Pro-Palestinian protesters reject University of Toronto’s latest offer

Pro-Palestinian student protesters who speak on behalf of an encampment at the University of Toronto say they cannot accept the school’s latest offer to end their protest because it does not meet their demands. claims.

Kalliope Anvar McCall, a fourth-year student who has been living in the encampment for 40 days, told reporters Monday that the offer made last Thursday is unacceptable because it does not propose real change.

“This agreement has no guaranteed results,” said Anwar McCall.

“We cannot accept it. We have no choice but to stay here and continue to push for a better deal.”

The student protesters called on the university to disclose its endowment investments, divest from companies that “support Israeli apartheid and the illegal occupation and colonization of Palestine,” and sever ties with academic institutions Israeli forces that operate in the occupied territories or support Israel’s military efforts, including its ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

The encampment was set up on May 2, as part of a massive wave of pro-Palestinian protests at post-secondary institutions in Canada and the United States.

School administrators said they are working to end the encampment peacefully through dialogue, but they are also asking an Ontario court to grant them the authority to allow police to evacuate the encampment.

No “direct” investments in arms producing companies, says university president

In a message to the University of Toronto community on Sunday, Meric Gertler of the University of Toronto said the university has proposed expedited processes to consider protesters’ demands for divestment and greater transparency on its investments.

He said trustees confirmed that the school “does not have any direct investment in any company, including those that produce armaments.”

Gertler added that the latest proposal was “proportionate or more comprehensive than agreements that resolved the encampments in peer institutions.”

The University of Toronto, however, says it will not sever its ties with Israeli universities.

“We said we would leverage existing policies to examine human rights issues that might be relevant to international partnerships. Unfortunately, camp participants rejected this proposal,” he said.

Sara Rasikh, a graduate student who also speaks on behalf of the camp, said the university is offering protesters bureaucratic procedures for divestment and disclosure, but it is not offering any real movement for disclosure and divestment.

“What they offered us was a restatement of university policy and procedures that we were already aware of,” Rasikh said.

“In times like an ongoing genocide, we have a moral obligation to act quickly. They push us toward bureaucratic slowdowns and policies and procedures that have failed students in the past.”

Protesters say the university’s indirect investments are to blame.

“We know for a fact that the University of Toronto is indirectly investing in weapons manufacturing companies complicit in Israeli apartheid,” said Erin Mackey, an undergraduate political science and environmental studies student.

Regarding disclosure, students said the university agreed to the idea of ​​a third party reviewing indirect investments, but students wanted to choose who the third party was and the university said no.

Student protesters said Gertler did not personally participate in the more than 20 hours of negotiations between students and the administration.

School is open again for meetings with students, says president

Gertler said the administration was willing to meet again with camp representatives “when there are productive reasons to do so” but would also continue to seek a court injunction.

In late May, the university requested an urgent court injunction allowing police to evacuate the encampment, but a hearing will not take place until June 19 or 20. No new negotiations are planned.

The university is increasingly concerned about “online rhetoric and images, vandalism and other disruptive behavior” related to the encampment, Gertler said.

“We deplore this behavior. Individual cases have been and will continue to be investigated and reported to the Toronto Police Service,” he added.

Rasikh, however, said it was the camp that was the target of the hatred. She said food was delivered to the camp with razors, students, staff and faculty involved in the protest faced online harassment and a counter-protester pointed a knife at commissioners of camp.

The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7 that killed about 1,200 people and resulted in the kidnapping of about 250 hostages, according to Israeli counts. About half of the hostages were freed during a week-long ceasefire in November. Hamas and other militants still hold some 120 hostages, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.

More than 36,730 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry.