Academic Hasbara and Colonial Tourism at McGill’s Faculty of Law
Early into their legal education at McGill, students are introduced to the concept of vicarious liability Parents in the Civil Law tradition, for example, can under certain conditions be presumed liable for harm caused by the faults of children.They may also encounter case law from the Common Law that illustrates how the entirety of a home can be subject to seizure as a result of one person conducting illegal activity there, a practice which many will find deeplyunsettlingand,onitsface,unjust
And while McGill students may encounter a broad spectrum of English, American, Australian, and French case law, they will likely not study Israeli case law, where vicarious liability entails collective punishment in the form of punitive home demolitions
McGill students, therefore, will likely not be familiar with the history of Israel’s highest court (the so-called High Court of Justice, hereafter “HCJ” or “IHCJ”), developing a jurisprudence affirming that
“the military commander’s authority to demolish a person ’ s home applies to the entire building, regardless of the innocence of the other occupants”2
They probably will not encounter Dejalas v Military Commander of Judea and Samaria Region , where the IHCJ rationalized home demolitions by comparing them “to a prison sentence imposed on the head of the family a father of minors whose imprisonment wouldleavethemwithoutasupporter.” 3 4
In fact, jurists in training will likely never read any of the decisions by Israel’s top court approving the punitive destruction of family homes of suspected Palestinian offenders These decisions, replete as they are with tortured logic, Kafkaesque legal reasoning, and racist worldviews, approve demolitions “usually, before the suspect is tried or convicted, and regardless of whether they own or permanently reside in the house,” and are done with little or no notice and fsdfsdfsdf 5 6
withnoguaranteedrightof appeal.7
Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or co-operative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessarybymilitaryoperations 8
–ART.53.GenevaConventionIV
No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited Pillage is prohibited Reprisals against protected persons and theirpropertyareprohibited 9 –ART 33 GenevaConventionIV
HCJ4088/22AlrafaivMilitaryCommanderof theWestBank(2022)atparas21–22(IsrSC),online(pdf): <hamoked org/files/2022/1665800 eng pdf>[Alrafai]
HCJ4772/91KhizranetalvIDFCommander(1992),46:2IsrSC150;seealsoAlrafai,supranote1
2 HCJ698/85DejalasvMilitaryCommanderof JudeaandSamariaRegion(1986),40:2IsrSC42atpara44.
3 SeealsoGuyHarpaz,“BeingUnfaithfultoOne’sOwnPrinciples:TheIsraeliSupremeCourtandHouseDemolitionsintheOccupiedPalestinian Territories”(2014)47:3IsraelLR401
5 B’Tselem,“HomeDemolitionasCollectivePunishment”,(11November2017),online:<https://wwwbtselem org/punitive demolitions>
RebeccaMooney,“JurisprudentialHypocrisyUnderIsrael’sNormativeUmbrella:PunitiveDemolitionsasPre-Conviction,CollectivePunishmentin theWestBank,”(2023)33DukeJComp&IntlL253
6 B’Tselem,ThroughNoFaultof TheirOwn:PunitiveHouseDemolitionsduringtheal-AqsaIntifada,byRonenShnayderman(Jerusalem:B’Tselem, November2004),online:<https://wwwbtselem org/publications/summaries/200411 punitive house demolitions>
7 GenevaConventionrelativetotheProtectionof CivilianPersonsinTimeof War,12August1949,75UNTS287,art53(enteredintoforce21October 1950)[GenevaConventionIV]
8 Ibid,art33
11 12 13 14 15
During the First Palestinian Uprising (the First Intifada), Israel punitively demolished an estimated 490 Palestinian homes. During the Second Intifada (2000 to 2005), “Israel punitively demolished at least 650 homes, displacing about 4,000 Palestinians.” Between 2009 and 2022, Israel demolished 96 homes in the West Bank In August 2023, the Court approved the demolition of the family home of a 13 year old Palestinian child accused of stabbing an Israeli policeman at an apartheid checkpoint. The condemned home was an apartment on the second floor of a five-story building in a refugee camp It housed the child’s parents and siblings,“none of whom are suspected of any involvement or even knowledge of the attack” This year, Israel has punitively demolished 37 homes belonging to families of Palestinians accused of attacks against Israelis No such demolitions have ever been inflicted on Israeli settlers involved in fatal attacks against Palestinians.
McGill students may be surprised to learn that vicarious parental liability, as far as the Israeli HCJ is concerned, can entail the punitive demolition of the family home or homes of relatives
and neighbors of Palestinian children accused of resisting their occupiers Indeed, as the IHCJ wrote in one decision,“the fact that the idea to carry out [an] atrocious attack was conceived in the [family home]”is grounds for the military to demolish it. That Israel ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention on July 6, 1951, which prohibits collective punishment and the destruction of private property, has not stopped the IHCJ from endorsing and enabling the collective punishment of Palestinians using an Orwellian logic of deterrence. 16
Rule by Law
Like the western legal traditions to which it belongs, Israel’s legal system emerges from and upholds the structures of racial capitalism and colonialism. Israel’s Supreme Court is exceptional in its overt dehumanization of indigenous peoples and its white supremacist, racist, and convoluted logics.
The cruelty and illegality of punitive home demolitions as approved by Israel’s HCJ is a reality widely understood by the majority of scholars and jurists The punitive home mmmmm 17
demolitions and the destruction wrought by Israel during the ongoing genocide both register the fundamental role of Israel’s judiciary in maintaining the occupation of Palestine One form of destruction is conducted with bombs. The other by means of a sanitized masquerade of a Western legal order Former Israeli occupation forces (hereafter “IOF”) General and Tel Aviv University Law Professor Pnina Sharvit Baruch concurs, writing that the “international prestige enjoyed by the [IHCJ]” has been “ an important element in the struggle against delegitimization” of the state 18 19
The Israeli judiciary’s work to uphold the occupation and destruction of Palestinians is hardly limited to punitive demolitions The court has long served to justify the expropriation of Palestinian land, uphold military orders governing the West Bank, and whitewash crimes against humanity under the guise of “security.” Indeed, the IHCJ has continuously justified occupation and apartheid through its jurisprudence, systematically developing warped reasoning in the service of what scholars have referred to as “rule by law” in place of “rule of law ” fsdfsdfdsf 20 21 22
JillianKestler-D’Amours,“Israel’sTopCourttoRuleonPunitiveHomeDemolitions,”MiddleEastEye(13February2015),online: https://wwwmiddleeasteye net/news/israels-top-court-rule-punitive-home-demolitions,citedinMooney,supranote5
10 Kestler-D’Amours,supranote10
12
11 Mooney,supranote5at262.
13 NorwegianRefugeeCouncil,“WestBank:RecordNumberof DemolitionsOverBuildingPermitsasIsraelFurthersAnnexationAgenda”(1 October2025),online:<https://wwwnrc no/news/2025/october/west-bank-record-number-of-demolitions-over-building-permits-as-israelfurthers-annexation-agenda>.
HaMoked,“HCJMajorityApprovedthePunitiveDemolitionof a13-Year-Old’sFamilyHomeinEastJerusalemExpresslyforthePurposeof ‘DeterringParents’of YoungerChildren”(27August2023),online:<https://hamoked org/document php?dID=Updates2367>
14 Mooney,supranote5at260
15 GenevaConventionIV,supranote8
16 OrnaBen-Naftalietal,“TheLawfulnessof Israel’sHouseDemolitionPolicyunderInternationalLawandIsraeliLaw”(November2014),online (pdf):<hamoked org/files/2014/1159001 eng pdf> SeealsoMooney,supranote5;AmichaiCohen&YuvalShany,“HouseDemolitionattheIsraeli SupremeCourt:RecentDevelopments”(14January2019),online:<lawfaremedia org/article/house-demolition-israeli-supreme-court-recentdevelopments>;foralistof theextensivecriticalliteratureonthepractice,seealsoHarpaz,supranote4at401–403.
