Latest news with #Nakba
Al-Ahram Weekly
a day ago
- General
- Al-Ahram Weekly
18 Palestinians killed as Israel continues daily killings at aid sites - War on Gaza
Gaza's civil defence agency said the Israeli forces killed on Thursday at least 18 people, including 15 who had gathered near an aid distribution site in central Gaza. Civil defence official Mohammad Al-Mugghayyir told AFP that "18 people have been killed due to ongoing Israeli shelling on the Gaza Strip since dawn today, 15 of whom were waiting for aid." He added that the remaining three were killed by shelling near Gaza City. 🚨BREAKING | Ongoing Israeli Massacres in Gaza As global attention shifts to the Iran-Israel escalation, Israel is exploiting the moment to intensify its attacks on Gaza bombing homes in northern, central, and southern parts of the Strip. — Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) June 19, 2025 Gaza has been suffering from a catastrophic humanitarian disaster since Israel closed all crossings on 2 March, blocking the entry of all food, medicine, relief aid, and fuel to the strip. On 18 March, Israel unilaterally ended the Gaza ceasefire agreement, resuming its aggression on the strip. Since then, it has carried out a wave of bloody airstrikes across Gaza, killing hundreds of Palestinians. The daily Israeli killing toll has reached at least 5,194 with 17,279 others wounded, according to medical sources. Since October 2023, Israel has waged a military onslaught on the strip, killing 55,493 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 129,320 others. The total number of fatalities and casualties among food seekers has reached 397 and over 3,031, respectively. At least 10,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the strip. Israel's genocidal war has also resulted in the forced displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of displaced people forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt. This constitutes Palestine's most significant mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
'It shares the Palestinian experience of displacement': Basel Zaraa on his Cork Midsummer installation
Can you describe what Dear Laila involves? Dear Laila is an intimate, interactive installation experienced by one audience member at a time, which shares the Palestinian experience of displacement and resistance, through the story of one family. I created it in response to my daughter Laila, who was then five, asking where I grew up, and why we couldn't go there. As I couldn't take her to Yarmouk, the Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus where I grew up, I tried to bring it to her by making a model of our now destroyed family home. The audience member sits in Laila's shoes and learns the story of the house, through the miniature, an audio piece, objects and photos. The story of the house is the story of our family, which in turn is the story of millions of Palestinians. What do you hope an Irish audience will get from it? I hope that this personal approach makes audiences feel more connected to the experience. As Palestinians, our individual experiences tell political stories. And this is not something we have chosen, but something that has been forced upon us by history. I wanted to show how these historical events are experienced in the everyday lives of ordinary people. Can you tell us about your family history? We are from a village called Tantura in the north of Palestine. My grandparents used be a farmers, and in 1948, the year of the Nakba, a Zionist armed group attacked my village and carried out a massacre, killing more than 200 people from my village. Those who survived, were forced to leave, and my great-grandparents were among them. They went to Syria, thinking they would stay for a bit and go back, but that never happened as Israel didn't allow anyone to go back to their homes and towns. More than 750,000 Palestinian forced to leave their homes that year. Now I am one of the third generation to be born and grow up as a refugee in Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, which is one of 12 Palestinian camps in Syria. Did your parents/grandparents continue to hope they would return home to Palestine? Most of the Palestinians I know still have keys to their homes, or title deeds to prove that they owned a home in Palestine. As you say, I am one of the third generation that was born and grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp, and there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees still living as refugees today without any other nationality, in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, West Bank and Gaza. They are waiting to go back home, as is our right recognised by the UN resolution 194, which states that 'Refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date'. Dear Laila was inspired by Basel Zaraa's desire to show his daughter their home in a Syrian refugee camp. For you, Yarmouk seems to have really been a home – albeit with a desire to return to Palestine. What were the circumstances of when you had to leave? Like all refugee camps, Yarmouk meant to be temporary, somewhere to stay until we returned to our villages and homes, but the tents became 'cement tents', and we got stuck there, generation after generation. So it's strange to say that Yarmouk, a refugee camp, was our home, but it was, and