Brian's blog

2012-01-28T15:26:00.000-08:00

Excellent article in today's National Post about teaching "social justice" in the classroom. The problem is that some teachers are simply converting children to their political views, which is always wrong. And sometimes the teachers are bigots and use the classroom to teach hatred of Israel...

Alternative classrooms may not be as inclusive as they claim to be
Kathryn Blaze Carlson Jan 27, 2012 – 10:47 PM ET
Last Updated: Jan 27, 2012 10:57 PM ET
C.J. Gunther for National Post

Rachel Adelman, seen in her office at Harvard University’s campus in Cambridge, Mass., says her Israeli son was robbed of his sense of self through anti-Zionist materials distributed by a pro-Palestinian club at Toronto’s Student School.

She learned soon enough, though, that those promises of open-mindedness and equality “sounded nice,” but that the reality in the hallways would nearly cost her son his sense of self.

Eitan, then 17 years old and described by his mother as shy, came home from his first day at Toronto’s Student School in a “state of dismay,” his mother said.

“He said, ‘Ima [Hebrew for mother], the walls of the school are plastered with posters saying Israel: Apartheid State,’ ” said Professor Adelman, who now teaches at the Harvard Divinity School, referring to flyers mounted by a pro-Palestinian student club.

At the first all-school assembly, the students were shown Occupation 101, a controversial film that has been accused of portraying Israel as equivalent to Apartheid-era South Africa. Prof. Adelman said the school’s administrator defended the showing, saying the school had a policy of allowing students to voice their ideological bents. Two months later, Eitan switched schools.

But The Student School is just one of several Canadian schools that have moved “social justice” education onto the timetable. In launching nine alternative academies last week, one of this country’s boldest education directors touted “social justice” education as a way for children to gain social status and self-esteem. Proponents also say the approach teaches tolerance and respect for diversity — that it grooms socially conscious students prepared to fight against injustices they see in their communities.

‘What social justice really means is trying to create some sort of egalitarian system. That’s a political standpoint — it’s basically socialist’

— Frank Furedi

Unlike lessons about long division or photosynthesis, however, there are competing versions of what “social justice” actually looks like — and about which vision of it should end up on school curricula. That has left some parents and education advocates increasingly uncomfortable with the trend of trying to teach a subject that, virtually by definition, aims to challenge dominant cultural values. It can often, then, end up crossing into the kind of ethical and ideological instruction that has traditionally belonged at home.

“I worry about confusing the idea of teaching children about a just society with teaching a political viewpoint,” said Annie Kidder, executive director of People for Education, a parents’ advocacy group focusing on the public school system.

Yet school officials have not exactly shied away from putting a distinctly progressive stamp on their social justice programming. In one of its teaching guides, the B.C. Department of Education says social justice “extends beyond the protection of rights” and aims for a “just and equitable society.” Teaching equality in society, it explains, includes teaching ways we can all “attain the same achievements.”

In its 2010 Social Justice Action Plan, the Toronto District School Board defines social justice as a “specific habit of justice that is based on the concepts of human rights, equity, fairness and economic egalitarianism.” One prominent education magazine in the U.S., meantime, characterized social justice education as “teaching kids to question whoever happens to hold the reins of power at a particular moment.”

But certain education experts also question whether grade schools are even prepared to confront the challenges inevitably associated with social justice education. In New Brunswick, one Grade 4 teacher drew ire for trying to impart moral values by asking students to decide in 10 minutes or less who they would save if the Earth were about to explode — an Acadian francophone, a Chinese person, a black African, an English person or an aboriginal. The director of the district’s school board said at the time he believed the teacher aimed to send a message on racial tolerance.

In Ontario, one school sent Grade 1 students home with day-planners that highlighted an “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” and “International Day of Zero-Tolerance on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting.” A school board superintendent said the aim was to “promote conversation between our students” but admitted it should have happened in a more “sensitive and age-appropriate manner.”

Last year, another Ontario school sent Grade 7 students to a protest hosted by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, a notoriously confrontational activist group that advocates militantly for economic equality. Several years ago, the head of the coalition was arrested after a bloody protest at the provincial legislature, where demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails and bricks at police and demanded more action on social housing.

In Quebec, one eco-friendly elementary school excluded a six-year-old boy from a teddy-bear contest because his lunch box contained a plastic bag rather than a reusable container.

“That’s an illegitimate use of the school’s authority,” said British sociologist Frank Furedi. “It’s not up to the schools to determine the behaviour and values of the family. A child’s education should not be confused with politicization, nor is it about internalizing the values of their teachers.”

The debate over the boundaries of a public school education is not new, with policy-makers and parents holding myriad views on how far teachers should tread into the realm of character education, ethics, justice and civic engagement. But it flares up particularly, and most vividly, whenever a particular parent accuses a particular teacher of directly contradicting the values the family teaches at home.

“We’re almost trying to do too many things at school,” said Doretta Wilson, executive director of the Society for Quality Education, a Waterloo, Ont.-based non-profit working to improve education in Canada. “School becomes the social manipulator rather than the place that says, ‘Let’s make sure kids learn the fundamentals when they’re in primary school so they can go on to learn and think for themselves.’ Sometimes schools force-feed a perspective. As a parent, it feels like that sometimes.”

However, Charles Ungerleider, a sociology professor at the University of British Columbia and former B.C. deputy minister of education, thinks it’s important that schools get into teaching ethics and values because that is “one of the strengths of schooling in a democratic society.”

“Parents are the primary educators of their kids and the primary communicators of values,” he said. “But the reason that we send children to public school is, in fact, to develop and inculcate the values we all share and to overcome any limitations a parent may have in exposing kids to alternative points of view.”

But while the idea of human rights may be a prevailing Canadian value, there is a gulf of difference between how some of us interpret it: whether or not the Israelis are denying Palestinians their human rights; whether or not Ottawa is denying First Nations theirs. Equality sounds inoffensive enough, until it raises more divisive questions about affirmative action or if it starts meaning equality of outcomes, instead of just equal opportunities.

“What social justice really means is trying to create some sort of egalitarian system,” Mr. Furedi said. “That’s a political standpoint — it’s basically socialist. If you want to sign up for it then that’s fine, but it’s not something that children should automatically be exposed to. Their parents never asked that their children be indoctrinated with that kind of ideology.”

What The Student School saw as “diversity” — tolerating even views hostile to Zionism — Ms. Adelman said seemed more like anti-Semitism.

“I was upset that the principal didn’t see that [the portrayal of the Arab-Israeli conflict] needs to be more balanced, and that he and the school had clearly taken a side on the issue,” she said of the principal, who was eventually investigated by the school board and is no longer listed as staff on the school’s website.

Ms. Kidder said teachers hold personal views just like anyone else, making it inevitable that their own biases will influence their lessons. “Maybe not when you’re teaching two plus two equals four,” she said. “But nearly everything after that may have some kind of value-based context or spin.”

Danielle McLaughlin, a director at the Canadian Liberties Association and Education Trust, a non-profit research and educational organization, said sinister headline-grabbing stories on social justice gone awry have actually had a “chilling effect” on some teachers who fear angering parents. She said many Ontario teachers are surprised to learn, too, that the province’s Education Act explicitly says it is a teacher’s duty to instill in children a respect for “the principles of Judeo-Christian morality and the highest regard for truth, justice, loyalty, love of country, humanity, benevolence, sobriety, industry, frugality, purity, temperance and all other virtues.”

While Catholic schools have long taught their version of social justice in the classroom — service to others, for example — public schools across the country have launched courses such as Social Justice 12, which was introduced as an elective in B.C. in 2008 and broached issues of homophobia and gender identity. When 90 students signed up for the class at W. J. Mouat Secondary school in Abbotsford, it was cancelled three weeks before it was to begin, reportedly over complaints from parents in the conservative community. A year later, it was brought back with the condition that students needed parental consent to attend.

Last week, a Prince Edward Island public school district was the subject of controversy for handing out Bibles to Grade 5 students unless their parents opt out of the practice. One father told the local CBC that he should be held responsible for his child’s belief system, not the school.

“There are certain values we all respect — the sort of Golden Rule ‘do unto others’ type thing,” Ms. Wilson said. “But ultimately, I believe parents should have the decision-making power over what values their children learn.”

National Post

Egyptian soccer fans call for new Holocaust

2012-01-10T04:47:00.000-08:00

Watch this vdieo of hundreds (thousands?) or Egyptian soccer fans hoisting a huge banner calling for a new
Holocaust. It's chilling...

Palestinians celebrate the release of mass murderers & their accomplices

2011-12-20T04:30:00.000-08:00

Every now and again, I feel moved to send an email to Esther Enkins, editor in chief of the CBC, pointing out the CBC's bias or an error in their coverage of the Middle East. If you want to try it yourself, her email is esther.enkin@cbc.ca.

Here's an example...

Dear Ms. Enkins:

Re “Israel set to release final batch of prisoners in swap”
(http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/12/18/israel-palestinians-prisoners.html)

and “Who gains from Israel's prisoner swap with Hamas?”
(http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/10/17/f-vp-petricic-shalit.html)

I found that the text of both these articles met CBC’s usual high standards, but with this exception: The term "prisoner swap" is grossly misleading.

Gilad Schalit was a kidnapping victim held for ransom.

The Palestinians being released are convicted criminals. Indeed many of them were convicted of multiple murders.

An ill-informed person might say, but surely it's not “kidnapping” when it's an armed conflict situation and the person held for ransom is a soldier? But it is. The Geneva Convention expressly forbids hostage taking and gives soldiers the same protection as civilians. Such kidnappings are also forbidden by the UN’s 1979 International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, which correctly refers to such acts by non-state actors as terrorism.

Of course no one expects Hamas to obey any laws, but Canadians should expect more of the CBC than to create a false equivalence between convicted criminals and a kidnapping victim.

This point is particularly important in regard to “Israel set to release final batch of prisoners in swap” which is illustrated by a work of Palestinian propaganda larger than the article itself. The image illustrates the released Palestinians as breaking free of their chains. Surely if the CBC gives such prominence to this image, you should also remind readers that these Palestinians aren't being justly liberated (as suggested by the image), but really are criminals being sprung from jail by the actions of other criminals.

Yours truly...

Since I complained, the CBC has updated the story and improved it, removing the Palestinian propaganda photo and adding a line that reads: "The prisoners freed in the first round included dozens of militants serving life sentences for involvement in bus bombings and other deadly attacks on Israeli civilians that killed hundreds."

