Antigonish for Gaza Demonstrates Their Support For Palestine

Antigonish for Gaza demonstrated in front of Antigonish Town Hall on Saturday, November 25, for the International Day of Action for Palestine. Around 40 demonstrators held up signs and chanted in support of the millions of Palestinians in Gaza. At the time, there was a cease-fire in place between Israel and Hamas, the governing body of the Gaza Strip. During the cease-fire, Hamas and their allies released around 100 of the hostages taken on October 7 during an attack on Israel that killed over 1,200 people.  In return, Israel released 240 prisoners, many of them children aged between 14-17 according to the Washington Post. Since October 7, over 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, as well as 250 Palestinians in the West Bank.

As of the writing of this article, Israel and Hamas were once again at war, both sides accusing the other of violating the cease-fire. Chad, one the organizers of Antigonish for Gaza, anticipated this in his speech, saying, “We have been promised, by the war criminal Netanyahu, to his permanent disgrace, that this cease-fire is not meant to last.” Around 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced from their homes, as well as 500,000 Israelis.

Sarah, another of the organizers of Antigonish for Gaza, maintained on the 25th that, “We must remain vigilant in calling for a lasting perpetual peace, a peace that is long deserved by all civilians in the region. This peace is only possible when the Israeli occupation is extinguished. Palestine must be free.”

 Peace, as defined by the Oxford dictionary, is “freedom from or the cessation of war or violence”. In the spring of 2022, UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk called the Israeli occupation of Palestine “apartheid”, saying “[Israel] conforms to the definition as a ‘political regime which so intentionally and clearly prioritizes fundamental political, legal and social rights to one group over another, within the same geographic unit on the basis of one’s racial-national-ethnic identity’”.

A cease-fire may allow the people of Gaza to live without fear of bombs. The elimination of Hamas, the IDF’s stated aim for this war, may even allow them to return to what used to be their homes. But only true freedom from the violence of apartheid will allow the Palestinian people to live in peace.

It is with this aim that Antigonish for Gaza did and will continue to demonstrate in support of the Palestinian people.  On November 20, the McGill Students’ Union held a referendum which voted for a “Policy against Genocide in Palestine” with 78.7 percent of the vote in favour. The policy demanded that McGill divest from companies and donors “complicit in genocide, settler-colonialism, apartheid, or ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.”  McGill was far from the only students’ union in Canada to use its platform to advocate for the Palestinian people. Students at York, the University of Toronto, and the University of Ottawa have made headlines in their support for Palestine.