A University of British Columbia employee and members of the Jewish community are speaking out following a protest that targeted a campus event featuring guest speakers with ties to Israel.
On the morning of Oct. 16, protesters sprayed anti-Israel and pro-Palestine messages on the Green College Coach House, which is a more than 100-year-old heritage building, after a medieval studies workshop featuring guest speakers with ties to Israel was scheduled to take place there.
“None of the papers (presented at the workshop) were broaching topics to the deal with current politics, the modern Middle East,” event organizer and UBC history sessional lecturer Josh Timmermann told CTV News in an interview. “It’s purely incidental that two of the people or three of the people if you count a moderator of one session (had links to Israel).”
Timmermann added the event featured presenters from nine different countries, saying none of them are …