Western University

“There’s no Pride without Palestine”: Perspectives on pinkwashing 

On Tuesday, March 18th, two Israeli youth spoke to a Queer Theory class at Western University about queer feminist critique of Israeli militarism and pinkwashing.  “Pinkwashing” refers to the portrayal of Israel as “more humane, modern, and accepting” than the Arab world when it comes to embracing the queer community, and using this portrayal currently to morally justify the ongoing genocide in Gaza.  Einat Gerlitz, twenty-one years old, and Tal Mitnick, nineteen years old, refused to enlist in the Israeli military on grounds of pacifism. Both were imprisoned by the Israeli military and faced a slew of death threats and…

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Young Israeli dissidents: “Do anything you can to stop the genocide”

On Tuesday, March 18th, an Al Jazeera article by Maram Humaid from Gaza begins:  “It wasn’t a nightmare, it was real. The war had returned just like that, without warning. The clock read 2:10am when we woke up in terror to the deafening sound of air strikes. A violent noise shook everything around us. My daughter, Banias, woke up screaming in fear: “Baba! Mama! What’s happening?” For the last four days, Al Jazeera notifications stormed phone screens.  At least eight Palestinians killed, including children, as Israel carries out “extensive” air attacks on the Gaza Strip – follow live Dozens of…

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Western community protest: demanding divestment, accountability, and policy changes

This Tuesday, March 18th, Western University students and faculty members gathered on concrete beach to protest the preceding night’s deadly raid in the Gaza Strip — a raid in which over 400 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes. This attack sparked global outrage as many — including local health officials in the Strip — recognize it as a violation of the current ceasefire (effective January 19th, this year). The rally was composed of students from the Western Divestment Coalition, members of Independent Jewish Voices, amongst students and faculty. The protestors had two demands. Fourth year Psych student and Palestine activist…

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“Come with me inside a black hole”: A talk by physicist Carlo Rovelli

“They’re remarkable objects… I hope I can tell you something more about their strangeness and their beauty,” says physicist Carlo Rovelli of black holes on January 30th at Western University’s Conron Hall, for the 2025 Duncanson Lecture. Behind him beams a photo of Sagittarius A* — a black hole 26 million kilometers wide in the center of our Milky Way galaxy, 26,000 light years from Earth (1 light year is about 9.4 x 1012  kilometers). The photo — the average of thousands of photos taken from a telescope — shows a hazy orange-yellow ring of fluctuating brightness circling a dark…

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“A small window into dehumanization”: Palestinian-Canadian doctor on the destruction of healthcare in Gaza

“Do you know how hard a kid fights when you bring a needle to their face and start cutting into it? Do you know how much strength they suddenly have? You can’t believe where it even comes from? Can you believe the screams that they deliver, when you try to suture them up? It’s crazy, it’s haunting. Truly, truly haunting,” says Palestinian-Canadian doctor Tarek Loubani. “The Israelis were always selective about painkillers. They’d never let painkillers through.” Loubani remembers suture rooms in Gaza full of wailing children. Half of Gaza’s population are children; they are the majority of those injured…

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“Six of us, stuffed into one ambulance, to go to a hospital. When we got there, it was sheer chaos”: A Harrowing Story of Getting Shot in Gaza

The following is a partial transcription, edited for brevity, of a talk given at King’s University College on February 24th, 2025 by Tarek Loubani, a Canadian doctor who has been involved in humanitarian medical missions in Gaza. Dr. Loubani recalls the time he was targeted and shot by Israeli forces while treating peaceful protestors during the Great March of Return protests of 2018-2019. He discusses how Israeli forces deliberately target Palestinian medical infrastructure and prohibit medicine and medical practitioners from entering Gaza. I was shot in 2018 in Gaza. When I was shot, and I kind of fell to the…

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“Where Olive Trees Weep”: Roots of injustice and resilience in the West Bank  

“I felt anger towards what the people on the screen were going through. Anger that this injustice – all of this – is still happening. Anger that all of this exists,” says Western University student Kamil Zerdoumi after viewing a film screening of Where Olive Trees Weep at King’s University College on November 29th, 2024. “It made me more aware of this huge, huge imbalance between [the] rights that Israelis and Palestinians have, and made me more fervent in Palestinians getting more rights and equal treatment and more justice, and less forgiving in any attempts to try and be a…

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“We’re all related”: Remembering Elder Dan Smoke

Elder Dan commemorated the Kanehsatake resistance by supporting the planting of a white pine — a traditional symbol of union and healing — in Victoria Park, London, in 1971. The red, white, black and yellow coloured bands on the tree represent the Colours of Man; the blue represents Father Sky; the green represents Mother Earth; and the purple represents the Creator. Photo by Rebecca Bartkiw.

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“The world is a relative”: How language can heal the Earth 

On Thursday, October 17th, Potawatomi botanist Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer gave a talk at Centennial Hall on how Indigenous teachings encompass protection and love of the Earth. Indigenous languages hold a worldview where the land and all beings are relatives; this inherently disallows destruction of the Earth.  “If the world is a relative, there are boundaries on what can be taken,” says Kimmerer. “There are guidelines on what we consume… Use everything you take. Take only what is given. Understand them as gifts, not commodities. Corporate messages confuse us about what we need and what we want.”  Her voice was…

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CUPE Local 2361 fights for fair wages

Hundreds of community members and Western University’s groundskeepers, caretakers and tradespeople represented by CUPE Local 2361 held a strike solidarity rally on August 30 amid bargaining with the university for a renewed contract. The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 2361 represents Western University’s building services and facilities operations employees, including landscaping services, trades workers and caretakers. The union entered a legal strike position on August 29. Workers and community members gathered at Western University’s main gates on Richmond Street for a solidarity rally at 12 p.m. on August 30. The atmosphere at the rally was energetic as CUPE 2361…

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