17 ZivStahl,“HaefarthaidHisraliBaklifatAgoz,BeshtiPsikotShelBeg”tz”[TheIsraeliApartheidinaNutshell,inTwoHCJJudgments],Siha Mekomit(25May2022),online<mekomit co il>[perma cc/GKZ4-GRQ7],citedinBen-Naftalietal,supranote17
18 TheDelegitimizationPhenomenon:ChallengesandResponses,edbyEinavYogev&GalliaLindenstrauss,INSSMemorandumNo169(TelAviv: InstituteforNationalSecurityStudies,September2017),online(pdf):<inss org il/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/memo169 pdf>
19 TheLawInTheseParts,dirbyRa’ananAlexandrowicz(Israel:2011).
20 AmnestyInternational,“DefendingtheRuleof Law,EnforcingApartheid:TheDoubleLifeof Israel’sJudiciary”(13September2023),online: <amnestyorg/en/latest/news/2023/09/defending-the-rule-of-law-enforcing-apartheid-the-double-life-of-israels-judiciary>
22
21 OrnaBen-Naftali&EitanDiamond,“NoPlaceforPalestinians:TheIsraeliHighCourtof JusticeFadesOutof theGlobalCommunityof Courts TheFarcicalTragedyof the2022JudgmentonMasaferYatta”(2023)41BUILJ45at119
As the architect of the so-called code of ethics of the Israeli occupation forces once wrote to describe the targeted killings of Palestinians, “What we do becomes the law”23
Israel’s HCJ has therefore been at the heart of Israeli rule by law, consistently ruling in ways that entrench and legitimize state-sanctioned violence towards Palestinians through every legal means available to its judges. It has approved the demolition of entire Palestinian villages and sanctioned the forced transfer of Palestinians from their land. It has upheld countless administrative detention orders under which Palestinians are held for months or even years without charge or trial, and it has endorsed the legal policy of withholding Palestinian bodies for use as bargaining chips, and legitimized the torture of Palestinians. The Court has upheld laws that restrict and weaken the right to Palestinian family unification In 2018, it upheld the socalled “nation state law,” which constitutionally enshrines Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people and defi
23
defines settlement expansion as a national value 30
In line with this precedent, on March 27 of this year the IHCJ again weaponized its legal power to legitimize the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. As described by jurists Neve Gordon and Muna Haddad, the IHCJ deployed a deliberate policy of procrastination against domestic petitions seeking to force the provision of aid to Palestinians, disregarding the evidence submitted by the petitioners In this and subsequent rulings since October 7, 2023, the Court’s already fragile mask of neutrality has irrevocably slipped: “decisions have become weak and devoid of deep legal analysis, unlike its previous attempts at creating a complex ‘legal structure’ to legitimize illegal state practices,” explains Nareman ShehadehZoabi, lawyer at The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Palestine. 31
32 33
McGill Law at the IHCJ
We had a great tour of the Supreme Court of Israel, and our guide gave us a fascinating crash course in Israeli law We
also had the unique opportunity to sit in on part of a hearing! 34
– Caption of JLSA’s Instagram story, 5 May 2025
This caption marks one in a series of Instagram story publications (hereafter “stories”) documenting the McGill Jewish Law Students’ Association’s (hereafter “JLSA”), self-described “ oncein-a-lifetime” trip to Israel in May 2025. Sponsored and subsidized by iTREK and CJA, the JLSA’s trip took a contingent of McGill law students on a curated propaganda tour of Israel that involved meetings with Israeli legislators, members of the Israeli occupation forces, and a visit to the IHCJ 35 36
In one story depicting the visit to the IHCJ, a number of students, most of them from McGill’s Faculty of Law, huddle together, nametags swinging at their chests, their practiced smiles beaming.They pose in rows before a plain but serious-looking limestone structure, ostensibly to capture the moment of their
AmosHarel,“Prof AsaKsher:AmZeHaskanoHachail,Ha’difotHiLechail”[Prof AsaKosher:WhetherIt’stheNeighborortheSoldier,the PriorityIstheSoldier],Haaretz(6February2009),online:<haaretz co il/news/politics/2009-02-06/ty-article/0000017f-e1fb-d568-ad7ff3fb004e0000>.
AmnestyInternational,“Israel/OPT:IsraeliCourtApprovesaWarCrimebyRulinginFavourof DemolishingtheEntireVillageof Khanal-Ahmar” (5September2018),online:<amnestyorg/en/latest/news/2018/09/israel-opt-israeli-court-approves-a-war-crime-by-ruling-in-favour-ofdemolishing-the-entire-village-of-khan-al-ahmar-2>.
25
24 AmnestyInternational,“Israel/OPT:1150PeopleatRiskof ForcedDisplacement:MasaferYatta”(23November2022),online: <amnestyorg/en/documents/mde15/6240/2022/en>
26 B’Tselem,“HCJGreen-lightsHoldingPalestinianBodiesasBargainingChips”(22October2019),online: <btselem org/routine founded on violence/20191022 hcj greenlights holding palestinian bodies as bargaining chips>
B’Tselem,“PalestinianAdministrativeDetaineesBoycottingCourtProceedingsforFourMonths WhileIsraelContinuetoUpholdThem Regardless”(26April2022),online: <btselem org/administrative detention/20220426 palestinian administrative detainees boycotting court proceedings for 4 months>
27 B’Tselem,LegitimizingTorture:TheIsraeliHighCourtof JusticeRulingsintheBilbeisi,HamdanandMurabakCases,byYuvalGinbar(Jerusalem: B’Tselem,January1997),online:<btselem org/publications/summaries/199701 legitimizing torture>
28 Adalah,“IsraelReinstatesBanonPalestinianFamilyUnification”(10March2022),online:<adalah org/en/content/view/10576>
29 SupremeCourtof Israel,“Summaryof IsraeliSupremeCourtDecisionontheJewishNation-StateBasicLaw”,translatedbyAdalah(8July2021), online(pdf):<adalah org/uploads/uploads/Translation of Summary of JNSL Judgment pdf>
30 NeveGordon&MunaHaddad,“HowDidtheIsraeliSupremeCourtLegitimiseStarvationasaWeaponof War?AnAutopsyof aRuling:Part2”, OpinioJuris(14May2025),online(blog):<opiniojuris.org/2025/05/14/how-did-the-israeli-supreme-court-legitimise-starvation-as-a-weapon-ofwar-an-autopsy-of-a-ruling-part-2> SeealsoEuro-MedHumanRightsMonitor,PressRelease,“IsraeliSupremeCourtDecisionLegitimises Starvation,GenocideintheGazaStrip”(28March2025),online:<euromedmonitororg/en/article/6663/Israeli-Supreme-Court-decisionlegitimises-starvation,-genocide-in-the-Gaza-Strip>.
31 NaremanShehadeh-Zoabi,“Israel’sJusticeSystemandtheGenocidalWaronGaza”(30May2025),online:<arabcenterdc org/resource/israelsjustice-system-and-the-genocidal-war-on-gaza>
32 Ibid
33 McGillJewishLawStudents’Association,“����25”(May2025),online:<instagram com/jlsa mcgill>(Instagramstory)
34 Ibid.
36
35 “JewishandNon-JewishLawStudentsAlikeHeadingtoIsraelThisMay,”FederationCJA360(14March2025),online: <federationcja org/en/news/federation-360/federation-cja-360-march-14-2025 138771>
visit to the Israeli High Court of Justice.
The photo mimics a familiar genre of Instagrammable law school life photography: SCC tours, moot competitions, professional networking events–all ostensibly typical occasions where civic and academic engagement are displayed, if not carefully staged, for public consumption
Missing from the story or its caption is any reference to the IHCJ’s insidious role in sanctioning, inter alia, Israel’s crimes against humanity, apartheid, and genocide Presented in this way, the trip organizers would have observers see in the Israeli Supreme Court a prestigious legal institution as opposed to its role as part of a state infrastructure that works to “blatantly violate international legal and humanitarian norms by committing crimes against Palestinians, aiding in such crimes by coordinating their activities, and/or providing a false legal cover. ”37
The JLSA’s seemingly banal Instagram stories throughout the trip’s wellchoreographed itinerary, including places like Israel’s HCJ, Knesset, and Tel Aviv University, contrast with the violent nature of the visited institutions. This contradiction reveals the trip’s goal of normalizing Israeli genocide, occupation, and apartheid, under the guise of education and tourism, all efforts emblematic of the larger hasbara, or propaganda, project to which trips like this one belong
NorthAmerican Campus Hasbara
Conveniently sanitized as “public aaaaa
Euro-MedMonitor,supranote31.
diplomacy”by its practitioners, hasbara is the adaptive, systematic, and “stateorchestrated effort to manage the increasing public critique that Israel faces” Through the strict coordination of messaging among select spokespeople, maintenance of close ties to credible Western media outlets, and leveraging political power through institutions such as AIPAC, hasbara is the rhetorical shield that discredits and dismisses efforts to hold Israel accountable for its atrocities, enabling, for example, IOF representatives to simultaneously deny and enable their deliberate famine of Gaza. In this sense, hasbara functions not merely as propaganda but as an epistemic regime that shapes what can be known, said, and believed about Israel.
