman.

Several PQ MNAs, including Bernard Drainville, Agnès Maltais and Louise Beaudoin, have donated a total of more than $1,000 to vigile.net.

“The leadership in our society should show that this [hate speech] is not acceptable. The PQ didn’t sign on to the motion, and we have to ask, ‘Who are they trying to protect? Are they trying to protect the radicals in their party and certain MNAs?” said Bergman.

PQ house leader Stéphane Bédard said in a Gazette story that he would not condemn the website based on a few articles.

“I would never condemn people who have at heart to spread profound ideas and reflections on Quebec, on its society and its future, for what I would call a marginal number of texts,” Bédard told the Gazette.

This issue speaks to tensions within Quebec between the Montreal Jewish community and other groups, including francophone nationalists. Earlier this year, six Montreal Jewish institutions were vandalized, causing damage to four synagogues, a Jewish school and a daycare center. In 2004, Montreal’s United Talmud Torah School was firebombed.

A 2009 League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada report to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism showed that incidents of anti-Semitism have been rising in Canada. In 2008, 1,135 anti-Semitic incidents were reported, increasing 8.9 per cent from 2007. There were also 405 reports of hate incidents online, an increase of 30 per cent from the previous year.

According to Bergman, however, relations between Montreal’s Jewish and francophone communities are fine.

“The relationship between the Jewish community and the Québécois society are good. There are always examples of anti-Semitism or intolerance or racism, but this is not something that is predominant. When it happens from time to time, we must stand up and condemn it,” he said.

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Investigations started this past fall, when the RCMP received several complaints from university publishes that Montreal copy centres were photocopying textbooks illegally and selling them at a fraction of the price.

“Many students brought concerns to some legitimate stores and those stores came to us and prompted the investigation,” said RCMP Corporal Luc Thibault.

“We are still investigating and unless someone is charged, we can’t release the names of the copyright stores or of the people arrested,” said Thibault.

If suspects are found guilty, they could be charged with violating the Copyright Act and fined up to $1 million dollars or be imprisoned for up to five years.

Third-year McGill social work student Sivan Havusha heard from a friend that Copie 2000 at Stanley and Sherbrooke photocopied textbooks at a low cost. She borrowed two textbooks from friends to get them photocopied.

“I felt bad for doing it, but my textbooks all cost more than $100 each. I felt I could justify it because books are so expensive and I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks,” she said.

She also said that a CBC reporter who interviewed her had mentioned that Copie Nova – a copy store located on Sherbrooke at Peel where McGill students often purchase coursepacks – blew the whistle on its competitor, Copie 2000.

The RCMP confirms that the majority of complaints came from legitimate copy stores. Copie Nova said they had no idea how the investigation got started.

The owner of Copie 2000 has owned the store for 26 years, but said he had no problems until two weeks ago. “We’ve been photocopying textbooks for years with no problem and then the police came two weeks ago and took everything as evidence. Before, we never used to check when people asked us to photocopy things. Now, we have to be very careful and make sure that everything students give us won’t violate any copyright laws,” said the owner, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A representative of McGill-Queen’s University Press said they did not hear any complaints about illegal copying, and that it is a significant loss when stores photocopy books illegally, since course books are a major source of their revenue.

Adrian Edwards, owner of the independent Word bookstore on Milton, said textbook prices are a real problem.

“I’ve been checking prices on books for 25 years and they have been rising steadily beyond the rate of inflation. When a book is reasonably priced, the price immediately goes up once it is used for a large class,” said Edwards. “Students are being taken advantage of and it’s a real scam.”

McGill mathematics professor Stephen Drury agreed. “I would like textbooks to be cheaper but unfortunately, they’re not. The real problem is the constant publishing of new editions every year – and I’ve found that the textbooks get even worse with every edition. That’s why I tell my students that any old textbook will do,” said Drury.

This is not the first time copy stores have been busted. In January 2006, the owner of the U Compute store near Concordia University was charged with copyright infringement, punished with a six-month suspension, and required to complete 400 hours of community service.

