Opinion: Court's dismissal of antisemitism at U of T encampment a slap in the face (2024)

Despite being among its biggest supporters, the Jewish community often finds itself on the losing side when it comes to the University of Toronto. For two decades, we have fought against the university allowing Israeli Apartheid Week events to be held on campus, which has fostered generations of antisemites and normalized anti-Israel sentiment on campus, even among some faculty and administrators.

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The university has opposed the Jewish community at every turn, including by hosting radical speakers who promoted the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel and accused the Jewish state of every falsehood imaginable. When it came to adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, a committee appointed by the administration rejected it.

The situation escalated with the encampment set up by pro-Hamas sympathizers who demanded the university divest from any investments related to Israel and sever ties with the only Jewish state. These sympathizers, while hiding behind free speech, audaciously called for the school to cut ties with Israeli academics and universities. Worse, they barred pro-Zionist students and faculty from entering their encampment (on university property) and lined its fence with violence-promoting slogans targeting Israel.

The final straw, however, came this week, when Judge Markus Koehnen of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed the Jewish community’s concerns over antisemitism. Many interlocutors quickly applauded the injunction to dismantle the encampment, failing to understand the damage. The verdict was a win for the University of Toronto’s property rights but a terrible, unprecedented legal loss for the Jewish community.

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In his judgment, Judge Koehnen admitted that, “There can be no doubt that some of the speech on the exterior of the encampment rises to the level of hate speech.” Among many examples, he cited comments like, “We need another holocost (sic),” “Death To the Jews, Hamas for Prime Minister” and “you dirty fu–ing Jew. Go back to Europe.’ ” Despite the encampment fostering this hate speech, the judge took a more sympathetic tone towards those occupying the encampment, stating that, “None of the named respondents and none of the encampment occupants have been associated with any of these statements.”

Judge Koehnen claimed that the “automatic conclusion that those phrases are antisemitic is not justified.” He appeared to dismiss key antisemitic indicators, including “a photograph of the university president (who is Jewish), which was described as depicting the president as a devil with the caption ‘blood on your hands’ in bold letters beneath,” the “inverted triangle” which Hamas uses to mark its targets, along with the phrases “intifada,” “Free Palestine by any means necessary” and “From the river to the sea,” which is often condemned as a call for the genocide of the Jewish people.

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It’s important to exemplify how outrageous and damaging the ruling is, so that we have better representation in the future. Judge Koehnen wrote: “There was considerable debate in the record about the use of certain slogans such as ‘from the river to the sea,’ ‘glory to the martyrs’ and the word ‘intifada.’ A number of intervenors asked me to find those phrases to be antisemitic. I accept that these expressions are perceived as hurtful and threatening to many Jews. There appears, however, to be considerable variation, nuance and context around the meaning of these terms which, in my mind, would make it improper to automatically assume that they are antisemitic, especially on an interlocutory motion.”

Judge Koehnen wrongly surmised that part of the problem “arises out of the absence of an agreed definition of antisemitism.” He rationalized part of this assessment by stating that the university itself refused to adopt the definitions advanced by some organizations — meaning the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, the most accepted definition on the planet. Had the university not thrown the Jewish community under the bus, Judge Koehnen’s rationale might have been different.

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Given that Jews face a disproportionate amount of hate, the way this judgment dismissed claims of antisemitism is highly concerning. After this debacle, what our community requires is more and better legal representation. The only thing standing against antisemitism in Canada is the rule of law and skilled lawyers and prosecutors taking cases against egregious offenders who abuse the right to protest by using hateful speech, threatening others and vandalizing places of worship.

National Post

Avi Benlolo is the founder and CEO of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative. Jerry S. Grafstein is a retired lawyer and former Canadian senator.

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