However, the article still inaccurately refers to a "prisoner swap," rather than accurately identifying the Palestinians as convicted criminals freed in exchange for a kidnapping victim held hostage.

And the new photo for the article shows a released Palestinian prisoner joyously reaching out to embrace well-wishers. The photo conveys the message that this is a joyous occasion. For balance, the story should include an equally large and emotional image conveying the reality of the situation; such as a photo of the terrrorists' burned and mutilated victims.

Alternatively, the photo used could just be given a more accurate caption: "Palestinians celebrate the release of mass murderers and their accomplices."

The OISE cult of conformity

2011-12-16T08:03:00.000-08:00

The Ontario Institute for studies in education trains teachers. Unfortunately, its been largely taken over by a far left cult that believes white people, particularly straight men, are oppressors. Sociologist Werner Cohn has written an excellent series of blog postings about this. See here.

Below, I've pasted in one student's report of her year spent at OISE. I suspect my views on many matters might be closer to the views of her far left professors than to hers. For example, I think it's important that all children feel at home in our schools, which means our school must affirm their identities.

So it's important for kids to see their holidays recognized: Christmas for Christians, Rosh HaShannah for Jews, Eid for Muslims, etc. Gay kids should be able to be who they are without being bullied. Girls should be able to walk the halls of high schools without having their asses grabbed. And no kid should ever have to put up with being harassed about their race.

For the most part, Toronto schools seem to be doing a do good job - particularly on the multicultural front (though I do hear extremely disturbing things about bullying, sexual harassment and violence in some schools).

But to get back to OISE, while supporting a diversity of identities, OISE draws the line at allowing diversity in thinking. There is a party line at OISE, which includes explicit support of the NDP, hatred of Israe and tolerance of antisemitism if it's dressed up as anti-Zionism, and hostility toward straight white males as oppressors. (Again, see Cohn's postings here.)

Here's one woman's experience....

OISE, INDOCTRINATING THE TEACHERS TO INDOCTRINATE THE CHILDREN
By: Ruthann Attia

I am sure that many of you have heard about the liberal and leftist agenda that has taken over our institutions of higher learning. I would like to share some of what I experienced attending the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE).

It was my first real experience in a Canadian public education institution as I had previously attended a small private high school, followed by attendance at a university in the United States. I can say now that I am very thankful that the time I did spend in the Canadian public education system was not lengthy.

I began my year at OISE with my mind open and ready to learn, with no previously conceived notions about the political atmosphere of teachers college; I had simply heard that, in general, it was often boring and easy. However, my experience at OISE was anything but boring. In fact, it left me feeling angry, deflated and, most of all, deeply saddened about the direction in which Canada is headed.

Initially, I was entirely shocked by the blatantly obvious political agenda. On the first day I noticed that my classroom wall had a poster listing the main Canadian political parties. It then listed each party’s supposed track record with major Canadian issues, such as health care and education. Unbelievably, the poster went on to proclaim, that, as future teachers, we should be sure to “Vote NDP.”

I looked around for other posters proclaiming the same for Conservatives and Liberals: I could find none. I was so shocked that I pulled out my cell phone and took a photo of it, as proof of the propaganda! Sadly, this poster was the least of my concerns by the year’s end.

Classes began and I was repeatedly baffled by the content of discussions being held in my classrooms. Such issues included why universities and high schools lacked transgendered washrooms, how to not stand for the national anthem, and censoring the celebration of Christmas in schools because it is too “painful of an experience for non-Christians”.

After speaking out numerous times and trying to create a more even-keeled discussion about several issues raised in class, I realized that what was most upsetting about this whole situation was that the door to discussion had been closed. Permanently.

My classmates and professors at OISE had absolutely no “tolerance” for anyone who opposed their views on tolerance, equity, diversity and social justice. I was fighting a losing battle. It was obvious that my classmates and professors were on a mission.

This mission involved indoctrinating each student teacher, and eventually each high school student, with the tenets of their secular religion. The religion’s highest objective was to attain “equity, diversity and social justice” in all aspects of education and social life.

While it sounded great, when seen through an OISE lens it was actually a very totalitarian policy, with a complex language and some very self-righteous believers. I could not even speak about a possible doubt without being cast out of the group altogether and labeled a diversity-hater and an enemy of social justice.

I desperately tried to fight this belief that I did not care about the issues discussed in class, simply because I approached them from a different angle. I was consistently shut down by shallow arguments and silly comments that implied I simply hadn’t developed as far as the rest of the group on the “progressive path”.

One of my classmates even began crying and told the class she found it very hurtful when people (looking in my direction) did not pay attention to issues she found to be of profound importance (this particular class focused on homosexual education). It was all very demeaning and, by the end of the year, I had mentally and emotionally checked out and no longer spoke in class at all.

Fighting against 30 classmates every day took its toll. The last comment I made in class was to let my peers and future colleagues know that it frightened me that they could not deal with my questions or my disbelief in their policies without ostracizing me, for how would they treat the high school students that disagreed with them? As you can imagine, this did not lead to an increase in my popularity.

Needless to say, the year passed by at a dreadfully slow pace. I found myself sitting through classes on how to get hetero-normative language out of the schools, reading countless documents that had been reviewed for “equity”, and reading mandatory Marxist and feminist literature.

I was urged to attend equity/diversity workshops, and asked to volunteer in Gender Construction workshops that were mandatory for gr. 10 students, where issues like “straight supremacy” would be discussed by curious 15-year-olds.

At one point, a classmate asked the professor: “So, are we supposed to be activists, or teachers?” and the professor promptly replied, “Can the two really be separated?”

...

Looking back on my experience now, I realize that, as a student attending OISE, I was subject to what should be described as indoctrination. This indoctrination is of great concern not only to me, but also to all Canadians, no matter what side of the political spectrum.

It is institutions such as OISE that educate the educators, who will in turn educate the nation. It is scary and sad to think of the thousands of students who will be indoctrinated in the classrooms of all my like-minded, unquestioning, and intolerant OISE-educated peers.

Radio Canada (the CBC in Quebec) chastised by Ombudsman for broadcasting Palestinian propaganda

2011-12-10T19:09:00.001-08:00

Everyone interested in the issue has long recognized that the CBC is biased against Israel and in favour of the Palestinians. In English Canada, though, this bias has been less pronounced since Tony Burman, the former editor in chief, left the CBC to work for al-Jazeera, a network where Burman's bias is entirely at home.

Also, CBC journalists sometimes attempt to give even-handed reports on the middle east despite their bias. (Certainly the CBC does a better job of being even-handed than the Globe & Mail.)

But that's not the case in the CBC's French language service, Radio Canada, where anti-Israel reporting is simply the norm. Last summer, though, Radio Canada broadcast several reports that were so obviously and outrageously biased that the CBC's Ombudsman upheld a whole series of complaints. The Canadian Jewish News has the details....

Radio-Canada Ombudsman raps Middle East reporting
Janice Arnold

MONTREAL — The Radio-Canada ombudsman has upheld a series of complaints made by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) about the network’s Middle East coverage.

Most of the complaints concerned reporting by the French-language public broadcaster’s Middle East correspondent, Ginette Lamarche, between June 5 and 7 on the deadly clash at the Syrian border between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and the Israeli army.

Ombudsman Pierre Tourangeau concluded that two reports by Lamarche did not respect the network’s standards for impartiality and accuracy.

Most significantly to CIJA, she failed to report that the Israeli army had issued several warnings before opening fire and that the demonstrators were violent and attempting to force their way across the Israeli border.

CIJA’s predecessor organization, the Quebec-Israel Committee, objected to Lamarche’s reference to the Qalandia checkpoint as a “symbol of [the Palestinians’] daily humiliation,” not making clear that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is also considered a terrorist organization, that Ahmad Saadate was convicted of ordering the murder of an Israeli government minister, and that some information was from a non-corroborated Syrian source.

CIJA also objected to Lamarche’s reference that the Palestinians “tried to claim their right of return.” The ombudsman agreed that this “right,” while central to the conflict, has not been confirmed by the United Nations Security Council.

“On an issue as controversial as that of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the choice of words, the precision of the information given and the identification of its source takes on particular importance,” wrote Tourangeau, who became ombudsman on Nov. 14, replacing Julie Miville-Duchêne, who left in July.

Even though some of Lamarche’s reporting was live, which made it more difficult for her to verify the information, the journalist is still obligated to ensure “in a reasonable manner” that it is accurate.

The ombudsman also agreed with CIJA that a June 7 broadcast entitled “Des Juifs du Golan appuient l’attaque d’Israël contre les manifestants pacifiques” (“Golan Jews support Israel’s attack on the peaceful demonstrators”) didn’t meet Radio-Canada’s standards.

Specifically, Lamarche paraphrased an Israeli, identified only as Maurice, as saying: “The army maybe shot live bullets on the civilians who were demonstrating peacefully. If that is the case, it is only doing its duty.”

An audio recording of her interview with the man showed that her paraphrasing was not faithful to what he actually said, Tourangeau wrote.

The ombudsman also found that “this morally questionable attitude” was presented without sufficient grounds as being representative of the Jews of the Golan.

Finally, the ombudsman concluded that RDI, Radio-Canada’s news speciality channel, used erroneous maps March 19 on the program 24 heures en 60 minutes to illustrate the Arab-Israeli conflict. CIJA had termed the maps “propagandist.”

The maps were used to show what a guest described as the loss of Palestinian land between 1945 and 2000.

Tourangeau describes the maps as “erroneous, confusing and incomplete, whose source was not identified.”

RDI’s management admitted that the maps should never have been used, while the ombudsman recommended that a correction be made.

http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?q=node/88925

Antisemitism in Canada – Why Now?

2011-11-27T16:08:00.000-08:00

I originally published this piece in the Canadian Jewish News, April 21, 2004. It remains just as relevant now as then.

Across the country, the firebombing of a Jewish day school in Montreal appalled Canadians. Why did it happen? Why now?

I see four root causes.

First, the terrorist attacks of September 11 radicalized anti-American and anti-Jewish sentiment in Canada and around the world. Much of the far left has always considered America and Israel as a single enemy and the primary source of evil in world affairs. While September 11 demonstrated to most people that there are much nastier people around, the far left wasn’t prepared to give up their vision of America the evil.

