Angry in the Great White North

a heat-seeking missile in the Conservative arsenal

Let's review the press release from the CUPE.  The document has been removed from the CUPE website, but remains in the Google cache:

CUPE Ontario to recommend support for ban on Israeli academics in response to Gaza bombings

January 5, 2009

TORONTO, Ont. - CUPE Ontario's university workers committee will bring a resolution to its annual conference supporting a ban on Israeli academics doing speaking, teaching or research work at Ontario universities as a protest against the December 29 bombing of the Islamic University in Gaza.

"In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general," said Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario. "It's a logical next step, building on policy adopted by our provincial convention in 2006."

Resolution 50, adopted in May 2006, supported boycotts, divestment and sanctions aimed at bringing about the Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and a just peace in the region.

"Clearly, international pressure on Israel must increase to stop the massacre that is going on daily," said Janice Folk-Dawson, chair of the CUPE Ontario University Workers Coordinating Committee, whose conference is scheduled for February. "We are proud to add CUPE voices to others from around the world saying enough is enough."

Ryan and other CUPE representatives will join in the demonstration against the Israeli assault on Gaza at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow, Saturday, January 3 at Dundas Square in Toronto.

-30-

For more information, contact:

Sid Ryan, President, CUPE Ontario, 416-209-0066
Pat Daley, CUPE Communications, 416-616-6142

OK, so it seems clear here, from both the title and from the text of the release from the International Solidarity Committee, that Sid Ryan and CUPE Ontario were demanding that individual Israeli professors be ejected from Ontario universities unless they make some sort of public statement in line with Sid Ryan's view of the fighting in Gaza.

Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn...the assault on Gaza.

But the document is gone.  Despite the pride Janice Folk-Dawson says underlies this position, CUPE Ontario seems to have changed direction and has put up an entirely new page:

Questions and Answers on the CUPE Ontario Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions

What does CUPE Ontario mean by Academic Boycott?

It is important to understand that this is not a call to boycott individual Israeli academics. Rather, the boycott call is aimed at academic institutions and the institutional connections that exist between universities here and those in Israel.

This could include calling on Ontario universities and university workers to:

• Refuse to participate in academic cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli universities, such as participating in conferences in Israel, refereeing or editing articles for Israeli journals, or evaluating research proposals for Israeli institutions.
• Advocate a boycott of Israeli universities, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies.
• Promote divestment from Israel by Ontario academic institutions.
• Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies and actions in the occupied territories by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic and professional organizations and associations.

CUPE Ontario is taking this action in response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees.

Why Boycott Israeli Academic Institutions?

The recent assault on Gaza has seen the total destruction of the Palestinian educational system. The Israeli military has bombed numerous universities and schools. On January 7th, Israeli forces killed over 40 Palestinian civilians who had taken shelter in a United Nations school.

The aim of the academic boycott is to put pressure on Israel to fully comply with international law, by cutting off financial support and our connections to those institutions involved in the oppression of the Palestinian people.

The call for a boycott of academic institutions is part of a broader campaign of Israeli boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) that CUPE Ontario had already approved in 2006.

So now this is not a call to boycott individual academics, but anonymous institutions.  You know, no submissions to journals, things like that.

Funny, both versions of the boycott claim to be the product of the 2006 resolution to punish Israel.

The other big difference is that the original resolution, clearly aimed at individuals and demanding that they be put on public display in an anti-Israel talent show, mentioned Sid Ryan three times, including as the main contact for questions concerning the new position being taken by CUPE Ontario.

The new page doesn't mention Sid Ryan even once.

I suppose some people will see CUPE Ontario's new position as an improvement.  It isn't, because it neglects to correct the mistake of the first one.  It suggests that the original proposition was misunderstood by everyone, though it is interesting that CUPE Ontario has removed the text of the proposition from the website.

That is an insult to everyone who can read well enough.

The new CUPE Ontario position also neglects to issue an apology to Israeli academics in Ontario who have been wondering if Janice Folk-Dawson was going to lead gangs of militant union members (some of whom might actually study once in a while) to round them up and force them to the podium to denounce Israel or be thrown off campus.  Perhaps there was never any serious chance that this would actually happen, but a threat is a threat, and CUPE Ontario is pretending that the threat was never issued.

That's repugnant.

The one good thing in this otherwise Orwellian piece of historical revisionism is the apparent marginalization of Sid Ryan:

CUPE's national president has rebuked the union's Ontario leader over his call for a boycott of Israeli academics.

On Jan. 2, Sid Ryan, head of the provincial office of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said in a news release "... we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the (Islamic) university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general."

Jewish groups condemned the proposal and, yesterday, they were joined by Paul Moist, president of CUPE's national office.

"I believe such a resolution is wrong and would violate the anti-discrimination standards set out in the CUPE Constitution," Moist said in a release.

"I will be using my influence in any debates on such a resolution to oppose its adoption."

Clearly Paul Moist has plenty of influence, since it looks like CUPE Ontario has been compelled to scrub the site clean of Sid Ryan's repellant idea.

Now we just have to scrub CUPE Ontario clean of Sid Ryan.

And just one more thing.  Sid Ryan seems to have trouble with dates, because he wants us to believe that any controversial statements were corrected a week ago:

Yesterday, Ryan, whose union is autonomous from the national office, insisted he and Moist are "on the same page" and that he changed his proposal more than a week ago to focus on Israeli institutions, not individuals.

"In the process of examining academic boycott initiatives by other organizations around the world ... it has become clear that the position is not banning individuals," Ryan said in a CUPE statement yesterday.

That article was published on January 14.  According to the article, Sid Ryan said on January 13 that he changed the proposal over a week ago.  That would mean the institutional boycott was Sid Ryan's position from January 5 on, perhaps even earlier.  But the Google cache of the offensive resolution aimed at individuals, with Sid Ryan's name all over it, is dated January 10.

And the meta data on the new page - the one that targets institutions instead of individuals, and that makes no mention of Sid Ryan - marks the page as having been created on January 13, the same day Paul Moist went public with his harsh criticism of Sid Ryan and his proposal.

Sid Ryan might be saying that he changed his proposal a week ago and that he's in full agreement with Paul Moist, but Paul Moist's statements and the date stamps on the web pages tell a very different story.

It tells me Sid Ryan caved in a big way.  Like most bullies, a lot of hot air, but no real courage backing it up.