On February 1, 2024 Minister Robinson stated that before the settlement of Jewish people in Palestine, Palestine was “a crappy piece of land with nothing on it” and that it “didn’t produce an economy”. This is a racist, islamophobic, and anti-Palestinian worldview. This is a common white settler colonialist trope used to disenfranchise Indigenous people. It denies the existence of Palestinians and their legitimate connection to the land of Palestine.
A member of your cabinet, Selina Robinson, has continually repeated Islamophobic stereotypes, and vilified Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians. She has spread misinformation by aligning herself with the IDF and right-wing media like Fox News. She is cheering on a genocide in Gaza.
Here is a folder of some of her tweets, retweets, and likes.
I am horrified and outraged that a Minister in your government can engage in such vile behavior. At a time when British Columbians need to come together and support one another, she has chosen to stoke the flames of hate and quite literally put a target on the backs of so many people of color and students who are on the streets demanding an end to genocide.
On December 3rd, a car drove into pro-Palestine protesters right outside your office in Victoria. Luckily, no one was hurt.
Premier Eby, I need you to show leadership here that goes beyond announcements and words. Selina Robinson is not fit to be a leader. She has lost the confidence of British Columbians.
She must resign. Source: actionnetwork.org
B.C. minister agrees to step down after ’crappy piece of land’ comment offends pro-Palestinian groups
VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s Post-Secondary Education Minister Selina Robinson is stepping down amid an outcry over her remarks that modern Israel was founded on “a crappy piece of land.”
Premier David Eby says Robinson’s “belittling” remarks were incompatible with her remaining in cabinet, although she will stay in the NDP caucus. “The depth of the work that Minister Robinson needs to do, to address the harms that she’s caused, is significant,” Eby told an impromptu news conference in Vancouver on Monday.
Eby had faced mounting calls for the removal of Robinson since the remarks last week that infuriated pro-Palestinian groups and other critics who called them racist and Islamophobic. Robinson called pre-1948 Palestine “a crappy piece of land with nothing on it,” on Jan. 30 during an online panel with other Jewish politicians, hosted by B’nai B’rith Canada. She said Israel was offered to Jews who were misplaced and displaced from their homes.“They don’t understand that it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it. You know, there were several hundred thousand people but other than that, it didn’t produce an economy. It couldn’t grow things it didn’t have anything on it, and that it was the folks that were displaced that came and had been living there for generations and together they worked hard and they had their own battles,” she said. The news that Robinson would step down has left the B.C. Jewish community “offended and hurt,” one leader said. “In the past, when BC NDP politicians and staff have made antisemitic comments, the Jewish community has been asked to accept their apologies and – on every occasion – we have. As a show of goodwill, we never publicly demanded their resignations,” Nico Slobinsky of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said in a statement…
Source: nationalpost.com/
