A look at who is behind university encampments
The encampments at two Canadian universities are not spontaneous. They are co-ordinated by many of the same radical anti-israel groups that have been behind the protests, bridge closures, and targeted blockades of Jewish community sites that have hit Canada since Oct. 7. There’s even a centralized website listing the several dozen “Students 4 Gaza” encampments in North America, and linking to their demands.
Below, a cursory review of where the encampments came from, what they want, and how they’re conducting themselves.
❚ They seek a complete freeze on anything even remotely Israeli or “Zionist”
Mcgill University and the University of British Columbia are the sites of the two major Students 4 Gaza encampments (although there’s purportedly a few tents pitched on the grounds of the University of Alberta as of last week). The core of the demands are identical: Divest from all companies “complicit in genocide” and “cut all academic ties with Israeli institutions.”
Mcgill protesters also demand organizers be granted legal immunity from anything they may feel is necessary in furtherance of their cause. A statement by the Encampment for Divestment from Genocide demands “no repercussions or disciplinary charges for any actions taken by students of Mcgill and Concordia in support of Palestine.”
The UBC demands state they only want the university to cut ties with institutions participating in “the oppression and genocide of the Palestinians.” But anti-israel organizers affiliated with the encampment movement have previously shown that this category can be expanded to encompass almost anything under any circumstances.
Not too far south of UBC, administrators at Portland State University acceded to their own encampment’s demands to cut ties with Boeing, on the grounds that the aircraft manufacturer does business with Israel and its armed forces. But the only “tie” between PSU and Boeing is that the school has accepted donations from the company. The agreement to the activists’ demand consisted entirely of a new policy saying that any future Boeing donations — should they be offered — would be rejected.
The broad definition of “complicity” can also be seen in how these encampments are conducting themselves. Entry is barred to anyone they deem a “Zionist,” with professionally printed “Zionists f--k off” posters situated around the UBC encampment.
❚ Organizers are fundamentally pro-terror, and seek Israel’s annihilation
The demands for both the UBC and the Mcgill encampment were posted to Instagram in conjunction with Palestinian Youth Movement, a group that has been at the centre of anti-israel demonstrations in both the United States and Canada since Oct. 7.
It was Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) that was behind the wave of celebratory “All Out for Palestine” rallies that hit Canadian cities in the immediate hours after the Oct. 7 massacres. In a series of statements and social media posts, PYM has made no secret of its support for Hamas and other Gazan terror groups. “On October 7 th, Gaza broke free,” wrote the group in one post praising the “Palestinian resistance” and the “decolonization of Palestinian land.”
The principal organizer at Mcgill has been the student group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights. That group has made headlines several times in recent months, including for a March action that sought to blockade access to the Federation CJA building, site of the Montreal Holocaust Museum. The group was similarly unequivocal in its support for the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7.
“We hold the Israeli regime fully responsible for the escalated violence ... a population living under siege and occupation has no option but to resist,” reads an official “solidarity” statement published on Oct. 11.
The UBC encampment has also received the full endorsement of Samidoun, a radical Vancouver-based non-profit affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — a Canadian-listed terror group.
Samidoun co-founders Charlotte Kates and Khaled Barakat could even be said to have helped inspire the anti-israel encampments at New York’s Columbia University that would jumpstart the more than 100 university encampments that have followed. A month ago, Kates and Barakat were featured speakers at a Columbia University Palestinian Resistance 101 seminar. Kates told Columbia student activists that Oct. 7 represented “the potential of a future for Palestine liberated from Zionism,” while Barakat touted airplane hijackings as “one of the most important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”
On Monday, Samidoun Vancouver posted images of a UBC counter-protest featuring a couple dozen people waving Israeli flags at the edges of a barricade.
“We need everyone to come NOW to UBC to defend the students, defend the encampment and defend the Peoples University of BC for Gaza and Palestine!! Help resist zionists and cops!!!”
The Mcgill encampment has students from two other Montreal universities; Concordia University and the University of Montreal. And both make a point of saying they have Indigenous approval to be on Mcgill lands.
They cite a letter from the Kanienkehaka Traditional Council which was posted on the X account of the group Decolonial Solidarity. The Kanienkehaka Traditional Council is not the Mohawk Council of Kahnawá:ke, the elected First Nations government whose traditional territory does indeed include the Island of Montreal (they’re the group cited in land acknowledgments at Montreal Canadiens games).
Rather, the name of the Kanienkehaka Traditional Council only shows up in relation to seminars and activist causes headed by two people; artist Marie-claude Lacroix and Stuart Myiow, who signed the “permission” letter. In 2017, for instance, the Kanienkehaka Traditional Council led an unsuccessful push to ban colonization of the moon.
In the case of UBC, organizers released a “statement of solidarity with Musqueam.” But while organizers claim they are inspired by the “strength and resilience” of “your people,” Musqueam First Nation has had nothing to do with the encampment.