The English Montreal School Board is standing by its decision to recently issue a one-day in-school suspension to an 17-year-old Royal West Academy Mohawk student for two recent anti-Israel posts on Instagram.
The posts said “f–k Israel holy s–t” and “Israel allowed [the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack] to happen so they would have an excuse to rain hell upon Gaza.”
A petition supporting her, which prominent indigenous activist Ellen Gabriel encouraged people to sign, has disappeared from the Internet. The media has chosen not to publish the student’s real name.
The EMSB told The Suburban in a statement that “the student was deemed to have broken the Anti-Bullying, Anti-Violence (ABAV) policy established by the Ministry of Education. Her social media posts made other students fearful and uncomfortable.
“When brought to the attention of the principal, she was issued a suspension to be served at the school during a professional day so that she would not have to miss class or extra-curriculars. She did so and we have no further comment.”
The ABAV policy says “the word ‘violence’ means any “intentional demonstration of verbal, written, physical, psychological or sexual force which causes distress and injuries, hurts or oppresses a person by attacking their psychological or physical integrity or well-being, order rights or property.”
The family of the student is filing a complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal, claiming she was denied her right to freedom of expression.
The student told the publication The Rover that the terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023, in which Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 250 people, prompted her to research the longstanding Israel-Palestinian conflict, Zionism and settlements in the West Bank, and that she saw links between the Mohawks and the Palestinians.
“The version of history we’re taught in school, even when it’s sugarcoated, is pretty consistent on these points — the Europeans came, forced us off our land, killed us and put us in residential schools,” she told The Rover. “All because they claim this land is rightfully theirs. That’s exactly what’s going on in Israel. Yes, Israel has a historic claim to the land, but if you’re not in that land for 2,000 years, you can’t just come back and start brutalizing the people who have called this place home. So, to me, it feels incredibly personal.”
(The historical record says Jews have had a continuous presence in Israel for 3,000 years.)
The student also said her first post was in reaction to an alleged ceasefire violation by Israel. The second post was in reaction to Israeli soldier Shalom Sheetrit’s testimony, posted on social media, that soldiers “received orders on Oct. 7 to cancel all patrols along the Gaza border from 5:20 a.m. to 9 a.m.” However, according to reports, this order applied to one unit, and not soldiers in the entire territory near Gaza.