In her book, Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom, Israeli-Jewish academic Maya Wind underscores hasbara’s reliance on “the use of academic spaces and fora to build state propaganda strategy.” Notably, the Comper Centre at the University of Haifa researches and distributes antiBoycott, Divestments, Sanctions (hereafter “BDS”) and anti-academic boycott material for Israeli exchange students and scholars on sabbatical to use; however, beyond providing resources alone, the Comper Center directly mobilizes university students as hasbara agents themselves 41
Through its accredited and subsidized “Ambassadors Online Program”, the Centre “offers academic and ‘practical training, to cultivate student capabilities
to become ‘unofficial ambassadors’ in Israeli hasbara.” Furthermore, as part of a syllabus comprising lectures from members of the state hasbara apparatus as well as the Foreign Affairs and Prime Ministers’ Offices, student participants are obligated “to create content for Israeli public diplomacy as their final assignment ”
44
Heavily subsidized “educational trips” and academic exchanges to Israel have long been understood by the academic community both within and outside Israel/Palestine to constitute a key hasbara activity These programs employ the ostensibly neutral and apolitical guise of academia and knowledge production to normalize apartheid and genocide. And they find little resistance at places like McGill’s Faculty of Law and the liberal university as a whole, where open debate, free exchange of ideas, and academic freedom are celebrated as ends in themselves, as opposed to ways of imagining and enacting the circumstances required to solve the injustices at hand.
“[T]he Israel advocacy establishment has mounted a number of initiatives all over the landscape, but especially on U S campuses, ” explains Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. “These have included redoubling efforts to positively brand Israel for public opinion generally but especially for college students. They have included extraordinarily expensive programs to
37 MiriyamAouragh,“Hasbara2 0:Israel’sPublicDiplomacyintheDigitalAge”(2024)25:3MiddleEastCritique271at275
38 MayaWind,Towersof IvoryandSteel:HowIsraeliUniversitiesDenyPalestinianFreedom(London,UK:Verso,2024)at95
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid
41 Wind,supranote39at97,citingComperCenter,“IsraelAdvocacyMaterials”(23December2012),online:<compercenterhaifa ac il/?p=47>; ComperCenter,“Thesis,Publications,andResearch”(23December2012),online:<compercenter.haifa.ac.il/?p=42>.
42 Wind,supranote39at96,citingComperCenter,“AmbassadorsOnline”(12February2013),online:<https://shagririm haifa ac il/?p=65>
43 Wind,supranote39at97,citingComperCenter,“‘AmbassadorsOnline’(ShagririmBareshet)2012:Syllabus”,online(pdf): <compercenterhaifa ac il/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Ambassadors Online Syllabus pdf>
44 SeeTaglitBirthrightIsrael,“AFreeTriptoIsrael”(lastvisited22October2025),online:<birthrightisrael com>;AlexanderMussHighSchoolin Israel,“AlexanderMussHighSchoolinIsrael”(lastvisited22October2025),online:<amhsi.org>.
45 Aouragh,supranote38
47
46 WilliamIRobinson,“IsraelHasFormedaTaskForcetoCarryOutCovertCampaignsatUSUniversities”,Truthout(23March2024),online: <truthout.org/articles/israel-has-formed-a-task-force-to-carry-out-covert-campaigns-at-us-universities>.
send even more young people to Israel on what I call magical mystery propaganda tours, [...] hasbara tours.”48
Khalidi’s analysis aptly foreshadows the Israeli Diaspora and Foreign Affairs Ministries’ latest initiative to “correct”Israel’s post-October 7 image crisis on North American university campuses. According to Israeli outlet ynetnews and Ministry reports, the campaign sought to expose “the identities of [anti-Israel] lecturers, retaliate legally against “antisemitic” [read: pro-Palestinian/anti-genocide] student associations, suppress proPalestine speech through the “recruitment” of pro-Israel donors’ financial influence, and amplify student and civil society pro-Israel influencers “especially on social networks.” Speaking to the Guardian on the magnitude of such efforts, Eli Clifton, senior adviser at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft: “ one struggles to find a parallel in terms of a foreign country’s influence overAmerican political debate”
Indeed, during the first eight months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Antisemitism Amichai Shikli allocated $32 million
shekels ($8 6 million USD) from the Israeli government’s wartime budget to “stay on the offensive” on North American campuses, including “23 million shekels on publishing content on social media.” Minutes from the Knesset Committee for Diaspora Affairs and reports from Shikli’s Ministry show how these funds supported political rebranding efforts for Israel, including the creation of a centralized hasbara “situation room ” within Shikli’s ministry, the establishment of over 80 anti-BDS advocacy and educational programs, and strengthened partnerships with pro-Israel student groups such as Hillel and Chabad.
These initiatives reflect a sustained policy consensus within Israel’s security establishment that information control is integral to warfare The Diaspora and Foreign Affairs Ministry’s efforts echo the policy recommendations proposed by Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Israel’s preeminent national security thinktank, whose “academic experts and senior security state personnel join forces to develop and publish legal guidance for the Israeli government and military” Members of 62
the Tel Aviv Faculty of law routinely help produce the INSS’ “flagship publication, the annual Strategic Assessment for Israel, [which] is received by the Israeli president at an official ceremony each year ”63
The INSS’ September 2017 paper titled “The Delegitimization Phenomenon: Challenges and Responses” provides a catalog of measures to undermine the rising “delegitimization” of Israel (read: support for BDS) across North American university campuses. Included among the report’s recommendations are academic trips as a tool to counter BDS efforts: “It is important to create personal connections and host delegations in Israel [ ] There is also a need for academic activities to counteract the quantities of anti-Israel material, such as publicizing studies, influencing curriculums, developing courses and research programs, and supporting pro-Israel researchers and lecturers ” 64 65
Knesset Member Oded Forer, Chairman of the Aliyah, Absorption and Diaspora Committee recently made the explicit connection between
TheJerusalemFund&PalestineCenter,“The2010EdwardSaidMemorialLecturewithDr RashidKhalidi”(8November2013),online(video): <youtube com/watch?v=DCB76sDcZvk>
48 Robinson,supranote47.
49 Israel,Ministryof DiasporaAffairsandCombatingAntisemitism,“TheMinistryforDiasporaAffairsandCombattingAntisemitismin CooperationwiththeWorldZionistOrganizationandtheJewishAgencyforIsrael,Launchedthe2023AntisemitismReport”(18February2024), online:<govil/en/pages/news-combatting180224>[Ministryof DiasporaAffairsandCombatingAntisemitism,“CombattingAntisemitism”]
50 ItamarEichner,“ShamingandPressuringDonors:Israel’sStrategyAgainstAntisemitismonUSCampuses”(25November2023),Ynetnews,online: <ynetnews.com/article/rk5ppryht>.
