Brock University in the national news

Brock University Professor of Sociology, Tamari Kitossa, wrote a paper for the Journal of State Crime, which was rejected by the journal through peer review. The paper argued that that “Zionism is a colonial project that intended from the start on lebensraum, a project of ethnic cleansing that preceded the coalition of German industrialists, US bankers and Hitler’s gang of thugs that formed the Third Reich”. Kitossa holds BA and MA degrees from York University and a PhD from OISE, and his “research and instruction interests include Blackness, anti-Blackness, Black masculinities, African Canadian leadership, anti-criminology and counter-colonial criminology and interracial unions.” Undeterred, Kitossa then posted the rejected paper on his personal blog, The Professor’s Corner, in four parts. The latest one, Zionism-as-Nazism, Still: Genocide was always the plan, from April 9, 2024, caught the eye of a National Post reporter, and its blatantly antisemitic tone was deemed important enough to deserve a front-page story. Within the story, Gil Troy, a well-known Professor of History from McGill University, is quoted as describing the series of posts that he reviewed at the request of the reporter as “unhinged, wildly inaccurate, sloppy, and offensive”.

I hate to give this so-called “social scientist” any air time, but here’s a sample of the good professor’s reflections on the “Zionist sociogenic propaganda”, as he puts it. I think Professor Troy’s characterization is pretty accurate:

[N]either Jew nor Palestinian is free, though the burden of that slavery is immediately manifest in the breaking of the bones, the starvation, degradation, cultural destruction, land theft and dispossession and indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians, while Jews, because of Zionism and their commitment to their ‘Golden Calf’, the State of Israel, suffer an ongoing moral and spiritual decay that makes them insensible to love and their own humanity. As a discursive formation that is deeply neurotic, Zionism is a moral philosophy of hate which is inherently genocidal.

When contacted for the story, Brock University provided the following response:

Maryanne St. Denis, manager of content and communications at Brock University, said the school was unaware of Kitossa’s blog posts until National Post brought them to the school’s attention. “We are currently reviewing this matter,” the school said.

St. Denis added that Brock has a “range of policies in place to ensure a safe and welcoming campus environment. There is absolutely no place on our campus for hate of any kind.”

https://nationalpost.com/news/brock-university-launches-review-after-professor-compares-israel-to-nazi-germany

I eagerly await the results of the University’s “review”.

Edit: St.Catharines Standard on May 15, 2024, has published a follow-up story.

A day at the beach

Last week, the temperatures at the Mediterranean coast hit 36C (97F). Hot, on either scale. And so people took to the beaches. The photos taken by the AFP on the beaches of Gaza provided “a jarring counterpoint to the scenes of fighting, rubble and death that have come out of the Strip since war erupted over six months ago.” Some in Israel saw the photos as evidence that claims of famine or genocide are overblown. Others criticized the government for running the war rather badly: “it’s no wonder Hamas doesn’t feel pressured and is unwilling to agree to a hostage deal” said Ze’ev Elkin of the New Hope Party.

I am not begrudging Gazans their day of frolic at the beach. Even in the midst of a war, surviving under the thumb of a bloodthirsty terrorist regime, people live, and spending a hot day by the water is a rare respite. It does show that the more commonly available images of bombed-out buildings and children receiving bowls of rice at the humanitarian aid distribution centre are not telling the whole story of what is going on in Gaza. The beach scenes were filmed in Deir al-Balah, an area some 10 kilometers south of an east-west corridor that is the only part of Gaza still actively occupied by Israeli troops.

On the right: Palestinians enjoy the beach in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on April 17, 2024 (AFP)

On the left: demonstrators on Tel Aviv’s Gordon Beach join a human chain stretching from Habonim Beach to Rishon Lezion, to call for the release of hostages held since October 7 by terror groups in Gaza, April 19, 2024. (Dana Reany/Pro-Democracy Movement)

Crowds also gathered on beaches along Israel’s coast, but they were there to form a human chain stretching from Habonim Beach to Rishon Lezion, some 85 kilometers (52 miles), in a call for the government to secure a hostage release deal. Ahead of the event, Shelly Shem Tov, whose son Omer Shem Tov was taken hostage by terrorists at the Supernova desert rave on October 7, called on the public to “come and stand with us quietly, without slogans.”

This is a campaign button from 1981 used during the Iranian hostage crisis. This Passover’s promise will not be complete ’till they all come home.

‘Till they all get a chance to spend a day at the beach.

100..200..300

Today is Day 199. Tomorrow is the first day of Passover, Day 200. It is believed that 129 of the 253 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — “not all of them alive”. “About a 100”, they say.

Round numbers. I remember the grimness of the death of the 100th child in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; it took less than a month of war. I remember how the Russian military jargon of “Cargo 200” (transportation of soldier’s bodies, also a title of a cult Russian film) from the Soviet-Afgan war was resurrected for the XXI century. A few days ago, on April 13th, “over 300” ballistic missiles, drones, and cruise missiles were launched at Israel by Iran.

The dead children count in Ukraine at the end of February, 2024, stood at the not-so-round 587, with 1298 injured. Far more obscure Cargo 300 (injured), Cargo 500 (refusing to serve) are now also familiar to those who follow the news from the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022, in its not-so-round 789th day today.

Round numbers. They bring a certain sense of closure, of some important marker of time, of life lived. Except for those “about 100” that are still held hostage, this round marker of 200 days in hell is not bringing any closure. There is no celebration, just marking of another day, life suspended.

Some families will be using a Haggadah sold by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum and produced by the print shop at Kibbutz Be’eri, where 90 residents were murdered and 20 taken hostage on October 7. The Haggadah features an essay by Goldberg-Polin and her husband, Jon, that adds a fifth question to the holiday’s traditional four: “Why are our loved ones not sitting at the table with us?”

In Israel, the head of the Tzohar rabbinical organization, Rabbi David Stav, said it was “impossible to celebrate this holiday without calling out to the heavens that the captives should be taken out from the darkness in which they are being held in and into the light of freedom.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-many-israelis-this-passover-celebrating-the-festival-of-freedom-feels-impossible/

As Israel is preparing the Passover Seder tables, there are empty chairs. Let your Seder table have one tonight as well.

Next year, together, in Jerusalem.