“And I Went Down to the Demonstration”
When I was taught about Never Again, I was taught that it meant for anybody who was facing oppression, not just Jews.
PHOTO: Dave Kaufman
“They are out there for the right reasons… they are out there not because they are ‘pro-Hamas.’ They are out there because they are outraged by what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, to Christiane Amanpour, May 2nd, 2024, on CNN International
I had not planned on attending Thursday’s Pro-Palestine demonstration at McGill, but I thought it was important to bear witness.
There was a counter-protest organized, and the rally cry I saw gave me pause. The advertisement for the counter-protest that I saw on social media said, in part, and in all-caps, “They call for our death, so we will celebrate life,” followed by “join us to demand that McGill University enforces its policies and stand against Jew-hatred on campus. Never again is now.”
When I was taught about ‘Never Again’, a slogan associated with the holocaust, I was taught that it meant for anybody who was facing oppression, not just Jews. I felt that way before the 7th of October, and I feel it even more strongly now.
Let me repeat something I’ve expressed on Twitter, and on the radio when given the chance. I do not speak for the Jewish community, for my family, or for my friends. I speak for myself. And I strongly object to being told that the Jewish community feels a specific way. No community is a monolith, whether we’re talking about Jews, Muslims, Christians, atheists, pro-Israelis, pro-Palestinians, or Habs fans. Everyone has an opinion, and as long as it doesn’t border on hate speech, they are entitled to express it.
But to say that all Jews feel the same way about Gaza is simply not true. There were many Jews standing shoulder to shoulder in protest on campus when I was there. Many were wearing both their kippahs and keffiyehs.
I heard zero exclamations calling for the death of Jews. I am not claiming to have overheard every conversation, there were many hundreds of people at McGill. Here’s what I saw and heard: I heard chants against Zionism, chants for a free Palestine (including from the river to the sea), and chants promoting the intifada. I don’t think one is a Hamas sympathizer if they agree in whole or part to any of these three things. Zionism, the movement for Jewish nationalism, has been terrible for the Palestinian people. I would hope that even the most ardent Zionist would concede that point. And I know that there are people in the Jewish community who have an issue with the term ‘intifada’, literally ‘uprising’ in Arabic. In Arabic, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising is called an intifada. Is the uprising the offensive act, or the term that’s describing it?
PHOTO: Dave Kaufman
President Biden even condemned the word intifada last week, and I’m not sure what to make of that. Should the Palestinians stop using their word because people are offended by it? Do those chants directly or indirectly call for the death of Jews? Is calling for freedom from oppression really ‘Jew-hatred’? I don’t think so, but this feels like an argument where we are losing sight of the larger issue at hand, one that we knew coming in would never be solved at the demonstration.
Now for the ‘Free Palestine’ chant, isn’t freedom what all people deserve? Isn’t that the crux of the yearly Passover Seder? We were slaves in Egypt, and now we are free. I think Oct. 7 and every day after (and before) has shown us that nobody is free until everyone is.
What I saw on campus (not the physical encampment, which is enclosed) was a protest with people of all ages – no, not just students – who are sad, angry, sick of universities profiting from the war business, sick of seeing students in the United States being beaten and silenced and fearful it will happen here, sick of seeing Israel’s non-stop attack on Gaza, and sick of seeing the mangled bodies of Palestinian children on the evening news every night.
Oct. 7 was an unthinkable tragedy. At the time, the point was made that on that day Israel suffered the equivalent of 30 terror attacks the size of those on 9/11. One of my biggest fears at the time, which sadly came true too quickly, was that much like with America two decades ago, the response to the attacks would be so disproportionate that any world sympathy would quickly dissipate. It was, it did, and here we are in May of 2024, and now Gaza has suffered hundreds, if not thousands of 9/11s of their own.
PHOTO: Dave Kaufman
As I was leaving the protest, I walked over to the pro-Israel side, where flags were also being waved, posters of hostages were being shown as well as cries for their release, music was playing, and speakers were addressing the crowd. I also heard a similar ‘from the river to the sea’ chant, except this one ended with ‘Israel will always be.’
Why, I wonder, is it so offensive for one side to say it, but okay for the other?
My late mother used to sing the opening verses of a song from the musical South Pacific to me and my sister when we were kids.
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
There were two protests on Thursday, one on the north side, and one on the south side of McGill’s Roddick Gates. I’m glad I went down and saw them both with my own eyes.
May we all continue to keep our eyes open.
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