51 Ministryof DiasporaAffairsandCombatingAntisemitism,supranote50
52 Eichner,supranote51
53 LeeFang&JackPoulson,“IsraeliDocumentsShowExpansiveGovernmentEfforttoShapeUSDiscourseAroundGazaWar”(24June2024),The Guardian,online:<theguardian com/world/article/2024/jun/24/israel-fund-us-university-protest-gaza-antisemitism>
54 Ibid
55 Israel,Ministryof DiasporaAffairsandCombatingAntisemitism,“MinistryforDiasporaAffairsRepresentativeinaDiscussiononanti-Semitism intheKnesset:‘SocialMediaPlatformsRemoveContentBecauseItFeaturesIsraeliSymbols’”(2July2024),online:<govil/en/pages/vaada july 2>
56 Israel,KnessetCommitteeforDiasporaAffairs,ProtokolMes106MishivetVe'adetHa'aliya,HaklitaVehitpotzot[MinutesNo106fromtheMeeting of theKnessetCommitteeforDiasporaAffairs](20November2023),online(pdf):<documentcloud org/documents/24761906-november-20-2023knesset-hearing-1105am>
57 Ministryof DiasporaAffairsandCombatingAntisemitism,“CombattingAntisemitism”,supranote50.
58 Fang&Poulson,supranote54
59 Ministryof DiasporaAffairsandCombatingAntisemitism,“CombattingAntisemitism”,supranote50
60 KnessetCommitteeforDiasporaAffairs,supranote57.
61 Wind,supranote39at37
62 Ibidat95
63 YogevandLindenstrauss,supranote19.
65
64 Ibid
he INSS’s recommendations, Shikli’s hasbara “offensive” and so-called “educational tourism”programs such as the JLSA’s. Speaking at a January 21, 2025 Knesset press conference alongside the CEOs of several“educational tourism” organizations, Forer articulated his and the CEOs’shared goal of increasing their trips for “delegations of Jewish youth from the Diaspora to Israel”by 50% 66
“At every opportunity, I emphasize the need to define Zionism as a protected value on campuses in the United States Precisely now, in such a complex period for the Jewish people, it is necessary to bring delegations of Jewish youth from the Diaspora to Israel, to strengthen the connection between Diaspora Jewry and the State of Israel, to their involvement in the Jewish community in the Diaspora and their commitment to the State of Israel [ ]” said Forer, explaining the doubled importance of facilitating such tours during“times of war ” “The youth's experience on a tour of Israel is very significant and is better than any superficial acquaintance through social networks.”
67 68
Remarks from the CEOs further illustrate the nature of these so-called educational trips as hasbara Gidi Mark, the CEO of Taglit asserted that “the Jewish people in the Diaspora are a strategic asset to the State of Israel”, and that in combatting the BDS movement, “Jewish organizations make the difference as a final assignment between victory and defeat.”Gil Galnos, the CEO of iTREK the company which facilitated the JLSA’s trip was also in attendance, and stated:“We must give Israeli guides and instructors abroad
abroad the appropriate tools to combat the new anti-Semitism”69
The phrasing of “ new antisemitism” is neither incidental or ambiguous in this context According to Israeli jurists Itamar Mann and Lili Yona, the term is endorsed by pro-Israel actors seeking to combat “rising criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians”70
Indeed, taken at face value, the remarks of Galnos, Mark, Forer, and Shikli confirm that these“educational trips”serve not to encourage critical thinking, but to provide rhetorical ammunition to prevent it, rendering education indoctrination.
ColonialTourism
Apartheid South Africa had Sun City America had Woodstock while napalm fell on Vietnam Israel has Goa and Tel Aviv Pride. They claim that their joy proves their innocence But joy built on the bones of others was never joy and will not last 71
– BenjaminAshraf,“Hasbara with Glitter: Israel’s Politics of Pleasure” ***
Understood this way, the JLSA’s trip emerges as a clear example of hasbara, and in this case, of the aforementioned slew of “expansive government effort[s] to shape … discourse around Gaza war. ” But hasbara trips like the one organized and led by the JLSA are not unique in the history of colonialism, where tourism has long served to legitimize the settler colony and where leisure is used as a cover for brutality 72 73
Tourismthusoperatesasacivilianextension
extension of occupation, converting landscapes of dispossession into sites of leisure and legitimacy “In the context of the ongoing Zionist settler colonial project in Palestine, tourism has proven to be an important instrument in shaping images and imaginative geographies related to both Palestine and Israel,” explains Dorien Vanden Boer. “Consequently, the Palestinian reality has been widely erased from the Israelicontrolled tourism sector in historic Palestine. The Zionist settler colonial project has rendered Palestinians invisible not just by forcing them behind walls but also by incorporating their food, crafts, and folklore or representing them as the eternal ‘other ’ Correspondingly, tourism is a practice that normalizes these images and reorders and reshapes perceptions of people, places, and their relation to the world [ ] Tourism as such is thus intrinsically implicated in the settler colonial complex: dispossession not only happens through violence but also through contingent touristic practices that erase Palestinian histories, cultural attributes, architecture, and so on. ” 74 75
Settler colonial regimes have long weaponized tourism to distract from or justify apartheid. Not unlike Israel’s tourism industry today, South Africa’s 1979 campaign “Come Home to Africa’s South” promoted wine tastings and wildlife safaris against a backdrop of violent racial domination.
A Genocide Tour
The JLSA trip came first to light in February 2025, when the group published an Instagram advertisement for a trip to Israel organized by the JLSA at McGill in
Israel, Knesset,“Hagdalet Hityarot Hachinochit Lisra”[Increasing EducationalTourism to Israel] (21 January 2025), online: <main knesset govil/news/pressreleases/pages/press21012025x aspx>
66 Ibid
67 Ibid.
68 See Noah Feldman,“The NewAntisemitism,”Time (27 February 2024), online: <https://time com/6763293/antisemitism/> [emphasis added]
69 Itamar Mann & LihiYona,“Defending Jews From the Definition of Antisemitism”(2024) 71 UCLA L Rev 1150 at 1167.
70 BenjaminAshraf,“Hasbara with Glitter: Israel’s Politics of Pleasure”, Al Jazeera (26August 2025), online: <aljazeera com/opinions/2025/8/26/hasbara-with-glitter-israels-politics-of-pleasure>
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid
73 DorienVanden Boer,“Toward Decolonization inTourism: EngagedTourism and the JerusalemTourism Cluster”(2016) 65 Jerusalem Quarterly 9 at 9
75
74 Ibid at 12
partnership with iTrek and Federation CJA The tour’s putative goal was to expose law students to a range of perspectives on Israelilaw,society,andpolitics.
The structure of the trip (its sponsorship, itinerary, and rhetorical presentation) mirrors state-directed hasbara strategies detailed above In a standard hasbara mechanism, the trip was heavily subsidized and covered hotel accommodations, meals, transportation, and a full-time tour guide, according to the advertisement
“An unforgettable week with an incredible group We heard diverse perspectives across Israel and the West Bank, asked tough questions, challenged narratives, and bore witness to the horrors of October 7,” wrote the organizers in one Instagram story after the trip was completed “We leave with deeper understanding, heavy hearts, and hope for a better future.”
A prime example of hasbara at McGill, the tour was a highly curated and sanitized experience, providing access to the inner workings of an apartheid regime while bypassing the material realities of occupation, displacement, and genocide, concealing violence through the language of “dialogue” and “understanding”The trip occurred at a time when UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and multiple academic legal institutions including scholars at Boston University had already found that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza 76 77 78
Even as Israel had murdered over 70,000 Palestinians, with the true death toll established to be far-higher, committed the genocidal acts of domicide and ffffff 79 80
81
scholasticide, destroyed invaluable cultural and historic institutions, and made life conditions unfathomably horrific in Gaza, McGill Law students went “trekking” around a few kilometers away from the site of an ongoing genocide.
“We toured the Tel Aviv University law school Participants were treated to a wonderful session by renowned speaker andTelAviv University legal scholar Gadi Ezra Mr Ezra provided us with thoughtprovoking thought [sic] experiments and real-life scenarios as a former IDF soldier and expert in the Laws of War,”wrote the group in another post
One recurring theme that emerges from the JLSA’s Instagram stories is the attempt at rehabilitating Israel’s political institutions, including the Israeli legislature, another stop on the JLSA trip “Yesterday our group visited the Knesset, Israel's parliament, where we had the chance to meet with a Member of Knesset” reads the caption of another hasbara slide “We learned about the Israeli political system, asked hard questions, and weren't afraid to challenge his views. It was a powerful conversation on democracy, law, and leadership”
The same erasure at play in stories about the group ’ s visit to the Israeli HCJ is applied to all these institutions Despite the group ’ s attempt at presenting them as such, they are not educational stops; they are pillars of apartheid. They play central roles in legislating, legitimizing, and overseeing Israel’s apartheid regime
As explained earlier in this piece, hasbara hasbara tours seek, inter alia, to complicate the narrative of Israel’s pc
occupation of Palestine In the case of the JLSA’s hasbara trip, organizers posted about their access to bomb shelters at the mere sound of sirens, even as entire Palestinian families were crushed to death under the homes destroyed by Israeli bombs or burned alive in their tents a few kilometers away.
