The censorship of voices against Israel expands well beyond the Middle East, and reaches Canadian universities: Capilano University is one of them.
Livia Pica (any pronouns) // News Editor
On November 6 the 45 day shut-down of the Al Jazeera bureau in the occupied West Bank will expire. Al Jazeera is an internationally recognized independent news network based in Doha, Qatar, that has been relentlessly reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon. On September 22, Israel accused the network of “incitement to and support of terrorism”, forcefully entered their headquarters in Doha and ordered journalists to leave. Additionally, on May 5, Israeli police raided the Al Jazeera premises in East Jerusalem, after Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet deemed it national security threat and shut it down for the duration of the war in Gaza.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) stated that “Israel’s efforts to censor Al Jazeera severely undermine the public’s right to information on a war that has upended so many lives in the region.” Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, agreed: “The Israeli authorities’ shutdown of Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah is another shameless attack on the right to freedom of expression and a crushing blow for press freedom.” This event is only one episode in a consistent effort by Israel to silence voices reporting on the genocide of Palestinian people; the issue expands well beyond Al Jazeera. At the time of writing, Israel has killed at least 116 journalists since October 7, most of whom are Palestinian. That is not a coincidence: international journalists’ access to Gaza is extremely restricted.
Israel’s commitment to censorship is mirrored in Western governments allied with Israel’s behavior, though the suppression of pro-Palestinian voices in Europe and North America is less obvious than in Israel. These instances deserve to be recognized as a worrying phenomenon: as early as November 2023, United Nations experts expressed “alarm at the worldwide wave of attacks, reprisals, criminalisation and sanctions against those who publicly express solidarity with the victims of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine.” The suppression of public opinion in countries that fund Israel’s war effort should be examined, and Canada, though indirectly, is one of them.
According to Al Jazeera, more than $60 million worth of munitions pledged to Israel by the United States in August will be manufactured by a weapons company in Canada as part of the sale. Private Canadian companies, too, have a stake in the conflict. For example, Royal Bank of Canada owns $809 million worth of stock in General Dynamics, a manufacturer of the MK-80 bombs series (referred to as GBU-38, GBU-32 and GBU-31 when converted into guided munitions) that the Israeli military used in Gaza. Capilano University collaborates with the Royal Bank of Canada for the management of tuition student funds. Through this partnership, CapU invests $60 million in the stock market.
At the University of Calgary five protestors were arrested and forcefully removed from campus, after the encampment was cleared out by officers in riot gear, armed with flash bangs. At the University of Alberta, a pro-Palestinian encampment was disbanded by police officers, who hit protestors with batons and arrested three. At McGill University, tear gas was used by police on the peaceful occupation of a building, and 15 were arrested. York University threatened to take away recognition of three student unions that had released statements in support of Palestine.
According to Lili Mora, a pro-Palestine activist and member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), Capilano University does not escape this pattern of silencing from institutions of higher education. The RCP has been an active presence in many campuses across the country to support student organizing, and Mora helped build the encampment at the University of British Columbia. Now, she’s collaborating with the newly born Cap Students for Palestine to organize the Student Strike for Palestine at Capilano University. Mora says that even the initial harmless actions of the student group were censored. Cap Students for Palestine organized to write messages in chalk on campus, for the first day of the fall semester, September 2. They read “there is no back to school in Gaza”,“look up Nakba”, “end the siege in Gaza”, “all eyes on the West Bank” and “from the river to the sea.” According to Mora, all of these writings were erased by staff before students even left campus. Further, pro-Palestinian posters and flyers, even when stamped by Capilano Students Union, are regularly taken down. The Capilano Courier could not independently verify if university staff or other students are responsible; at the time of writing, Capilano University has not yet replied for comment.
CapU has not made any statements on the war in Gaza, which has now been going on for more than a year. It’s in stark contrast with CapU’s behavior towards Ukraine: not two weeks after Russia invaded, President Paul Dangerfield had already written a letter of solidarity with Ukraine addressed to the entire community.
All these links – Canada’s with Israel, CapU’s with General Dynamics – in many ways collapse the distance between Palestine and Canada, between Justin’s Trudeau stances and Paul Dangerfield’s stances. Could anything happening here ever affect Palestinian lives? When asked about the likelihood of student protests affecting any institution’s behavior, Lili Mora answered “we’re out-organized, not outnumbered”. The massive mobilization of students could very well lead to withdrawal of support from academic, governmental institutions and private companies for Israel.