“People blame the McGill bookstores, but it’s really the publishers who set the high prices. Because of that, illegal photocopying has been going on for years, and periodically the police fine stores just to calm it down, but it always starts again.”

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Whether it is the Middle East or Canada, the high principles of supporting human rights, right to free speech, political activity, and civil liberties are ones that every society should provide to its citizens. In light of these objectives, it’s interesting that ADDAMEER fails to recognize the degradation of Palestinian prisoners in Arab countries. Since 1948, Palestinians have been treated as inhuman subjects of Arab populations, rather than embraced by their so-called brother states. They have few political freedoms or civil liberties in these Arab states that have done nothing but attempt to quiet their demands for a Palestinian state. The leader of the pan-Arab nation, who promised the Palestinians a homeland, leader of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, signed a peace treaty with Israel without any consideration for the fate of the Palestinians. Jordan later followed suit – a country that took the most moderate position in the Arab-Israeli conflict out of fear that Palestinians might actually demand something from their government.

If ADDAMEER works toward revealing these inequalities, I’m happy to support them. If they are just another NGO that ignores the role Arab states have played in the degradation of Palestinians, then I must believe that their motives are not honest.

Vicky Tobianah
U3 Political Science and English Literature (Joint Honours)
McGill Daily news writer
McGill Tribune columnist

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Instead of making thoughtful suggestions that might be beneficial to both parties in the conflict, Booth labels Israel as the reason for the failure of the peace talks. Apparently, the years of violence – perpetuated by both parties – have nothing to do with the failure of peace negotiations.

The BDS campaign that he promotes is one meant to demonize Israel rather than achieve any gains for the Palestinians themselves. These BDS organizers falsely label Israel as a racist state and reject any compromises for a two-state solution that would benefit both parties. Apparently, rejecting Israel’s right to statehood is legitimate, but rejecting the same right for Palestine is not. It might seem obvious that the solution should include a compromise between these two parties – but supporters of Palestinians like Booth only search for solutions that would end the State of Israel and create a Palestinian one in its place. A true human rights activist wouldn’t deny the right of a people to exist, whether they are Israeli or not.

It’s a shame that by focusing on divestment and sanctions, they are not taking any action that might benefit the Palestinians.

Quebecor Media Inc. columnist Eric Duhaime has written about the lead-up to the BDS conference held at UQAM a week ago. Activists demonstrated in front of Le Marcheur, on St. Denis, in an effort to convince store owners to stop selling Israeli-made products. Among them was Jafar Khadir. Just a few years ago, according to Duhaime, he held a meeting in his home for the organization the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, a classified Iranian terrorist group in Canada and the U.S. since 2005.

If you look into the background of these so-called activists, many have ties to organizations you wouldn’t want to be representing. It’s time to call upon activists with such ties, who call for the boycott of a democratic country and also support terrorism and use violence to achieve their political goals, to reveal those ties and denounce terrorism.

It’s difficult to understand the logic behind BDS. It won’t benefit the Palestinians; it won’t disadvantage Israel’s economy (anti-BDS movements have been much stronger than the BDS movements themselves); and, most of all, it is based on the hypocritical notion that one people’s nationhood is more legitimate than another’s.

Vicky Tobianah is a U3 Honours Political Science and English Literature student, McGill Daily news writer, and Tribune columnist.

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Blaming others for their misfortune is nothing new to the Palestinians. From ’48-’67, it was the Arab states who failed to achieve a separate Palestinian state. Afterward, it was the failure of the PLO. And, as always, it’s the failures of the Israeli government, who by initiating peace talks, is apparently also causing more disenfranchisement, as Berger’s piece argued. 
Naturally, the Palestinians are unhappy in their situation. Yet the Israeli government willingly gave up Gaza in 2005 so they could run their own territory as they wished. They chose to elect a terrorist organization as their government. It seems that decision has backfired, and they now have come crawling back to international organizations to make the peace that Hamas refuses to do. If they want self-determination, it starts with asserting responsibility for your own mistakes. 

