JFN statement in support of the University of Windsor agreement

The deplorable attacks on this landmark agreement include spurious claims of antisemitism. These claims are specious and misleading. In its essence, the agreement is a call for an end to Israeli oppression of Palestinian people including an end to genocidal violence in Gaza. It urgently recognizes anti-Palestinian racism and commits to taking steps for its redress while it makes a timely call for ethical investments.

For many of us, these principles are emblematic of core aspects of our Jewish ethics and identity. We reject the claim that any aspect of the agreement is antisemitic; political critique of the state of Israel cannot be understood in itself as antisemitic. Such an equation undermines antisemitism as a description of hatred against Jews as Jews, with the aim of outlawing a legitimate and longstanding Jewish political perspective. The weaponization of antisemitism is fueling a “new McCarthyism” that threatens academic freedom on university campuses, while it also criminalizes political perspectives held by a substantial and growing portion of the Jewish community, including several hundred Jewish scholars from across Canada who constitute the JFN.

We denounce the organized attempts to undermine the agreement by pro-Israel actors including by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), B’nai Brith, and by MP Anthony Housefather. These attempts dangerously conflate legitimate political critique of the state of Israel with antisemitism, a conflation that ignores the diversity of Jewish opinion on these issues, distorts the concept of antisemitism, and distracts from ongoing genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza.

By engaging in good-faith negotiations with students, the University of Windsor has modeled for the world how university administrations ought to engage with Palestinian solidarity protests. We hope that other university administrations will cease to draw on policing, legal proceedings, and smear campaigns and turn to negotiation and robust debate in order to resolve differences. The University of Windsor has also demonstrated its commitment to human rights and anti-violence. Notably, this is part of the University’s history as it divested from South African apartheid in the 1980s. We congratulate the University of Windsor on its principled stances then and now.

We equally offer sincere congratulations to the Palestinian Solidarity Group and the Liberation Zone participants at the University of Windsor for their resolve recognizing that all of the student encampments across North America and beyond have built on each other’s strengths, insights, and commitments. We recognize that regardless of whether agreements are reached, the student encampment movement has been successful. They have shifted the public conversation about Palestine urging us to refuse to normalize genocide and violence. The students inspire us to think critically and deeply about what the future should look like; all student encampments have every reason to celebrate their inspirational impact.