The sick irony of removing the McGill encampment with private mercenaries and a bulldozer

McGill President Deep Saini finally achieved his dream. After three months of failed attempts to convince the SPVM and the courts to disappear the Palestine solidarity encampment on his campus, he discovered that legal and moral principles can be overcome with cash. The private security firm Sirco was hired to investigate the McGill encampment and then tear it to the ground yesterday.

The findings Saini attributes to the investigation — the report has not been made public — are as hallucinogenic as the many unverified and implausible claims he has made in his emails since the encampment began on April 27. Once again, an encampment devoted to ending a genocide and a 75-year colonial occupation in Palestine is represented as “a magnet for violence and intimidation.”

Clearer eyes will see that Saini repeatedly sought to deploy the police against his own students, beginning three days after the encampment began, in order to maintain the university’s investments in weapons manufacturers and other companies complicit in a grotesque genocide — investments and violence that the students opposed.

And many will remember that he finally disappeared the encampment in stunningly Zionist fashion: along with private mercenaries, the operation included excavation equipment from a company (Caterpillar) reviled for demolishing Palestinian homes and killing the Palestine solidarity activist Rachel Corrie.

For three months, the McGill encampment showed what education hitched to courage and moral principle looks like. The movement is stronger because of the students’ efforts and it will continue in myriad other forms. Free Palestine.

The sickness of sending a Caterpillar bulldozer to destroy a pro-Palestine encampment. #RachelCorrie pic.twitter.com/TkgXllELQl

— Ted Rutland (@TedRutland) July 10, 2024

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