Vicky Tobianah
U3 Honours Political Science and English Literature 
McGill Daily news writer 
Tribune columnist

The post Self-determination begins at home appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Vicky Tobianah
U3 Honours Political Science and English Literature
McGill Daily News Writer

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“We received complaints that the police were giving tickets to the homeless for minor infractions that regular citizens do not get ticketed for,” said Paul Eid, who co-authored the CDPDJ’s report.“Instead of the police applying the law equally to all citizens, they socially profile – targeting specific groups like the homeless, prostitutes, and people who appear to be poor and enforce those laws to them in a much stricter manner.”

Eid cited a study conducted by the Commission des droits de la personne, the SPVM, the City, provincial government, as well as grassroots organizations between 2004-2007, which found that 30 per cent of tickets issued by the police for minor offenses were given to the homeless, even though they represent only one per cent of the population.

The CDPDJ also found that two City bylaws are discriminatory against the homeless; a bylaw which outlaws dogs being brought into certain parks, and another which prohibits access to certain parks after they have closed. Homeless youth frequently stay in parks and often keep dogs.

The CDPDJ has asked that the City repeal the two by-laws, and that the SPVM improve training for its police officers.

According to Eid, the Commission des droits de la personne and some grassroots organizations decided to investigate the issue after the City failed to investigate the possibility of discrimination.

“The police have always denied the claim that certain bylaws or standards are responsible for this problem of over-ticketing, which only causes the homeless people to fall into a cycle they cannot get out of. They cannot pay the fines so they are sent to detention centers for minor offenses and feel like they have no way out,” Eid said.

The SPVM argued however, that the frequent ticketing of the homeless is not unfair treatment, but an indication that homeless people commit more infractions. Denis Desroches, assistant director of the SPVM, said that the police give warnings, but that sometimes they are forced to issue tickets.

However, Eid said that his findings indicated that the police did not always follow proper procedure. “[The police] say they give warnings [before tickets] but that’s not what we found out. From our many testimonies, we have found that the warning approach is not really applied. It’s a legitimate reason to fine citizens for infractions, but we have to make sure the police are applying the law when there is a valid reason to do so,” Eid said.

Geoff Kelley, president of the Commission de la santé, said that ticketing was not the way to solve the problems of the homeless.

“We have to find a a way for people to respect each other’s space. The police need help as well. They’re often called upon to be referees when there are disputes between the homeless and other citizens – often business owners and merchants – and they are not the best person for that job. We recommend that other groups, like social workers and health care workers, work together to find a better solution,” said Kelley.

Although the Commission de la santé does not have the power to enforce recommendations, they do intend to pursue the issue until a policy change is implemented.

“The short-term plan right now is to wait to hear from the Minister of Social Affairs, who said she will have a plan based on our recommendations by Christmas,” said Kelley. “In the long-term, we want to pursue a governmental policy change on dealing with the homeless, to ensure the policy and different social services are all coordinated in dealing with this problem.”

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In the mid-eighties, a small alleyway stretching from Hutchison to Parc, just south of des Pins, was used as a shortcut by taxi drivers and other motorists. Residents complained at the time that it was a danger to the local children.

The land was purchased by Maurice Fattel, who wished to convert it into a parking lot. Local residents were upset with this development and decided to pool their resources to transform the lane into a park.

Norman Nawrocki, a member of the non-profit housing co-op known as the Milton-Park Project, dedicated to maintaining the Parc Oxygène, has lived in the area since 1981. “It was a nice, quiet neighbourhood before developers started to destroy it,” he said.

After complaints to the City went unnoticed, a group of anonymous residents brought flowers and potted trees and began to landscape the area, turning it into a green space.

According to the residents, Fattel did not mind that his land was being used as a park. “In the beginning, we asked the City to preserve it for the long term by purchasing the land. They insisted it was safe, that they didn’t have money to buy the land but we didn’t need to worry since no one would build on it,” Nawrocki said.

Recent zoning changes have left the residents fuming. One resident wrote to the City after he saw a developer surveying the land last month, and he was informed that a zoning change was made in 2008 at the request of the owner. The previous zoning regulation only permitted construction of buildings six to 12 stories high, which would have made building on this 6.6 metre-wide lot difficult. The change permits construction of three- or four-storey buildings.