For example, in his essay, “The War in Afghanistan,” Noam Chomsky claims that America’s war of self-defence was a far greater moral wrong than the terrorist attacks themselves. Much of the left followed Chomsky’s lead. But many people, some Canadians among them, defended their vision of American evil by adopting the notion that the U.S. and/or Israel (or simply "the Jews") were responsible for the September 11 attacks.

Such conspiratorial thinking, which in Canada used to belong exclusively to neo-Nazi propagandists like Ernst Zundel, suddenly became mainstream. Three Toronto Star columnists have promoted the notion of September 11 as an American plot - Michelle Landsberg, Thomas Walkom, and Antonia Zerbisias. Zebisias went so far as to praise an antisemitic web site and recommend it to her readers (a recommendation that she partially disowned after B’nai Brith called her on it.)

Second, opposition to the American-led war against Saddam Hussein popularized anti-Americanism throughout Canada and licensed its expression. When MP Carolyn Parrish said, “Damn Americans, I hate those bastards,” she likely generated more support for the Liberals, not less. And when Canadians opened the door to anti-Americanism, its anti-Jewish twin also snuck in.

Why did America invade Iraq? The answer, according to some conspiracy-minded Canadians, is that America is controlled by Jewish, neo-Conservatives - a cabal that puts Israel’s interests ahead of America’s and, more generally, plots for America to conquer the world.

For example, in an article titled, “Why Won’t Anyone Say They’re Jewish?” Kalle Lasn, editor of the Canadian magazine Adbusters, produces a list of American neo-conservatives with a bullet (or perhaps it’s a little yellow star) beside each Jew. “Half of the them are Jewish,” he writes, in case his readers can’t count. And he says, they control “Rumsfeld’s Defense Department.”

Lasn adds, rather darkly, “One wonders what Israeli-American relations, and indeed what American relations with the rest of the world would look like if [they] … were also in charge at [the] State [Department].”

This idea of Jewish puppet masters is simply a rehash of the century old myth of the Elders of Zion, which in times past was so fervently embraced by Adolph Hitler.
Third, the train bombings in Madrid demonstrated that terrorism works. The bombers of the Montreal day school simply followed the Madrid example, but fortunately burned only books, not people. Next time, according to the note left by the fire bombers, they might do worse.

Fourth, and most importantly, antisemitism in Canada has been activated by the continual portrayal of Israel as murderous and monstrous and not just by the far left but in mainstream media and by mainstream politicians.

To give just one example, the CBC’s Mary Lou Finlay opened a recent interview with a representative of the Palestinian Authority by asking him for his reaction to the Israeli "murder" of Ahmed Yassin. I assumed she’d made an embarrassing slip until Russ Germain introduced a later segment of the program with a clearly scripted line about the world crying "bloody murder."

Have you ever heard anyone on the CBC refer to any of Hamas’s deliberate killings of Israeli civilians – men, women or children – as “murder”?

The CBC’s condemnation of Israel’s “murder” of Ahmed Yassin and Canada’s foreign minister’s condemnation of the assassination were mere peeps in the worldwide outcry against Israel. That outcry was louder, more widespread and vastly more heated than have been any objections to the hundreds of killings and thousands of injuries Yassin’s terrorist organization has inflicted on ordinary people going about their daily lives.

That outcry was surely heard by the people who firebombed the Montreal Jewish day school. When they wrote that their attack was retribution for the Israeli assassination Ahmed Yassin, I imagine they expected praise for their actions. Surely, they were surprised that Canadians unanimously denounced their attack, with the Toronto Star and the CBC as appalled as everyone else. Then again, perhaps the bombers are familiar with hypocrisy.

Afterword
From the trial of the bomber, we now know that my cause #4 was spot on. The bomber himself explained how the frenzied reporting of the Israeli assassination of the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, Ahmed Yassin, incited him to go and firebomb a Jewish primary school.

On the other hand, with the benefit of hindsight, I’d cut cause #3 – the Madrid Train Bombing. All successful terrorist acts encourage further terrorism; in that respect the Madrid bombing wasn’t special.

Occupy Wall Street, a tale of the .1 percent

2011-11-27T15:25:00.000-08:00

Unlike in Canada, where the Occupy movement has aroused nothing more than mild annoyance or weary tolerance, in the United States, Occupy Wall Street has a lot of support. Many Americans see the movement as a manifesation of their outrage over the country's deep economic troubles.

However, while many Americans identify with the anger of the Occupiers, their claim to represent the 99% who aren't rich is ludicrous. A mix of anarchists, Marxists, anti-imperialists and Israel-haters - the Occupiers themselves represent the deeply delusional point one percent.

In the New Yorker, Mattathias Schwartz has written an excellent piece on the leaders of the Occupy Movement and in particular that noted Canadian purveyor of antisemitisem Kalle Lasn...

Pre-Occupied
The Origins and Futue of Occupy Wall Street

Kalle Lasn spends most nights shuffling clippings into a binder of plastic sleeves, each of which represents one page of an issue of Adbusters, a bimonthly magazine that he founded and edits. It is a tactile process, like making a collage, and occasionally Lasn will run a page with his own looped cursive scrawl on it. From this absorbing work, Lasn acquired the habit of avoiding the news after dark. So it was not until the morning of Tuesday, November 15th, that he learned that hundreds of police officers had massed in lower Manhattan at 1 A.M. and cleared the camp at Zuccotti Park. If anyone could claim responsibility for the Zuccotti situation, it was Lasn: Adbusters had come up with the idea of an encampment, the date the initial occupation would start, and the name of the protest—Occupy Wall Street. Now the epicenter of the movement had been raided. Lasn began thinking of reasons that this might be a good thing.

Lasn is sixty-nine years old and lives with his wife on a five-acre farm outside Vancouver. He has thinning white hair and the small eyes of a bulldog. In a lilting voice, he speaks of “a dark age coming for humanity” and of “killing capitalism,” alternating gusts of passion with gentle laughter. He has learned not to let premonitions of apocalypse spoil his good mood.

The magazine, which he founded twenty-two years ago, depicts the developed world as a nightmare of environmental collapse and spiritual hollowness, driven to the brink of destruction by its consumer appetites. Adbusters’ images—a breastfeeding baby tattooed with corporate logos; a smiling Barack Obama with a clown’s ball on his nose—are combined with equally provocative texts and turned into a paginated montage. Adbusters is not the only radical magazine calling for the end of life as we know it, but it is by far the best-looking.

Lasn was interrupted by a phone call about the Zuccotti eviction while in bed, reading Julian Barnes’s “The Sense of an Ending.” He rose and checked his e-mail. There was a message from Micah White, Adbusters’ senior editor and Lasn’s closest collaborator.

“Eerie timing!” White wrote. Earlier that night, Adbusters had sent out its most recent “tactical briefing”—a mass e-mail to ninety thousand friends of the magazine—proposing that the nation’s Occupy protesters throw a party in mid-December, declare victory, and withdraw from their encampments. A few hours later, officers from the New York Police Department began handing out notices stating that the park had become dangerous and unsanitary, and ordering the protesters to leave, so that it could be cleaned. Those who refused to go were arrested, and whatever they left behind was carried off by the Department of Sanitation, to a depot on West Fifty-seventh Street. After a long night of angry marches and meetings, the protesters were allowed back into Zuccotti, with newly enforced prohibitions on tents and on lying down. The protest continued, but the fifty-nine days of rude, anarchic freedom on a patch of granite in lower Manhattan were over.

White reached Lasn by telephone shortly before nine. Lasn was in the bathtub, and White told him details that he had learned online about the eviction. The police had established a strict media cordon, blocking access from nearby streets. “It was a military-style operation,” he said. These words made Lasn think of the bloody uprising in Syria. He quickly decided that the apparent end of Zuccotti was not a tragedy but the latest in a series of crisis-driven opportunities, what he calls “revolutionary moments,” akin to the slapping of a Tunisian fruit vender. “I just can’t believe how stupid Bloomberg can be!” he said to me later that day. “This means escalation. A raising of the stakes. It’s one step closer to, you know, a revolution.” ... more

PLO ambassodor to Lebanon says Palestinian state will not end the conflict

2011-09-20T08:57:00.001-07:00

BEIRUT: Palestinian refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state, according to Palestine’s ambassador to Lebanon.

From behind a desk topped by a miniature model of Palestine’s hoped-for blue United Nations chair, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah spoke to The Daily Star Wednesday about Palestine’s upcoming bid for U.N. statehood.

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees.

Neither this definitional status nor U.N. statehood, Abdullah says, would affect the eventual return of refugees to Palestine. “How the issue of the right of return will be solved I don’t know, it’s too early [to say], but it is a sacred right that has to be dealt with and solved [with] the acceptance of all.” He says statehood “will never affect the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”

The right of return that Abdullah says is to be negotiated would not only apply to those Palestinians whose origins are within the 1967 borders of the state, he adds. “The state is the 1967 borders, but the refugees are not only from the 1967 borders. The refugees are from all over Palestine. When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.”

The Palestinian Liberation Organization would remain responsible for refugees, and Abdullah says that UNRWA would continue its work as usual.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration recently pledged to veto statehood in the Security Council, which would leave the Palestinians the option of seeking a General Assembly resolution. If this happens, Abdullah says, 129 countries have committed to positive votes.

The United States has of late been taking steps to dissuade the Palestinians from taking their bid to the U.N., sending negotiators to meet with Palestinian officials. The ambassador says these talks have not been fruitful.

“They won’t offer us anything … that saves the peace process,” he says. “They would offer us nothing except to say that they will cut financial aid, and other such threats. Dignity is much more important than a loaf of bread.”

The last minute threats Abdullah refers to include a bill proposed by the chair of the U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, which would cut U.S. funding to any U.N. body that recognizes the Palestinian statehood.

Abdullah says now is the time to seek statehood because the peace process has been stalled for around a year, and rattles off the dates of locations of failed meetings with the Israelis last September.

“These meetings did not bring us one iota closer to achieving the goal the negotiations were resumed to achieve.” He says that there are now new obstacles, including settlement building “with some haste” and Israel’s insistence that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state or a national home for the Jewish people.

Abdullah says the Palestinians effectively have no choice but to go to the U.N. With talks at an impasse, he says, “nothing was left for us to protect the international consensus of the two-state solution.”

A U.S. veto in the Security Council, Abdullah says, would only harm the great power. “The United States is propagating that it is the champion of freedom and democracy around the world, and if it denies the Palestinians the right to be free, to be democratic, and to live in dignity, it is not a good sign for the U.S. It leaves a dark stain … It’s not good for America,” he says. “America deserves better.”

