By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Last week, the Halton District School Board (HDSB) held one of its monthly meetings to discuss various items relevant to the board. The board also heard from various delegates who made recommendations and voiced concerns.
The first delegate was Andrew Sia, who asked the board to support recommendations and report number 25005, with amended language.
Sia spoke about a motion that was passed by the board to study antisemitism and hear Jewish student perspectives.
Sia said that while he supports this motion in principle, he said that the rise of antisemitism can only be fully understood by contextualizing anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia as well.
“Focusing only on antisemitism does a disservice to the whole community, both Jews and non-Jews alike,” Sia said. “The board needs to be aware of how reports and statistics around the antisemitic incidents are often biased and unreliable. Make no mistake, there has been a rise in antisemitism in Canada, but the available stats about antisemitic incidents, such as those from B’nai Brith, are methodologically unreliable and employ a politically motivated definition of antisemitism that encompasses not just hatred and discrimination of Jews, but also criticisms of the State of Israel and legitimate expressions of Palestinian identity.”
Sia continued to explain that although most Canadian Jews support the State of Israel, those who are uncomfortable with Palestinian expression and self-determination are not experiencing antisemitism, just “political discomfort.”
“The State of Israel is a political entity,” Sia said. “No political state is inherent to Judaism as a religion or to the Jewish people. Judaism and Jews have existed for thousands of years, while Zionism is a political movement that began in the late 1800s. Anti-Zionism is not inherently antisemitic. To classify criticism or even hostility towards the political entity of Israel as antisemitic is both inaccurate and trivializes real forms of Jew-hatred.”
Sia said that he is very concerned that the motion passed in November will be plagued by the same flawed methodology that the B’nai Brith statistics suffered from.
“If that’s the case, Palestinian students will be victimized,” Sia said. “No student should be told that wearing their cultural dress is a form of hatred, whether it’s a keffiyeh or a dashiki, or that having a flag of their homeland is discrimination, whether it’s the Palestinian or the Canadian flag.”
Sia said that he fears that the adoption of this recommendation will lead to discrimination towards Palestinian students. Sia also voiced concerns that the board is prioritizing antisemitism above other types of discrimination.
“The board is not only giving Jewish students special treatment but also potentially endorsing forms of anti-Palestinian racism under the guise of combating antisemitism,” Sia said. “This creates an unsafe environment for Jews, where true incidents of Jew-hatred may go unaddressed, diluted by complaints about expression of Palestinian identity or political speech critical of the Israeli state, to which the board will be forced to devote its attention.”
Sia ended his delegation by condemning all forms of hatred.
“Every incident of hate in school is a tragedy and the board needs to understand and address them all, including anti-Palestinian racism, not just those targeted at people like me,” Sia said.
Trustee Tanya Rocha for Oakville Wards 3 and 6 asked Sia what specific amendments he would like added to the motion.
“It’s my understanding that there was talk of adding an amendment to the motion to include explicitly anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia,” Sia said.
After the only question regarding the delegation was answered, Amy Collard, the chair of the board and trustee for Burlington Ward 5, thanked Sia for his delegation.
“I wish to thank you very much for your very well-thought-out approach to your delegation this evening,” Collard said. “Very much appreciated. Thank you.”
