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Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) is a non-profit, student-based organization based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It gained a wide profile after instigating a protest in Concordia University, that forced the Israeli ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a speech that was to take place on 9 September 2002. [1] Rama Al-Malah serves as its spokesperson. [2] [3]
SPHR was established in 1999 as a result of a merger between two student organizations based at Concordia University and McGill University in Montreal; the Concordia Centre for Palestinian Human Rights (CCPHR) and the McGill Palestinian Solidarity Committee (PSC).[ citation needed ]
In 2009, the organization publicly threatened civil disobedience and unrest in response to the Canada Border Services agency barring then British MP George Galloway from entry into Canada. [4]
The groups have sponsored controversial anti-Israel rallies on many campuses, especially since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. For example, McGill University recently asked the McGill branch "to stop using the school's name over posts on social media that described Saturday's attack in Israel as 'the resistance in Gaza led a heroic attack [...]. Their march toward liberation is as monumental as their rockets' and, at a rally, asked Montrealers to 'celebrate the resistance’s success.'" [5] In response to this characterization of its posts, a statement from Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill stated, "'We reject the claims by the McGill administration that SPHR McGill’s social media posts 'celebrate recent acts of terror and violence,' they wrote. 'We are not celebrating violence, we are looking at the prospect of liberation.'" [6]
In June 2024, the group announced on Instagram that it will be hosting a "revolutionary youth summer program" at McGill University's lower field that includes "physical activity, Arabic language instruction, cultural crafts, political discussions, historical and revolutionary lessons". [7] [8] The post, featuring gunmen wearing keffiyeh, drew criticism from Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B'nai Brith Canada, and was called "extremely alarming" by the university president Deep Saini. [9]
Intifada is an Arabic word for a rebellion or uprising, or a resistance movement. It can be used to refer to an uprising against oppression.
Jewish Voice for Peace is an American anti-Zionist left-wing Jewish advocacy organization that is critical of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, and supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Antisemitism at universities has been reported and supported since the medieval period and, more recently, resisted and studied. Antisemitism has been manifested in various policies and practices, such as restricting the admission of Jewish students by a Jewish quota, or ostracism, intimidation, or violence against Jewish students, as well as in the hiring, retention and treatment of Jewish faculty and staff. In some instances, universities have been accused of condoning the development of antisemitic cultures on campus.
Confrontation at Concordia is a documentary film by Martin Himel which documents the 2002 Concordia University Netanyahu riot at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The film chronicles how pro-Palestinian student activists staged a direct action aimed to cancel the former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address on campus. The talk by the prime minister had been organized by Hillel, a Jewish student organization.
Hargurdeep Saini is an Indian-Canadian scientist and university administrator. He is the President and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University in Montreal. He was previously the President and Vice-Chancellor of Dalhousie University, a Vice-Chancellor and President of University of Canberra, a vice-president of University of Toronto, and principal of the university's Mississauga campus.
A riot occurred on September 9, 2002 on the Sir George Williams Campus of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, when student rioters opposed a visit from the then former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The visit, to be held at noon at the Henry F. Hall Building, was canceled after pro-Palestinian students attacked people attempting to hear Netanyahu's speech.
Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian college student activism organization in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. It has campaigned for boycott and divestment against corporations that deal with Israel and organized events about Israel's human rights violations. In 2011, The New York Times reported that "S.J.P., founded in 2001 at the University of California, Berkeley, has become the leading pro-Palestinian voice on campus."
Canary Mission is a website established in 2014 that compiles dossiers on student activists, professors, and organizations, focusing primarily on those at North American universities, which it considers be anti-Israel or antisemitic, and has said that it will send the names of listed students to prospective employers. Canary Mission listings have been used by the Israeli government and border security officials to interrogate and deny entry to pro-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) American citizens, and by potential employers.
Anti-Palestinianism or anti-Palestinian racism refers to prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination directed at the Palestinian people for any variety of reasons. Since the mid-20th century, the phenomenon has largely overlapped with anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians today are Arabs and Muslims. Historically, however, anti-Palestinianism was more closely identified with European antisemitism, as far-right Europeans detested the Jewish people as undesirable foreigners from Palestine. Modern anti-Palestinianism—that is, xenophobia with regard to the Arab people of Palestine—is most common in Israel, the United States, and Lebanon, among other countries.
Sarah Jama is a Canadian politician and disability justice activist who has served as the member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Hamilton Centre in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario since March 2023.
The Israel–Hamas war has sparked protests, demonstrations, and vigils around the world. These events focused on a variety of issues related to the conflict, including demands for a ceasefire, an end to the Israeli blockade and occupation, return of Israeli hostages, protesting war crimes, and providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. Protests against Israeli action in Gaza were notably large across the Arab world. Since the war began on 7 October 2023, the death toll has exceeded 30,000.
As a result of the Israel–Hamas war, nationwide protests occurred across the UK. These demonstrations occurred as part of a broader movement of war-related protests occurring around the world.
A series of occupation protests by pro-Palestinian students occurred at Columbia University in New York City from April to June 2024, in the context of the broader Israel–Hamas war related protests in the United States. The protests began on April 17, 2024, when pro-Palestinian students established an encampment of approximately 50 tents on the university campus, calling it the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and demanded the university divest from Israel.
The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) is a pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist, socialist, and anti-imperialist organization with chapters across North America and Europe. The group has participated in political actions with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), a communist party in the United States, and the ANSWER Coalition. It is mainly composed of Palestinian and Arab young people.
Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses started in 2023 and escalated in April 2024, spreading in the United States and other countries, as part of wider Israel–Hamas war protests. The escalation began after mass arrests at the Columbia University campus occupation, led by anti-Zionist groups, in which protesters demanded the university's disinvestment from Israel over its alleged genocide of Palestinians. In the U.S. over 3,100 protesters have been arrested, including faculty members and professors, on over 60 campuses. On May 7, protests spread across Europe with mass arrests in the Netherlands. By May 12, twenty encampments had been established in the United Kingdom, and across universities in Australia and Canada. The protests largely ended as universities closed for the summer.
In May 2024, pro-Palestinian student protesters at the University of Virginia demonstrated on the campus. The protesters organized an occupation on university grounds in support of Palestinian nationalism in the context of the Israel–Hamas war.
The McGill University pro-Palestinian encampment was an occupation protest which took place on the downtown campus of McGill University, in Montreal, from 27 April to 10 July 2024. It was the first notable Canadian demonstration in the 2024 movement of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, which call for universities to cut ties with Israel amid the country's assault on Gaza in the Israel–Hamas war. Like many of its predecessors, the protest at McGill took the form of an encampment, a group of tents occupied day and night by protesters.
A series of protests at Ohio State University by pro-Palestinian demonstrators occurred on-campus in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict beginning on October 7, 2023. A solidarity encampment was constructed on OSU's South Oval on April 25, 2024, during which there were 36 confirmed arrests. About 40 protesters have been arrested across multiple non-violent protests, making for the largest en masse arrests on campus since the 1969–1970 Vietnam War protests.
Over the span of two days in July 2024, a series of protests against the United States' involvement in the Israel–Hamas war occurred in Washington D.C. The protests coincided with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States and giving a speech to a joint session of the United States Congress. 23 people in total were arrested by police.