The philanthropist behind the University of Manitoba’s largest-ever personal donation — $30 million — has denounced a speech made by a valedictorian for medicine grads and admonished the university for letting it happen.
In a letter dated Monday, Ernest Rady says he was hurt and appalled by the remarks by valedictorian Gem Newman at the May 16 convocation for students from the Max Rady College of Medicine. The school was renamed in honour of Rady’s father after the 2016 donation.
“Newman’s speech not only dishonoured the memory of my father, but also disrespected and disparaged Jewish people as a whole,” said Rady’s letter, sent to U of M president Michael Benarroch and college of medicine dean Dr. Peter Nickerson.
Approximately two minutes of Newman’s nine-minute address focused on the war in Gaza and called for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, which began after an Oct. 7 cross-border attack on Israel led by Hamas that killed roughly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 others hostage.
In a statement emailed to CBC News on Wednesday, college dean Nickerson confirmed the video that included the speech had been taken down.
Can you honestly blame the Palestinians?
They’ve been pushed around (read: mistreated, suppressed, tortured and randomly killed) for decades and now they’re being killed en masse in a genocide. Can you really balme them for not minding at all seeing israelis die?
Worst of all, anyone saying that any of Israels actions are bad is made out to be a genocidal maniac right next to Hitler, by those actively executing a genocide right here, right now.
Yes, it’s bad, but I get it, I get the sentiment, and you can’t tell me it’s that hard to understand the feeling.
In all honesty, I think it is not unfair to say that the Israeli population is more complicit in all of this than the Palestinians. What is the excuse of the Israelis? Palestinians were second or third rank citizens for decades, being randomly killed, tortured or disappeared. What is the Israelis excuse? That eventual missile that came flying over and got taken down by the iron dome? Don’t make me laugh.
Jews were treated horribly during WWII, there is no excuse for what happened. Equally, the Israeli government -and by extension, the Israeli population- has no excuse for what they are doing now. That Hamas attack IS NO EXCUSE. Hundreds of innocent civilians were brutally raped and murdered, and you use that as an excuse to brutally kill tens of thousands innocent civilians, thousands of them being children, allowing rape and torture, displacing millions, denying any help to those dying from hunger… I mean, I’m sorry, but THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT. YOU ARE FUCKING WRONG.
Yes, Hamas was wrong, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, and let’s hang all Hamas members from the highest tree but ONLY if we hand the Israeli government officials right next to them and immediately and unconditionally make Israel stop ALL the brutality against the Palestinians, allow them to move freely about abs that you start teaching Israeli children about the horrors you subjected the Palestinians to, just like the Germans did with their children for decades.