Indeed, narratives overstating Israeli safety concerns are core hasbara outputs “We feel it's important to share that since starting our trip, two sirens have sounded due to missiles,” wrote one organizer on the JLSA’s Instagram account “The first on May 3 at around 6:30 am, and the second on May 4 at around 9:30 am while we were touring Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum When sirens sound, protocol is to go to the bomb shelter / protected area, and if that is not possible to lie on the ground with hands on one's head We believe it is important that we share this harsh reality experienced by our participants. We are inspired by the resilience and spirit of our group, who have continued to engage with our activities and speakers ”
The level of detail in posts about sirens, for example, contrasts with the abstract and perfunctory reference to a day spent in Bethlehem where participants “learned about life for Palestinians in the West Bank ” There, participants posed with New York Times Palestinian journalist Rami Nazzal in front of the Bethlehem apartheid wall to satisfy the liberal both-sides narrative fetish, without ever mentioning the systemic violence faced by Palestinians under Israeli occupation
76 Amnesty International,‘You Feel LikeYou Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza (London, UK:Amnesty International, 2024), online (pdf): <amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/8668/2024/en>.
Human Rights Watch, “Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Life’s Basics” (19 December 2024), online: <hrw.org/report/2024/12/19/extermination-and-acts-genocide/israel-deliberately-depriving-palestiniansgaza>
77 University Network for Human Rights et al, Genocide in Gaza:Analysis of International Law and its Application to Israel’s Military Actions since October 7, 2023 (15 May 2024), online: <humanrightsnetwork.org/publications/genocide-in-gaza>.
78 Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee & Salim Yusuf, “Counting the Dead in Gaza: Difficult but Essential” (2024) 404:10449 The Lancet 237
79 Doctors Without Borders, “Destruction of Homes Leaves Palestinians Unable to Safely Return to Rafah” (28 January 2025), online: <doctorswithoutborders org/latest/destruction-homes-leaves-palestinians-unable-safely-return-rafah>
81
80 Sondos Fayoumi,“Every University in Gaza Has Been Destroyed So HaveThese Students’Dreams”, The Nation (26 July 2024), online: <thenation.com/article/world/gaza-students-future>.
Hasbara at McGill
82
Beyond the Israeli-based “Ambassadors Online” program offered to students at the University of Haifa, the aptly titled “Hasbara Fellowship” initiative centers Shikli’s anti-BDS “offensive” firmly within the square of the North American University Campus. Operating across 95 University Campuses in North America, the program seeks to shape “the next generation of North American leaders” and “immunize” target communities against delegitimization by “creat[ing] personal connections and host[ing] delegations in Israel ” The same ideological infrastructure at play in the trip is present elsewhere on McGill’s campus through formal programs that train students as hasbara agents
The Fellowship’s flagship “unparalleled Israel experience” invites hundreds of students every Summer and Winter on “Hasbara missions” which feature hands-on training, information, and the “ongoing tools and support” for students to become hasbara ambassadors at their home universities. Ostensibly reiterating Minister Oded’s goals, the Fellowship’s stated end-goals emphasize creating “ more effective and informed pro-Israel activists” and a “North American college campus [ ] where Zionists feel empowered to openly celebrate the Jewish State without fear or exclusion.”
83 84
In 2022, Honest Reporting Canada (HRC), a Zionist group seeking to “control the narrative” on Israel in Canadian media, and Hasbara Canada,
82 Ibid. 83 Ibid
has called for McGill to to expel all students opposing genocide, referring to conscientious student activists as ffffff
Hasbara Fellowships,“Get to Know the Real Israel”(2025), online: <https://hasbarafellowships org>
84 Davide Mastracci,“CharitiesAre Paying Student Journalists for‘Pro-Israel’Content”, The Maple (9April 2024), online: <https://www readthemaple com/charities-are-paying-student-journalists-for-pro-israel-content>
85 Hasbara Fellowships, supra note 82
86 Julia Gauze,“Why I Ugly Cried in Israel”(19 October 2017), online: <https://hasbarafellowships.org/ugly-cried-israel/>.
87 “HRC-Hasbara Campus Media Fellow Published inThe Jewish News Syndicate!’’, HonestReporting Canada (16 March 2023), online: <honestreporting ca/hrc-hasbara-campus-media-fellow-published-in-the-jewish-news-syndicate>; Federation CJA 360, supra note 36
88 i24NEWS English,“Philanthropist SylvanAdams works to rebuild Israel's abandoned south”(16 February 2024), online (video): <youtube com/watch?v=hWKoc hvEVY>
90
89 Neha Chollangi,“McGill FacultyWins UnprecedentedVote to Boycott Israeli Institutions”, The Rover (17 October 2025), online: <therover.ca/mcgill-faculty-wins-unprecedented-vote-to-boycott-israeli-institutions>.
PHOTO BY MCGILL UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITÉ MCGILL
“antisemite fashionistas” and claimed they are funded by “Iran, Qatar, and China.”91
In another such example of on-campus hasbara, Indigo CEO Heather Reisman of the eponymous Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman Foundation founded and continues to largely subsidize costs for McGill’s Political Science Course POLY 339 an exchange program with Hebrew University of Jerusalem involving approximately 40 McGill students each summer As published by Canadian Charity Law, The Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman Foundation also provided $5,650,000 to the HESEG foundation throughout 2023, an organization devoted to helping non-Israelis join the IOF By normalizing the Israeli occupation through the academic veneer of the subsidized POLY 339 exchange while funding the efforts of Canadian “lone soldiers”, Reisman, like Adams, upholds the institutional support required to facilitate academic hasbara while funding the genocide it launders
92
93
which was upheld at the Quebec Court of Appeals These positions endorsed by students and faculty reflect a moral and political commitment to Palestinian liberation within McGill’s intellectual community McGill administrators, however, continue to stand on the other side of that line, not in neutrality but in complicity
94
95
The Inevitable Path Toward Academic Boycott
On October 10, 2025, in a historic vote, the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT) endorsed the academic and cultural boycott of Israel This vote follows the most recent student strike for divestment, as well as several successful student referenda calling for BDS at McGill in the past few years, such as the SSMU’s Policy Against Genocide in Palestine,
91
96
For example, while McGill took a clear stance of solidarity with the Ukrainian people and its Ukrainian students following Russia’s invasion in 2022, it has refused to express the same sentiment of support for the Palestinian people during the genocide Instead, McGill spent millions of dollars, in a time of supposed deficits, to seek injunctions against student activists, militarized its campus, revoked pro-Palestine student group statuses, and deployed the language of “safety” and “civility” to suppress Palestinian solidarity At the same time, it has permitted and tacitly endorsed propaganda tours such as the JLSA’s, lending institutional legitimacy to a broader hasbara infrastructure that uses law, tourism, and academic exchange to support a genocidal anathema state
This double standard is not an accident of policy; it stems from a deliberate political choice to support the statesanctioned narratives and institutions that reproduce colonial violence, while punishing those who resist them. Indeed, far from being an educational trip to confront complex legal realities, the JLSA trip was a propaganda fsdfffff
exercise that, like all hasbara, celebrated and whitewashed Israel’s genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and occupation.
Even as universities across the world move to endorse the academic boycott of Israel, hasbara continues to thrive at McGill, especially at its Faculty of Law (which maintains an exchange partnership with Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Law). The academic and cultural boycott of Israel is inevitable, however And the work of decolonization continues. What will remain is McGill’s shameful legacy of hasbara, complicity, and cowardice in the face of genocide ***
When we have just decimated Palestinian higher education and Gaza Strip and have left no single university standing, the argument that the academic boycott violates Israeli academic freedom rings particularly hollow. There is no academic freedom until it applies to all until it applies to Palestinians Only international pressure will bring the kind of change that we need to decolonize, rebuild, and remake these universities 97
– Maya Wind, on opposition to the academic boycott of Israel.
“SylvanAdams Speaks Out afterAnti-IsraelVandals Smashed the McGill Building with His Name on It”, The Canadian Jewish News (14 October 2024), online: <thecjn ca/podcasts/sylvan-adams-speaks-out-after-anti-israel-vandals-smashed-the-mcgill-building-withhis-name-on-it>
JaniceArnold,“McGill Students Participate in Israeli Exchange Program”, The Canadian Jewish News (13August 2019), online: <thecjn.ca/news/mcgill-students-participate-in-israeli-exchange-program>.
93
92 Mark Blumberg & Henri Pasha,“Largest Gifts from Canadian Charities to Other Qualified Donees for 2023”(21 September 2025), online (pdf): <canadiancharitylaw ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Largest-Gifts-from-Canadian-Charities-to-all-other-QualifiedDonees-2023-1.pdf>.
