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Michael Classens
Michael Classens showed support for the pro-Hamas protest encampment at UofT in June 2024. The following month, he endorsed an anti-Israel petition in support of the UofT encampment and the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to destroy the State of Israel.
Classens is a UofT professor who participated [slide 5] in an anti-Israel ceremony organized by the UofT encampment on June 3, 2024, graduation day at UofT. Protesters held the event to “honour all of those who could not graduate because of the genocide their university is funding.” He stood in the back center in a photo [slide 5] from the event.
The ceremony was organized by UofT Occupy for Palestine, which according to their Instagram is a body of “Students calling for divestment from entities sustaining the attacks on Gaza + the occupation, apartheid, and illegal settlements of Palestine.”
By July 2024, Classens had again shown his support for the encampment by signing on to a pro-BDS statement put out by UofT community members. The statement backed all of the encampment’s demands, including divesting from the alleged “apartheid policies of the state of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
To show support, Classens submitted a “support selfie,” where text beside his face said: “DISCLOSE. DIVEST. CUT TIES.”
Michael Classens’ Support for the Pro-Hamas Encampment at the University of Toronto (UofT)
On May 2, 2024, activists from the UofT Occupy for Palestine (Occupy UofT) group “stormed down” [00:00:24] the fencing around UofT’s Kings College Circle and set up a pro-Hamas encampment, which they called the “People’s Circle for Palestine.”
That day, Occupy UofT called on “community members to…help us defend our encampment” at an emergency rally in the evening. Protesters chanted [00:02:59] for “intifada” and celebrated “resistance” [00:02:45]. Both terms are calls for terrorism. The activists also chanted [00:01:28; 00:02:21] for Israel’s destruction multiple times.
One speaker, Nabil Jalbout, said [00:09:02]: “...we are not fighting for peace, we are fighting for liberation, because ‘peace’ is a white man's word.” Another speaker, Ahmad Jarrar Hajahmad, claimed [00:05:52]: “All these Israeli and Zionist entities fill all these politicians with money in their pockets…we already know who runs this system…”
Signs displayed at the encampment said: “LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA” and “LIBERATION FOR ALL REQUIRES RESISTANCE FROM ALL.”
On May 4, 2024, anti-Israel protesters at the encampment assaulted a Jewish man, punching him in the stomach as they forcibly took his Israeli flag. The attackers told the man [00:01:02]: “God bless the armed resistance,” and: “Go back to Europe!” They also reportedly called him “a “dirty Jew.”
Protesters “occupied” [00:00:17] the area from May to July 2024, despite UofT’s warning they were trespassing. The group said they would not leave until UofT divested from companies that “sustain Israeli apartheid, occupation and illegal settlement of Palestine” and terminated partnerships with Israeli academic institutions.
Following the October 7, 2023 massacre of nearly 1,200 Israelis, the inverted red triangle - 🔻- became a Hamas symbol. This symbol appeared on large signs at the encampment multiple times. Erin Mackey, one of the primary organizers, is openly pro-Hamas, having used the symbol in her activism. In addition, pro-Hamas marches that began in other parts of the city concluded at the encampment.
On July 3, 2024, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued an injunction at the request of UofT’s Governing Council, requiring students to clear the encampment. Occupy UofT dismantled the encampment and wrote [slides 5-6]: “We are just getting started…come fall, every incoming student will hear our message loud and clear…Whatever institution you have access to and influence over - you need to take this campaign there!” The statement concluded: “Long live the intifada.”
The encampment was one of over 140 pro-Hamas and anti-Israel college encampments set up in North America, and over 20 more globally, in the spring of 2024. The first began on April 17, 2024, at Columbia University. The encampments were unofficially known as the “student intifada,” borrowing a term associated with terrorist violence.
Protesters harassed Jewish students, blocked Jews from campus facilities and shouted anti-Semitic slogans. They occupied campus grounds, in many cases illegally, caused property damage, violently took over buildings, celebrated terrorism and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Activists set up encampments to oppose Israel’s right to wage war against the Hamas terror group following October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 people, including 32 American and 8 Canadian citizens. Hamas also kidnapped 252 people, including 11 Americans and the bodies of 2 murdered Canadians. As of May 26, 2024, 125 hostages remained in Hamas captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
As of July 2024, Classens was working as an assistant professor in the School of the Environment at UofT. He was located at the St. George campus, known as UTSG.
Classens graduated with a PhD in environmental studies from York University (York), in 2015.
Also as of July 2024, Classen’s Twitter profile said he was located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
