Severed pigs head staked on the gates leading to the residence of University of British Columbia president Benoit-Antoine Bacon. Photo: People’s University for Gaza/Instagram
A pro-Hamas group placed a shocking display targeting Jews and law enforcement on the grounds of the University of British Columbia (UBC) during the early hours of Tuesday morning.
“Pigs off campus,” said a large banner which People’s University for Gaza at UBC (PUG) tacked to the double gates leading to the private residence of university president Benoit-Antoine Bacon. Next to the banner, the group staked on the finials of the structure the severed head of a pig. Before leaving the area, they photographed their work and issued a statement explaining its motivation on Instagram.
“UBC will not know peace until we get Palestine back, piece by piece,” PUG said. “Pigs off campus is one of our demands. KKKanada and ‘Isra-hell’ are both shared violent settler colonial projects built on the removal of indigenous peoples from their land with the use of police forces.”
The statement went on to rail against Bacon for cooperating with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which it accused of murdering “indigenous youth,” to increase campus security. It also cited as a grievance the university’s hosting of students who had served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“We remind him this morning this morning and every morning that these tactics do not intimidate us,” PUG continued. “To all those … starting their classes today, we ask you to take more action this year. Find your comrades, wear your keffiyehs everyday, learn beyond these classroom walls, and shut this campus down.”
The incident prompted a rebuke from Honest Reporting Canada (HRC), a nonprofit organization which promotes media fairness and accountability.
“Horrific Jew hated last night at University of British Columbia, as Jewish students were ‘welcomed’ with a ‘Pigs off campus’ sign and a severed pig’s head,” it said. “Hey UBC and UBC President [Bacon], what are you doing to protect your Jewish students on campus from this open Jew hatred?”
UBC has seen its share of antisemitic incidents before. In 2021, mezuzahs, prayer scrolls hung on the doors of Jewish residences, were twice stolen or vandalized. Earlier this year, pro-Hamas activists waged a campaign to expel Hillel from campus, arguing that doing so would advance the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israe. Other years saw the posting of neo-Nazi propaganda and swastika graffiti, and according to local media outlets, pro-Hamas students and faculty have perpetrated unrelenting abuse of anyone perceived as being a Jewish supporter of Israel, a problem that the university has been slow to address and which earlier this year led to the resignation of a family medicine professor who taught and conducted research there for three decades.
Other Canadian universities have allegedly failed to deter or punish anti-Zionist hatred.
In May, Jewish students attending Concordia University in Montreal told The Algemeiner that they have been left to fend for themselves when their anti-Zionist classmates resort to assault and harassment to make their point. No single incident, they said, evinced their alleged abandonment by school officials more than one on March 12 in which Jewish students were trapped in the school’s Hillel office while members of the anti-Zionist club Supporting Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), concealing their faces with keffiyehs and surgical masks, banged on its windows and doors and stomped on the floor of the room above it.
When campus security officers arrived on the scene, they refused to punish the offenders and accused Jewish students of instigating the incident because they had filmed what transpired.
“We only filmed because they were harassing us, for evidence, and we didn’t feel safe,” Chana Leah Natanblut told The Algemeiner during an interview. “Security obviously told them to disperse and that they couldn’t act that way, but they didn’t say what would happen and it felt almost as if they had taken their side. Who’s to say they won’t do it again? What kind of message does it send to do nothing about it?”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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