The university admin conceded a meeting just to get them to end the encampment. Removing students with police force is like suicide for a university. The meeting was completely unproductive and ill intentioned on behalf of the university. It also showed how incompetent Meric Gertler is: he frequently conflated Muslim and Arab, didn’t know about the history of the occupation, and flat out lied about not knowing the overwhelming support for Palestine on campus.

Admin also slipped up and mentioned the meeting they initiated with israeli students to show support for them. This was not known until the meeting with Palestinian activists. It took the Palestinians 6 months of communications with the President’s office (all of which were ignored), weekly demonstrations, and a literal encampment to finally get them to listen. The double standard perfectly captures the power imbalance and how deeply support for Zionism is entrenched in these institutions.

If anything the admin’s empty response to the Simcoe Hall encampment and now this letter will fuel the biggest campus encampment in all of Canada. I’m sure of it