Restaurant staff losing their jobs for cheering on a pro-Palestinian protest. A Palestinian Canadian journalist fired for her social media posts calling for a #freepalestine. Medical residents flagged to potential hiring committees for their support of Palestinians.
These are just some of the many instances across Canada in which employees and students have faced firings, suspensions or calls for them to not be hired based on their publicly stated political stance on the Israel-Hamas war. It’s a trend that has been reported not just in Canada but also in the U.S. and Europe, and across various industries, including media, law, health care and the service sector.
According to three Ontario-based lawyers who spoke to CBC News, some employers and institutions have been quick to take action against employees or students, creating an environment in which many are afraid they will lose their jobs or face consequences to their education if they express a political stance in favour of one side — Palestinians — during this war.
“I can tell you personally, in the last month and a half, I’ve probably spoken with someone at least once a day [about this],” said Jackie Esmonde, a labour lawyer at Toronto-based firm Cavalluzzo Law. "They’re not always cases that we take on, but we do have in the range of eight to 10 cases that we’re actively working on at the moment.
“I’m not seeing people making what I would consider hate speech or discriminatory speech.”
No kidding. I’m in my 30s, and being pro-Palestinian the last couple months has felt like the most dangerous-to-hold geopolitical opinion I’ve ever held. As a Canadian, I’ve never experienced anything like it.
Thank goodness the censure and censorship isn’t as crazy as it was even a month ago.
It gets less crazy with every white flag waving Israeli citizen the IDF shoots, at least.
I mean I’d be worried for my job if I was calling for genocide. It’s just common sense. Chanting genocidal slogans like “from the river to the see” is one of the dumbest moves you can make.
Say the second part, “Palestine will be free.” But you don’t want to - you want to cherry-pick parts of a saying in a propaganda effort to (squelch rational and compassionate speech and) promote a flimsy and patently preposterous idea that Palestinians are genocidal during a time when the IDF has killed 20,000 Palestinians in the last two months after decades of apartheid. Thankfully the number of people that hold the type of delusional beliefs you’re espousing is steadily declining
You’re right I don’t want to ignore the call for genocide. The people in Gaza don’t want to share shit, they want it all and if they had the same means Israel has Jews would be wiped out by now.
Every day I grow more thankful Israel has 400 nukes. It becomes clearer everyday that they need them. Palestine will never be from the river to the sea.
“If looks could kill it would’ve been us instead of [them]”
You can say the people in Gaza would be the ones doing genocide if they were able. But they aren’t. In this reality, Israel is the one actually doing the genocide. So that is what the world has to deal with.
And who is Israel going to nuke? It’s their neighbours that hate them most, so that won’t work out great for Israel. And their neighbours hate them now more than ever thanks to bibi the warlord.
Pointless. I seen the Oct 7th videos I have no doubt they would if they could. Intent matters.
That word is quickly becoming meaningless. Israel has the means to kill everyone in Gaza. 79 days since Oct 7th and they’ve conducted more than 22,000 strikes and only managed to kill 20k out of 2 million people. Use your brain and play out why that is.
It’s almost like they’re trying not to kill civilans. Crazy.
That’s the beauty, no one will be nuked. Israel just having them is enough to make sure no nation(s) move on them.
There will be no intervention no matter what happens in the UN or any other country. When you have nukes you can do whatever the hell you want to do. Look at China with the Uyghurs, it’s carte blanche.
So sure. Hate Israel all you want. It’s mostly misguided hate and has very little basis in reality but the good thing is no matter what you do it won’t stop Israel from doing what it needs to do.
Intent does matter but actions and impact matter a lot more. Reality matters more than speculative alternate realities. Real lives matter more than hypothetical lives.
20,000 is 1% of 2 million. Israel has knocked off an entire percentage point of the population in a couple of months, mostly civilian. Sure, they could wipe out everybody in Gaza, but then even the US and Germany wouldn’t be able to support them. Israel needs to maintain at least some pretext of legitimacy, as weak as it is, so their ‘partners’ can say ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ and try their hardest to ignore questions of proportionality and international law.
If the IDF is trying not to kill civilians they are doing a criminally poor job. Reports indicate that IDF soldiers are actively targeting non-combatants. To dismiss these reports is to be complicit in these atrocities. Skepticism is healthy, but ignorance is not.
As for them not needing to use the nukes, I wouldn’t be so sure. Their enemies have already demonstrated they are perfectly willing to ‘martyr’ themselves and civilians. If it’s a bluff, it’ll get called. If it’s not a bluff, Israel craps in their own bed, irradiating their (and many other’s) holy land – which is why the bluff would likely be called.
