Montreal, March 8 - Tonight, Montreal will join over 50 other cities around the world in kicking off the 7th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), which runs from March 8th until March 15th, 2011. Events will be taking place at UQAM, Concordia, and McGill universities, as well as other locations.

 

This year, organizers of this international week of events are celebrating the inspiring revolutions happening throughout the Arab world as a sign that justice may be within reach, even for the Palestinians.

The keynote speaker for IAW in Montreal will be Ali Abunimah, an author, journalist, and founder of Electronic Intifada. Abunimah will be speaking at McGill university on March 9th about the growing movement for Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

 

Other speakers of note will include Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Environmental network, who will draw links between systems of land displacement in Palestine and Canada, as well as activists from the Tunisian and Egyptian communities in Montreal.

“The focus of Israeli Apartheid Week this year will be to examine the ties between our academic institutions here in Montreal and academic institutions in Israel which are complicit in supporting the military occupation of Palestinian lands,” says Rana Salah, a Concordia undergraduate student and one of the organizers of IAW. “At a time when most of the international community continues to condemn Israel for its human rights abuses, we must question why Canadian universities privilege relationships with academic institutions which are engaged in research and development for the Israeli army. Many Palestinian student unions and academics are calling for Canadian universities to cut their ties with Israeli apartheid, and we fully support them.”

For the full schedule of IAW events running from March 8th to 15th, please consult www.iawmontreal.org