Report: 7th Israeli Apartheid Week
- Israeli Apartheid Week 2011 ends as another success in Montreal!
- Photo: Painting on Israeli apartheid wall.
The annual Israeli Apartheid Week ran from March 8 to 15th in Montreal, and organizers are happy to announce that once again it was a huge success! Hundreds of people attended a wide range of events at McGill, Concordia, UQAM, and other cultural venues around the city. Some of the highlights included the keynote lecture at McGill from author Ali Abunimah, and the closing panel at Concordia entitled “Decolonization Begins At Home” featuring three powerful aboriginal activists. Many students left the events eager to find out more about getting involved in Palestine solidarity work.
Despite shameful and hypocritical statements from Michael Ignatieff and other politicians to attempt to silence the week of educational events, IAW grew again this year to include over 90 cities around the world. In 2011, IAW spread to new cities in Canada such as Regina, and importantly to other cities in the Arab world such as Amman, Jordan and Beirut, Lebanon. IAW was also marked with events in Palestine in Haifa, Bethlehem, Birzeit, and Gaza. It is clear that despite attempts to intimidate and censor, the global movement for Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid is only getting stronger.
In the wake of IAW this year, students at York University and the University of Toronto launched a comprehensive divestment campaign to get their campuses to cut ties to Israeli apartheid. And on March 23, in another historic move, the University of Johannesburg in South Africa cut their ties with Ben-Gurion University in Israel.
Here in Montreal, many attended workshops on Concordia and McGill’s institutional ties with Israeli apartheid, and students have vowed to carry on the momentum locally as well.
If you would like to get involved in IAW for 2012, or other BDS campaigns against Israeli apartheid, please get in touch with us at iaw-mtl(at)riseup.net, you can also follow us online: facebook / @sai_montreal
Audio, Photos, and other media on Israeli Apartheid Week
Audio – Ali Abunimah’s lecture at McGill University March 9, 2011
Audio – “Decolonization Begins at Home”
panel with Clifton Nicholas, Ben Powless and Audrey Redman
Concordia University, March 15, 2011
Photos: Artists Against Apartheid concert, Au Patro Vys, March 13
“Un exilé palestinien voit d’un bon oeil les changements dans le monde arabe”
– Le Devoir
“Israeli Apartheid Week’s Keynote Address” – McGill Daily
“Academia, Apartheid, and the Ties That Bind” – The Link
“Israeli Apartheid Week Kicks Off” – The Link
