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Corey Miller: The writing is on the wall for Jews at McGill University

Any ambiguity about what the hate-filled protesters think about Jews, in Israel and Canada, has been cleared up

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Three slogans were scrawled on a bathroom stall at McGill University’s faculty of medicine earlier this month: “Free Palestine”; “Jews out of McGill Med”; and “Kill all Jews.” Whether composed by one person or several, their coexistence in the same vandalized space shows how anti-Zionist rhetoric sits comfortably alongside explicitly eliminationist language. At first glance, they might look like disconnected expressions of rage. In fact, they are a logical sequence, one that reveals something essential about what it means to hate Jews today.

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For some, the slogan “Free Palestine” might signal support for Palestinian Arab national self-determination alongside Israel. Yet for others, this chant advocates for the removal of Jews from the entirety of their ancestral homeland, Judea, the very place from where the word “Jew” derives. “Free,” by this definition, means free of Jews. The slogan itself does not specify which vision it endorses. That ambiguity is part of its power.

Corey Miller: The writing is on the wall for Jews at McGill University Back to video

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If this sounds abstract, the history of the situation, and the lived experiences of countless Jews, are not. Anti-Zionism often obscures something that many who have locked eyes with angry protesters can instinctively sense, but which can also be stated plainly.

For nearly two decades, when the West Bank and Gaza were under Jordanian and Egyptian control, respectively, no Palestinian state was even considered. Since then, Israel has repeatedly offered pathways for the creation of another neighbouring Arab state, but each was rejected and followed by increased terrorism.

Israel forcibly evacuated all of its Jewish communities from Gaza in 2005, in a desperate bid for peace. The result was not state-building but Hamas and October 7. Indeed, “Free Palestine” is often coupled with its sister chant, “From the River to the Sea,” removing the ambiguity for anyone with a map of the region that includes the river and the sea.

Lest anyone imagine that the drive to render Israel explicitly Judenrein is motivated by some desire to keep Jews close, safe and cherished within western institutions, universities or society at large, the author is quick to clarify: “Jews out of McGill Med.”

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This is no longer about the Middle East. This is Canada. This is the diaspora. The demand here is simple: Jews should not be here, either. Not there. Not here. Which leaves an apparent impasse. If Jews, according to the vandal, are unwanted in our ancestral homeland and unwanted in the diaspora, where exactly are we to go?

The answer appears in the third sentence — not as a shocking escalation, but as the grim resolution of the tension: “Kill all Jews.”

This is why these slogans belong together. They are not three ideas; they are one, expressed with increasing honesty. When a worldview leaves Jews with no place among the nations and no place among our neighbours, the writing on the wall is clear.

The bathroom wall did not reveal incoherent rage. It revealed something far more chilling: clarity.

Corey Miller is an assistant professor of medicine at McGill University and co-founder and executive board member of the Association des Médecins Juifs du Québec.

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