He says the U.S. should be mindful of “signals in the region … that are ringing a bell.” He mentions the tension between Turkey and Israel and the recent eruption of protests at the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

“If wrong policies are adopted in the U.S., it will only give a freer hand to extremism. It only empowers negative forces. And this will make it more difficult and complicated for rational forces to prevail.”

Despite clear signs of opposition from the U.S., Abdullah says anything could happen next week, when the U.N.’s General Assembly session opens and the issue of Palestinian statehood will be debated.

“When we go [to the United Nations],” he says, “we [will not] bet on anything.”

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Daily Star on September 15, 2011, on page 2.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Sep-15/148791-interview-refugees-will-not-be-citizens-of-new-state.ashx#ixzz1YVaEgLvw
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

Government of Norway cosies up with Hamas, according to U.S. diplomatic cable

2011-09-05T09:58:00.000-07:00

According to U.S. diplomats stationed in Oslo, the government of Norway modestly describes itself as a "moral superpower." Doubtless the Norwegians do some good, but their governemnt is also sympathetic to the terrorist group Hamas, which makes the Norwegian government moral idiots.

As noted by every journalist in the world, Hamas's goal is to wipe Israel off the map. Hamas also aspires to commit genocide. In its constitution, Hamas looks forward to the day when even the trees of the land will call out, "There is a Jew hiding behind me - come and kill him!"

In the meanwhile, Hamas has to make due with attacking buses and school buses and of course lobbing rockets and mortars at Israeli towns. Apparently, none of this bothers the government of Norway (GON). Here's the full diplomatic cable, as published on Wikileaks...

SUBJECT: PART I: CONSTRAINTS ON NORWAY'S MIDDLE EAST ROLE?

REF: A. OSLO 90
¶B. 06 OSLO 1047

Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Kevin M. Johnson
for reasons 1.4 b and d

¶1. (C) Summary: Norway aspires to be a leader in Middle East
peace negotiations and could be a genuine asset in bringing
peace to the region. Norway's diplomatic principles, focus
on dialogue, and mediation history have helped raise Norway's
profile as a peacemaker. Its tense relationship with Israel
and anti-Semitism in Norway, as well as its approach to Hamas
and Hamas positions, could constrain the effectiveness of
Norway's desired high-profile mediator role. Part II of this
cable series explores the growth of anti-Semitism in Norway
and Part III analyses Norway's Foreign Minister's critical
role in elevating Norway on the world stage. End Summary.

Norwegian Diplomacy: Strengths and Desire for a Big Role
--------------------------------------------- -----------
¶2. (C) Shaped by FM Stoere, Norwegian foreign policy
prioritizes peace promotion. Stoere is a skilled foreign
minister, drawing on national traditions of international
engagement, and adding his own focus on humanitarian aid and
peace promotion to create an appealing portrayal of Norway as
a world leader in peacemaking. Stoere dearly desires a
central role in shaping Middle East peace and believes he has
the ability to deliver. Norway brings clear strengths to the
table. Stoere has been careful to maintain constant ties
with Hamas (although no longer on the political level),
steady and significant support for the Palestinian Authority
and continued regular ties to Israel. Norway has a global
reputation for expertise in peace negotiations in Guatemala,
Tibet, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka among others, although
their efforts have floundered lately. Norway also willing to
spend substantial money in the promotion of peace. Norway's
non-EU membership can also at times be helpful. (Practically,
Norway follows the vast majority of EU positions but has
diverged, most notably in holding talks with the Tamil Tigers
and Hamas, EU designated terrorist groups.)

Mediation Expertise
-------------------
¶3. (C) Norwegian society values dialogue above all. Talk,
even without any expectation of results, is seen as valuable.
Anyone who draws a line and refuses to talk to an opposing
party is seen as a radical unilateralist. Conversely,
Norwegians are extremely opposed to the use of military force
to achieve goals, no matter how laudable.

¶4. (C) Compounding this aversion to force, Norwegians do not
generally see any threats. For example, they do not see a
danger from terrorism. (This attitude prevails in the MFA
and other elites, despite FM Stoere's hotel being attacked by
suicide bombers in Kabul.) This societal attitude was
demonstrated by Norway's first terrorist case. Despite
shooting at Oslo's synagogue, planning to behead the Israeli
ambassador and to attack the Israeli and U.S. embassies, the
accused was convicted only of grave vandalism (although his
strict sentence showed some understanding of the severity of
the charges).

¶5. (C) Finally, Norway has substantial funds to back any
mediating role it chooses to play. Rich with energy funds,
it has for years been a leading donor to the Palestinian
authority, most recently chairing the Ad Hoc Liaison
Committee. Historically, it has been willing to commit to the
long-term, funding projects to promote peace in Sri Lanka for
example for over 27 years.

¶6. (C) Norway's desire to make a difference combined with the
willingness to expend time and money has made it a mediator
in conflicts as far a field as Sri Lanka, Colombia, Haiti,
and Sudan. It has elevated peace and reconciliation studies
in its universities and reorganized its Foreign Ministry to
showcase its expertise in this area. It revels in its
self-described role as the "moral superpower" and points to
the Oslo Peace Accords as a defining national moment.
Norway's History with its Jewish Community and Israel
--------------------------------------------- --------
¶7. (C) In the Middle East, however, its history may
constrain the role it can play. Norway's Jewish community has
always been very small and based in the country's biggest
cities, Oslo and Trondheim. Challenges confronted the
community early on. The birth of modern Norway was its 1814
constitution, which included a clause excluding Jews (later
removed in 1851). In German-occupied Norway, Norwegian
police cooperated with the Germans, rounding up almost all of
the Norwegian Jewish population, most of which were sent to
concentration camps.

¶8. (C) Post-war Norway cultivated close ties with Israel and
much political support existed for Israel. The Norwegian
Labor Party (long the dominant party in Norway) has
historically had close ties to Israel's labor party and Golda
Meir visited Oslo and reportedly had a friendly personal
relationship with Norwegian PM Gerhardsen. This resulted in
Norway secretly providing heavy water to the fledgling
Israeli nuclear program.

¶9. (C) The 1990s Oslo Process thrust Norway into Middle East
politics for the first time and seemed to herald peace in the
Middle East as well as a new peacemaker role for Norway. As
the Oslo Accords crumbled, ties
between Norway and Israel weakened. The Lebanon wars had a
major impact, with approximately 20,000 Norwegians serving in
UN peacekeeping forces in Lebanon from 1978 to 1998. These
soldiers came home with sympathetic reports about Palestinian
refugees and negative impressions of Israelis. Israeli
settlements and walls in the West Bank, and invasions of
Lebanon and Gaza contributed to Norwegians' increasingly
negative view of Israel.

¶10. (C) This shift was so dramatic that a 2006 cartoon in a
major newspaper depicted the PM of Israel as a concentration
camp guard. During the 2006 war in Lebanon prominent author
Jostein Gaarder made a statement saying "I refuse to
recognize the state of Israel" and characterized Judaism as
"an archaic national and warlike religion." (See septel and
ref B for a detailed discussion of anti-Semitism in Norway.)
By 2007, FM Stoere decided to recognize the Palestinian
Unity Government, which included Hamas Ministers. Hamas' vow
to destroy Israel was ignored or characterized as only
rhetoric by the Norwegians. Norway became the leading
dissenter to international norms (only joined by
Switzerland), willing to overlook Hamas' stated aims in
pursuit of dialogue at all costs. At this point, some
Israeli officials began to characterize Norway as the most
anti-Israel state in Europe. (Note: Although the GON would
deny it, there are clear signs that contacts with Hamas go
beyond a tactical desire for dialogue to a level of sympathy
for Hamas positions. The FM once told DCM for example that
one could not expect Hamas to recognize Israel without
knowing which borders Israel will have. While the FM
expresses some sympathy for Hamas' positions only in
unguarded moments, other prominent Norwegians go further.
End Note.)

¶11. (C) Norway's growing minority population also plays a
role in hardening public attitude toward Israel. The primary
minority groups in Norway (25% of Oslo's population) are
Muslim and stem from Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, and
Afghanistan. They are interested in Middle East politics and
not surprisingly very critical of Israel. (See reftel A.)
"Traditional" Norwegians are independently quite critical of
Israel as discussed above, but it is likely that this
viewpoint will be re-enforced by the growing minority groups
in Norway.

Gaza's Impact
-------------
¶12. (C) The recent Gaza war further hardened anti-Israel
attitudes in Norway's public and elite opinion, with the
notable exceptions of the Progress Party (about 25% of the
vote) and the small Christian Democratic Party. However the
size of recent pro-Israel (500) and anti-Israel
demonstrations (over 10,000) illustrate the prevailing
sentiments. (See reftel A.)

¶13. (C) Since the Gaza war, the question of whether
anti-Semitism is on the increase became the subject of an
intense public debate. Much of the debate centers on
defining when comments by public figures are or are not
anti-Semitic. Press coverage and public opinion of the Gaza
war was overwhelmingly, and at times vehemently, anti-Israeli
and pro-Palestinian (viewing Israeli tactics as brutal and
Palestinians as innocent victims). Therefore the question of
anti-Semitism has often been phrased in terms of when
criticism of Israel crosses the line into anti-Semitism.
(See septel for a detailed discussion of the strong comments
that have been made by leading Norwegian politicians
questioning the ability of Jewish members of the Obama
government to give unbiased advice and outlining the sense of
threat felt by the Norwegian Jewish community.)

¶14. (C) On the official level, Hamas' rocket attacks against
Israel received criticisms, but the clear focus of Norwegian
diplomacy encouraged Israel to be restrained and to maintain
dialogue. While FM Stoere has been careful to criticize both
parties, Norway clearly places most of the blame for the
conflict on Israel's policies.

Israel's Reaction
-----------------
¶15. (C) The Israel Government has chosen, according to an
Embassy official, to take a very low key approach to Norway's
negative views towards Israel. They see no point in openly
pressing the government. With GON Ministers and Vice
Ministers having a track record of meeting with Hamas,
calling for boycotts of Israel, and showing up at violent
anti-Israeli riots, the Israel Embassy holds out very little
hope that the current GON can ever act moderately towards
Israel. That said, they appreciate that the GON MFA is
disciplining one of its own for anti-Semitic emails and that
an initial meeting between FM Stoere and the Israeli
Ambassador was very positive. They hope that small steps
suchQs an R&D agreement may bring some slight warming of
relations.

