BDS supporters (illustration)
BDS supporters (illustration)Reuters

Students at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, will on January 25 vote in a referendum on whether to demand that the university administration cease cooperation with Israeli universities.

Students will be asked as follows: “Do you think the University of Waterloo should sever ties with the following institutions due to their complicity in violations of human rights of Palestinians: University of Haifa, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and the Weizmann Institute of Science?”

The vote at Waterloo would not be the first time that a boycott of Israel has been voted upon at a Canadian university.

In 2014, the student union at Toronto’s York University voted to join the BDS movement. It was preceded by Windsor University in Ontario.

Ryerson University that year also voted to join the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel, and last year, the student union at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, also voted in support of the BDS.

It should be noted that the University of Waterloo has relations with the Palestinian Birzeit University, which Hamas controls.

Islamists affiliated with Hamas, the terror group which controls Gaza, won the student elections in the university's council last April and just days ago it was raided by IDF troops who seized equipment suspected of being used for terrorist purposes.