[R-G] For Free Expression on Palestine

[Anthony Fenton]

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The   B u l l e t  	 Socialist Project - home
Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 211
April 28, 2009
For Free Expression on Palestine
Justin Podur

On April 15, 2009, a number of organizations launched a campaign in  
Toronto to demand the right to free expression on the Israel/Palestine  
conflict with an event on the University of Toronto (U of T) campus.  
Some 100-150 people attended. Speakers addressed several recent cases  
of suppression of free expression on the issue of Israel/Palestine.  
They argued that there is a concerted attack on free expression on  
this question underway, and that to protect this right requires all  
individuals and organizations with an interest in free expression,  
regardless of their stance on the Israel/Palestine conflict, to speak  
out now. This article is a report on the April 15 event and a dossier  
of key incidents and articles on the issue.
A 2002 precedent: Sherene Razack's case

The moderator of the evening was Sherene Razack, a professor at the  
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) and author of  
several books, including Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia  
Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism and Casting Out: The  
Eviction of Muslims from Western Law and Politics. She presented the  
story of her own experience with free expression on Israel/Palestine.  
In May 2002, Razack helped launch the Canadian Critical Race Studies  
Conference as part of the group Canadian Academics of Colour. The  
conference took place just after Israel's invasion of Jenin. (Then as  
now, people speaking out were scrutinized for their choice of words.  
Just as today referring to Israeli policy as ‘apartheid’ is viewed as  
outside the bounds of acceptable criticism, in 2002 referring to  
Israel's invasion of Jenin as a ‘massacre’ provoked similar reactions.  
(See my “What Happened in Jenin?” for a review of some of this now  
largely forgotten debate.)

Given the importance of Israel's re-invasion of the West Bank in 2002  
and the particular importance of the invasion of Jenin, conference  
organizers were criticized for not scheduling any event on the issue  
at the Critical Race Studies conference. In response organizers,  
including Razack, organized a meeting at the conference, where a  
resolution was drafted condemning Israel's actions in Jenin. Razack  
distributed the resolution over email (to do so on this issue  
continues to be risky business for academics, as the recent case of  
William Robinson at the University of California Santa Barbara shows).

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