Canada’s York University, celebrating its 50th anniversary, is allowing a pro-Arab group to stage a conference questioning Israel’s right to exist. University president Mamdouh Shoukri, a Muslim and a native of Egypt, defended the event as a matter of “academic freedom.”

He rejected B’nai Brith Canada’s charges that the conference, under the title “Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths,” is a ”sham…which questions the Jewish State’s very right to exist." The Jewish group's spokesmen added, “We question why an event that promotes hatred and encourages the destruction of the Jewish State would connect in any way to York University's 50th anniversary celebrations [with] peace.”

Several of the scheduled speakers were involved in Israel Apartheid Week activities and are active in the Israeli boycott movement.
Several of the scheduled speakers were involved in Israel Apartheid Week activities and are active in the Israeli boycott movement.

Hershell Ezrin, head of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish advocacy, said that an examination of speakers at the conference reveals that the event "aims to explore a one-state, bi-national solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the imposition of which would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish State.”

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, who heads the NGO Monitor and is chairman of the Political Science Department at Bar-Ilan University, noted that the first speaker to appear is Ali Abunimah, who runs an Internet site “specializing in demonization of Israel through articles such as ‘Why Israel won't survive.’”

Also to appear is Jeff Halper, who lives in Israel and has been active in the Free Gaza movement that tries to send boats to Gaza in an attempt to stop Israel from exercising sovereignty over coastal waters.

Prof Steinberg charged York University with being “an accomplice in this crime” of hosting a conference that “will only serve to fuel the vicious warfare and mass terror which has taken the lives of tens of thousands…and is escalating into nuclear confrontation.”

University president Shoukri argued that the conference should take place because “the freedom of independent scholars to organize events such as conferences on matters of legitimate academic inquiry goes to the very heart of academic freedom. The university provides a forum for the robust exchange, but does not align itself with a particular set of views or positions.”

Rejecting charges that the event has no connection with the university’s 50th anniversary, he said that canceling the conference would be based on judging “its subject matter, which would in itself have been a fundamental violation of academic freedom.”

In a separate incident, the university has reprimanded two students who were part of a mob that trapped Jewish students in a Hillel building in February. One of those who was scolded is Krisna Saravanamuttu, the new president of the York University Federation of Students.