when we lost it, it felt like losing a home again. I left just before the uprising began, on a spouse visa, expecting to be able to return to visit. But after the uprising started in Syria, Yarmouk became one of the worst hit places by the war, following a pattern of destruction of Palestinian camps that we often see in the region. Most of the camp got destroyed and most of its residents got displaced and were forced to leave their homes again, which brought back the trauma of our first exile, when my grandparents were forced to leave Palestine. Are there particular possessions that were important for you to take to the UK? When I left I didn't know I'd be unable to return for a long time, or that when I returned the camp would be destroyed. The thing that has been most important for me is how we could rescue photos from Yarmouk, to preserve memories of happy moments in the camp, so our visual memory was not only of its destruction. When my father went back to see the camp after the siege was lifted, he was able to get some of the photos from rubble, and I use these photos in Dear Laila. Obviously, what's happening in Gaza and beyond recently has reached whole new levels of horror. How has that affected you, both personally and in terms your art? We as Palestinians have been living in trauma for 77 years - the wars haven't stopped, from 1948 to 1967, Black October in the 1970s, the siege of Beirut in 1982, the first and second Intifada, military and settler attacks in the West Bank, and the siege and continued attacks on Gaza over the last 20 years... Personally, to witness what happened to my camp, Yarmouk, and to my neighbours and family and people, was a big trauma, which affected me, and most of us from the camp, deeply. It took time for us to be able to comprehend what was happening to us. Art is a way of understanding this trauma and healing our wounds by facing what has happened, and telling our story. My works try to tell the story of my community, in the face of the occupation's attempt to create a false narrative about what they have done to us. I feel this is my responsibility, as a Palestinian, as an artist and as a human. Art always plays a big role in defending the oppressed and defending truth, and this is clear when you see how the occupation tries to suppress these expressions, whether that's the assassination of the writer Ghassan Kanafani, or the killing of journalists and intellectuals in Gaza today. What do you think of the boycott movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel, particularly in an arts context? BDS is an essential and effective tool for people around the world to show solidarity with Palestine and put pressure on the occupation, now more than ever. As witnesses to the ongoing genocide, we must put pressure on Israel with all the tools available to us, and the example of South Africa shows us that boycotts work. Obviously, the situation in Syria is fluid, but what are your thoughts on returning to Yarmouk, possibly bringing Laila? I returned to Syria after the fall of the regime. I wanted to witness this important moment in Syria's history, and was able to go a month after the dictatorship fell. The dictatorship had been there for half a century, and, particularly in recent years, it felt like it would never fall, but it did, which is a reminder that although the road to freedom can be long, nothing lasts forever. It was incredible to witness Syrians celebrating these first moments of freedom, and when I was there my mind was in Palestine and imagining when this moment will come for us too. I didn't take my daughter Laila or my son Ibrahim with me this time, but I hope to in the future. It was hard to see Yarmouk destroyed, we had always seen it on the news so much, but in real life it affects you much more strongly. But it was also nice to see the first time they had Eid in Yarmouk, with swings and children playing in the streets. It gave a feeling of hope for the future. Dear Laila is on June 20-22 at MicroGALLERY, on Grand Parade, Cork. Tickets: €8. See
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
‘It horrifies me, but I had actually developed a corporate strut': Fintan Drury on Anglo, Paddy Power and Gaza
Fintan Drury was marching in support of Palestine with one of his daughters last year, feeling the same distrust he felt during his 1980s stint as a presenter of RTÉ's Morning Ireland. 'I just sort of thought, well, I don't believe what we're being fed. I just don't believe it.' As Israel's onslaught on Gaza intensified, his participation in marches became more regular, and so did the sense that he could do something else to counter the official line coming from Israel. He rejects as 'patent nonsense' any perception that the conflict began with the Hamas attacks of October 7th, 2023. 'I thought there was more I could do if I got up off my ass and used my curious mind and my journalistic training.' READ MORE This was the catalyst for writing Catastrophe: Nakba II, his sober yet devastating account of Israel's treatment of Palestinians over decades. He says the subject is too important not to actively promote the book and that means being 'quizzed' by journalists, though he seems keen throughout our conversation to avoid coming across as egotistic – something that will not surprise readers of his 2021 memoir See-Saw, which dwells on the perils of ego. 