On Wednesday, the Israel lobby group B’nai Brith Canada announced it was funding a lawsuit against the McGill University administration, Student Society of McGill University and student group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill. B’nai Brith is angry because in March 2022, 71% of undergraduate students voted for a Palestine Solidarity Policy committing the Student Society of McGill University to divest from and boycott “corporations and institutions complicit in settler-colonial apartheid against Palestinians.” Roger Waters penned the below public letter in support of pro-Palestinian McGill students.
An Open Letter from Roger Waters
On Human Rights, McGill University, Students and Free Speech
The latest move by B’nai Brith in the McGill affair looks like the last desperate baring of teeth of a cornered animal. It is predictable, pathetic and dangerous. The reason it is dangerous is it is frightened. Why is it frightened? Because someone has switched on the light and there is nowhere to hide. The light it would dearly love to extinguish is the global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
Ok, enough with metaphors. B’nai Brith and the rest of the Israel lobby supporters of the illegal occupation of Palestine and the apartheid regime Israel maintains, seek to convince the rest of us that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of Paris of 1948 is wrong. B’nai Brith believes that only people of the Jewish faith should have full rights in Palestine. In a recent un-disputed referendum, 71% of McGill students disagreed. That overwhelming majority of McGill students, like me, and several hundred other signatories of an open letter in support of them, do believe in the Paris Declaration. That means we believe in equal human rights, including, but not limited to, political and property rights, the right to self-determination, the right to life……….yeah all that good stuff denied to the Palestinians……
We believe those rights should extend to all our brothers and sisters all over the world irrespective of ethnicity, religion or nationality. Just to be clear, that would include the Palestinian people, non?
This is not rocket science. Threatening McGill students and by inference the people of these United Nations with “lawfare” is an idle threat which we resist with all the weight of being right on our side. All your huffing and puffing and baring of teeth signifies nothing, because your cause is morally bankrupt, your Emperor has no clothes. The time has come for you to rethink your position and join collective humanity. We are here with love in our hearts ready to welcome you into the fold, but first you must shrug off the carapace of supremacist bullshit, that sits so heavily on those shoulders.
Love,
Roger Waters
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US lawmakers say radical groups in Israel attack Christians ‘with impunity’ | Middle East Eye
“The rare bipartisan criticism follows warnings of a ‘systematic attempt’ to drive Christians out of Jerusalem & the holy land, May 3, 2022
“US lawmakers say radical groups in Israel attack Christians ‘with impunity’
The rare bipartisan criticism follows warnings of a ‘systematic attempt’ to drive Christians out of Jerusalem & the holy land.”
“A bipartisan group of US lawmakers issued a rare critique against Israel on Friday, citing a rise in attacks on the Christian community in Jerusalem carried out by Israeli perpetrators acting with ‘impunity’.
“The lawmakers, led by Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro & Republican Gus Bilirakis, said radical groups in Israel were looking to ‘drive out’ Christians from the holy city & threatening its cultural & religious diversity’.
“’We write today as a bipartisan group of Members of Congress deeply concerned by the rise in attacks against the Christian community in Jerusalem,” the lawmakers stated. “Jerusalem is a holy city for Christians as well as Muslims & Jews. The city has 95 churches & is home to one of the five Greek Orthodox Patriarchates, along with sizable numbers of Melkite Greek Catholics, Roman Catholics, Syriacs, & Armenians.
“A century ago, Christians made up around 25 percent of Jerusalem’s population, but their presence has since dwindled to less than two percent today.
“While the number of Christians living across the Middle East has been falling for decades, the letter from US lawmakers singling out the precarious state of Christians in the holy city comes amid recent warnings from church leaders about the Christian community’s presence.
“In December, the thirteen Christian Patriarchs & heads of the Churches of Jerusalem issued a joint statement warning of a ‘systematic attempt’ to drive Christians out of Jerusalem & the holy land. The Greek Patriarchate, one of the largest single property owners in Jerusalem, which leases Israel the land on which the Knesset is built, has long been locked in legal battles with settler groups over property in the city. Tensions boiled over recently around the church-owned Petra Hotel, which Israeli police helped a settler group partially seize in March.” (cont’d)
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“In their letter on Friday, the US lawmakers issued a stark warning about attacks on Christians & Christian sites. They cited a December 2020 attempt by an Israeli man to burn the Church of All Nations located on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, along with four acts of vandalism in one month in 2021 against the monastery of the Romanian Church in Jerusalem.“They also drew attention to attacks on Christian clergy, including the May 2021 assault of an Armenian priest by three Israeli youths.“’The actions of radical groups who are able to act with impunity directly threaten the religious freedom of the Christian community in Jerusalem & undermines the rich history of interfaith cooperation within the city,’ the letter said.“In addition, the lawmakers said that a shrinking Christian presence in the holy land would have ramifications for humanitarian issues, as ministry programmes organised under the auspices of the Christian churches in Jerusalem carry out medical, educational, & humanitarian work for people regardless of religious affiliation throughout Israel, the Palestinian territories & Jordan.“The lawmakers called on the State Department ‘to work with the Israeli government to uphold its stated commitment’ to freedom of religion and worship and to hold radical groups accountable for attacks against Christians.”
I’ve never donated to B’nei Brith, but a friend has. He doesn’t any more.
Listening to Waters on American CNN I was struck at how mediocre his comments were. Strictly rooted in the post ww2 anti Zionist past waters has nothing new to add to the past 15yrs of change in the me. If not for his appeal to the aging hippies and the millennials that don’t have their own music and so idolize an old crank I doubt he would have any platform at all. He is flowing into the stream of irrelavence. But he apparently is much more wealthy then imagined so he can continue on his drunken zoom tirades with peace and abandon. After all, he said he has lots of Jews for friends.