McGill Encampment: Students Stand Firm Against Their Universities for a Boycott of Israel

 

Students are occupying the McGill Campus to denounce McGill and Concordia Universities’ financial and academic ties with Israel.

Montreal students are following the example of their peers in the United States, setting up camp on McGill University grounds to demand an academic and financial boycott of Israel by the institution, as well as by Concordia University. 

McGill’s investments in companies linked to Israeli apartheid amount to several million dollars. Both universities have been resisting the repeated demands of their communities for months.

Since the first solidarity camp with Palestine at Columbia University in New York was established on April 17, Ali’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing.

“People were asking me, ‘When are we doing the same thing in Montreal?’” said Ali, a member of the movement. They are demanding that their universities divest from Israeli companies involved in violence against the Palestinian people and sever their ties with universities in Israel.

The student community was eager to replicate the action in Montreal, so much so that on Saturday afternoon, just hours after the first invitation appeared on social media to join a camp on McGill University’s lawn, about 100 people were already present.

About 20 tents were already set up by the end of Saturday. By Monday, the number had tripled. Professors, as well as students from UQAM and Université de Montréal, were also present. They celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover and Palestinian film screenings and seminars in the encampment that first day.

The students say they will remain on McGill’s campus until their demands are met. In addition to severing academic and financial ties with Israel, students are also calling on their universities to publicly condemn the genocide in Gaza and to pressure the Canadian government to end its military ties with Israel.

“The initiative of the students at Columbia has united us. It has sparked a revolutionary movement, and it cannot be ignored because it is already significant,” Ali said.  (more...)

McGill Encampment: Students Stand Firm Against Their Universities for a Boycott of Israel