'Sorry, it sounds sort of pompous,' he apologises soon after explaining how he was counselled to exhume his reporting skills in 2016. That year Drury wrote a series of articles for The Irish Times from his time as a volunteer at a Syrian refugee camp in Athens. It came after a long spell in the higher echelons of Irish corporate life during which he was, on occasion, the story. Indeed, so much of his career was spent in business that when he identifies journalism as the thing he was 'best at', the self-criticism is implied. Fintan Drury: 'I wasn't trying to be a hero; that wasn't my mission.' Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill Catastrophe opens with a note acknowledging that most books on Palestine and Israel are by authors with more extensive experience of the Middle East. Many are by 'absolutely brilliant minds', he says, but can be academic and dense. His aim, when he began working on it 'in a serious way' in April 2024, was to provide an accessible narrative 'so even the people who are out marching and protesting and wearing their keffiyehs – the people who are instinctively pro-Palestine – can better understand why they're protesting'. His research, which saw him travel to the West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon last July, helped confirm his own 'gut' feeling, though he didn't know then how extreme the situation would become. 'I didn't honestly believe at that time that it could be as bad as it is now. And it was bad then. Really, really bad.' Israel's aggression escalated while he was in the region, obliging him to call off one trip to southern Lebanon after a phone call with a contact in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil). He was advised that an elevated security threat meant it would no longer be able to dedicate a minder. 'It's a bit like swimming when you're told not to, and the coastguard getting called out. You're putting other people at risk. I'm a grandfather. I wasn't trying to be a hero; that wasn't my mission, so I didn't go.' He has been heartened by the 'very positive' public reaction. At the Listowel Literary Festival, interest in Catastrophe was such that his talk was moved to a bigger room, though when someone asked him about solutions, he said he wasn't the right person to offer them. 'It is multifaceted, and it will ebb and flow and change,' he says. 'But the fundamental of the story is pretty clear to me and to a great many others who are there and studying it and observing it for decades. This is a genocide. All bets are off now. This is not right.' [ Britain and allies sanction two Israeli ministers as Gazan authorities say gunfire kills dozens at food aid site Opens in new window ] Authors often have more than one reason for writing a particular book and in his case there were several. Apart from the conflict itself, and the time being right for him to embark upon the project, he sees parallels with Ireland's colonisation that intersect with his own family story. Drury's maternal grandfather Joseph Connolly was a leader of the Irish Volunteers in Belfast who was imprisoned by the British in 1916 and resumed his republican activities in the city after his release. When it became too dangerous to stay, he fled with his wife and young family to Dublin. Connolly, who went on to serve twice as a minister under Éamon de Valera, died when Drury was two, but he knew his grandmother well, he says. 'My grandparents were displaced people. They were refugees from Belfast. Is that relevant? Absolutely, it's relevant. Because it's in your history. You understand that Catholics and nationalists who weren't able to get out continued to suffer.' Catastrophe – the Nakba of the subtitle refers, in the first instance, to the mass displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war – is dedicated to the memory of his Belfast-born mother Róisín Drury, née Connolly. Their discussions about how the plight of Jewish people was shamefully ignored in the 1930s and 1940s would sometimes end with her relief that modern communications meant nothing like the Holocaust could ever happen again. There will be no credible basis for anyone to claim they did not understand what Israel was doing in Gaza or that they 'somehow missed it', he writes. The book documents an 'institutionalised bias' in the West towards Israel as the 'upholder of Western values' in the Middle East, with Drury despairing at both 'staggering' international inertia and 'chilling' sponsorship of Israel's campaign. He witnessed what he calls the 'warped' US policy first hand when he reported for RTÉ on Ronald Reagan's 1984 re-election and believes Democrats as well as Republicans have abandoned Palestinians. While Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu found it easy to 'play' the US in a presidential election year, he says the young mothers he met in Lebanon were livid that such a 'warmonger', as one described him, was permitted to address Congress. Ireland should be doing more, too, he concludes. 