NEW YORK (Press Release) – The International March of the Living condemns in the strongest possible terms the plans announced by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) at McGill University for a summer youth program promising “revolutionary” education.
March of the Living is gravely alarmed by the program’s poster featuring fighters in face-covering keffiyehs brandishing machine guns used by recognized terrorist organizations such as Hamas, which initiated the devastating attack on Israel on October 7, and Hezbollah, which is currently attacking Israel’s Northern region.
SPHR, a student-led group at McGill University, announced the ‘Revolutionary Youth Summer Program’ at McGill’s lower field, which has been home to an anti-Israel encampment since late April.
Such activities—targeting impressionable young people with posters glorifying violence—are unacceptable at an institution dedicated to the free exchange of ideas. This initiative can only severely tarnish the reputation of McGill University, one of Canada’s oldest and most prestigious universities, with a long-standing history of significant research and scholarship.
March of the Living calls on McGill University to immediately shut down these dangerous manifestations of hatred and violence, along with the removal of the illegal encampments on its campus and other schools across Canada, the US, and the world. It also calls on social media platforms, Twitter and Instagram to remove these violence-inciting posts immediately and to monitor for similar activity in the future.
March of the Living also joins the Montreal Jewish community, including Holocaust survivors and McGill graduates, in condemning this hateful manifesto targeting our youth.
Hungarian Holocaust survivor Angele Orosz, a Montreal resident and frequent educator at the Montreal Holocaust Museum and on the March of the Living, said: “What’s happening today at McGill is so frightening for me. I was born in December 1944 in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I came to Canada in 1973 to escape antisemitism, and now my grandchildren are suffering. Their school and synagogue were shot at, and now this at McGill. It’s unbearable. I am petrified of the students. This is McGill, a university of the highest standard. It’s unbearable that my grandchildren have to go through what I escaped Hungary for. I am so frustrated and upset—I cannot find the words to express my feelings. Tears are flowing.”
Shmuel Rosenman, Chair and Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, President of the International March of the Living, commented: “Education for young people should never encourage the use of violence. When actions by students on campus, promoted by social media companies, make Holocaust survivors fear setting foot on campus and fear for the future of their grandchildren – it is clear that both the university and social media organizations have lost their way. Now it is high time to find their way back.”
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Preceding provided by the March of the Living