94
Association étudiante de l’Université McGill c X, 2025 QCCA 475
Students’Society of McGill University,“Board of Directors Statement Regarding the Club, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR)”(16 September 2024), online (blog): <ssmu.ca/blog/2024/09/board-of-directors-statement-regarding-the-club-solidarity-forpalestinian-human-rights-sphr>
95 Students’Society of McGill University,“MoA Update: SSMU Reaffirms Its Commitment to Freedom of Expression”(23April 2025), online (blog): <ssmu ca/blog/2025/04/moa-update-ssmu-reaffirms-its-commitment-to-freedom-of-expression>
97
96 Raphael Magarik,“The Complicity of IsraeliAcademia”, Jewish Currents (23 May 2024), online: <jewishcurrents org/the-complicityof-israeli-academia>.
Skirting the Rule of Paw
Policing in the Paw Patrol Movie
Despite not having any young kids in my life, even I have been unable to escape the children’s cartoon craze that is PAW Patrol And I kind of understand the hype After all, what’s not to love about a group of puppies delivering essential public services? It's basically the Gen Alpha version of the magic that was Wonder Pets!
Because I take everything way too seriously, I thought, why not find out how the policing in Adventure Bay stacks up against real policing? Are the police puppies using excessive force, too? Are the streets plagued with dog breed profiling? I hope doodles are getting the reckoning they deserve…
Knowing very little about the TV show, I knew my first step was to dive in and watch However, not wanting to spend too much of my reading week bingeing toddler television, I opted
PAW Patrol:The Movie, dir Cal Brunker (Toronto: Spin Master Entertainment, 2021)
2
1 Alexandra Pulver,“Puppet Pups: Is PAW PatrolAuthoritarian Propaganda in Disguise?” The Guardian (11August 2021), online: <theguardian com/film/2021/aug/11/puppet-pups-is-paw-patrolauthoritarian-propaganda-in-disguise>.
1
for a single viewing of PAW Patrol: The Movie instead I don’t think this is what my parents imagined I’d be doing as a law school extracurricular, but here we are.
The plot of the movie took me by surprise I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that the crew of pups would be tackling the fixed election of Mayor Humdinger, an obvious stand-in for Trump, equipped with his very own Humdinger tower I understand and expect that children’s television will have adult subliminal messaging, but come on, can we at least try to be subtle?
Anyway, it became pretty clear right away that the bad guy of the TV show was point-blank, black and white, pure evil That was expected. It's a lot easier to justify police power without any of that pesky real-world moral ambiguity Mayor Humdinger’s whole thing is that he thinks Adventure City is really boring, so he implements rollercoasters in lieu of subways and negligently launches fireworks into the city. He’s also overtly discriminatory towards dogs and wants to rid the city of them, strongly preferring cats
So, who is the PAW Patrol crew tasked with restoring justice to Adventure City? As it turns out, they’re not just a group of narcs They’re a whole team of firefighters, lifeguards, construction workers uh, recyclers ? Oh, and there’s the token girly pink one, Skye, who flies helicopters. Even her eyeballs are pink, to remind us of the hard truth that pink is biologically a girl thing 2
If you ’ re worried about the lack of girl-dog representation, fear not: the movie gives us a new character, Liberty She’s the smart, independent street dog in Adventure City who quickly turns class traitor when offered an awesome motorcycle and a shiny new outfit (don’t worry, they’re pink too).
But this isn’t about PAW Patrol’ s take on gender, although a lot could be said about that.We’re here to talk about the policing. The police pup is a German Shepherd named Chase, and all of the puppies work alongside him, led by a human kid named Ryder Going into the viewing, I was preparing myself to do a silly R v.Grant-style analysis on psychological puppy detention, or maybe talk about their police search powers and techniques. (Like, why doesn’t the PAW Patrol team have a drug-sniffing unit? Seems like an obvious addition )
However, I was far too distracted by the fact that the police services in this universe aren’t even granted their power by the state They’re a private corporation canonically funded by T-shirt merch sales. Yeah. So now I have no choice but to talk about jurisdiction and authority because, excuse me, what?This is tragic forallof us,asIhaven’tevenfinishedtakingJICP
PAW PATROL: The Movie, dir Cal Brunker (2021) PHOTO FROM ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
I’m definitely not the first person to side-eye PAW Patrol’ s authoritarian take on the provision of social services. I mean did they really think they could get away with criticizing Trump while advocating for privatized essential services in the same breath? Talk about a conflict of interest.
Liam Kennedy’s 2021 article“‘Whenever there’s trouble, just yelp for help’: Crime, conservation, and corporatization in Paw Patrol” offers an excellent analysis of this very issue, suggesting that PAW Patrol offers a neoliberal fantasy in which responsibility for justice and social well-being is best handled when outsourced to corporations 3
Kennedy, having watched hundreds of PAW Patrol episodes, points out that the public officials in charge are either portrayed as downright reckless (Humdinger) or incompetent idiots (Mayor Goodway, featured in the television show). This is evident in the movie when Humdinger self-describes as “ an unqualified elected official” right before launching his new amusement park ride-themed subway system Clearly, public officials in this universe are not to be trusted with delivering social services like public transit. Instead, the public trusts the PAW Patrol with virtually everything so much so that they’re willing to pay out of pocket for merchandise to support them
5
4
6
Kennedy also notes that most of the“bad guys”in the show are outsiders, hinting at xenophobic undertones that mirror real-world media crime scapegoating Mayor Humdinger, for example, isn’t even a long-standing resident of Adventure City; he very recently moved from Adventure Bay after his plans were foiled there
Speaking of Adventure Bay and Adventure City… the PAW Patrol team usually operates within the confines of Adventure Bay exclusively For the movie, however, they set up their headquarters in Adventure City raising serious questions about their jurisdictional powers. What grants them the authority to operate across municipal borders?
One might think they’re simply a vigilante hero-like squad, doing whatever they please in the name of justice but Chase actually puts Mayor Humdinger under arrest at the end of the film, charging him with gross negligence, public endangerment, and dogknapping It's treated as the restoration of order, not as some kind of vigilante superhero justice. Does a criminal code exist in this universe, or are they just making up arrest powers as they go? In the absence of any visible, onscreen state involvement, the PAW Patrol seems to be the final authority on matters of justice, unburdened by judicial or legislative control.
It's all very confusing, and while I doubt the TV show was aiming for legal complexity, I agree with Kennedy that the legal landscape we do get in the show is interesting in terms of its messaging for kids It downplays the importance of democratic process and state involvement in favour of an authoritarian, privatized solution for injustice that is subject to seemingly zero oversight, skirting the rule of law entirely
While I initially got the idea for this article with the intention of subjecting the show to some kind of silly legal analysis, I’m instead left questioning whether or not the PAW Patrol universe even has law.
Who knows Maybe the Adventure Bay constitution is tackled in one of the many, many episodes or movie sequels, but I personally think I’ve subjected myself to enough PAW Patrol for a lifetime. I wish I had a suggestion for how to fix this, so we don’t raise a generation of baby Reagans maybe complete media censorship will do the trick? I have a feeling even our f PAW P t l l ld t b hi d th t
Wednesday
Liam Kennedy,“‘WheneverThere’sTrouble, JustYelp for Help’: Crime, Conservation, and Corporatization in Paw Patrol”(2021) 17:2 Crime, Media, Culture
3 Ibid 4
Brunker, supra note 1
5 Kennedy, supra note 3 6
Note de l’auteure:
J’ai eu le plaisir de m ’entretenir avec Me Maude-Isabelle Delagrave, avocate chez Delaroza, une firme de droit qu ’elle et son associée, Me Gabriella Rozankovic, ont démarré en 2023 De son parcours éducationnel et professionnel à la description d’une journée dans sa vie, en passant par son art digest des derniers temps, Me Delagrave et moi avons discuté de toutes les facettes de sa pratique en droit des arts Notre conversation s ’est étendue sur une heure de paroles enrichissantes et inspirantes En voici les grandes lignes. Pour écouter l’entièreté de notre conversation, scannez le code QR qui se trouve à la fin de cette chronique
C’est dans un magnifique édifice de Westmount que je me suis trouvée devant la porte du bureau de la firme Delaroza, une firme de droit des arts et de représentation d’artistes, un jeudi matin pluvieux d’octobre.À 10h, j’ai rendez-vous avec Me Maude-Isabelle Delagrave, avocate coassociée et co-fondatrice de Delaroza Elle m ’ ouvre la porte, au téléphone avec ce que je présume est un ou une de ses collaboratrices En attendant qu ’elle termine son appel, j’observe les diverses œuvres d’arts et présentoirs de livres et vinyles qui se trouvent dans son bureau. Comment ne pas se sentir inspirée lorsqu’on travaille dans un environnement commecelui-ci?