'I think Ireland has done many things really well, I really do, but has Ireland done enough? Time will tell, but right now I don't think so.' Drury (67) was born in Dublin and raised in Clonskeagh, then a 'sleepy part of south Dublin'. He attended Blackrock College and later UCD – its relocation to Belfield was an early taste of the city's encroachment on the fields of his youth. From 1981 to 1988 he was a newsman, joining RTÉ despite being told in a screen test that his head was 'shaped like a shovel'. He reported from Belfast and overseas before becoming the co-presenter of Radio 1's then fledgling Morning Ireland in 1985. But after just two-and-half years he grew restless and left broadcasting at age 29. It wasn't his plan to go into business, yet that's what he did, founding the public relations firm Drury Communications before selling it to its management a decade later to concentrate on his eponymous sports consultancy, which in 2004 rebranded as Platinum One. He became chairman of RTÉ in mid-2005 but resigned after six months when a perceived conflict of interest arose – over golf. The then government was flirting with adding the 2006 Ryder Cup, which was being held in Co Kildare, to its list of free-to-air television events, but Drury was an adviser to its organisers. Relinquishing the role was 'the right thing', he says. Does this all seem like a long time ago? 'It was a long time ago,' he says, laughing. It was that exact Celtic Tiger era, I say. 'Yeah.' These were hubristic times, as Drury outlines in See-Saw, which is laced with mea culpas about a 'sense of impregnability' borne of live news presenting and his PR and sports management success. It underpinned decisions that led, he writes, 'to a decade of stress that was degenerative of body and soul'. I had actually developed a corporate strut. When that becomes part of your way, you don't lose the capacity or the facility to make good judgments, but that capacity is dimmed or diminished — Fintan Drury After Anglo Irish Bank supremo Seán FitzPatrick persuaded him to join the Anglo board, he served as non-executive director for six years until May 2008, leaving six months before the bank failed. FitzPatrick's post-collapse recollection that Drury brought him and then taoiseach Brian Cowen together for a July 2008 meeting and round of golf did no one any favours, with Drury and Cowen, his friend, still being asked about it at an Oireachtas inquiry seven years later. (No banking was discussed that day, they said.) FitzPatrick's distraction-creating move convinced Drury of FitzPatrick's 'utter selfishness', he notes in the memoir. Cowen, meanwhile, remains a friend and was one of the early readers of Catastrophe. [ Fintan Drury: Brian Cowen put country first, party second Opens in new window ] I ask him about his realisation that when FitzPatrick said he wanted board members who would 'never be afraid' of expressing their opinion, he was flattering his ego. 'Yeah, and men, in particular, we're more susceptible to that,' he says. He mentions his use of the phrase 'corporate strut', which he suspects he acquired in those Anglo days. Fintan Drury: 'I was a good chairman in the sense that I helped [Paddy Power] grow. But I was horrified when I looked back.' Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill 'It horrifies me, and it would have horrified me before – it wasn't a conscious thing – but when I looked back on it, I had actually developed a corporate strut. When that becomes part of your way, you don't lose the capacity or the facility to make good judgments, but that capacity is dimmed or diminished.' He also regrets that 'the blinkers were on' during his tenure as Paddy Power chairman, when he says his old curiosity was subsumed by passive subscription to corporate Ireland, blinding him to the societal consequences of gambling. Efforts to regulate the industry are 'nowhere near tough enough' , he says. 'I was a good chairman in the sense that I helped the company grow. But I was horrified when I looked back, and I wished I'd never been chairman.' [ From the archive: Banking inquiry: Drury's evidence was worth the wait Opens in new window ] The memoir, as well as his articles for The Irish Times and business publication The Currency, gave him a 'certain level of confidence' that he could write, though he has been reluctant to call himself a journalist again. 'There was a discussion with [Catastrophe publishers] Merrion Press about how to describe me on blurbs, and initially I was kind of resistant to that, because I think I have an old-fashioned sense of what a journalist does,' he says. (The blurb says he 'returned to journalism' in 2016 but introduces him as 'an author and opinion writer'.) The principles of his news years are deeply rooted, nonetheless. When he says he watches 'really good interviewers' flail amid the 'stonewalling, stonewalling, stonewalling' of Israel's spokespeople, I ask if he thinks it is correct to invite them on air when this outcome can be anticipated. 'I would have suffered the constraints of Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, and I don't believe in censorship. I am strongly of the view that censorship of any description is not of value. So I think it is better to attempt to interview them, and every so often you might make a little breakthrough,' he says. 'I think their own Sphinx-like intransigence, and same old weary lines, reinforces to most of the audience – which is more intelligent than we ever give them credit for – that that's what it is.' Sport being the other through line of his life – he played soccer for UCD – Drury is now chairman of not-for-profit Sport Against Racism Ireland. 'The work of any NGO, trying to get funds, is hard,' he says, adding that he would like to see the Government 'crack the whip' so the private sector does more. 'A lot of private-sector companies benefiting from migration aren't investing any money at all in supporting initiatives that make migrants feel part of our community, feel cared for, feel respected, and that's a real shame. I would much rather you include that than any bolloxology about Fintan Drury.' Catastrophe: Nakba II by Fintan Drury is published by Merrion Press