“The City prides itself on all its green initiatives, so how do they justify taking away a neighbourhood park? Local people invested time and money into the park to keep it green and with one stroke of the pen, all our hard work can be erased,” Nawrocki said.

Michel Prescott, city councillor for the Jeanne-Mance area, said that the best-case scenario would be for the City to purchase the land and allow it to remain as a park. However, he said the City does not have the budget to purchase this area and doesn’t want to set a precedent.

“We cannot buy all the small lands in Montreal and create parks and if we do it for this park, then we will be asked to do the same thing for other areas and we cannot afford that,” Prescott said.

Nawrocki thought this could be a good precedent for the City to set.

“Why is the City afraid of setting a precedent? Set an environmentally friendly precedent. Our park provides a breath of fresh air in this neighbourhood, so for the City to say they have no money is not true. It’s a political decision. They have decided they know better than us, but it is in our best interests to keep this park or we wouldn’t have worked so hard to maintain it,” Nawrocki said.

The City argues that a small housing project is a better alternative than a condominium building, and that the residents will benefit economically from these new developments.

“It’s not a park, but it’s better than a high-rise,” Prescott said.

According to McGill architecture professor Derek Drummond, this is not an environmental issue but a social one.

“These urban spaces that allow citizens to gather and enjoy social interactions are vital to their sense of community and well-being. If the land is in private hands, the community has no right to demand the owner provide the space for public use,” Drummond said.

“What must happen is that the City must purchase the land at a fair price and then devote the space to public use,” Drummond said.

“We’ve transformed a dangerous intersection into a beautiful park, adding to the health of the neighbourhood. Our co-op has won awards for beautifying the neighbourhood. Without this park, it would be a sadder neighbourhood. It’s inhumane to live with concrete and asphalt around you–who wants to live in a city without greenery?” Nawrocki said.

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Although draft polices are not made publicly available until after the Senate review, the most recent research policy draft distributed to SSMU for consultation has removed the clauses that pertain to the review of military research.

The existing Regulations on Research Policy was updated in 1988 in response to a six-day student protest against the development of fuel-air explosive research conducted by McGill professors, who had received grants from the U.S. Air Force and the Canadian Department of Defense.

Recent controversy surrounds research on thermobaric weapons – another type of explosive energy weapon. As recently as 2002, David Frost, professor of Mechanical Engineering at McGill, published research aimed at making these explosives more “effective.” Though not directly funded by the military, the work was done in collaboration with military researchers.

Alexandre Vidal is a U3 Environment student and representative of Demilitarize McGill, a student group that describes themselves as “opposed to research contributing to the development of thermobaric weapons by the U.S. military.” He admits that at this point, the new policy could go either way.

“This could erase the clauses about military research policies at McGill, or it could mean that they will be improved to ensure public transparency and ethical evaluation of research that is funded by, or done in collaboration with, researchers from military agencies,” Vidal said.

Vidal did, however, express concern with the most recent policy draft, which has no references to harmful research in its preamble.

“This is why we proposed amendments to the new research policy,” Vidal said.

The man in charge of the review, Associate Provost of Policies and Procedures William Foster, did not comment on the draft policies, suggesting instead that questions regarding the policy be directed to those groups involved in the consultation process.

Foster did, however, meet with Demilitarize McGill to hear their concerns about the draft. Vidal said, “[Foster] was open to consider any concern that Demilitarize McGill may have, and said that he will forward our proposed amendments to the Research Policy Committee.”

SSMU is working closely with Demilitarize McGill to ensure students’ concerns are properly represented. Rebecca Dooley, SSMU VP University Affairs, and the 12 other undergraduate student senators will be voicing any student concerns on the floor of the Senate.

Since the policy is still under consultation and has yet to be presented to the Senate, “[It is] difficult to say whether major concern is necessary,” Dooley said. She added that as with any policy changes at McGill, the new policy will be inspected closely.

“There is ample opportunity for students to voice any concerns they may have,” Dooley said.

