The crackdown against Palestine solidarity activists and movements in Canada has been considerable, as Israeli military assaults level Gaza and kill more than 20,000 Palestinians. As pro-Palestine mobilisations have grown and actions are directed against arms manufacturers and ruling politicians, the repression has intensified.
This has escalated into a new McCarthyism, reflecting the anti-communist witch hunts led by Senator Joe McCarty in the United States in the 1950s. Over the past week, ruling Liberal Party MPs have called for parliamentary interrogations of university administrators who do not give acceptable answers to questions about how they are "dealing with" students or staff who are critical of Israel.
The governmental McCarthyism comes as activists face threats of discipline and job loss for standing with Palestinians or condemning Israeli violence. This has been accompanied by raids on activist homes and criminalisation of Palestine solidarity organisers, as I have previously detailed.
Liberal McCarthyites
Five Liberal Party MPs publicly pressed 25 university presidents to state that criticism of Israel and Israeli occupation of Palestine violates their school policies. Their open letter, published on December 13, was signed by former justice minister David Lametti, Montreal MP Anna Gainey, Winnipeg representative Ben Carr, and ex-public-safety minister Marco Mendicino, and was shared online by another signatory, Montreal MP Anthony Housefather.
Critics have noted that this call evokes the congressional hearings that university presidents in the US have also been subjected to in efforts there to suppress Palestine solidarity. The letter claims that US university presidents from Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania “embarrassed themselves and their institutions” by not properly acting against pro-Palestine voices.
Housefather took to national media after the letter was published, to push his agenda further and to clarify what he thought university presidents should treat as genocidal language.
While promoting the false, and readily debunked, notion that the phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is a call for genocide against Jews, Housefather called for it to be banned from university campuses and those who use it to be disciplined. He then went further, suggesting on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that university and college administrators who do not answer him correctly on how they are disciplining students/faculty who say "from the river to the sea" will be called before the parliament justice committee to explain themselves. This is a clear threat of intimidation and an open attack on academic freedom and governance.
Raising the stakes on their threat, the Liberal MPs gave the university presidents a deadline of January 20 to answer their question. Those who do not answer correctly or detail what steps they are taking will face being called to testify at the government justice committee hearing.
This is not the first time that Housefather has come after on-campus expressions of solidarity with Palestine. He had previously taken to the media to suggest that faculty should be disciplined for teaching views that are critical of Israel in their classes and for supporting or giving credit to students who attend Palestine solidarity rallies. The latter was an outrageous demand since many classes, in journalism or sociology for example, assign credit for attending and observing protests, regardless of the student’s viewpoint.
It should be noted that Housefather is a longtime vocal Zionist. He and Lametti were among a group of Canadian MPs who travelled to Jerusalem in November for a visit to show solidarity with Israel, even as bombs were falling on Gaza. At the time Housefather stated, “I want to make sure that it is clear to Israelis that Canadians support them” (no we do not). Not satisfied with that, Housefather further sided with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in his condemnation of Justin Trudeau for simply calling for Israel “to take great care to avoid civilian casualties”. Care for civilians was apparently too much for Housefather.
Canada finally joined the United Nations vote calling for a ceasefire in the assault on Gaza on December 12. This positive vote for the non-binding resolution, while welcomed, has been widely labelled as “too little, too late”. Even this minimal step by the government has been decried by the McCarthyites within the Liberal government. Carr, Mendicino and Housefather all came out publicly to condemn the ceasefire call.
Threat to jobs
Summons to appear before government committees were not the extent of McCarthyism and the Red Scare of the 1950s. People also suffered workplace discipline and loss of jobs. A growing list of Palestine supporters in Canada are being subjected to such threats.
Two faculty members at York University were suspended in November after being arrested for putting non-permanent paint and posters on an Indigo Books location in Toronto. Their alleged action called out the book chain’s founder and CEO Heather Reisman for creating HESEG, a taxpayer-funded foundation that encourages so-called “lone soldiers” from foreign countries to fight with Israeli forces. I have discussed this previously in some length.
This came after York University’s president had, in October, given an ultimatum to student councils and their executives to withdraw their statements on the war on Gaza, and remove the statements from their websites. Housefather also demanded the university decertify three student associations to secure a “safe space for Jewish and ‘pro-Israel’ students on campus”.
Dr Yipeng Ge, a well-respected doctor in his fourth year of residency training at the University of Ottawa, has been suspended indefinitely for expressing empathy for Palestinians. A petition has been launched calling for his reinstatement.
Anishinaabe artist and writer Wanda Nanibush, was removed as the Art Gallery of Ontario’s (AGO) first Indigenous and Canadian curator after social media posts simply mentioning Israel’s role in genocide and colonialism.
A political staffer for a Liberal member of the Quebec legislature was fired for liking two posts referencing Palestine solidarity rallies on social media.
The number of people investigated, suspended and/or fired for expressing support, or even care, for Palestinians is extensive. The situation is so dire that journalist Davide Mastracci created and maintains an updated list of workers targeted.
In response to the new McCarthyism, members of the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers, Labour4Palestine and the Legal Centre for Palestine have launched the Palestine Legal Referral Services (PLRS). This support “connects individuals facing repercussions at the workplace for expressing views in support of Palestine and Palestinians with experienced legal counsel”. They will also offer advice in relation to issues of professional and/or academic discipline, housing, and defamation.