McGill University’s Rampant, Historic, and Current Anti-Semitism

Mcgill University Arts Building, in Montreal,Canada. Photo: wiki commons.

It was sickening to read a recent article about Israel in The McGill Daily, McGill University’s student newspaper, entitled “The Land of Milk and Heroin: The Politics of Opiates in East Jerusalem.” It’s an article which would never fly written about any other country or people, who are absurdly accused therein in what amounts to blatant anti-Semitism. To summarize, the Jews stole the land of Israel, and are pumping drugs into the Arabs.

The article opens like this, “As the world focuses on the Gaza strip in continued but futile attempts to end Israel’s now seven-year-long blockade on the region, the social issues brought up by the Israel-Palestine conflict remain largely absent from news coverage.” So the average reader is subtly led to understand the following message, Israel controls Gaza, and the media isn’t paying enough attention to the social repercussions of Israel’s occupation. The facts are that Hamas, a terrorist organization controls Gaza – a piece of land that Israel handed over to the Arabs – and Israel strives to protect its sovereign borders.

The author continues “Before 1967 the number of Palestinian drug users was reported as being in the mere dozens, and the Global Report on Drugs’ statistics showed no narcotics production or trafficking in the region. After the Six Day War and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip, a different scenario emerged.” Want the punch line? Yes you got it – Blame the Jews. “Many Palestinians accord with Palestine TV’s arguments that – beyond refusing to address opiate abuse – Israeli authorities are actually responsible for encouraging and facilitating heroin use among Arabs for political reasons.” How is it possible that such an article could be published – sans statistics on drug use in Palestinian areas and other Arab countries –  How is it acceptable for a student newspaper to allow this heinous accusation to be leveled against the Jews?

During the 20′s, 30′s and 40′s McGill University had a quota system for Jews, and through the 1960’s McGill had a quota on Jewish medical students. A few years ago, Hillel’s office was vandalized during Passover, and “Heil Hitler” is still scratched on walls. Last year, the school newspaper called to boycott one partner university for their overseas program – of course it was Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Only a few weeks ago, a student at the university tweeted: “The jihad begins today”, “I want to shoot everyone in this room,” and “I should have brought an M-16.” McGill didn’t suspend, or discipline the student in any way.

Simply put, McGill University is allowing the continuation of its historic anti-Semitism. Jewish parents of students and decent people should make note and respond accordingly especially when it comes to donations to the university. With rampant anti-Semitism prevalent on many college campuses perhaps the time has come to create a list of the “Top 10 anti-Semitic Colleges”.

I am a fan and admirer of Ze’ev Maghen of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, who, when  speaking about this issue, said: “A man calls you a pig. Do you walk around with a sign explaining that, in fact, you are not a pig? Do you hand out leaflets expostulating in detail upon the manifold differences between you and a pig (“A pig has a snout, I have a nose; a pig wallows in mud, I only occasionally step in a puddle, and then, of course, inadvertently…”)? Do you stand on a soap box and discourse eruditely on why, in general, it is extremely not nice to call people pigs, and appeal to the populace to please have no truck with an individual rude and nasty enough to say such things about an upstanding citizen like yourself? Fellow Jews, where in hell is your dignity? Where is your abhorrence of useless, thoughtless, counterproductive endeavor?”

Tolerance of anti-Semitism is clearly engrained in the culture at McGill University and any proud Jew shouldn’t support the university in any way.

Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR, a leading PR Agency.