Vancouver Sun
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Vancouver Sun
Jewish student group calls on TMU to discipline incoming interim dean over anti-Israel social posts
Hillel Ontario is calling on Toronto Metropolitan University to investigate Maher El-Masri, a recently appointed interim associate dean, because the group says he has 'repeatedly engaged with and spread extreme, antisemitic, and deeply polarizing content on his social media account.' Hillel Ontario, a Jewish student organization with a presence on nine campuses across the province, including TMU, sent an action alert last Thursday alongside several screenshots of social media posts from an account Hillel says belongs to El-Masri. The X account is under El-Masri's name and the biography describes the user as the 'son of (a) Nakba survivor,' referring to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The account states that the user is in Ontario, has a Palestinian flag for its profile picture and a background quote claiming 'humanity is failing the Palestine test.' One message Hillel highlighted from the account concerned a post about Noa Marciano, an Israeli intelligence soldier abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, during its invasion of Israel. Marciano later died in captivity. 'This is what is so scary about people like her,' the TMU professor wrote beneath a graduation photo of Marciano, which claimed she was killed in an Israeli airstrike. 'They look so normal and innocent, but they hide monstrous killers in their sick, brainwashed minds.' Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Marciano's friend, Ori Megidish — another hostage rescued by Israeli forces in late October 2023 — said she was killed by a doctor in al-Shifa hospital. Her parents said the same thing in subsequent interviews. 'I hate everyone who directly or indirectly caused this indignity to the most honorable and most dignified people on Earth,' an undated post flagged by Hillel reads alongside broken heart emojis, an apparent reference to the conflict in Gaza. In December 2023, El-Masri was interviewed by CBC for a story about his brother, who he said was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza while searching for food. El-Masri has continued to post about the conflict on the X account, which remains open to the public. 'Israel is a baby killer state. It always has been,' he wrote on June 6, a day after the Hillel notice. Some of his posts compare Israel to Nazi Germany, a comparison deemed antisemitic by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). On May 7, 2025, El-Masri commented on a photo of a proposed humanitarian zone in Gaza. 'The irony of history: The last time such a concentration camp was erected, it was by the Nazis!' El-Masri returns to the point repeatedly throughout his social media feed. 'How could a people who have endured the worst human persecution in the holocaust carry this deep hate and inflict unimaginable pain on a nother (sic) people who, in fact, had nothing to do with the holocaust!!!!' he wrote last June. 'When the victims of the holocaust call for a holocaust,' El-Masri wrote in early May 2025. He has also downplayed the role of Hamas in the conflict on several occasions. 'This is NOT a war against Hamas. This is a genocidal war against the very existence of the Palestinian people,' he wrote in August 2024. In May 2025, he argued that ''Hamas' is the zionists' code word to dehumanize the Palestinian people.' National Post reached out to El-Masri for comment but the professor responded with an email ordering the Post not to contact him anymore. He described the allegations around the content of his social media account as a 'smear campaign.' Liat Schwartz, a Jewish TMU student in the same department as El-Masri, called his online statements alarming, 'especially since I'm openly Jewish.' Schwartz, the president of a pro-Israel group on campus, called on university leaders to protect 'the well-being of Jewish and Israeli students,' saying El-Masri's presence 'makes me feel profoundly unsafe and unheard within my own faculty.' Hillel Ontario called on TMU to rescind El-Masri's appointment as interim dean. 'TMU's decision to promote Dr. El-Masri, despite his extensive history of promoting antisemitic and extremist content, is egregious,' Jay Solomon, the group's chief advancement officer, told the Post in a written statement. 'Those in leadership positions must be held to the absolute highest standard, and ensure that all students — including Jews and Israelis — feel supported. This appointment sends exactly the opposite message. TMU must act swiftly in removing El-Masri and alter their process to ensure this doesn't happen again.' University spokesperson Jessica Leach underscored the personal impact the ongoing conflict was having on members of the university community but said that El-Masiri's 'posts do not reflect the position of the university.' 