Point vs. Counterpoint

Severing Ties: An Article of Context

The Federation of Students (Feds) is holding a referendum on the University of Waterloo’s association with several Israeli academic institutions, and polling takes place from January 25 to January 27. The text of the referendum reads as follows:

“Do you think the University of Waterloo should sever ties with the following institutions due to their complicity in violations of the human rights of Palestinians: University of Haifa, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and the Weizmann Institute of Science?”

Calling the Referendum

The petition for the referendum was organized by the Palestine Solidarity Action Group (PSAG) —part of the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (WPIRG) —and EthicalCollabUW. It is a part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign which is encouraging non-violent punitive measures against Israel. The goal of this movement is to pressure Israel to:

  • Return to the 1967 borders and dismantle a 700 km security wall that splits 9.4% of the West Bank from the rest of the territory
  • Recognize the fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens
  • Respect the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property per UN Resolution 194

The referendum was called after Feds received a petition with 4000 signatures calling for a referendum based on the above text. 2900 of the signatures were verified as belonging to voting members of Feds—which includes undergraduates of Waterloo or full-time Feds staff members—which was sufficient to allow the referendum to occur.

The referendum will be binding “only if the number of votes cast for the option that received the most votes is at least seven percent (7%) of the voting members of the Corporation” according to the Feds bylaws.

Historical Context

Starting in the late 19th century, a Jewish nationalist movement called Zionism began to emerge in eastern Europe. Spurred by rampant anti-Semitism, Zionists desired to re-establish the Jewish land of Israel. This was to be a refuge for the Jewish people who had been dispersed by various conquerors over the millennia. The practical outcome of this movement was a migration of Zionists into Palestine, often funded by Zionist groups outside of Palestine.

In the aftermath of WWII, the world learned about the horrors of the Holocaust, which was the massacre targeting numerous groups—most frequently Jews—that the Nazis found undesirable. The Allies found that many of the Jewish displaced persons (DPs), as the survivors were called, were unwilling or unable to return to their homes due to continuing anti-Semitism and instead attempted to travel to British-controlled Palestine. With mounting pressure to deal with the DPs and the continued push by Zionists for Jews to immigrate to Palestine, the idea of a Jewish state became increasingly popular internationally.

Britain, entering into a period of de-colonization and general loss of power after WWII, handed the issue of Palestine over to the UN. The UN decided to separate the territory into Jewish and Palestinian sections, although each section would contain some minority of the other party. Civil war broke out between militias.

On May 14, 1948, Israel declared independence. The next day, Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian forces attacked the Israeli territory. Israel managed to win the war, largely through poor collaboration by the Arab states, capturing 60% of the territory that the UN had allotted to the Palestinians.

The rest of the 20th, and now early 21st, century has been dotted with wars, peace talks, and crises between Israel and its neighbours. A few of them are listed below.

In the 1954 Suez crisis, Israel invaded Egypt to give Britain and France an excuse to regain control of the recently-nationalized Suez Canal as a defensive measure. The crisis was eventually resolved through the mediation of UN peacekeepers and resulted in an Israeli retreat.

During the 1967 Six Day War, Israel launched an enormously successful preemptive strike against its mobilizing neighbours; the strikes destroyed the entire Arab air capability and allowed Israel to capture the Sinai Peninsula up to the Suez Canal and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, as well as the Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank from Jordan. These captured territories are what is now referenced when demands are made for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders.

During the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, the Palestinian militant group Black September took 11 Israeli competitors hostage. They demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinians and non-Arabs jailed in Israel. All of the hostages and many of the militants were killed in a lengthy, poorly-managed rescue attempt by the German authorities.

The Yom Kippur War of 1974 began with a surprise attack by an Arab coalition on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. The coalition intended to regain the territory occupied by Israel in 1967. While both the Egyptian and Syrian campaigns began well, both eventually lost territory in the Israeli counter-attack.

The 1978 Camp David Accords, signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at Camp David, the U.S. Presidential country retreat, led to the first normalization of relations between an Arab nation and Israel.

Modern Situation

Today Israel is considered to be occupying the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, having returned Sinai to Egypt.  In 2005 Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip, removing Israeli settlers and disbanding military bases in the region. The continuing control Israel exerts over Gaza’s borders has resulted in the UN still regarding Gaza as an occupied territory.

Gaza and the West Bank were both administered by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) until 2007, when Hamas, a Palestinian political and militant group, took over control of the Gaza Strip. In 2014, Hamas kidnapped three Israeli teenagers to put pressure on Israel and Egypt to lift the blockade instated after the takeover. Spiralling violence led to Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli cities and Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. The blockade remains in effect today.

In the West Bank, the PNA (now calling itself the State of Palestine) controls the security and civilian administration of urban areas, and the civilian administration of rural areas. Israel controls Israeli settlements, roads and the Jordan Valley region. The continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the area of the West Bank that Israel administers, decried as illegal by the UN, is a point of enormous contention between the two parties as it violates the idea of returning to the pre-1967 borders.

Another large issue, one specifically mentioned by BDS, is the construction of an Israeli barrier near, but not exactly on, the 1967 boundary line. The barrier has been under construction since 1994. Israel claims that the wall is an effective measure to eliminate the threat of suicide bombers, and the number of bomber attacks have been greatly reduced or eliminated in areas where a continuous wall has been built. Critics, however, protest that the barrier is often built within the West Bank. In some cases the border is built to include the aforementioned Israeli settlements. In other cases it completely or almost completely cuts off communities of Palestinians from the larger part of the West Bank. The wall, Palestinians claim, cuts their access to education and medical resources in Israel.

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