Samantha Pearson was until Nov. 18 the head of the Sexual Assault Center at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. It was on that day that she was fired, after having signed an open letter denying that members of Hamas committed any rapes on October 7. This claim was made despite the videos of near-naked women being driven off in the back of trucks by Hamas, despite the testimony of Israeli survivors who witnessed rapes from their hiding places, and despite the videos taken by the rapists themselves, or by Hamas onlookers who wanted to record the rapes by their friends, and despite the testimony of captured Hamas operatives to their Israeli interrogators.. More on the execrable Samantha Pearson can be found here: “University fires head of the sex assault center who signed letter denying Oct. 7 rapes, Times of Israel, November 19, 2023:
The University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, indicated in a statement on Saturday that it had fired the head of the campus sexual assault center who signed onto an open letter denying Hamas-led terrorists raped women during their devastating October 7 onslaught in southern Israel.
Samantha Pearson signed the letter, titled “Stand with Palestine: Call on Political Leaders to End Their Complicity in Genocide,” which slammed center-left New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh for repeating “the unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence,” among other critiques of the lawmaker on the issue….
What “unverified accusation” are those who signed this dreadful letter alluding to? Not only does the IDF have videos of some of those rapes, taken both by the rapists themselves and by their friends, but it also has the eyewitness testimony of survivors, who from their hideouts saw both rapes and gang rapes being committed. The naked and often mutilated corpses of rape victims were strewn about, some with their breasts slit off (Hamas members had fun playing catch with a severed breast), dried semen still on their bodies. One witness saw a rapist who, while still inside his victim, shot her in the head. The Hamas rapists also telephoned their families to excitedly tell of their great deeds (“Mom, I killed ten Jews”), and telephoned their friends to describe what fun they had had raping Jewish girls. Hamas members captured by the IDF admitted that the leaders of the group had “given permission” for the rapes. None of this — not the videos made by Hamas members recording the rapes committed by themselves or by fellow terrorists, not the testimony given both by Israeli survivors and by captured Hamas members, not the forensic evidence (semen, bruises at the sites of entry, mutilations) — has made the slightest impression on Samantha Pearson.
The letter was authored by Susan Kim, a city councilor in Victoria, and Sarah Jama, a member of Ontario’s provincial parliament who was booted from the NDP [New Democratic Party] over remarks only three days after the October 7 massacre calling Israel an “apartheid” state while ignoring Hamas’s atrocities.
In a letter posted to X, the University of Alberta said “The recent improper and unauthorized use of the name of the [university]’s Sexual Assault Centre in endorsing an open letter has raised understandable concerns from members of our community and the public.”
“Effective immediately, the director of the centre is no longer employed by the university,” the letter read. A new interim director was appointed to head the campus sexual assault center, the university said.
“I want to be clear that the former employee’s personal views and opinions do not in any way represent those of the University of Alberta,” wrote university president Bill Flanagan. “The University of Alberta stands firmly and unequivocally against discrimination and hatred on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, national origin, and other protected categories. We recognize the historical and ongoing harms of antisemitism and commit to doing all we can as a university to advance a world free of prejudice and discrimination.”
Flanagan said the event has been “profoundly hurtful and may have compromised the trust of individuals in our community” and also negatively impacted the critical nature of the assault center’s work.
“On behalf of the university, I apologize for the hurt and distress this issue has caused members of our community and beyond,” he said….
In a recent video, Sarah Jama [the co-author of the letter]also expressed her skepticism of Hamas atrocities, claiming “there is no actual evidence of these rapes and the babies with their heads cut off — all these things are pieces of misinformation.”
This is simply a lie. The “actual evidence” consists of eyewitness testimony, both from Hamas operatives captured, and interrogated, by the IDF, and from Israeli survivors who saw rapes in progress; videos of the rapes taken by members of Hamas filming their friends enjoying themselves, and by the forensic evidence —such as wounds around the vagina and anus suggesting forcible entry, as well as dried semen.
“So I think it shows the strength of the Zionist lobby here in Canada and the ways in which they were able to pressure an entire government operation to censure me indefinitely until I apologized,” she [Jama] said in a video shared by @AntisemitismCA.
Ah, ever the victim. Sarah Jama, the co-author of the letter denying rapes by Hamas and accusing Israel of “genocide,” thinks she should not have suffered any consequences for that letter. Others beg to differ. But she claims, grotesquely, that the “Zionist lobby” (Jama’s antisemitism is showing) was “able to pressure an entire government operation to censure me indefinitely.” There has been no censure — “indefinitely” — of Sarah Jama “by the government.” The political party to which she belonged — the New Democratic Party — decided to expel her from its ranks. That is all. She can join another party. She can run as an independent. What’s her problem?
Jama’s letter, signed by several pro-Palestinian and progressive groups, called on Canada’s federal lawmakers to resign for “facilitating Israeli-led genocide” against the Palestinians, without providing evidence of the claim.
Israeli-led genocide? It is Hamas that gave a demonstration of an authentic genocidal attempt on October 7, torturing, raping, murdering without stop as many Jews as it could. It is the IDF that, in fighting Hamas, takes every conceivable measure to minimize civilian deaths — that is, to avoid any hint of “genocide.” First, the IDF has dropped 1.5 million leaflets warning civilians in northern Gaza to seek refuge beyond the Wadi Gaza, in the southern part of the Strip. Second, when a civilian building — whether a school, an apartment building, a mosque, or some other structure — is about to be targeted, the IDF warns inhabitants to leave those sites. It does this by messaging, telephoning, leafletting, and by use of the “knock-on-the-roof” technique. No other army in the world warns its enemy of impending strikes. It is this practice that led British Colonel Richard Kemp to describe the IDF as “the most moral army in the world.”
The letter [signed by Samantha Pearson] slams lawmakers for “failing to recognize Israeli occupation as ‘terrorist’ and only directing this term at Palestinian resistance,” arguing they “perpetuate an Islamophobic trope.”
“Your language is fueling the collective trauma being experienced by your constituents, and inciting hate crimes against Palestinians and Muslims,” the letter read.
But Hamas is a terrorist organization. It has been recognized as such by most of the advanced world. Should we not describe Haas as a terrorist group because, claim this appalling letter’s signatories, it could “incite hate crimes”? Since October 7, there have been thousands of antisemitic acts and attacks across Europe and North America. Can you name more than a handful of “hate crimes” against Muslims in that time? I can only think of one — the killing of a five-year-old Muslim boy by his mother’s landlord, Joseph Czuba, who looks completely demented. There have been a few ballyhooed “attacks on Muslims” that upon investigation turned out to have been committed by Muslims themselves, wanting to swell the number of “anti-Muslim hate crimes.”
It’s always heartwarming to hear when some virulent anti-Israel “activist” goes just too far, is just too absurd, in his, or her, venomous attack on the tiny Jewish state, and loses a job as a result. It’s now happened to Samantha Pearson of Edmonton, Alberta. She was the head of the Sexual Assault Center at the university, but despite that position, which ought to have led her to display a heightened sensitivity to accusations of rape, she was determined not to believe the accounts of rape when the victims were Israeli, and the rapists' members of Hamas. Perhaps she can take her politically-charged expertise in “sexual assault” to someplace more welcoming, such as Al-Quds, or Bir Zeit, two universities where, I am certain, she should do just fine.