¶16. (C) However, the Israeli Embassy official noted that
while his view of the GON may be negative, the view of Norway
in the GOI is even less positive, and the view of the Israeli
public which sees only negative items about Norway in the
media is even less. Therefore, while Israel can tolerate
Norway being the Chair of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee for
Palestine (ADHL), the idea of any greater role for Norway in
Middle East talks is unpalatable.

Comment
-------
¶17. (C) Norway, and particularly their charismatic Foreign
Minister, has a strong interest in playing a peacemaker role.
With money to spend and open channels to all parties in the
conflict, they bring important assets to this role. However,
Norway's attitudes towards Israel and Hamas also constrain
Norwegian diplomatic efforts in the Middle East. Norwegian
public and elite opposition to most of Israel's actions and
their view that Israel does not value dialogue is widely
reported. A level of Norwegian sympathy for some Hamas'
positions, hidden behind its broad policy of dialogue with
all, should be kept in mind as we engage with Norway on U.S.
Middle East priorities. End comment.

WHITNEY

P.S. Julian Assange, the "brains" behind Wikileaks is of course nothing but pond scum. He's always been in favour of revealing the names of informants mentioned in diplomatic cables, despite the fact that this could endanger their lives, not to mention careers. When The New York Times and the Guardian published Wikileak cables, they removed the names. But since then Assange has started to reveal names himself, with total disregard to the danger - after all, it's not Assange who has to worry about what some murderous dictator will think of him chatting with an American diplomat.

Assange of course is also a close buddy of the Holocaust denier and gross antisemite who goes by the name Israel Shamir.Shamir is also close buddies with the brutal dictator of Belarus and shared a hoard of cables (provided by Assange) that revealed the names of the dictator's critics. See an execllent short piece on Assange and Shamir here.

Even apart from the fact that Assange is a disgusting human being, releasing diplomatic cables isn't going to make the world a better place. Much as from a personal perspective I've been fascinated by the information revealed, looking to the greater good, the main result of releasing this secret information will be to make people more cautious about speaking their minds - especially if they live in an oppresive regime, where speaking the truth is a captial crime.

Black and Jewish

2011-07-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

Check out this music video: "Black and Jewish," a parody of "Black and Yellow," a hip-hop tribute to the colors of Pittsburgh’s professional sports teams.

Photo Lisa Bonet, Jewish actress.

Most Palestians support killing Jews, reject 2-state solution - poll

2011-07-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest bad news from the Middle East....

6 in 10 Palestinians reject 2-state solution, survey finds

By GIL HOFFMAN
07/15/2011 04:26

73% of 1,010 Palestinians in W. Bank, Gaza agree with 'hadith' quoted in Hamas Charter about the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones, trees.

Only one in three Palestinians (34 percent) accepts two states for two peoples as the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an intensive, face-to-face survey in Arabic of 1,010 Palestinian adults in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip completed this week by American pollster Stanley Greenberg.

The poll, which has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, was conducted in partnership with the Beit Sahour-based Palestinian Center for Public Opinion and sponsored by the Israel Project, an international nonprofit organization that provides journalists and leaders with information about the Middle East.

The Israel Project is trying to reach out to the Arab world to promote “people-to-people peace.” The poll appears to indicate that the organization has a difficult task ahead.

Respondents were asked about US President Barack Obama’s statement that “there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people.”

Just 34% said they accepted that concept, while 61% rejected it.

Sixty-six percent said the Palestinians’ real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.

Asked about the fate of Jerusalem, 92% said it should be the capital of Palestine, 1% said the capital of Israel, 3% the capital of both, and 4% a neutral international city.

Seventy-two percent backed denying the thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem, 62% supported kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage, and 53% were in favor or teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools.

When given a quote from the Hamas Charter about the need for battalions from the Arab and Islamic world to defeat the Jews, 80% agreed. Seventy-three percent agreed with a quote from the charter (and a hadith, or tradition ascribed to the prophet Muhammad) about the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones and trees.

But only 45% said they believed in the charter’s statement that the only solution to the Palestinian problem was jihad.

The survey’s more positive findings included that only 22% supported firing rockets at Israeli cities and citizens and that two-thirds preferred diplomatic engagement over violent “resistance.”

Among Palestinians in general 65% preferred talks and 20% violence ... more

I'd like to take comfort in the finding that only 20% of Palestinians prefer violence to negotiations, except that 20% is more than enough to keep terrorism going for another generation.

As for the finding that "only" 45% consider Jihad the only solution to Palestinian problem - that's downright depressing.

United Church minister's bias

2011-07-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a film review from the United Church Observer. The reviewer's profound ignorance and casual bias illustrate what's wrong with even the well-intentioned "critics of Israel" (as they like to be called) ...

The Hilltops
Directed by Igal Hecht
Chutzpa Productions
Reviewed by the reverend Jim Carey

The Hilltops appears to make the case for Israeli settlers to occupy every hilltop possible in the West Bank, presenting the settlers as misunderstood, persecuted and maligned by those who view these settlements as one of the key obstacles on the road to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Scenes of various hilltop outposts and the well-meaning people who occupy them are placed in contrast with statements made by U.S. President Barack Obama in June 2010. It is “undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland,” he said. “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. . . . It is time for these settlements to stop.”

In the documentary, one woman seemingly replies to Obama, saying, “We will never stop!” This appears to typify the zealous nature of the settlers.

The settlers are portrayed as hippies and back-to-the-earth types who deeply love the land and who seek to live out an interpretation of the Bible that holds that the Holy Land belongs exclusively to Jewish people. This portrayal is contrary to the witness of United Church of Canada partners in Palestine, who report the settlers are militant, law-breaking and often armed.

In the latter half of the documentary, there is an attempt at conversation with neighbouring Arabs about the settlements. But the conversation goes nowhere, as each party believes it has the rightful claim to the land.

The value in this documentary is that it offers a clear window into the mindset and the militancy of the settlers. While appearing to defend the settlers, it offers some explanation as to why the settlements endanger the peace process, render the division of the West Bank highly problematic, and lead some United Church partners to compare the settlements to apartheid.

Rev. Jim Cairney is a minister in Mississauga, Ont. He recently travelled to Israel and the Occupied Territories

A review of the review:

I confess I still find it shocking to see a minister using the word "apartheid" against Israel. I’m more used to hearing such name-calling from bigots on the far left and the far right.

But putting aside this slur, Cairney's review illustrates the sort of generalizations that obscure the nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Cairney speaks of settlements and settlers as if they're all the same. Many (most?) settlers aren't ideological at all; they're suburbanites who have moved into the new neighbourhoods built around Jerusalem.

Nor is it true to suggest that the ideologically motivated settlers are all of a kind. Doubtless, some are violent bastards; others are peaceable and often have good relations with local Palestinians.

In March, following the terrorist massacre of the Fogel family (the mother, father and 3 children aged 11, 3 and 3 months), there was a news story about local Palestinians seeking medical help at a settlement for a mother going through a perilous childbirth. See here.

What struck me about the story was not only joy of a tragedy averted as the Israeli medics saved the Palestinian mother and her new born baby, but also that when faced with a medical emergency, the Palestinian taxi driver took his passenger straight to an Israeli settlement.

Cairney also seems to be misrepresenting Obama. Of course, Obama called for a cessation of further building within existing Israeli settlements. (Israelis haven't built new settlements for more than 10 years.) But Obama has also recognized that the large settlements will never be dismantled; it's simply unthinkable that any country would (or could) move hundreds of thousands of citizens.

This is why no one who's really interested in peace calls for the removal of all Israeli settlements.

On the other hand, all mainstream Israeli political parties treat the small, isolated settlements as bargaining chips to be given up in negotiations with the Palestinians. Unfortunately, this strategy hasn't worked, as the Palestinian side hasn't been willing to accept peace.

Way back when, Arafat turned down a peace proposal (two in a row, in fact) and launched the terrorist war known as the Intifada instead. Arafat's successor has been no more willing to sign a peace deal. Three years ago, the Israelis offered the Palestinians Gaza, east Jerusalem and the West Bank, with land swaps to fully compensate for the settlements to be kept by Israel, giving the Palestinians the equivalent of 100% of the territory.

President Abbas turned the offer down. Because the settlements and the occupation of the West Bank aren't the issues.

The underlying problem is that the Palestinians claim that Israel is an illegitimate state; that the Palestinians alone have rights to all of "historic Palestine" (including Israel), and they will not allow legitimacy to the Jewish state.

This isn't like the wild Israeli settlers sitting on a few hilltops in the West Bank claiming exclusive sovereignty over the land; within Israeli society, such views are marginal. No, the belief that Israel is illegitimate is the view of the Palestinian leadership and of the majority of the Palestinian people.

I’m an optimist, though: I expect we’ll have peace between the Palestinians and Israelis within 20 or 30 years. It will begin when the Palestinians recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, just as Israelis have long recognized the Palestinian right to a state of their own.

The folly of dividing Jerusalem

2011-07-10T16:35:00.000-07:00

All Israeli-Palestinian peace plans to date have proposed dividing Jerusalem. Unfortunately this idea is divorced from reality. In Jerusalem, Jewish and Palestinian neighborhoods aren't just an arm's width apart, the "border" runs right through shared buildings. This shouldn't surprise anyone; after all, Jerusalem has been a single city for thousands of years. Jerusalem has only ever been divided from 1948 though 1967 when Jordan occupied the old city.

Yaacov Lozowick has a brilliant series of posts on the issue, including a few short video tours of the proposed dividing line. Watch here and here. See his whole collection of posts here.

On the topic, I've previously proposed holding a referundum among Jerusalem's Arab population about whether they'd rather stay part of Israel or be incorporated into a Palestinian state. It's almost certain, they'd rather remain part of Israel. See here.

Crystal Ball #2

2011-05-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

I'm changing my bets. Yesterday's polls show the Liberal collapse continuing across the country. I now think the Liberals may get as few as two dozen seats.

The only area of the country where Liberal fortunes have improved is in BC. They're still in third place there, but they're recovering enough to split the vote with the NDP and hand some closely contested seats to the Conservatives.

I now think the Bloc is in worse trouble than I thought yesterday, too. I think they may get as few as 20 seats. Hopefully even less.

On the other hand, the NDP surge continues - entirely at the expense of the Liberals and the Bloc. So I now expect them to take at least 100 seats.

