By David Plotkin

The “Week of Hate” has come and gone and McGill University is no worse for wear. On the contrary, the buzz surrounding recent events has helped to change the narrative on campus.

On March 10^th, McGill Friends of Israel screened the film “The Case for Israel,” accompanied by Prof. Harold Waller of the political science department.  Once the film concluded, the audience stayed on for an additional hour-long Q&A with the professor on issues ranging from a nuclear Iran to the squashing of dissenting opinions on college campuses. Kol hakavod to Hasbara Fellow Russell Sitrit-Leibovich for putting the event together.

Two days previous, our strong campus ally, Conservative McGill put on a screening of the film “Indoctrinate U.” During the event, second-year student Haaris Khan was avidly posting anti-Semitic remarks on his Twitter account and even threatened the lives of those present.  "My blood is boiling. I want to shoot everyone in this room," he tweeted at one point during the film, adding, "I should have brought an M-16." After being informed of the threat by Conservative McGill executives, McGill Security contacted the Montreal Police Department.  The police and University administration are investigating. In his defense, the alleged tweeter told the McGill Tribune that members of the university community had taken his tweets out of context. He uses Twitter, he said, simply to vent his emotions. "Whatever comes into my mind, I say it on Twitter. It's kind of my outlet." In further “defense,” his sister-in-law is Jewish, he added, and he doesn't consider himself anti-Semitic. Hillel Montreal and the Canadian Federation of Jewish Students issued a joint press release discussing the events.

In response to this unfortunate incident, a new initiative called “McGill: Stop Hate, Protect Students” has been established on Facebook. I commend Conservative McGill members and the Prince Arthur Herald columnists for their admirable and professional behavior in dealing with this situation.

It was a week tainted by the brutal murders of a Jewish couple and three of their young children in Itamar, Israel by Palestinian terrorists. The last thing one would hope to have seen at an institution of higher learning is a student openly spewing anti-Semitic bigotry all over a public media forum. In the timeless words of former Prime Minister Golda Meir…

“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

-- In Loving Memory of Udi & Ruth Fogel and their children Yoav (eleven), Eldad (four) and Hadas (three months).