VIU students protest in solidarity with Palestine
Protest organizer says all Israelis who arrived after 1948 ‘need to get out’
Sara Kishawi holds a sign at the “Solidarity with Palestine” protest at Vancouver Island University on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023 organized by the Muslim Women's Club, which she is co-president of. Photo: Mick Sweetman, CHLY 101.7FM
Updated Oct. 21 with information about the university adding the Palestinian flag to the international building.
On Thursday, Oct. 12 the Muslim Women’s Club at Vancouver Island University (VIU) held a “Solidarity with Palestine” protest in the campus quad.
It was a quiet gathering with a couple of dozen students holding home-made signs reading “This is not a war, it’s a genocide”, “Stop Israel war crimes, free Palestine” and displaying Palestinian flags. Instead of loud speeches and chanting, people discussed the issue with interested passersby.
Sara Kishawi is the co-president of the Muslim Women’s Club that organized the rally. She moved to Canada in 2011 from Gaza and her extended family is trapped in Gaza.
“I am worried for my family,” she said. “They're in this small space that is blocked in all directions, they have no way out. And they're just dropping random bombs on civilians. They're dropping white phosphorus, which is not allowed under international law, on civilians.”
On Friday, Oct. 7 Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad infiltrated into southern Israel from the Gaza strip and killed over 1,400, including 258 soldiers, and scores of citizens from other countries some of whom were attending a nearby music festival. This attack also injured over 3,500 people in Israel with 199 taken hostage.
Five Canadians are confirmed to have been killed in the attack. Foreign Affairs minister Melanie Joly would not say if any Canadians are among the hostages taken into Gaza.
Israel estimates its armed forces killed 1,500 Hamas militants inside of Israel.
As of Sunday, the Gaza Ministry of Health says that 2,670 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7 and 9,600 have been injured.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza is urgently calling on countries to send volunteer medical teams to the Gaza Strip, to replace medical staff who have either been killed or displaced.
In response to the attack, Israel stopped all supplies of water, food, electricity and fuel into Gaza and only restored water to the southern part of the strip on Sunday.
On Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a statement saying “The rapid and unimpeded access of relief via a humanitarian corridor is essential to address the urgent needs of civilians in Gaza.”
He also called for international law to be respected and for civilians, journalists, humanitarian and medical workers to be protected.
Students hold signs at the “Solidarity with Palestine” protest at Vancouver Island University on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: Mick Sweetman / CHLY 101.7FM.
Sara’s father Sharif Kishawi also attended the rally on Thursday stressing the urgent need to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
“Put politics aside, the situation in Gaza is too bad,” he said. “They have cut off supplies, food, water, electricity, everything. And things are really deteriorating. We're talking to our families there, they have almost run out of food, run out of everything. I don't know if they can survive for another couple of days.”
Sharif says that something has to be done.
“Humanitarian supplies must get into Gaza as soon as possible,” he said. “Before we have two million people starving to death.”
Israel has also warned over one million people living in the northern half of the Gaza strip to evacuate to the southern half, something that the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said would be “extremely dangerous –and in some cases, simply not possible.”
Sara says that while she supports the call for a ceasefire so humanitarian aid can reach civilians in Gaza, she says instead of Palestinians evacuating from Gaza she would like Israelis to “get out” of not only the occupied territories, but all of Israel.
“The whole of Palestine, from the river to the sea, is Palestinian land,” she said. “Leaving Palestine as refugees and stuff like that? No, that's not what we want. We want the occupiers to leave Palestine, that's what we want. This is the ideal plan. Any settlers that came in after 1948 that are in the country of Israel, they need to get out. This is Palestine.”
Asked if she thought all Israelis should leave she replied, “Yeah, this is our land. I'm sorry, if you're going to for 75 plus years, terrorize — and by terrorize, it doesn't even compare to what's happening right now in Gaza — I was there for the 2008 war, they were bombing everywhere. I was witness to that.”
“If you do all of that to us, do you think we want peace after? You think we're going to be like, ‘Okay, let's live together now?’ No, of course not. You terrorized us for 75 plus years, you do not get to have any right to this land, even under us. You need to get out. Because this is the only way that we get freedom.”
Naser Hatabeh is a Palestinian student whose grandfather fled to Jordan in 1948, after what Israel calls its War of Independence and what Palestinians call the Nakba — which means “the catastrophe” — where an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from the land that became Israel.
He expressed his condolences to people in Nanaimo’s Jewish community who have family in Israel.
“I'm so sorry,” he said. “There is no justification for the deaths of civilians. There are no winners in war, there's only losers.”
Hatabeh says that the war isn’t about religion.
“We respect our Jewish brothers and sisters because they come from the same place with the same ideas with the same morals. It has nothing to do with religion. It has all to do about colonization, imperialism, and that is all stretched from Zionism,” he said. “I don't really think the Jewish community has anything to do with this. Because a lot of them support us as well.”
Hazma Hasan is a VIU student whose family are Palestinian refugees in Jordan. His mother is originally from Bethlehem and his father is from Jerusalem.
He does not believe the well documented reports of hundreds of civilians in Israel, including women and children, being killed by Hamas.
“Over 240 kids are dying in Gaza,” he said. “The other side is saying [it] also has children dying from Hamas. After one day they find that all of that news was fake.”
CHLY asked Hasan what part was "fake" and he said the reporting of the deaths of Israeli civilians, including women and children. When CHLY responded that it was confirmed that hundreds of Israeli civilians had been killed at a music festival and bus stops in the initial days of the conflict, Hasan said that he "didn't see any evidence for that."
On Friday, Israel published graphic photos of babies and toddlers that had been killed and burnt in the attack in southern Israel on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Spencer Dutchak, a political studies student at VIU and senior fellow with Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, says the university needs to make a statement in support of Israel. Photo: Mick Sweetman / CHLY 101.7FM
Spencer Dutchak is a third-year political studies student at VIU and senior fellow with Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee. He says the university needs to make a statement in support of Israel.
“What's happening right now in Israel is the murder and slaughter of innocent civilians, children, women by Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the Canadian government for over 20 years,” he said. “The university needs to at least say something and condemn the attacks.”
The university did send a statement on Tuesday, Oct. 10 that was shared on VIU’s social media and sent in the student and employee email newsletters the next day.
The statement reads, “Vancouver Island University is deeply saddened by the outbreak of war in the Middle East and the tragic loss of lives in Israel and Palestine. We recognize these events are distressful and a cause for concern among members of our university community.”
“Our thoughts are with those in our community with ties to the region. We encourage anyone who is feeling distressed directly or indirectly by this violence to reach out to available supports.”
Sara would also like to see a stronger statement from the university, but in support of Palestine.
“Putting out a statement that's neutral, or that says, both sides need to stop, that's pro-Israel at this point,” she said. “It's supporting genocide. They need to put out specific statements and support for Palestinians.”
The flag of Israel is one of dozens of countries that hang from the ceiling in VIU’s international education building, but every time Sara walks into the building she notices that the Palestinian flag is absent.
“You go into the international building and the Israeli flag is up there. No Palestinian flag,” she said. “Now, multiple students, including my dad, who was an alumni of VIU, have gone to the administration when he was a student here and said, ‘Can we get the Palestinian flag up?’ No response, you don't get a response on these things. They don't say no, they just don't respond, which is worse.”
A spokesperson for the university told CHLY that the flags represent countries where VIU students are from and that the university is reviewing its list of students and will add any flags that are missing. Days after this story was originally published a Palestinian flag was added.
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.