The Conservatives continue to hold steady or may be climbing. With the Liberal collapse, I think they've got a 50-50 chance of hitting 155 seats, which is what they need for a majority.

So here's my new prediction:

Conservatives: 155 seats (more or less)
NDP: 105 seats (more or less)
Liberals: 24 seats (or more)
Bloc 18 seats (or more)

Combined NDP & Liberal seats: about 130, versus about 155 seats for the Conservatives.

If the Conservatives manage to win their majority, the constitutional situation becomes mute. We'll have a Conservative government, full stop.

Otherwise, I fear we're into the same mess as I predicted yesterday: The other 3 parties combining to defeat the Conservatives at the first opportunity. Then the NDP and Liberals forming an informal coalition undersigned on a vote-by-vote basis by the Bloc.

I don't know if most Canadians will view such a government as legitimate. They didn't the last time the opposition parties tried it.

But here's a thought: Previously everyone's assumed the opposition would be led by the Liberals, and of course it's impossible to imagine the NDP siding with the Conservatives - party members simply wouldn't stand for it, regardless of any consideration of real politic.

But ideologically, only the left wing of the Liberal party is close to the NDP. After tonight, that left wing will cease to exist - they've all gone over to the NDP.

It may take the Liberals a while to understand their new position - and probably too long to adjust to it - but as of tonight, a Conservative - Liberal colation will make much more sense than and NDP - Liberal coalition.

My 2011 federal election crystal ball

2011-05-01T07:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, time to put my money where my mouth is. Here’s my prediction for tomorrow’s election:

Conservatives: 136 – 154 seats. Best guess: 143 (i.e., same as before)
NDP: 64 – 73 seats. Best guess: 67 (up about 30 seats)
Liberals: 53 – 61 seats. Best guess: 56 (down about 20 seats)
The Bloc: 40 – 46 seats. Best guess: 42 (down about 5 seats)
Greens: 0 – 1 seats. Best guess: 0

Combined NDP & Liberal seats: about 125, versus about 145 seats for the Conservatives.

While, I don’t have any faith in these numbers I’ve pulled out of the air, I do expect they’ll reflect the general picture: a Conservative minority, with the NDP and Liberals not able to form an alternative government without the support of the Bloc.

I think this is bad news. A Conservative majority would be my preference. Economically, most countries are a mess – except for Canada. Our economy remains the envy of the world, and a Conservative majority would ensure continued stability.

My second choice would be a Liberal-NDP coalition with enough seats to govern without having their every move okayed by the Bloc. Obviously, this isn’t going to happen. The Liberals are headed for third or fourth place, so they won’t be leading any coalition. Worse, I don't believe the NDP and Liberals can win enough seats between them to create a majority.

So what’s going to happen? Most likely the other parties will defeat the new Conservative government at their first opportunity. Then we’ll see a minority coalition government led by the NDP (though doubtless it will be called something else, so as not to embarrass Iggy who has sworn off coalitions).

Who knows what its policies will be. The federal NDP has never had to create a platform that could actually be implemented. Ignatieff correctly called their election promises “science fiction” – at least $20 billion in increased spending supported by $17.5 billion in new taxes they won’t be able to collect.

But regardless of what the NDP would like to spend our money on, the biggest ticket item will be new goodies for Quebec. To support an NDP-Liberal coalition, the Bloc will charge a high price, and they’ll keep asking for more.

I expect that, sooner or later, the NDP-Liberal coalition will realize it can’t afford to pay more blackmail and the government will fall. Or the Bloc will refuse its support simply in order to demonstrate that Canada doesn’t work – that we can’t even create a government that lasts more than a few months. In the worst case scenario, the Bloc will pull the plug during a new referendum campaign on Quebec separating from Canada.

I hope to be proven entirely wrong in my analysis, but in my heart, I expect we’ll all be back at the polls next year.

Heads they win, tails you lose

2011-04-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

Well at least we now know what this election it about. Michael Ignatieff wants to become Prime Minister.

He’s willing to do it the traditional way – by winning more seats than the Conservatives – but as that’s not going to happen, plan B is to lose and still become Prime Minister.

He made this clear just this past week in an interview on the CBC, but presumably, this was the plan all along: Hold the Tories to a minority. Defeat them in the first vote in the House of Commons. Cut a deal with the NDP and the Bloc. Then form a Liberal government.

But what deal will they cut?

At this point in the campaign, the Liberals hope to win 90 seats. But with their campaign going from bad to worse, 70 seems more likely. The Liberals hope to hold the Conservatives to about 150 seats – 5 short of a majority. But clearly it’s going to be a nail-biter. And a Liberal government scratched together in these circumstances would be the weakest, least stable government in Canadian history.

We could have another election in no time – and that might be the best we can hope for.

As the price for their support, Iggy’s partners would be able to demand anything they want. On the social policy front, we’d end up with the NDP platform – which would be fine for a while, until the country goes broke.

But what about the Bloc? The PQ is posed to win the upcoming Quebec election, and they intend to introduce another referendum. So what will the Bloc ask of Iggy? Perhaps they’ll demand that the federal government stay out of the referendum – offer no defence of Canada whatsoever.

I believe Iggy would say no – surely he’s that much of a Canadian. But then the Bloc would pull the plug on the Liberal government and we’d be into another federal election and a separation battle with Quebec at the same time. In other words, heads the Bloc wins, tails Canada loses.

On the other hand, would a Conservative majority be so bad? The Conservatives have provided competent government, and as Stephen Harper never tires of pointing out, our economy isn’t perfect, but it is the envy of the world.

And the last Conservative budget – the one voted down by the Liberals – was in fact a Liberal budget, containing no threat to social programs. On the contrary, it was full of small expenditures for every needy group in the country. Paul Martin might have written that budget.

I know this makes no difference to dyed-in-the-wool Liberals. Political affiliation is a tribal thing. For many, being a Liberal, Conservative or NDPer is part of their identity. It’s not primarily about policy at all.

I understand this perfectly, as I used to belong the NDP tribe. Unfortunately, I became a political refugee because of the NDP’s hostility toward Israel and its supporters (including me). On the other hand, now that I’m without a political tribe, I think I can see better.

I often do vote Liberal. In the past, I’ve campaigned for the Liberal candidate in my riding. This time around, though, I’m voting for stable government and for Canada. I’m voting Conservative.

How to bash Israel in your child’s school, a York University graduate seminar

2011-04-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

Recently, I learned of a session offered by York University’s Faculty of Education on “The Politics of Israel/Palestine in the Classroom.” The panel consisted of three notorious Israel-bashers set to discuss: “How do we bring political debate into the classroom?”

Clearly, the real subject was How to teach Israel-bashing to kids – a subject York U apparently thought was worthwhile offering as part of its annual conference for Graduate Students in Education.

Jason Kunin, the high school teacher on the panel, first gained notoriety in 2007 when he introduced an anti-Israel boycott motion at his teacher’s union local. He also proposed putting together an “education package” for teaching anti-Israeli propaganda in schools. Kunin’s motion was overwhelmingly defeated.

The second panelist, Elle Flanders, teaches at York University and makes obscure anti-Israel films. But she is best known as a spokesperson for Queers United Against Israeli Apartheid. This is the group that marches in the annual gay pride parade calling for the eradication of the only state in the Middle East where it’s legal to be gay.

The third panelist, Bh Yael also makes anti-Israel films and teaches at the Ontario College of Art and Design. He and Jason Kunin have both been members of “Not In Our Name.”

In 2007, Not in Our Name attended the Cairo Conference, where members of the Israel-hating left met in Egypt to talk strategy with terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Jamaat al-Islamiya. At the time Jamaat al-Islamiya was best known for murdering 71 tourists. It has since become an official branch of al-Qaeda.

Attendees at the Cairo conference decided that terrorists should continue blowing people up while the western far left groups should confine themselves to propaganda and to promoting a boycott of Israel and Israelis.

Did I mention that all the panelists at the How to bash Israel session support a boycott Israel?

Another session at York’s education conference featured a presentation by PhD Candidate Nayrouz Abu-Hatoum on the “Politics of the Visual.” Nayrouz describes the subject of her PhD studies as: the “Israeli-built apartheid wall in Palestinian lands, where I intend to explore creation of new spaces of belonging and resistance to state power.”

Her presentation at the conference was on the same subject, which of course has nothing to do with education. Apparently, her slide show was just meant as a short anti-Israel rant to help break up the day.

But here’s the thing, I’m reporting missed news – this education conference at York happened a year ago. The media covers big hate festivals such as the annual anti-Israel apartheid week, but how many other outrageous anti-Israel events do we never hear about? Plenty. Because at some universities political activism masquerades as academic inquiry every day of the week.

We saw this recently in the Jenny Peto scandal at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (part of the University of Toronto). For her master’s thesis, Peto wrote a dissertation devoid of research or other academic content. Instead, she attacked Jews as racists. (See Werner Cohn’s excellent series of postings on the scandal here.)

When people objected to the University of Toronto granting an MA for this rant, the university responded that it was an issue of free speech. This was pure deflection. No university can really believe that, in order to avoid trampling a student’s free speech, it must grant an MA for any old crap the student feels like writing. Really, the university was saying: Bug off – it’s none of your business.

Similarly, in 2009, York University held a conference on a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a solution which amounts to replacing Israel with an Arab majority state. One of the conference organizers was Ali Abunimah, best known as a founder of Electronic Intifada, a website that glamorizes terrorism. Many of the other presenters at the conference were also anti-Israel activists, not academics at all.

Gary Goodyear, Minister for Science and Technology, suggested that government funding for the conference should be re-considered. The president of the Canadian University Teachers Association responded with outrage. How dare the government consider withdrawing its funding for a university event!

Clearly, our universities regard themselves as independent Duchies, not subject to any oversight. Canadians can’t afford to indulge them in this delusion. Especially, since at some universities, the propagation of hatred seems to be part of their day-to-day business.

During the Cold War, it was the Soviet Union that handed out advanced degrees in exchange for students developing propaganda. Perhaps most famously, Mahmoud Abbas, current president of the Palestinian Authority, got his PhD for a thesis concocting a tale of collaboration between the Nazis and the Zionists, with a bit of Holocaust denial tossed in.

Who could have imagined that Western universities would take on this role? That a York student would be concocting a PhD thesis on the “apartheid wall”? That an OISE student would defame Jews as racist – and get a Masters degree for it?

Most universities are still places where learning takes place. But in some departments at some universities, ideologically motivated professors have attained a dominant position. Instead of pursuing knowledge, they’re spreading propaganda – and we’re paying them to do it.

