By Kim Zarzour
yorkregion.com
Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman filed a resolution this week asking the provincial legislature to condemn Israeli Apartheid Week.
The controversial campus-based annual event, which took place Mar. 1 to 8 this year in more than 40 cities worldwide, compares Israel's control over Palestinians with past racial segregation in South Africa.
It is considered by some as an "Israel-bashing ritual", and by others as legitimate awareness-raising of the Palestinian struggle.
But Mr. Shurman, who has spoken about the event twice before in the legislature, told the House on Monday the event trivializes the South African struggle and should be unanimously condemned.
"To refer to Israel, a democratic state that respects the rule of law and human rights, as an apartheid state is not only erroneous, but it diminishes the suffering of the victims of apartheid in South Africa," he said.
The Thornhill MPP first raised the issue of Israeli Apartheid Week in December 2008, asking all members of the Legislative Assembly to join the Progressive Conservative caucus to condemn the event.
Mr. Shurman's resolution says the term Israel Apartheid Week incites hatred against Israel and "diminishes the suffering of those who were victims of a true apartheid regime in South Africa."
While there is room for debate on Israeli policies, Mr. Shurman said, "terminology that serves only to demonize the opposing point of view must be avoided."
In his speech before the legislature on Monday he referred to long-standing tensions at York University and the threat of physical intimidation on the politically charged campus.
In February, protesters barricaded Jewish students in the student lounge, while shouting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slurs. Mr. Shurman met with York University's president. Mamdouh Shoukri, asking him to create a more tolerable environment on campus.
He repeated that message in the House this week.
"In Canada, we encourage informed debate because it may one day be the foundation for solutions to problems we haven't yet solved. Universities should be the heart of that debate, but never the site of physical intimidation or threat of violence, which we witnessed at York University."
York has a history of friction over the Israel-Palestine situation, but this year's Israel Apartheid Week occurred during exams and was a low-key event on the campus.