Demilitarize McGill will continue to seek ethical research on campus and is working with members of the administration who are responsible for the decision-making.

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According to Liz Mitchell, Communications Director of UniversityJunction.com, the free site was created by a group of recent McGill graduates who were frustrated by their undergraduate learning environment.

“[We] found that the professor didn’t explain the concepts as well as they could or [students] just didn’t have enough information to learn the material,” Mitchell wrote in an email.

With over 1,200 users and more than 1.1 million pieces of class resources uploaded from top schools in both the U.S. and Canada, the site also features a forum-based tutoring service for students who felt intimidated by asking questions in large classes or speaking to professors in their office hours.

“We’ll commit to answering McGill students’ questions within a day, from now until exams,” Mitchell stated.

According to their web site, their growth plan is to provide material for 160,000 courses on 56 campuses by March, and to eventually reach 160 universities by the end of 2009.

“[We hope] to establish UniversityJunction.com as the leading academic resource for university students,” Mitchell wrote.

The idea is similar to a different McGill-based program, nerdnotes.ca, launched in September 2007, which focused on providing notes for students, typically in Arts courses, who didn’t have access to note taking classes.

According to Stefan Dimitriadis, one of the creators of nerdnotes.ca, their biggest challenge was developing the time and money to exert in such an operation, explaining that is was eventually shut down due to financial costs.

“[Nerdnotes.ca was] an experiment, and the response by students was proportionate to the amount of effort [students] put into it,” Dimitriadis said. “Considering the amount of time [we] put into advertising and making the system user-friendly, the response was quite good.”

While Nerdnotes.ca charged users $2.50 a lecture, UniversityJunction is trying to become an ethical alternative to note-buying sites, and wants to avoid legal infringements or violations of professors’ intellectual property rights.

“[We’re providing] a greater understanding of course material without compromising ethics code,” Mitchell wrote.

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The Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) Carleton chapter – who circulated their organization’s poster to promote Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) – were not informed of the ban until they realized all 100 copies had been taken down, according to Jessica Carpinone, a member of SAIA Carleton and the student who dealt with the administration on the issue.

SAIA quickly emailed Equity Services, demanding an explanation for the ban. Equity Services emailed an official statement, claiming that the poster infringed on Ontario’s Human Rights Code and Carleton’s Human Rights policies. The email also suggested that the posters could incite violence and fear on Carleton’s campus.

“Equity Services made their decision about the International IAW posters without giving SAIA any opportunity to discuss the event it was sponsoring or defend the graphic it depicted,” Carpinone said.

The SAIA later organised a protest, pressuring the administration to lift the ban and challenging their decision.

“We took it upon ourselves to tell students what the administration was up to,” Carpinone said.

About 80 Carleton students protested outside the administration offices, shouting, “Shame on you, lift the ban, stop campus repression.” About 40 others protested at Ottawa University, where the same poster was banned.

On February 12, Carleton’s Interim Provost and Vice-President Feridun Hamdullahpur sent a letter to the university’s community stating that the poster was “received by many as hurtful and discriminatory to some students on campus.” He hoped campus would “remain an entirely respectful one.”

Carpinone felt the letter was threatening since it also stated that students who infringe on Carleton’s Human Rights Policy face expulsion.

“[SAIA isn’t] creating the climate of fear,” Carpinone stated, “If people are offended by the truth, they should be doing something to change the truth.”

Following SAIA’s call for “letters of support,” 200 statements from the Carleton community landed in the Equity Services Office. The university’s president, Roseann O’Reilly Runte, issued a response following the barrage of letters, reiterating that the poster “did not have the necessary approval for posting and could incite infringements of the Ontario Human Rights Code.”

Runte felt the posters did not contain specific enough information on events planned at Carleton – a statement contested by the SAIA – and stressed that they were not banning IAW events. She suggested the SAIA submit alternative posters for approval – as long as they met the Carleton Human Rights Code

The ban had both positive and negative effects on the SAIA Carleton chapter, according to Carpinone, who said that while the conflict drew attention to IAW, it also forced the organization to redirect its efforts away from planning the week’s events.