Vraiment enchantée de faire votre connaissance et merci de m’accueillir, Me Delagrave. J’aurai quelques questions pourvous. Enchantée Belle plume Ton crayon, c ’est unLamy?
Oui! Ce sont les meilleurs crayons. Est-ce que vous pouvez me parler de votre parcours éducatif et professionnel? Tout cequivousafinalementmenéici.
Je viens de Québec (la ville) Toute petite, ce qui m'intéressait, c’était la télévision et le cinéma J’aimais beaucoup regarder les animés japonais, comme Goldorak. J’ai fait mon CÉGEP en communications, et je suis allée étudier en Film Production, à l’Université Concordia Là-bas, j’étais dans un milieu qui était multiethnique et très anglophone Ça m ’ a fait un bien énorme, créativement, d’être dans un environnement où il y avait des gens qui venaient de partout.
Les difficultés économiques dans la province à l’époque, un peu comme aujourd’hui pour vous les jeunes, limitaient le nombre d’opportunités dans le domaine, donc j’ai appliqué en droit à l’Université McGill. J’avais toujours eu un intérêt pour le droit, qui venait chercher mon côté plus cartésien et analytique Ce fut une magnifique expérience, d’un point de vue intellectuel et sociétal Le droit est l’expression d’où on en est historiquement et politiquement. Ça me fascinait. Par contre, je savais que je voulais revenir dans une pratique dans le domaine des arts
Après mon stage du Barreau, je suis retournée dans le milieu du cinéma et de la télévision, chez Galafilm J’ai évolué, jusqu’à devenir vice-présidente, ce qui veut dire que je supervisais les affaires juridiques du côté des ressources humaines, mais aussi toute la gestion des contrats, crédits d’impôts, propriété intellectuelle et livraison aux distributeurs, entre autres J’ai vu la force qu’il y avait dans le fait de faire partie d’une équipe et de mener un projet à échéance. Ce fut très formateur
Par la suite, j’ai été vice-présidente d’une agence d’artistes pendant cinq ans C’est un autre type de travail J’étais du côté des artistes dans la négociation avec les producteurs, quand j’avais précédemment été du côté des producteurs dans la négociation avec les artistes J’ai dû déconstruire ma manière de réfléchir pour comprendre ce dont les créateurs avaient besoin
Après quelques années, j’ai démarré ma propre pratique, qui est une pratique alternative Elle est différente et peut être considérée comme disruptive Le modèle d’affaires au Québec, c ’est un modèle à pourcentage. Ça signifie qu ’ un certain pourcentage des revenus générés par l’artiste appartiendra à l’agence de gestion À travers mes années de pratique, j’ai bien vu qu’il y avait un besoin chez les artistes d’une assistance ponctuelle et non exclusive, quoique de long terme C’est ce qu ’ on offre, à travers un tarif horaire. Par exemple, et cette information est à vérifier, Taylor Swift est sortie du modèle de pourcentage, et elle engage les gens autour d’elle dans son équipe.
J’ai justement lu récemment, qu’Olivia Rodrigo a délaissé son agence de gestion et qu’elle construit sa propre équipe. Ça semble être ce qui est innovateur en ce moment. Oui, c ’est innovateur, mais c ’est aussi ce que j’ai perçu comme étant manquant ici au Québec Cette non-exclusivité nous permet d’être là pour les moments importants pour les artistes. Ça laisse aussi une certaine liberté aux artistes de nous consulter quand ils ou elles le souhaitent
PHOTO PAR HEIDI ZAHIRI
Vous en avez parlé un peu, mais pour les personnes qui seraient intéressées à travailler dans le milieu des arts et du divertissement, quels sont les besoins juridiques qui se trouvent dans ces milieux? Et plus personnellement, pour vous, si j’étais une potentielle cliente et je viens vous voir, quel est l’éventail de services que vous pouvez me proposer? Viens avec moi, je vais te montrer quelque chose (elle me mène dans une différente pièce dans son bureau, où des présentoirs de vinyles et de livres ainsi que des œuvres d’art et de photographie se trouvent) Ces photos sont prises par un studio qui fait de la photographie pour les magazines et les théâtres Ils nous consultent concernant les droits d’auteurs et les tarifs à charger. Nous faisons aussi des négociations avec les maisons de disques pour les artistes musicaux ainsi que des négociations dans le domaine littéraire. Ces livres ont été écrits et/ou illustrés par des auteures et illustratrices qu ’ on représente Ici, il y a le Dictionnaire du chilleur (le livre de Jérôme 50 qui avait causé beaucoup de dialogue dans les médias et sur les réseaux sociaux)
Oui, j’en ai entendu parler de celui-là. Certainement On assiste les scénaristes, les chefs cuisiniers, la création de produits dérivés, les auteurs jeunesse, les artistes, les poètes, les directrices photo On accompagne les artistes dans leur droit à l’image également. On sélectionne le bon producteur ou éditeur pour chaque artiste, pour qu ’ un lien de confiance soit créé et que la créativité jaillisse à son meilleur. Il faut ouvrir la bonne porte pour que ce soit un match. Ce n ’est pas juste de la propriété intellectuelle, il y a un élément très interpersonnel dans la relation entre les acteurs qui permettent le cheminement de la création d’un artiste
On négocie les paramètres normatifs de l’industrie, en fonction du créateur, du cheminement de ce créateur et de sa notoriété, mais aussi en fonction des producteurs qui ont des pratiques d’affaires spécifiques Des ententes collectives existent, mais représentent
un minimum Il n ’ y a parfois pas de standards autres que ce minimum C’est pour ça qu’il faut de l’expérience C’est une expertise qui s ’acquiert.
Certains créateurs sont assez anxieux, donc on les protège en prenant sur notre dos la négociation avec les producteurs Pour les artistes qui ne sont pas anxieux, on protège leur bulle de création en communiquant leurs besoins.
Ça doit être très humain comme travail.
C’est une pratique hyper humaine. C’est beaucoup de one-on-one, où je chéris le lien privilégié que j’ai avec des créateurs. Quand j’arrive chez moi le soir, j’ai toujours passé une belle journée C’est très humainement enrichissant, mais il faut se bâtir une couche de protection. Certains projets vont parfois moins bien, et j’ai un certain attachement à ces projets et ces créateurs Somme toute, je ne suis pas en déficit d’humanité.
Vous m’avez mentionné que lorsque vous étudiez en droit, vous vouliez vraiment être autour de la créativité.
Oui Ce fut assez difficile pour moi lorsque je suis arrivée à McGill On me demandait d’arrêter d’être dans un mode de création et de recherche pour répondre aux questions d’une certaine manière J’ai toujours su que je ne voulais pas faire de droit dans un grand bureau, parce que ça ne me correspondait pas Ma pratique est le reflet de la personne que je suis Lorsqu’on chemine, il faut prendre un moment pour définir non seulement nos intérêts, mais la réalité quotidienne de notre pratique Pour moi, le rapport interpersonnel de ma pratique
ne me vide pas, il me nourrit. J’ai toujours de multiples négociations en cours, ce qui fait que chaque jour amène quelque chose de nouveau et de palpitant
Tout à fait. Je crois que l'important est de faire quelque chose qui est compatible avec soi-même.
Moi, j’ai besoin d’avoir un rapport avec des gens qui pensent différemment J’ai besoin de la diversité au quotidien Dans ma pratique, je travaille presque seulement avec des gens qui ne pensent pas comme moi ou qui ont eu des expériences totalement différentes des miennes. Ça me nourrit comme femme, comme humaine. Les thèmes abordés dans les projets créatifs qui me sont présentés sont toujours intéressants Par exemple, j’accompagne une super auteure qui est la fille d’une personne trans Elle a écrit un livre et une pièce de théâtre à ce sujet Ça m ’amène ailleurs, ça me pousse à réfléchir. Mon ouverture me donne un professionnalisme dont je suis très fière
C’est super beau à entendre. Je comprends que vous avez un background créatif, mais aussi dans la gestion des affaires. Vous avez une pratique qui est assez interdisciplinaire. Il faut voir la valeur créative d’un projet, mais aussi sa valeur commerciale. En ce sens, comment se manifestent vos expériences antérieures dans votre travail?
