Imagine this astounding courage and dedication:
TORONTO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY FACULTY ASSOCIATION SUPPORTS ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE May 6, 2024, Press Release
TORONTO – The Toronto Metropolitan University Faculty Association (TFA) has voted in favour of a significant motion in solidarity with the people of Palestine, upholding the principles of academic freedom in the face of ongoing injustice. At its Annual General Meeting today, faculty members voted to establish a committee to investigate the university’s academic and financial interests linked to the genocide of Palestinians.
“Whether or not you support Palestinian freedom—though, of course, you should—I urge every faculty member at TMU to understand one essential fact: that institutional racism threatens to be the Trojan Horse that ends the very existence of the independent university in North America,” said Joshua Sealy-Harrington, assistant professor at TMU’s Lincoln Alexander School of Law and the recipient of the TMU Person of the Year award, which was presented at the meeting. ”We cannot avoid politics and save the university when it is political interference that threatens it.”
In light of the Unified Call for Justice and Freedom issued by Palestinian Higher Education institutions in November 2023, which called upon global counterparts to stand in solidarity, TFA members have recognized their obligation to act. Every university in Gaza that endorsed this call has since been decimated by Israeli airstrikes, leaving an indelible mark of destruction and despair.
The International Court of Justice’s determination of a plausible risk of genocide against Israel necessitates a resolute response from educational institutions worldwide. The motion passed by the TFA establishes a faculty committee dedicated to several crucial objectives:
Comprehensive Audit: A full audit to assess TMU’s potential complicity in arming Israel through complicit institutions and corporations. To assess TMU’s potential complicity, we seek a full audit of all investments, including names of holdings and portfolio shares, endowments, TFA’s pension fund, short-term working capital assets, and all financial holdings of the university.
Divestment: The divestment of the university’s investments, endowments, pension fund, purchases, and other financial holdings from companies linked to genocide, human rights violations, occupation, and apartheid in Israel.
Review of Cooperation: Reviewing, with a view to ending, TMU’s cooperation with Israeli academic and cultural institutions including exchange programs, institutional research collaborations, partnerships, scholarships, and fellowships.
Simultaneously, the motion advocates for the establishment of academic partnerships with Palestinian universities and scholars, aiming to bolster educational opportunities in a region besieged by scholasticide.
The motion also calls upon the university to safeguard the civil rights of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian students, faculty, and staff engaged in peaceful protests against the ongoing conflict in Gaza. It aligns with the international movement demanding an immediate, unconditional, and lasting ceasefire to halt the senseless violence plaguing the region.
By taking a stand rooted in principles of justice and solidarity, we stand with five other Canadian faculty associations who have passed similar measures (Université de Montréal, University of Windsor, Wilfrid Laurier University, Renison University College and the University of Saskatchewan) and reaffirm our commitment to advancing academic freedom and human rights globally.
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James J. Zogby@jjz1600:
Let’s see:
- Blinken says the ceasefire deal is extraordinarily generous & says it’s up to Hamas to accept
- Hamas accepts
- Israel rejects. Orders Palestinians to leave eastern Rafah & then proceeds to bomb western Rafah
- bombing Rafah was the US “redline”
- US blames Hamas
Noor ul Shafiq@noorulshafiq1:
BREAKING: Israel’s criminal invasion of Rafah, the last refuge for Palestinians in Gaza, has begun.
Israel, the genocidal regime has condensed 1.7 millions of civilians into a very small area, and will now slaughter them. They attacked through air , land and sea in the midnight.
We ordinary citizens don’t have much power countering the phenomenal evil that is Zionism globally, but we have extraordinary power in what we choose to spend our money on, even those with little to spend.
BDS, and publicly saying so, is powerful. I’ve been proudly boycotting Israeli goods for decades, as well as services (I would never travel to Israel while it’s committing genocide with Canada complicit, complete with lying ex supreme court of Canada justice Rosalie Abella serving the murderous lying mob, no matter what promises religions spew at me).
And, we can choose to not support or subscribe to genocidal complicit media like the New York Times and Zionist prize givers:
And we can choose to boycott the genocidal complicit Pulitzer Propaganda Prize
@zei_squirrel:
over the past 7 months the New York Times has produced the most depraved, shameless, widely debunked genocidal atrocity propaganda to launder and further the ongoing Gaza genocide. How did the media class react? By giving them a Pulitzer prize for it for a job well done:
This comes days after 59 leading journalism professors called out the atrocity propaganda fabricated by the NYT in service of laundering and furthering a genocide, which includes literally lying about having verified photos of “nails inserted into bodies”
…
it’s not going to work. Joseph Kahn commissioned the fabrication and laundering of the biggest hoax since Judith Miller. Minimal journalistic integrity demands Kahn, Gettleman and Sella be fired, their “mass rape” hoax pieces be retracted, and the NYT apologize immediately
just look at the utter deranged shamelessness that the New York Times engaged in with this “mass rape” hoax piece commissioned by Joseph Kahn and written by Jeffrey Gettleman, Adam Sella and Anat Schwartz. They literally fabricated photo evidence:
two of the main sources used in that New York Times piece, one of whom, Shari Mendes, is also a key “witness” in the recently released Sheryl Sandberg hoax documentary, were recently confirmed to have lied about what’s still to this day printed in the NYT:
Much more detail in @zei_squirrel’s thread.
@drmaz3mar:
“Some of the most troubling questions hovering over the story….Anat Schwartz appears to have had no prior daily news reporting experience before her bylines in The Times … how their work land on page one”
And learn to discern complicit NGOs like B’nai Brith, JDL, The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs(CIJA) – boycott them too.
Joshua Sealy-Harrington@JoshuaSealy Oct 27, 2023:
Remember this genocide.
Remember what individuals, organizations & governments prioritized. Remember how they misrepresented the past & present. Remember the chasm between their beliefs & actions. Remember who they vilified. Remember their cowardice.
Remember their complicity.
Nicola Perugini@PeruginiNic:
Media using concepts like “expanded humanitarian zones” without reminding their readers how a huge amount of Palestinians (up to 40% since October) have been deliberately killed by Israel in areas it had previously designated as safe (including Rafah itself), normalise genocide
Laila AA@PalLaila:
The death sentence is sent through the sky on paper. Leave or you will die. We all know that whether they left or not, the occupation will chase and kill them. The death sentence has already been taken decades ago and the only crime is being a Palestinian.
Achmat X @AchmatX:
Children being bombed in Rafah as Israel shuts down the only media documenting it and universities in the U.S are claiming students in tents are threatening their safety.
Alonso Gurmendi@Alonso_GD:
Rafah is only explainable if you understand that they don’t think of Palestinians as human beings
Peter Daou@peterdaou:
Don’t ever think for a minute the anti-genocide forces are losing. Israel is losing. Biden is losing. Those who massacre children by the tens of thousands are losing. That doesn’t mean they won’t take down a whole bunch more innocent people in the process.