''Confrontation at Concordia'' is a documentary film by Martin Himel which documents the 2002

Concordia University Netanyahu riot The Concordia University Netanyahu riot occurred on September 9, 2002 on the Sir George Williams Campus of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, when student rioters opposed a visit from the then former (and later subsequent) Israeli ...

Concordia University Concordia University ( French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, Canada. The film chronicles how pro-

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

student activists staged a

direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...

aimed to cancel the former

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...

's address on campus. The talk by the prime minister had been organized by Hillel, a Jewish student organization.Confrontation @ Concordia
(

CAMERA A camera is an Optics, optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), ...

)Transcript
(Appendix A to CIII-TV (Global Television) re Confrontation at Concordia (CBSC Decision 02/03-1340, -1368, -1514 and -1530, April 26, 2004)) The documentary portrays the events that took place in a negative light, and reportedly contributed to the ensuing media debate over them. The Concordia Student Union (CSU) responded by taking legal action against its producer.

Synopsis

The documentary opens with scenes of the violence at the event, depicting fighting between protesters and Jewish students attempting to enter the venue. This is followed by an interview with student Samir Elitrosh, a leader of the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and the leader of anti-Israel violence who was later suspended. It also features interviews with Concordia's Hillel president Yoni Petel and Concordia rector Frederick Lowy, and concludes with a discussion of what it sees as the growing trend of anti-Israel activities on North American campuses. The documentary presents footage of pro-Palestinian activists breaking windows and pushing and shoving to block the only entry to the lecture hall. The pro-Palestinian students had objected strongly to Netanyahu's attempt to give scheduled speech. In a segment of the film

described the conduct of Concordia students:

... what you have is an implantation in North America of this same unforgiving fanaticism that says "we will not allow the engagement of a contest of ideas, we will not allow a free market of ideas," which is precisely a microcosm of the problem that we have in these societies that spawn and produce terrorism. They rigidly control what their people hear and see so that they can control what they think and feel. And this is the essence of the problem. If the real solution to this fanaticism is ventilation, the aeration of various ideas, then you got a whiff of the underlying root cause of terrorism in Concordia. That is the unwillingness to have a free exchange of ideas. The root cause of terrorism is
totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...
.

In the film, Thomas Hecht, a former member of the Board of Governors of Concordia University and a

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

survivor, states: In response to allegations of

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

, Elitrosh, leader of the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, averred that one can be anti-Israel without being antisemitic. He stated that "Judaism existed before the state of Israel."

Controversy

The film set off a series of debates regarding student politics and whether anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian political rallies on campuses were anti-Semitic.

Criticism

Antonia Zebisias, media critic of the ''Toronto Star'' criticized the documentary for making hyperbolic comparisons between the riot and

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...

, for giving the president of Hillel more air time than was given to the Palestinian side, and for not supporting many of its contentions with facts. It also noted the potential conflict of interests due to the fact that the film was aired on

Global TV The Global Television Network (more commonly called Global, or occasionally Global TV) is a Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. It is currently Canada's second most-watched private terrestrial television network after CT ...

which is owned by CanWest, the media outlet which in part helped organize the invitation of Netanyahu to speak.Global Documentary Seems Unfair
After the documentary was broadcast on ''Global Television'',

Canadian Broadcast Standards Council The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) is an industry funded self-regulating organization created by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters to administer standards established by its own members, Canada's private broadcasters. The coun ...

(CBSC) received a number of complaints relating to the program. The complaints were considered under the provisions of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' (CAB) Code of Ethics and the Radio and Television News Directors Association of Canada (RTNDA) Code of (Journalistic) Ethics. The CBSC concluded that none of the provisions of the either the CAB Code of Ethics or the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics were breached.

Support

Himel has defended the film, arguing that "In my Concordia, we did interview the Arab student, as well as the Jewish student leader Patrick Amar. But

Discordia Eris (; grc-gre, :wikt:Ἔρις, Ἔρις ', "Strife") is the ancient Greek religion, Greek goddess of strife and discord. Her Roman equivalent is Discordia, which means the same. Eris's Greek opposite is Harmonia (mythology), Harmonia, whos ...

, besides interviewing Elatrash, interviewed a

self-hating Jew Self-hating Jew or self-loathing Jew, transliterated in Hebrew as auto-antisemitism, is a term which is used to describe Jews whose views are perceived as antisemitic. The concept gained widespread currency after Theodor Lessing's 1930 book ('' ...

who agreed with the Arabs. There was no interview with Amar or any other self-respecting Jewish spokesperson."Documentary Producer Martin Himel Keynote Speaker at Jabotinsky Memorial
by Rick Kardonne, B'nai Brith Canada, August 6, 2004, archive
here

Awards

''Confrontation at Concordia'' was selected as the best international documentary at the 2003 New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.
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References

External links

''The Jewish Channel's'' review of the film
{{DEFAULTSORT:Confrontation At Concordia 2003 films Canadian documentary films Student politics Documentary films about Montreal Concordia University Documentary films about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict 2003 documentary films Jews and Judaism in Montreal 2000s English-language films 2000s Canadian films