At Carleton University, both verbal and physical attacks on students have increased.

Witnesses at the U o f T program last Tuesday evening, titled ‘Education Under Occupation,’ saw and heard audience members being grabbed by the neck, slapped on the back and threatened severely by security guards that were privately hired by the event organizers. Jordan Freiberg, 21, told the Jewish Tribune that when he tried communicating with one guard who was blocking his view during the Q&A, “he bent down and said, ‘if you don’t shut up, I’m going to saw your head off.’”

According to Freiberg, police wouldn’t react when he reported the incident, pointing to the guard. Instead, the Jewish students were asked to leave the room.

There was a commotion going on, because Isaac Apter, another participant, was protesting abuse by another guard.

Apter had joined a vocal chorus of audience members demanding the speaker answer a question directly regarding Hamas’s charter. He was aggressively grabbed by the neck and repeatedly told to “shut the f*** up.”

“I personally believe in freedom of speech and that students should be allowed to book lecture halls to present speakers who express radical, even extreme, views,” Apter said. “The presence, however, of probably unlicensed, private security guards wearing bullet-proof vests and leather jackets who physically assault people who speak up against those radical, extreme views, must be confronted. SAIA (Students Against Israeli Apartheid) must not be allowed to bring hired goons onto campus to intimidate people. I feel ashamed as a U of T alumnus.”

Apter filed a formal report with Toronto Police, as well as with the B’nai Brith hotline.

On the usually more-tempestuous York campus, things were quieter than the previous couple of weeks, when Jewish students were forced one afternoon to barricade themselves in the Hillel office, fearing for their safety. Anti-Israel speeches and videos took place behind closed doors, where admission was often selective. Second-year student Mike Khardas told the Jewish Tribune he was informed that the room was filled to capacity after door “security” saw his IDF t-shirt.

“We didn’t keep them out,” Khardas said, recalling how rude and disruptive anti-Israel activists were during former Israeli Knesset member Natan Sharansky’s lecture at York last year. “But this year they specifically denied pro-Israel students entry to their events while spreading their hate in the name of freedom of speech. Where is the equality? Where is the freedom of speech?”

A meeting that was arranged between York President Mamdouh Shoukri and Jewish students to discuss security was postponed until next week by the administration.

Meanwhile, a grassroots, nationwide student interactive campaign, ‘Peace on Campus’ – peaceoncampus.ca – was launched as well, in order “to raise awareness of aggressive intimidation, violent rhetoric and physical harassment created by those who are spreading antisemitic and anti-Israel messages on their campuses,” according to a press release. The site had more than 3,000 visits within 48 hours, and its award-winning video, posted on the site, had more than 10,000 hits.

Events have been heating up in Ottawa, where both verbal and physical attacks on university students have increased, including statements praising suicide bombers.

Notwithstanding attempts by Carleton University’s administration to maintain a respectful environment on campus, the following is testimony from one visibly Jewish Carleton student:

“Three Arabs saw me from afar and gave me intimidating looks. They were sitting on guardrails near the place where I had to go…. I felt intimidated by them. I noticed that someone I barely knew walked by, so I tried to make small talk in the hopes that the three men would disperse. When the conversation ended I kept walking towards them, which is where I had to go. They asked me if I had a lighter. I said no. They said, ‘Why!?’ I said, ‘Because smoking is bad for you,’ and they said, ‘I think it’s because you’re cheap,’ and I said, ‘Excuse me?’ They said, ‘Yeah, you heard me. I think its because you’re too cheap.’ ‘And I said, f*** you,’  and they said, ‘Oh, what you going to do, bomb my children?’ They started making advances on me, and I can’t take three large Arabs, so I left, reported it to campus safety, who said they had likely gone. I included in my report to them that the ‘bomb your children’ thing was likely a reference due to the SAIA poster of a helicopter bombing a child.”

Unfortunately, the above testimony was not a unique occurrence in recent weeks, and it highlights clear antisemitism, as opposed to “anti-Zionism.”

In Montreal, unlike previous years, there seemed to be a shift to a conference-like atmosphere with seminars, workshops and film screenings. The schedule called for only one demonstration, a joint solidarity march for oppressed women and people, which organizers scheduled to coincide with International Women’s Day in what seemed to be a purposeful equating of gender issues with those facing the Palestinians.

In a coordinated response to IAW, Hillel Montreal launched a city-wide campaign, titled ‘beLIEve.’ The organization distributed postcards, which outlined the lies and carefully selected facts highlighted by IAW supporters and debunked them.

At McGill, Israeli activist Ronnie Ollo said that unlike some of his peers, he doesn’t feel intimidated, although he believes more must be done to combat IAW, which indoctrinates so many students.

“It’s scary in the sense that people actually buy into that nonsense. I mean, in a neighbourhood like the Middle East, who would actually single out Isarel as the apartheid state?”

– With files from Atara Beck, Daniel Flatt and Daniel Smajovits