What's Discussed Openly In Israel Is Toxic In Toronto

[Purveyor]

Haroon Siddiqui

"I feel like I am in exile in my own city and my own community," says Sharryn Aiken the morning after a conference she helped organize and for which she was vilified by her Jewish community.

A Torontonian, she teaches law at Queen's University in Kingston. It took her and three academics at Osgoode Hall Law School 18 months to mount the three-day event, Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace.

It was to explore, among other things, the notion of one state in which Jews and Arabs would live as equal citizens, sans their religious identities. The idea, not new, is anathema to those who see it as spelling the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

That it was to be debated at York University made it worse, given the history of toxic relations between pro- and anti-Israeli groups on the campus, especially during the annual Israel Apartheid Week.

Charges were hurled that the conference would be anti-Semitic.

The Stephen Harper government ordered the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SHHRC) to rethink its modest $19,750 federal subsidy.

Pressure was put on York University to pull the plug. But it refused.

SHHRC stood by its decision.

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TORONTO STAR: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/657519

[Ken Burch]

1. Can't have dissent in Canada, I guess

(for the record, I don't support the "one state" idea at this point, but it's wrong to treat the discussion of it as being intrinsically evil.)