'The posts are his personal views as a faculty member, with no mention of or affiliation with TMU. The university is reviewing this matter,' she said in a written statement encouraging university members 'to be respectful, collegial, and empathetic.' Leach initially challenged Hillel's press release, claiming the organization was mistaken and El-Masiri was not a dean. When asked if El-Masiri had ever held the position of dean, interim or otherwise, Leach wrote the Post that he had not. Her response was contradicted by Hillel, who shared with the Post an email sent in early June apparently from the Faculty of Community Services dean announcing El-Masiri's appointment. 'Dr. El-Masri has a demonstrated track record of excellence in teaching, research and service, and he is widely respected for his enormous engagement with health care systems in Toronto, across Ontario, and even globally,' the email says. TMU later followed up with a statement confirming that El-Masri has been appointed an assistant dean, but he has not yet assumed the post. 'His appointment as interim-acting Assistant Dean is not effective until July 1. Until that time, Dr. El-Masri is the director of the school of nursing, a faculty-level position. Directors within faculties, such as Dr. El-Masri's position, are not administrators. They are full members of the Toronto Metropolitan Faculty Association (TFA),' the statement says. El-Masri is scheduled to be the convocation speaker for the Faculty of Community Services graduation event on June 18. Steven Tissenbaum, a recently retired TMU business professor, said the university's failure to properly deal with allegations of antisemitism has coloured life at the downtown Toronto campus since the October 7 massacre. He called the administration's failure to discipline dozens of law students who signed a letter defending 'all forms of Palestinian resistance' days after the Hamas atrocities 'the real defining moment' for him. 'Jewish professors at large recognize that TMU is not a place to be,' Tissenbaum told the Post, explaining this realization is spreading to Jewish students and families as well. Two other academics from TMU reiterated Tissenbaum's point but wished to remain anonymous because they are still actively teaching at TMU. 'I am writing to let you know that it is worse for faculty and staff,' one tenured academic, who wished to remain anonymous, wrote the Post after an earlier story chronicling the harassment Schwartz and other Jewish students experienced on campus was published. 'Faculty who are demonstrably Jewish have been attacked, harassed, and threatened, and some have even resigned.' Tissenbaum taught at TMU for nearly three decades and said the university has grown increasingly insensitive to the concerns of Jewish academics and students. He was particularly alarmed by the university's faculty association passing a motion in May recognizing anti-Palestinian racism (a new term which advocates for the dismantling of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism) at a time of increased Jew hatred. 'The undercurrents of antisemitism have been there,' he said, recalling a time in the nineties when someone drew a swastika on his desk. When he raised the incident during a university diversity and equity session, Tissenbaum says he 'was ghosted' and that no one responded to his concerns. 'It's always been there, but what's happened since October 7 is that it provided a spark for people to be outwardly aggressive with their antisemitism.' Tissenbaum decided to retire early from TMU. He stepped away in August 2024. 'I retired primarily due to the increased antisemitism being experienced on campus due to the lack of administrative support from the president down,' he wrote the Post. Although Tissenbaum said he did not feel physically threatened on campus, he believes the treatment Jewish students have endured in recent years is not conducive to a healthy learning atmosphere. The entrepreneurship professor sees TMU's troubles since the October 7 terrorist attacks as part of a broader national malaise. 'What's happening in TMU is a microcosm of what's happening everywhere else. Canada is not a safe place,' he said. 'TMU is not a safe place for Jewish students. It's not a future.'
Edmonton Journal
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Edmonton Journal
Jewish student group calls on TMU to discipline incoming interim dean over anti-Israel social posts
Article content Hillel Ontario is calling on Toronto Metropolitan University to investigate Maher El-Masri, a recently appointed interim associate dean, because the group says he has 'repeatedly engaged with and spread extreme, antisemitic, and deeply polarizing content on his social media account.' Hillel Ontario, a Jewish student organization with a presence on nine campuses across the province, including TMU, sent an action alert last Thursday alongside several screenshots of social media posts from an account Hillel says belongs to El-Masri. The X account is under El-Masri's name and the biography describes the user as the 'son of (a) Nakba survivor,' referring to Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The account states that the user is in Ontario, has a Palestinian flag for its profile picture and a background quote claiming 'humanity is failing the Palestine test.'