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There is another aspect of my identity – which could put my Jewish identity into question. My parents were born in Beirut, Lebanon. They too went to Jewish schools and camps, but in addition to learning about the Holocaust, they learned about Jewish refugees from Arab countries. That is, until they became ones.

In the mid-1950s, approximately 7,000 Jews lived in Beirut. My parents stayed until the 1975 Muslim-Christian civil war. Although the Jews were not directly involved, the tension from the war damaged relations between them and other Lebanese citizens. Much of the fighting occurred in the Jewish quarter in Beirut, damaging homes and synagogues. The street my parents lived on no longer exists. My father’s sister stayed in Lebanon, and he has not seen her or heard from her since.

Being raised in Toronto as a Lebanese Jew did not strike me as odd. Still, I spoke Hebrew, Arabic, and French and my friends only spoke English. Once when I was eight, I was at my friend’s house and she ordered pizza and when she asked what I wanted on my pizza, I replied “zeitoune,” not realizing that it was the Arabic word for olives, and not an English one.

During the Second Lebanon war with Israel in 2006, one of my Jewish friends jokingly asked me, whose side I was on. I was shocked by the question – I supported the Israeli army’s desire to eliminate their terrorist threat, even though it sadly meant that civilians were killed. But it forced me to delve into the question – did being Lebanese mean anything to me?

I cannot reject my Lebanese roots: they’re an inherent part of who I am. Arabic is more frequently spoken in my house than Hebrew, and we cook Lebanese foods more often than Jewish dishes. But to me, being Lebanese is part of my cultural identity, not my religious one: I will always be Jewish.

These identities were never contradictory. As part of my Jewish upbringing, I was taught to show compassion toward other cultures; to avoid discriminating others just as I never would want to be discriminated against due to an aspect of my identity. I was raised to care, not just about Jews, but about everyone.

My high school taught me to always have a social conscience – we must always remain aware of the plight of others and work to fight it. Our educators spent countless hours teaching us about the persecution of Jews in the past and present. Through this, we learned to foster our own identities, to strengthen them so they can never be destroyed.

I was never taught to try and separate Zionism and Judaism because my school saw Israel as a their homeland, and a necessary part of the Jewish religion. Many of my teachers were Israelis – they lived in Israel, risking their lives to ensure that Jews around the world were safe and always had a home to go to. It does not bother me that these two identities are so linked, because my Judaism cannot exist without my Zionism.

I’ve always dreamed of going to Beirut one day. I want to see the graves of my great-grandparents. I want to see the store my father used to go to every day after school, where he says they sold the “best ice-cream in the world.” Unfortunately, it looks like this may never happen. Until Lebanon’s conflict with Israel is resolved, I will never be allowed to enter the country of my parents’ birth.

I wonder what it would be like to be Jewish and not Lebanese. It’s a world I cannot imagine, for both are dear to me. But I’ve begun to choose which one is more important to me, and I believe that’s okay – we all have different identities in our lives, and we must choose which ones construct the core of our identity. Nonetheless, after questioning my identity, I’ve decided I’ll stick with being both Jewish and Lebanese.

The post A tale of two identities appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Noah Kochman, U2 Political Science and a representative of the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students, kicked off the event with a speech.

“This is not an American issue, a European issue, or an Israeli issue, [but] a universal issue,” said Kochman.

“And so, I remain proud that the Canadian government has stood among the few who have spoken on behalf of victims of terror wherever they may be, recognizing that the residents of southern Israel deserve the same peace and security as the residents of Mumbai or Montreal.”

As his speech continued, cars passing by the group on Sherbrooke honked in support of the rally, which prompted students to cheer.

Kochman called upon his fellow students to “speak for peace and educate for peace,” as students broke out into dancing and singing Israeli songs.

An account of a resident from Sderot, the Israeli city that has been most bombarded by rockets, was read by Dana Remer, an Honors Social Science and Law student at Marianopolis College.

In the crowd, one student remarked, “This is so nice to see. I just hope we will achieve peace.”

