University of Toronto hosts a seminar of hate

By Geoffrey Clarfield

The University of Toronto, the same university that brought us a two-month-long anti-Israel encampment is playing host to a virulent anti-Israel event that will glorify terrorism in the name of resistance.

The event, entitled “Silenced Voices: The Impact of Terrorism Designations on Palestinian Advocacy in Canada” is being held  on the university’s downtown campus on Tuesday.

The organizer and lead speaker is Basema Al-Alami, a PhD candidate in UofT Law.

She claims that she will examine the coverage of Palestinian solidarity protests and statements within the “right-wing and centrist media” that use “criminalizing narratives” and use labels such as “terrorism” and “violence” to “”delegitimise” Palestinian voices.

Al-Alami, who did not respond to a True North request for comment, will be backed up by a cast of five academics, who have made very clear their disdain for the Jewish state in their writings and social media posts since Oct. 7/2023. . .

It’s not just that the premise of Tuesday’s seminar is completely ridiculous.

It’s not the media and public commentary that is delegitimising pro-Palestinian voices.

They lose any and all public sympathy every time they take to the streets of a Canadian city like Toronto screaming “Death to the Jews” or harass and intimidate Jews in their own neighbourhoods, where Mayor Olivia Chow and our weak police chief give them a very wide berth.

The images of masked Gazans taking to the streets to harass the poor, already abused, hostages tells me these are not pro-Palestinian voices, but pure evil and violent terrorists.

The sight of the three hostages released last weekend looking like Holocaust survivors suggests the terrorists may have tortured them.

So I’m not buying Al-Alami’s narrative.

It’s not the slightest bit surprising to me that a university which completely caved to the anti-Semitic radicals and professors who occupied UofT’s King College Circle for two months would sanction such a biased event with completely one-sided speakers.

Tuesday’s seminar is not free expression or scholarly thought.

It is nothing more than anti-Israel/anti-Zionist/anti-Jew hate fest.