Time: 10:30 - 11:00 AM EST

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Welcome to the Two-Day Scholar Strike Canada Labour Action
Host: Beverly Bain - Scholar Strike Canada
 

1. Lessons From BDS and the Student Encampment Movement​

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Time: 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM EST

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Panelists:

Iman Baraket - University of Toronto

Leila - University of Windsor

Sara Kishawi - Vancouver Island University

Yasmine Dukar - McGill University​

Moderator: Sara Rasikh - University of Toronto

 

Description: This panel brings together student organizers to discuss the impact of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses, alongside the rise of student encampments as a form of protest for Palestine. Panelists will share insights from organizing within the BDS movement, examine the significance of encampments in pressuring institutions, and explore the challenges and possibilities these tactics offer for building sustained resistance.

 

2. Lawfare: Strategies and Lessons Learned​

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Time: 12:20 PM - 1:35 PM EST

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Panelists: 

Sarah Jama - Member of Provincial Parliament

Dania Majid - Arab Canadian Lawyers Association
Rachelle Friesen - Toronto Legal Support Committee
Joshua Sealy-Harrington - University of Windsor & Power Law

​Shane Martinez - Martinez Law

​Moderator: Jillian Rogin - University of Windsor

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Description: Understanding law as a tool of colonial and imperial power, but one that we are often forced to engage with, this panel explores some of the recent legal gains and setbacks with respect to Palestine and Palestine solidarity activism. Panelists will discuss Israeli state reliance on lawfare, the deputization of pro-Israel lobby groups in the diaspora, activist interventions, and the mobilization of law to support Palestine solidarity.

 

Time: 1:40 - 2:40 PM EST

Play: Based on the poetry of Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish and Lena Khalaf Tuffaha. 

 

3. Building Global Solidarity: Connecting Struggles Against Genocide, Settler-Colonialism, Racism and Imperialism​

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Time: 3:00 PM - 4:15 PM EST

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Panelists:

Sarrah G. Malek - Palestinian poet and writer

Duha Elmardi - Sudanese Solidarity Collective

Erica Violet Lee ,Nehiyaw poet, writer and scholar

Gary Kinsman - Activist and Author

Beverly Bain - Scholar Strike Canada, University of Toronto​

Moderator: Patrick Teed - York University

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Description: Panelists will discuss how we build a global solidarity movement amidst the ongoing settler colonial violence and occupation of Indigenous lands globally and the ongoing genocide and imperialist occupation and destruction of Palestine and Sudan.

 

Time: 4:20 - 4:35 PM EST

Poetry: Erica Violet Lee - Nehiyaw poet, writer and scholar

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Wednesday November 13th​

 

4. The Fight for Divestment: Tensions, Challenges, and Opportunities for Radical Resistance​

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Time: 9:30 - 10:45 AM EST

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Panelists:

Ines Abdel Razek, - Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD)
Amina Aly - Educator, OTPP Divestment Campaign

Vasanthi Venkatesh and Vince Wong - Faculty, University of Windsor
Rachel Small - World Beyond War

Moderator: Vince Wong - Faculty, University of Windsor

 

Description: The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign has played an important role in creating a discursive space that exposes the apartheid and gross violations that form the foundation of “Brand Israel” and to create a broad transnational movement for solidarity with Palestine. This panel will examine the tools and tactics used by the UWindsor movement for Palestine and other Israel divestment campaigns. It will explore the contradictions and challenges  that arise in divestment strategies and examine how to harness it for radical, liberatory, abolitionist resistance.

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Time: 10:50 - 11:05 PM EST

Poetry: Sarrah Malek - Palestinian poet and writer

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5. Anti-Palestinian Racism, Islamaphobia, and the New Anti-Semitism

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Time: 11:05 AM - 12:20 PM EST

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Panelists:
Dalia El Farra - Palestinian Canadian Activist

Jasmin Zine - Wilfred Laurier 

Sheryl Nestel - Independent Jewish Voices​

Moderator: Alejandro Paz - University of Toronto

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Description: In response to the heightened Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism, and antisemitism on university campuses across Canada this panel contextualizes, historicizes, and critically unpacks these concepts to provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding of these forms of oppression and their various manifestations. Given the proliferation of fake news and disinformation campaigns that circulate unchecked via dubious websites and social media it is vital to demystify these topics to build shared understandings and a common language to guide critical conversations around often polarizing concerns. The panel discussion will address the pressing stakes and challenges that these issues have raised for the university sector and campus communities.

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6. The Repression of Academic Freedom and the Criminalization of Dissent and Free Expression in Support of Palestine on University Campuses

 

Time: 12:25 - 1:40 PM EST

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Panelists:

Nahla Abdo - Carleton University

Sunera Thobani - University of British Columbia

Muhannad Ayyash - Mount Royal University

Momodou Taal - Cornell University

Sara Rasikh - University of Toronto​

Moderator: Desmond Cole - Scholar Strike Canada

 

Description: This teach-in focuses on the ongoing threats, targeting, doxxing and criminalizing of academics and faculty who have spoken out, participated and organized protests on their campuses in support of Palestine. by their universities. What does academic freedom mean at this very moment as university institutions engage in the criminalization of dissent of those who speak up and protest against Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians and the destruction of Palestine?

 

Time: 1:45 - 2:00 PM EST

Poetry: El Jones - poet, journalist, author and abolition activist