It’s past time for the government to put its foot down and stop this practice.

This piece was originally published at Harry's Place in Britain.

Election 2011: Jack Layton leads charge of the Light Brigade

2011-03-24T04:29:00.000-07:00

Everyone who watches the polls knows that the only thing the NDP or Liberals can expect from an election is fewer seats for them and more for the Conservatives. Could be the Conservatives will even win a majority.

But the Liberals are tired of looking like wusses. They've propped up the Conservatives since the last election and figure it's the NDP's turn.

However, Jack Layton can't support the Conservatives. It doesn't matter how many of Jack's policies and spending priorities the Conservatives put in the budget. The Dippers just plain hate Harper. They hate him with passion that's beyond reason.

Make a deal with the devil? No way. As far as rank and file members of the NDP are concerned, Stephen Harper is worse than Satan.

Jack Layton can't be this blinded himself. You don't get to be party leader, not even leader of the NDP, if you've taken leave of your senses. But what does Jack have to lose? We know about his health problems. Most likely this is his last election. Better to go out leading a hopeless charge against the Evil Ones than to be remembered as the guy who bowed to Harper.

As for the Liberals, they stand to lose even worse than the NDP. But some Liberals - call them the Justin Trudeau camp - share the NDP's hubris. They believe themselves so obviously superior to the Conservatives that of course Canadians will vote for them. This view is especially prevalent in safe Liberal seats, like the one held by Justin.

Other Liberals - call them the knives in waiting camp - cannot believe that Ignatief has turned out to be such a hopeless leader. He's even worse than What's-his-name, the last Liberal leader whose main election policy was to raise the price of gasoline.

For the knives in waiting camp, the sooner they get this election over with, the sooner they can stab Iggy in the back and install a new leader. Only problem is there's no leader in waiting.

Bob Rae? Personally I think he's a nice guy and principled, but get real. He's an ex-NDP premier who masterminded the largest provincial debt in history.

So how abot about Trudeau? Sure he's callow and shallow, but his dad was famous. What more do you want?

...

Photo: A slice of recent history - Jack Layton plotting a coalition government with Gilles Duceppe.

Follow up with the Toronto Board re The Shepherd's Granddaughter

2011-02-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Spence,

Four brief points following up on The Shepherd’s Granddaughter’s controversy and the steps the Toronto District School Board pledged or proposed to take in response:

1. Lloyd McKell, Executive Officer, Student and Community Equity, wrote that the TDSB would:
“implement a co-ordinated preview process for the Forest of Reading program, at the earliest possible point in the promotion process, in order to identify any concerns about individual books recommended by the OLA as part of the Forest of Reading program.”

The Committee struck to consider The Shepherd’s Granddaughter also recommended that in future the TDSB examine books in the Forest of Reading program before the schools start recommending them to children. Has the Board carried through? Schools across Toronto are promoting the new Forest of Reading books for 2011. Should our schools be endorsing these books? Has the Board checked them?

2. The Committee struck to consider The Shepherd’s Granddaughter recommended that when books are identified as controversial, students should be encouraged to apply their critical skills. On the evidence, this is an inadequate response. I first became deeply concerned about The Shepherd’s Granddaughter after reading a young person’s comment on Good Reads that: “Reading this book made me want to go to Palestine and kill Israelis” (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/86201250).

To assess how our students have reacted to The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, we can go to RedMaple OnLine, a site maintained by the Ontario Library Association where Ontario students reading books in the Red Maple program make comments.

Of the 18 comments on The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, only one student, book_freak1011, noticed the possibility of bias. I think we can assume this student was already aware of the Israeli-Palestinian issue beforehand and, from the vehemence of his/her response, perhaps felt the book as an assault.

The other students all accepted the book as a factual depiction of the supposed cruelty suffered by Palestinians, expressing no awareness of the possibility of bias or misrepresentation. See the student remarks below:

Taylorgirl
Dec 20, 2010
BORING! But I guess they want us to kno how bad the Jwsh are.

McDj27
Apr 22, 2010
looked at it didnt read but want too

Ecogirl101
Apr 20, 2010
This book was ok, but I found it too sad. I liked how it was about real life, though, because it can help people understand what's happening in the real world.

robin15
Apr 06, 2010
This book was an amazing book! it brought tears into my eyes to see how human biengs like us are bieng treated like this in palestin! This book got me thinking, that we take soooo many things for granted. But in this book, it opened a new point of view for me.

1knigh
Mar 26, 2010
I think that the sheperds granddaughter is a great book for beginner readers. This book is really interesting when the girl that wants to be a sheperd but her uncle and her father thinks that it is to risky and she might get shoot by the settlers and the armys trying to build the highway on top of the property.

Silvy
Mar 25, 2010
A very gripping story.
I'm glad the piano got saved :)
On April 22, it's either this one, or submarine outlaw!

zezedaoui
Mar 25, 2010
The Shepherd's Grand-daghter is a pretty good story. I thought it was sad. And i cannot believe that events like that happen today aswell. I really recommend this to people , and i think everyone would really enjoy this book.

darkdaughter2
Mar 24, 2010
boring

bhaloon
Mar 23, 2010
This book was pretty good and eye-opening for me, but I found it kind of boring.

patmunroe
Mar 23, 2010
The Shepherd's Granddaughter is a story of faith and fearlessness in times of trial. It's about a young girl who follows her dreams and brings with them the true meaning of friendship and family. Her story is very sad, but her strength is admirable.

spookum
Mar 11, 2010
I think it was so sad but very realistic for those living in Palestine.The relationship between Amani and Johnathon was very lifelike and is amazing for the language barrier between the two.

Nixknox
Mar 10, 2010
A very lifelike and realistic book. You could believe it was true, and the read wasn't bad.

GlobalGenius
Mar 05, 2010
didn't really like this book much, it had a slow writing style and took me a week to read (I can read the Harry Potter series in one day, so that means I was morer then a bit bored by it. This was the #10 book in all the Red Maple books, i honestly think they should've switched this book with Vanishing Girl, by Shane Peacock, he's an awesome Canadian author. One of the few parts I found entertaining in this book was when the house collapsed, but the piano was unharmed. Overall I wasn't a big fan of this book, but I did read it all the same.

Aberacadabera
Mar 04, 2010
This is a saddening book, but really opens the eyes of the reader.

peacebellreads
Mar 04, 2010
this book was really sad. i cant beleive this is still happening today. it really opened my eyes i definitely recommend it

Hermione905
Mar 03, 2010
Report This
not a great book it was just boring

book_freak1011
Mar 03, 2010
This book was very horendous, it was boring and i don't agree with the author!

beloved12
Mar 02, 2010
this book was good, really good and although it was sad it had a ----- ------

(see: http://maple.bibliocommons.com/item/comments/655260007_the_shepherds_granddaughter)

3. Mr. McKell argued that: “The Shepherd's Granddaughter contains several themes for creative discussions in our classrooms.” However, he also directed “that guidance from the teachers and teacher librarians is important in producing the desired outcomes.”

Has the Board followed up to ensure that The Shepherd’s Granddaughter is off library shelves throughout the TDSB and accessible to students only to read with guidance?

4. Board policy on dealing with controversial material requires that:
“information, as well as opinions, gathered from a variety of different sources, must be brought to bear on the topics in question.”

Do Toronto schools typically have materials on Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict to provide student with information and opinions from a variety of sources, as required by Board policy? Especially do the libraries contain material favourable to Israel that might act as a corrective to the biased account provided in The Shepherd’s Granddaughter?

When will the Board follow up to ensure that, if students are exposed to The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, they will also have access to material that counters its partisan and bigoted stance?

Thank you very much for your continuing attention and professionalism in regard to this important issue.

Yours truly...

Update: Chris Spence has replied and assured me that the Board did vet the 2011 Forest of Reading books before schools began encouraging children to read them and that this will be the policy henceforth. Of course no real movement on getting better books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into schools.

Israel and the Lizard Men of Mars

2011-01-17T13:36:00.000-08:00

I recently came across a new on-line newspaper – The Canadian, a truly weird rag that mixes UFO enthusiasm with far left politics and tips on improving your sex life.

The paper includes stories such as “Was the Star of Bethlehem a UFO?” and “Star Trek Linked to New World Order,” and a piece from the Iranian regime’s Press TV complaining that U.S. soldiers aren’t nice to Taliban fighters.

Plus – and this caught my attention – an article by Murray Dobbin, one of Canada’s more important far left ideologues.

Dobbin is a research fellow and board member of the left wing think tank, the Centre for Policy Alternatives, and he writes a biweekly column for The Tyee and for Rabble – a far left website published by Kim Elliot, spouse of New Democratic Party deputy leader Libby Davies.

Davies herself is a leader of the NDP’s anti-Israel faction, which includes about 90% of NDP activists.

In his article in The Canadian (originally published as one of his regular columns for Rabble and The Tyee), Dobbin expresses his outrage over the conference on combating antisemitism held in Ottawa in November.

At the conference, Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a great speech pledging to combat antisemitism and to support Israel. In an impressive show of unity, Canada’s governor general, the speakers of both the Senate and the House of Commons, and Michael Ignatieff, leader of the official opposition, all attended as well.

Dobbin calls this “repugnant.”

Worst of all, from Dobbin’s perspective, Thomas Mulcair, an MP from Dobbin’s own New Democratic Party, was at the conference. Within the NDP, Mulcair is a leading light in the sanity faction, which understands that Israel is a normal country, a liberal democracy like Canada that's doing its best in the face of 60 years of unrelenting Arab hostility and terrorism.

Naturally, Dobbin despises Mulcair. But what really pisses him off is that Mulcair didn’t go to the conference on his own. Says Dobbin: “Jack Layton [leader of the New Democrats] actually sent Mulcair to the event to represent the NDP.”

Dobbin says this conference to combat antisemitism left him left him “feeling physically ill.”

However, Dobbin will tell you he’s not an antisemite. He opposes the Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism because, he claims, they want to make it illegal to criticize Israel.

In fact, the parliamentarians in the antisemitism coalition have never said any such thing. You can read exactly what they've called for here. Only Dobbin and a small coterie of like-minded paranoids have detected any threat to our free speech.

Everyone else – from the Queen’s representative in Canada to the leader of the NDP – is as blind to the danger as they are to the peril posed by the lizard men of Mars.