But protesting the rally were representatives from Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), yelling “Zionism is racism” and “Israel is apartheid.”

“[We don’t] celebrate war…. We think it is crazy that Israel used any excuse it could to bomb innocent people,” explained IJV representative Emanuel Lowi.

Lowi claimed there are many Israelis who opposed the war, despite the fact that polls show 97 per cent of Israelis support this operation.

“All violent regimes will fall eventually,” Lowi said.

The Consul General of Israel, Yoram Elron, defended Israel’s actions at the rally.

“What would you have done? We have to quell our threats,” Elron said.

Rabbi Pupko from the Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation of Cote St. Luc stirred the audience by addressing those who have questioned Israel’s actions.

“Maybe we would have taken you seriously had you gathered after terror attacks in London, in Madrid,” the rabbi said.

“You didn’t gather when Muslims are killed by Muslims or by Christians…. You only care about Muslim life when you can point an accusatory finger at Israel.”

Hillel debated whether or not the rally was necessary, yet ultimately concluded that the lack of pro-Israel support on campus was a valid reason for them to demonstrate and communicate their viewpoints safely.

Yael Smiley, the head of Israeli Affairs at Hillel McGill, said the rally was happening “in the spirit of education, moderation, and peace.” Unlike the students, though, he stressed the event was not a protest, but a way to communicate to other students that Israel wants peace.

Students held signs with slogans such as “Stop preaching hate!” and “Human rights does not equal human shields,” which they explained was a reference to Hamas’s practice of launching rockets from civilian homes for the past nine years.

Hillel McGill partnered with the greater Montreal Jewish community to host the rally.

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The conflict in Darfur is now approaching its sixth year; however, any substantial action to end the genocide has yet to be put into place. Conditions continue to deteriorate for civilians, and hundreds of thousands lack necessities and are being displaced or killed. International intervention in Darfur seems to be failing, largely due to the continued harassment by the Sudanese government and the fact that the government has ties to militia and criminals. New eyewitness accounts from Darfur report rapes, torture, and mutilation by government-backed militias. The U.N. Security Council has a responsibility to take urgent action to ensure that civilians are protected, and that the perpetrators are punished. Despite our claims to having made significant progress in dispelling hate, indifference, ignorance, and apathy, this atrocity is ongoing. Why is the centre of international affairs unable to combat this genocide?

These were the questions I asked myself at the “four Generations of Genocide” event two weeks ago. The keynote speaker, Honourable MP Irwin Cotler, stated that we need to understand the importance of devoir de memoire. In order to fight any war, specifically a war against hate, we must remember the consequences of forgetting the lessons we learned from the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and Rwanda. But the fact that Ahmadinijad can have a podium at the UN instead of being indicted proves that these lessons have been forgotten.

In the 2005 elections, not one prime minister candidate even mentioned the word Darfur, and, aside from Stéphane Dion, this was still the case in the recent 2008 elections. Why is this issue seemingly off of the Canadian radar? We know how to make the person political, Cotler stated, but we should strive to make the political personal – these issues should be personal and political issues, for “if you kill one life it is as if you have killed an entire universe,” Cotler quoted from the Talmud and the Koran.

Irwin Cotler stated that “if the 20th century has been known as the age of genocide, four generations of genocide, that it has also been known as the age of impunity.”

Despite Cotler’s discouraging remarks, recent developments suggest a change from impunity: there have been warrants against the president of Sudan, and a recent ceasefire. Is it foolish to still have hope?

I can’t deny that I’m sitting here passively, as I advocate our government to change. How can I blame our leaders without acting myself? But I think there is something redeeming in the fact that I am here, listening to these figures of courage and strength. And as I look around at the audience, I am somewhat comforted. No, maybe we cannot all create UN resolutions or single-handedly campaign for change, but we can do something – we can listen. It is the transmission of stories that creates empathy, which leads to resolve and action. If we could have truly heard the voices of the survivors of all the past genocides, perhaps there would be no genocide occurring today.

Vicky Tobianah is a U1 Political Science and English Literature student. You can reach her at vicky.tobianah@mail.mcgill.ca.

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