Something my alma-mater ought to be ashamed of

I used to attend the University of Toronto and I had a good time there. I always had the impression that I was going to a very prestigious school with a glorious history. The university goes back prior to the Upper Canada rebellion of 1837 and was established as a confederation of religion-based (St. Mike's, Trinity) and non-religion-based schools (University College, Victoria College). When you walk in the majority of the buildings at U of T, you feel you are touching history.

In recent times, U of T has established a new dark chapter in its history. A stain that I believe threatens its good reputation. U of T has the dubious distinction of having hosted the first-ever Israeli Apartheid Week 5 years ago. A week-long distortive Israel hate-fest of the worst kind. Here is what I wrote about the first one which I had the (dis)pleasure of attending .

Among the things I heard then was a speaker named Mustaffa priding himself in having killed Jews in Jenin. The crowd was eating his every word up except for the few brave souls including myself, who were there on some sort of observatory role. It was very disheartening to be around such hate.

The IAW has now spread to a world-wide cancer on universities everywhere. The event is so bad that it suppresses opposing opinion to the point of bullying. My good friend Isaac was intimidated by a bouncer just for yelling at a speaker to answer a question. The question was about the hate language in Hamas' Charter. Predictably, the speaker gave a long-winded answer on how Israel is racist. The IAW also promotes violence and hate rather than offering constructive solutions on how to break the Israeli-Arab deadlock, including how Arabs could change their ways to non-violence in order to force Israel's hand to concede more. Gandhi anyone?

I'm anxiously waiting for the moment when intelligent people world-wide will conclude that only one side is interested in peace and it's time to stop stuffing it down Israel's throat. Events like these prove it. But I'm not that optimistic that the world will wake up from an event like this. I just think this event will arouse more hatred towards Israel and Jews alike.

Case in point. The supposedly moderate Fatah of Abu Mazen (the man we're supposed to get a peace deal with ) is competing with Hamas now for Gaza viewing audience with a TV station that calls for ethnic cleansing. Here's a good link about it.

But anyways, back to the topic at hand. I keep telling a fellow U of T alumnus that as long as the football team keeps handing down losing seasons that I will not donate a dime to the school. I am now throwing in another, more important condition to my money. As long as this event stays on campus, they will not see any money from me.

They allowed IAW to happen. They can now send a message by shutting it down in the place where it all started.