En étudiant en Film Production, j’ai compris le processus de réalisation qui est derrière les films et les séries télévisées. Le fait de posséder cette compréhension me permet d’intégrer plus facilement le droit à ces éléments créatifs dans ma pratique Techniquement, le droit derrière ma pratique n ’est pas compliqué, à part l’avènement de l’intelligence artificielle, qui complique parfois les choses. Il s ’agit d’un droit d’auteur qui est assez paramétré dans les ententes collectives Ma plus-value se trouve dans ma capacité à décortiquer ce droit en fonction d’un quelconque projet. Cette capacité provient de mon expérience avec le côté plus financier Du côté producteur et en agence, j’ai vu des budgets, des structures de f
PHOTO PAR HEIDI ZAHIRI
financement et le fonctionnement des crédits d’impôts Le cumul de nos expériences nous rend unique. Ma pratique est le reflet de la personne que je suis, tant au niveau professionnel que personnel Je suis la même personne lorsque je réponds au téléphone
Toutes vos tâches administratives, vous les faites vous-mêmes?
Oui On garde un modèle light Nous ne faisons pas de gestion d’employés. Ça nous permet d’avoir de la mobilité
Quelle est la qualité la plus cruciale qui est nécessaire pour faire ce que vous faites?
Je ne me suis jamais posée cette question. Il faut un désir de communiquer, même si la communication est imparfaite Il faut être ouverte aux défis et s ’adapter Il y a des hauts et des bas dans les projets qu ’ on assiste, mais aussi dans l’industrie, plus largement Il faut avoir de l’empathie, mais sans infantiliser les artistes. Il faut une ouverture à l’autre, et une souplesse Une force de caractère au niveau de la négociation Une chaleur humaine Le professionnalisme est super important pour moi Il faut poser les bonnes questions, même si ça mène à des discussions inconfortables
J’imagine qu’il faut beaucoup de qualités interpersonnelles pour un métier qui a autant de facettes humaines. Quel est la partie la plus gratifiante et le plus gros défi dans votre métier?
La partie la plus gratifiante est d’amener des gens ensemble artiste et producteur et qu ’ au niveau créatif, ça se passe bien. Quand on voit le projet à l’écran ou dans un livre qui a du succès, ça rend fière
Le produit final vient ultimement de cette connexion qui est faite entre producteur et artiste. Oui Il faut bien analyser le créateur avec lequel tu travailles Ça prend du discernement Il faut lire les gens du mieux qu ’ on peut. Par la suite, des liens peuvent être établis avec des producteurs ou des éditeurs
Et le plus gros défi?
Gérer les compressions budgétaires dans le milieu des arts. Il y a des artistes extraordinaires et établis qui travaillent moins, puis, de l’autre côté, il y a des jeunes qui ont de la difficulté à entrer dans l'industrie Il y a une baisse des opportunités disponibles pour certains artistes après l’âge de 50 ans dans un système où la jeunesse est valorisée. Puis, il y a des jeunes qui, à cause des coupures budgétaires, ont de la difficulté à réaliser une première œuvre qui est financée Le défi est de garder les personnes créatrices qui ont du talent motivées à poursuivre, malgré les difficultés financières On veut entendre des nouvelles voix et on veut garder les voix importantes allumées.
On a parlé un peu de l’intelligence artificielle. Ça m’intéresse. On a commencé à inclure des clauses dans les contrats, dans lesquelles les créateurs et les éditeurs doivent déclarer qu’ils ne font pas affaire avec l’intelligence artificielle pour certaines parties de leur travail Il y a là des enjeux de propriété intellectuelle. On veut, lorsqu’on achète un livre, que son contenu vienne d’une personne et non d’un ordinateur. Ça fait quelques années que certains réalisateurs utilisent des pitch decks générés par l’intelligence artificielle Ça me crée un malaise au niveau environnemental, mais aussi au niveau créatif. C’est la loi du moindre effort. On ne fait plus référence à tel film de Jacques Tati, Spielberg ou Coppola, mais à quelque chose qui a été pondu dans un serveur
Certains producteurs utilisent également l’intelligence artificielle pour écrire le premier jet d’un projet, puis demandent à des auteurs de mettre sur pied ces projets À qui appartient cette idée générée par l’intelligence artificielle? Il faut que des paramètres soient établis entre les syndicats et les producteurs pour gérer l’utilisation de l’intelligence artificielle.
Je reste ouverte et capable de m ’adapter Je sais que l’intelligence artificielle pourra changer mon travail, mais pour le moment, je ne ressens pas ce changement. Je me dois seulement de protéger les personnes que je représente
Plus concrètement, une journée dans votre vie ressemble à quoi?
Ça commence à 8h Je fais des appels suite aux textos que je reçois J’ai normalement un appel conférence par jour
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Que se passe-t-il dans cet appel conférence?
Soit de la négociation, de la présentation de personne, ou des enjeux et problèmes à régler On invite souvent les personnes à venir nous rencontrer en personne. La pratique est très conviviale Je n ’aime pas les rendez-vous Si quelqu’un veut me parler, on peut prendre un rendez-vous pour se voir en personne, mais sinon, on s ’appelle immédiatement Il faut que ça soit simple et que ça roule
Je prends environ deux heures par jour pour réviser des ententes Je reçois beaucoup de courriels. Je suis à mon bureau au moins cinq jours par semaine Le soir, si quelqu’un fait une exposition d’art ou sort un film, je vais y aller. Dans l’esprit de balancer ma vie personnelle et mon travail, je me limite à une ou deux sorties par semaine J’essaie de ne pas travailler les fins de semaine, mais j’y arrive rarement Une journée de travail s’étend normalement de 8h à 18h Je fais beaucoup de nouvelles rencontres, et je traite tous les créateurs avec qui je travaille de manière égale Un premier contrat pour un jeune artiste est aussi important qu ’ un contrat pour quelqu’un qui en est à la troisième saison de sa série télévisée
Tout à fait. La valeur de l’art n’a rien à voir avec sa valeur monétaire. Je suis curieuse de savoir quel est l’art que vous avez apprécié ces derniers temps. Livre, série, art visuel, ça peut être n’importe quoi!
Un artiste que j’aime beaucoup est Kent Monkman Il a présentement une exposition au Musée des BeauxArts de Montréal. En ce moment, je lis Sorcières de Mona Chollet C’est un livre que toute jeune femme sorcière devrait lire
Des auteures que j’accompagne, il faut lire Les enfants du large de Virginia Tangvald, et regarder le documentaire qui accompagne ce livre Sinon, le nouveau livre de cuisine de Lesley Chesterman
Ma dernière question: quel est le conseil que vous donneriez à une étudiante en droit en ce moment? Ça revient à ce qu ’ on s ’est dit. Il faut prendre le temps de se connaître et d’être capable d’identifier ce que sont nos besoins en tant qu’humaines, puis dans notre carrière Est-ce que j’ai besoin de pratiquer le droit, premièrement? Le droit mène à autre chose Une mauvaise identification de tes besoins peut te mener à une pratique qui n ’est pas le reflet de l’individu que tu es.
Il faut partir de soi, puis après, le droit va occuper la place qu’il se doit d’occuper, que ce soit en avant-plan ou en arrière-plan Il faut s ’adapter et prendre les parties qu ’ on aime d’une certaine expérience, de l’amener à la prochaine expérience, et de continuer d’évoluer
Magnifique. Merci beaucoup de m’avoir accueillie, ce fut super intéressant et inspirant.
En quittant son bureau, après avoir partagé mon cheminement personnel, les multitudes qui font la personne que je suis et les inquiétudes que je possède par rapport au futur, Me Delagrave me rappelle de ne pas trop me projeter dans le futur, de vivre chaque journée pleinement « Il faut vraiment continuer à être en mouvement pour apprendre à se connaître C’est important d’avoir une bonne relation avec soi-même », me dit-elle, et elle a tout à fait raison.
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