Melis Çağan

Overview

Melis Çağan has demonized Israel and organized a 2016 Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement campaign at McGill University (McGill) with the McGill BDS Action Network (McGill BDS).

Çağan was a member ofSolidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), an affiliate of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at McGill in 2015.

As of July 2021, Çağan’s LinkedIn said Çağan was a Web Developer for Réseau Koumbit in Montreal, Canada since November 2020, and was apprenticing as a “Junior Full Stack Developer at Better Together Solutions” since June 2020.

Çağan’s LinkedIn also said Çağan had completed a course in Full Stack Web Development at Lighthouse Labs in 2020 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in World Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from McGill in 2016. 

Demonizing Israel

On March 11, 2015, Çağan presented a “Pinkwashing” workshop as part of Israel Apartheid Week at McGill, along with fellow McGill SPHR member, Ralph Haddad. 

“Pinkwashing” is a claim that Israel advocates manipulate the LGBTQ community in order to garner support for Israel.  

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of…Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people” and build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The Facebook event description claimed that “Israeli pinkwashing is an issue integral to the lives of many queer Palestinians in Israel and that “Israel declares itself as the only bastion of human rights and freedoms in the Middle East,” as an attempt “to hide its human rights abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

In a podcast interview with The McGill Daily student newspaper about the workshop, Çağan alleged [00:03:18] that Israel used “queer rights and also women's rights to promote… North American and European Liberalism… and create a more positive image of Israel,” because Israel was “doing really bad in the polls about its image.”

On December 3, 2014, Çağan featured in a photo posted by SPHR on its Facebook page as part of campaign to “raise awareness about human rights violations in Palestine.” Çağan posed for a photo holding a sign which read: “It would only make sense that settler-colonial states like Canada and America would see the settler colonial state of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East.”

Organizing BDS Campaign at McGill

In February 2016, Çağan was an organizer for a McGill BDS divestment campaign. 

On February 22, 2016, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU)’s General Assembly voted in favor of McGill BDS’ resolution, which reportedly triggered a number of anti-Semitic attacks targeting Jewish students on social media and on campus. The BDS campaign subsequently lost an online ratification vote.

On February 27, 2016, Çağan told the McGill Daily: “... we are proud of the 2,119 students who stood for the rights of Palestinians… We take pride in the extensive work that the McGill BDS Action Network has put into this campaign...” Çağan also said: “we have still made history. We passed the BDS motion on the same day as the [House of Commons of the Canadian] Parliament voted to condemn BDS. 

McGill BDS  

On March 15, 2015, the McGill chapter of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) presented the General Assembly of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) with a motion calling on McGill to boycott five companies doing business in Israel. The motion failed by 64 votes after an “intense” 45-minute debate. SPHR is an alternative name for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

On February 22, 2016, the McGill BDS Action Network presented a “motion to support BDS” to the General Assembly of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU).
 
The motion called for the SSMU to “support campaigns associated with the BDS movement.” It also called for the SSMU president to recommend to McGill’s board of governors “no less than the complete divestment of holdings” in companies doing business in Israel. According to one source, the motion reportedlypassed 512 to 357.

On February 25, 2016, BDS supporters reportedly targeted Jewish students on social media with anti-Semitic remarks such as: “Little Zionist jewboys not happy that McGill students don’t support their genocide.”

The Montreal Gazette reported that after the vote, one student was “followed home and verbally harassed,” while another “was going to the police” to report an attempt to hack his Facebook page. A campaigner against the initiative said he knew of at least 10 students who sought counseling due to “intolerable situations” caused by their opposition to the motion.

On February 27, 2016, the BDS initiative lost the subsequent online ratification vote when 57 percent of the voters voted against it. Following the announcement of that vote, then-McGill principal and vice-chancellor Suzanne Fortier issued a statement confirming that the university’s administration “continues to steadfastly oppose” and “will have no part of” the BDS movement.

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/623411578

https://www.facebook.com/melis.cagan.7 [Deleted]

www.facebook.com/cagame.17 [Deleted]

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MelisCagan [Private]

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcagan/ [Private]

Audio: McGill Daily podcast interview March 11 2015_Melis Çağan accuses Israel of pinkwashing