Other significant context, when thinking about the legitimacy of the operation:
IDF knew of the planned attack a year beforehand and didn’t take it seriously, despite additional warnings https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html
Netenyahu supported Hamas for years https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
#gazagenocide #gaza
We’re up to 1.5% of the population, now. And I neglected to mention all the people who have been displaced and/or don’t have access to medical care. Last count I saw was 800,000 people. That’s genocide as well, according to the UN convention that Israel ratified.
#gazagenocide
Is the genocide in the room with you right now?
Come up with whatever hashtag you want nothings going to change.
Here’s a more concise response for you
How many have they displaced? How many hospitals have they destroyed? Their 22,000 strikes directly killed 20k but the indirect deaths that result from those strikes count as well. Also, the fact that they’ve done 22,000 strikes sure doesn’t sound like a proportionate response.
Having nukes that your enemies know you can’t use isn’t much of a deterrent.
If Hamas’s goal is the destruction of Israel, this has been their most successful campaign by far. They’ve shown the world exactly how much Israel cares about Palestinians. The BDS movement will just get stronger and stronger the longer this goes on, to say nothing of the ‘less civil’ anti-Israel sentiment.
Being subject to the occasional terrorist/freedom fighter attack is simply the cost of having colonies. If they don’t want to accept that cost, the options are to get rid of the colonies or wipe out the indigenous inhabitants.
Most respected the warning and moved to safer areas hence the lower civilian death toll. Would you rather they stay and die? Displacement isn’t always a bad thing.
You mean Hamas bases? As many as they need to.
The goal is to eliminate Hamas. Proportinality isn’t a thing here. This will take months and Israel will sweep up and down the entire Gaza strip as needed.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Israel doesn’t acknowledge their nukes and plays by it’s own rules. A first strike option is on the table.
You sure about that? People are tiring of the protests now and turning on the protestors blocking traffic and invading areas of normal life.
Oh come the fuck on. Colony my ass, the Jews have been there for thousands of years. They have more claim to the area than you or I do from wherever we’re posting from. We are all colonizers compared to Israel.
My roots only go back on 150 years and I’m in fucking Wisconsin. If the Objibwa tribe mounted an attack on my people now they’d be eradicated and no one would balk. The moment passed for atacks, we are here now and not going anywhere.
It’s time Palestine accept that as well because if they can’t they’ll be living in refugee camps permanently.
I’m only too happy to oblige you!
“Lower civilian death toll” whatever the hell that means…
The notion that displacement is somehow a lesser evil compared to immediate civilian casualties is a gross oversimplification. Displacement not only uproots families but results in chronic poverty, lack of access to education, and enduring psychological trauma. It is an aspect of genocide according to the UN Convention that Israel ratified.
Casually labeling hospitals as ‘Hamas bases’ without incontrovertible proof undermines the principles of accountability and due process. Hospitals are protected under international law, and their destruction has dire consequences for civilian access to healthcare, particularly in conflict zones. This is another aspect of genocide. Israel has a long history of flouting international law.
International humanitarian law emphasizes that military actions must be proportional to the military advantage gained, to prevent excessive civilian harm. Disregarding proportionality has resulted in widespread civilian casualties and will escalate the conflict, leading to cycles of retaliation and further instability.
But I thought the ‘beauty’ of Israel having nuclear weapons is that they won’t need to use them? Now you suggest a first strike option. So they’ll preemptively crap in their own bed?
And we already know Israel ‘plays by their own rules.’ That’s the fucking problem. That’s why they’re in this situation.
As have Palestinians. Israel refers to these colonies as “settlements” but they are illegal settlements, under international law. How illegal? Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states, “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” The international community generally considers the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip as occupied territories, and therefore, the Israeli settlements are seen as a violation of this clause.
The United Nations Security Council passed several resolutions affirming that Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories are illegal. For example, Resolution 242 calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the Six-Day War of 1967, and Resolution 2334 states that Israel’s settlement activity constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and has “no legal validity.”
In 2004, the ICJ issued an advisory opinion stating that the construction of the West Bank barrier by Israel, and by extension the settlements, violated international law.
The ‘settlements’ are an obstacle to the peace process because they involve the appropriation of land and resources that could be part of a future Palestinian state. Their expansion is seen as prejudicing the outcome of negotiations on the final status of the territories. Hence, they are seen as part of a process to colonize the area. Hence ‘colonies.’
Now, I could be wrong but you strike me as the sort who doesn’t put much weight behind international law.
Holding onto regressive attitudes not only hinders conflict resolution but also fails to recognize the progress humanity has made in understanding and upholding human rights.
The genocidal actions against Native Americans centuries ago are widely recognized as a dark and shameful chapter in your country’s history. Not a good benchmark for contemporary conflict resolution. It’s regressive and implies a tolerance for such atrocities. Those moral and ethical standards belong in the 1700s. Do you also believe women should be denied the vote and that African Americans should still be enslaved?
#gaza #gazagenocide #palestine #freepalestine