Decertifying not a win

Editorial

It was hard not to feel a hint of glee last week when the University of Manitoba Students Union (UMSU) decertified Students Against Israel Apartheid as a recognized student group and banned Israel Apartheid Week from campus. In the ongoing spats between Zionist and anti-Zionist students, this seems like a victory. However, it does not bode well for the long term.

On other campuses, including here in British Columbia, Zionist students have chosen not to seek to ban the ideas and misinformation of groups such as those that campaign to tar Israel as equivalent to the defunct racist regime of old South Africa, but to refute them, and to build alliances to support Israel and truth. This is more in keeping with the ideas of unfettered academic inquiry and free expression.

But this is not just a theoretical discussion about seemingly intangible values of personal freedom, important though these are. If Zionists campaign to ban opposing ideas (even ones as outright false as the “apartheid” label for Israel) and if we laud organizations like UMSU (as B’nai Brith Canada did) when they do so, we open our own community – and our sons and daughters on campus – to a hazardous new front in this battle.

When banning groups because of their messages is acceptable – we have seen it on various campuses over the issue of abortion and now over hatred toward Israel – it will only be a matter of time before Jewish organizations are banned. Sure, our opponents will insist their enemy is Zionism, not Jews, but this distinction has always been vague. The victims are Jewish.

If we argue in support of banning campus groups for taking one side in a political debate, we will be on perilously thin ice when we argue against banning our groups for the same reason. The fleeting unpopularity of an idea or a movement should not be used to undermine the larger principles of dialogue, especially on campuses. We need to win this as a battle of ideas, not as a short-term victory by administrative fiat.

^TOP