As Professor Norman Finkelstein was brought to U of T last Monday to speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, opposition was sparked from students on campus who asked the following question: why did the Student Administrative Council (SAC) fund a speaker who is known for making numerous anti-Israeli remarks? Was the decision to bring Finkelstein a racist act?
In Finkelstein’s book “The Holocaust Industry,” he blames Jewish organizations for using the Nazi Holocaust as a means to pursue political goals to support the Israeli cause.
Far more controversial, however, and best remembered by some U of T students, are his comments during a lecture in Waterloo last year, where Finkelstein was highly critical of Jewish organizations B’nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress, comparing them to Nazis.
Member of the External Affairs Commission and the University Affairs Commission at SAC, Simon Lightstone, says that although the students who brought Finkelstein are not racist themselves, the actual act was indeed racist.
“There are plenty of speakers with similar political views who do not engage in the type of rhetoric as Mr. Finkelstein,” says Lightstone. “Why was he chosen and endorsed as a viable speaker rather than any other? And why should students’ money be spent on someone who had said hateful things?”
Alex Kerner, who helped organize Monday’s debate said that the decision to bring Finkelstein was part of Expression Against Oppression Week, and that SAC did a very thorough job in preventing the shouting and chaos that happened in Waterloo during Finkelstein’s lecture last year. This is why it was decided to have a debate rather than a solo lecture, and on this point Lightstone agrees: “The event was run with a proper mediator that conducted the debate fairly.”
One of Lightstone’s main concerns was how the actual funding was passed by SAC. He notes that the External Affairs Commission voted against the funding, so proponents of Finkelstein moved onto the University Affairs Board. Lightstone points out that no agenda was published that day, and that attendance was unusually high. “I noticed a lot of people I hadn’t seen at the last meeting,” he noted, adding that anyone who shows up at the University Affairs meeting can vote, whereas you must attend at least one meeting previously in order to vote at the External Affairs meeting. Because of what Lightstone refers to as a “left-wing bloc,” the funding passed at the University Affairs meeting, and then again at the SAC Board of Directors meeting. He believes that had the agenda been published, the University Affairs meeting could have been quite different. “It’s very easy to pass something as long as you don’t publish your views,” he said, adding “I think it was inappropriately done and didn’t represent the interest of most students.”
For Kerner, however, everything was above board when it came to securing funding for the event.
“The University Affairs Board is always going to be approached no matter what,” he said, noting that the event’s tie-in with Expression Against Oppression Week made it a no-brainer when it came to asking the board.
As per the question of whether the deck was stacked against Lightstone and others opposed to the event, Kerner believes that turnabout is fair play. “I would argue that the odds were stacked against us [at the Exernal Affairs meeting].” Kerner also stated that those present at the University Affairs meeting were repeat attendees, not just first-timers carted in to swing the vote.
Lightstone is still unimpressed. “Who thinks that we should we fund somebody who said that Black Human Rights are evil and Nazi-like?” Lightstone asked fellow SAC members during one of the meetings. “Nobody raised their hands.”
Kerner, however, does not agree that one can call Finkelstein’s remarks racist. “It is very easy to shout accusations of racism which might be baseless,” he says. “This immediately puts the organizers on the defensive.” In the end, he says, the debate at U of T was civilized and the Waterloo commotion was not repeated.
