July 21, 2024
President Rob Gordon
University of Windsor
Dear President Rob Gordon;
I am writing on behalf of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation. We have read the UWindsor agreement with on-campus protesters regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict, and we are extremely concerned with your agreeing to the terms as set out in your signed agreement.
Other universities chose to seek removal of protesters via court injunction or police action. You have not followed a similar course of action and the terms of your agreement are a capitulation to extremism. It is not different than capitulating to other extremist groups such as neo-Nazis.
The agreement you acceded to is an affront to international academic freedom and exchanges which you espouse. It is also in practice the worst kind of exclusionism of your Jewish students, faculty, and the Canadian Jewish community, as well as an insult to real academic freedom.
I also want to remind you that the Israeli government made offers of a state for Palestinian Arabs in 2000 and 2008, and these were rejected by the Palestinian Authourity, which has never responded to any offer for a state and has refused to recognize Israel, the legitimate state of the Jewish people.
The point is your agreement flies in the face of this history and ignores Palestinian rejectionism and places the exclusive burden for peacemaking on Israel.
Thus, your agreement is both shameful and ahistoric. We would ask you to rescind it forthwith.
Yours very truly,
Charles Cooke
GR Representative, CAEF
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