MONTREAL — An anti-Israel motion has once again been put on the agenda of the McGill University undergraduates’ association.
The motion, put forward by the student club Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) and calling for McGill’s divestment from companies “profiting from the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories,” is scheduled to be voted upon at the general assembly of the Students Society of McGill University (SSMU) on March 15.
Students opposed to the motion, led by Jordan Devon of the club Israel on Campus at McGill, are trying to mobilize enough undergraduates to defeat the motion.
They succeeded in October in having another SPHR motion condemning Israel’s “siege” of Gaza and “illegal” settlement expansion shelved indefinitely at the last general assembly by a vote of 402-337.
That decision prevented the motion from being debated or brought forward again in the same form.
This latest motion, however, is much harsher, in Devon’s opinion, and more “action-oriented.”
Mustering enough students to come out on a Sunday morning to have this motion quashed will also be tougher, he said. “I definitely think it could pass.”
SPHR wants McGill to cease investing in such companies as Volvo, which it says provided heavy machinery for the demolition of Palestinian houses in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and Re/Max which it says offers real estate for sale or rental in major West Bank settlements, among several other well-known businesses cited.
The motion notes that the United Methodist and Presbyterian churches in the United States, several large Canadian labour unions, and student unions at U.S. and Canadian universities have adopted similar motions.
Furthermore, the motion proposes that the SSMU launch a campaign on campus with SPHR to press the McGill administration on this issue.
It calls on the SSMU president to “lobby” the university’s board of governors and the executive committee to “educate” members of the society on McGill’s “complicity in the violation of international law and universal human rights of the Palestinian population in the territories,” including using its social media sites.