Dobbin also claims the parliamentary coalition wants to define “criticism of Israel” as antisemitism. Nonsense. In Israel itself, the opposition parties criticize Israel’s policies every day. It’s their job. And I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with good Zionists that begin with someone saying, “What the hell is Israel's government up to?”

But such criticisms are about particular actions or policies. In the language of the far left, “criticism of Israel” is code for something like “criticism of Israel’s existence,” and the parliamentary coalition does think such “criticism” is often antisemitic.

For example, when the president of Iran promises to “wipe Israel off the map,” rational people see Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s promise to murder the six million Jews of Israel as antisemitism, not merely as “criticism of Israel.”

Such “criticism” also takes milder forms. Dobbin, for example, calls Israel an apartheid state.

This charge only shows that Dobbin can’t be taken seriously. Israeli Arabs have full equality before the law, vote in elections, govern the country as members of Israel’s parliament, and interpret Israel’s laws as judges – all the way up to Israel’s Supreme Court. Moreover, the idea that in Israel there could be drinking fountains for Jews only – as there were for whites only in South Africa – would be laughable if it weren’t obscene.

Everyone knows this charge of Israeli apartheid is mere slander. But this slander provides a rationale for wiping Israel off the map.

Other “criticisms of Israel” simply update antisemitic lies. For example, when a pseudo-journalist accuses Israel of murdering Palestinians to harvest their organs, rational people don’t see this as “criticism of Israel.”

They recognize the accusation as a new version of the ancient blood libel in which Jews were accused of harvesting Christian children for ritual purposes.

Similarly, Dobbin claims that because they endorsed the antisemitism conference in Ottawa the “individuals holding the most prestigious offices in our national government” showed that they’re “effectively, agents of a foreign power.”

Rational people have a hard time picturing the Governor General and the leaders of the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP as Israeli agents. It makes more sense to see Dobbin’s paranoid vision as an updated version of the antisemitic myth of Jews secretly controlling the world.

It’s a pity The Canadian has allied itself with the far left. Traditionally, UFO enthusiasts have been mostly harmless. They’ve taken a real step down in the world by associating with the likes of Murray Dobbin.

But who knows? Maybe the UFO people will have a mellowing influence, and next we’ll see Dobbin penning a more thoughtful piece, perhaps about the lizard men of Mars.

Who's Silencing Whom?

2011-01-14T08:18:00.000-08:00

Professor David Noble of York University died recently. I wrote a piece for the Engage website about Noble back in 2006 concerning a pamphlet he distributed accusing members of York U's fundraising foundation of being an evil influence because of their connections to various Jewish community organizations - in effect damning them solely because they were Jewish...

Toronto. Dec 6, 2006. I won’t say anything about History Professor David Noble of York University in Toronto; I can’t afford to. However, the Toronto Star (22 Nov 2006) reports that Noble "is suing York University's fundraising foundation and several Jewish organizations for defamation, claiming they suggested he is anti-Semitic".

Noble’s suit is for $25 million. This is in addition to his original "union grievance seeking an apology and $10 million in damages for defamation".

It began in 2004 when Noble distributed a flyer titled, "The York University Foundation: The tail that wags the dog".

According to the Star, "members of Hillel of Greater Toronto sent a fax to the university expressing concern that the flyer suggested 'Jews control York University' … [And] The university later issued a news release condemning what [York University President] Marsden called 'this highly offensive material, which singles out certain members of the York community on the basis of their ethnicity and political views.'"

According to the Star, Noble says that he only "criticized York figures for their political views on Israel, not their ethnicity or religion".

Specifically, Noble claims in his flyer that the York University's fund-raising foundation "is biased by the presence and influence of staunch pro-Israel lobbyists, activists, and fundraising agencies".

Among others, Noble names:
MARSHALL A. COHEN, chair of Board of Governors, YU [York University], former Molson [Brewery] CEO, former director, MSHF [Mount Sinai Hospital Federation], Cassels Brock law firm

JUDITH COHEN, chair of YU Fiftieth Anniversary Committee, wife of Marshall.

Does Professor Noble consider Molson’s Brewery a political affiliation? Or was it Marshall’s fund-raising for Mount Sinai Hospital that prompted Noble to add the Cohens to his pro-Israel list? Who knows.

Professor Noble outs additional members of the York University Foundation as being affiliated with other Jewish organizations, such as the United Jewish Appeal – or if not connected to the UJA themselves, for having a brother who is. For example:

H. BARRY GALES, director, MSHF [Mount Sinai Hospital Foundation]; Midland Group, business partner and brother (?) of Leslie Gales, chair of the board, UJA.

The UJA spends most of its money on Jewish education and other local community services, but it does put a fraction of its budget toward pro-Israel lobbying and sends a whack of money to Israel for university scholarships, development of the Negev, settlement of recent immigrants, etc.

So perhaps we should indeed suspect anyone involved with the UJA of supporting Israel’s existence. Indeed, some of these people could be Likudniks – no one knows what their politics are!

Here's my question: Should people with such political views be allowed to raise money for a university? For that matter, should they be allowed to raise money for hospitals? Or to donate money?

This is a serious issue, because it's not just Jewish hospitals. Peter Munk recently gave $37 million to Toronto General. The Kimel brothers donated $15 million to the Baycrest Geriatric Care Centre. Leslie Dan gave $13 million to the University of Toronto's school of pharmacy. Seymour Schulich donated $27 million to York University's school of business and $20 million to McGill's faculty of music. And the list goes on.

I haven’t conducted the sort of research Professor Noble has, so I don't know if these philanthropists have also donated to Mount Sinai or to the UJA or if maybe their brother did. But these philanthropists are Jewish, and on that basis, I believe we should suspect them of supporting Israel's existence.

So what's to be done?

Professor Noble appears to believe ... [Disclaimer: I'm not asserting this as fact, only as my understanding. Readers should look up Noble's actual words] ... but, as I was saying, Noble seems to think that people who countenance Israel shouldn't be part of York University's fundraising foundation.

Noble writes: "The York University Foundation (YUF), which was established in 2002, is the tail that wags the dog that is York University". And: "The recent decisions by the YU President and Board of Governors to discipline pro-Palestinian activists ... and otherwise to clamp down on campus protests, appear to reflect the strongly pro-Israel orientation of the YUF".

I think it's safe to say that not everyone agrees with Noble. Some people doubt that the fund-raising foundation tells the university what to do about student politics, and Noble doesn't seem to offer any evidence for his suggestions. Nor does Noble explain if members of the foundation who haven't been fund-raisers for a Jewish hospital go along with this supposed pro-Israel influence. But, who knows, the lobbyists may have covered up these details.

After all the lobbyists squash all contrary voices, don't they?

According to the Star, Noble is "claiming they [York University Foundation, Hillel, et al] suggested he is anti-Semitic to try to gag [his] criticism of their activities".

Noble also goes on about the pro-Israel influence on student elections (an Israel-hating clique got voted out of power) and the pro-Israel influence on the building of a football stadium on campus (I’m not joking). However, although I'm sure Professor Noble would never dream of trying to gag his critics, I can't afford to go into all of that, lest I say something he finds objectionable.

Palestinian Christians revoke 6th commandment

2010-11-24T20:18:00.000-08:00

February 2010. Toronto. Just before Christmas, a ecumenical gathering of Palestinian Christians met in Bethlehem to launch the Kairos Palestine Document, which urges a boycott of Israel.

As option B, the document also approves “armed resistance” as carried out by “some political parties,” clearly meaning Hamas and other terrorist groups. However, the document rejects the charge of terrorism, labelling armed attacks on Israelis as “legal resistance.”

Such “resistance” has included a daily rain of rockets on the men, women and children of Sderot. It includes suicide bombings aboard buses and blowing up teenagers at a discotheque. It includes the assassination of parents and children in a pizza parlour and the mass murder of elderly Jews at a Passover Seder.

The gathering in Bethlehem took place under the auspices of the World Council of Churches, with representatives of Anglican and liberal Protestant churches attending from around the world. The United Church of Canada was there too, represented by Bruce Gregerson.

Anti-Israel activists are claiming the Kairos Document is a unified call for a boycott from the leaders of the Palestinian churches. But this is just the boycotters’ usual misrepresentation.

The leaders of the Jerusalem churches wrote a non-committal response to the Kairos Document, stating “We hear the cry of our children.” While their failure to condemn the document shows their moral bankruptcy, the church leaders have not sunk so low as to actively endorse mass murder.

The signatories do include two impressive sounding names: Michel Sabbah the former Patriarchate of the Catholic Church in Jerusalem and Archbishop Theodosios Atallah Hanna of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. But these loose cannons represent only themselves.

I asked the Reverend Gregerson why the United Church of Canada attended this gathering. He was quick to point out that the UCC hasn’t actually signed the Kairos Document. He assured me the Church doesn’t support terrorism and said he went to show solidarity with the Palestinians.

When I asked about the document’s endorsement of terrorism as “legal resistance,” it appeared Gregerson hadn’t noticed this before and said he couldn’t comment on it.

He added that he thought the Palestinians were clear about the need for non-violence and said he “felt strongly that the document was built on principles of Christian love.”

To be sure, the Palestinian Christian approach to attacking Israel improves on the Islamist approach. The Christians don’t talk of Jews as the descendents of apes and pigs. Rather, we’re told the occupation: “distorts the image of God in the Israeli,” while descriptions of Israeli “evil” and “sin” salt the document.

There are also some choice Biblical quotes. One compares the Palestinians to the early Christians martyred for their faith, claiming: “For Your sake we are being killed all day long,” thus suggesting that, like the Romans, Israel persecutes and murders Christians.

In contrast to Islamists who proclaim their love of death, the churches speak of “a culture of life.” They even speak of “love and mutual respect.” But in a document that approves mass murder, such words ooze hypocrisy.

Otherwise, the document follows standard Palestinian propaganda.It denounces Israel’s “cruel war against Gaza,” with no mention of the eight years of Palestinian bombardment of Israeli civilians that prompted it.

The document denounces the “separation wall” with no mention of the suicide bombers it’s designed to keep out. It bemoans the thousands of “prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons” with no mention of the crimes they’re imprisoned for.

It calls the occupation a “sin,” ignoring that Israel occupied the West Bank in a defensive war against an Arab alliance determined to push the Jews into the sea.

And of course, the document ignores that Israel has repeatedly offered peace deals giving the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem to the Palestinians, but that President Abbas and Arafat before him will not take yes for an answer.

I’d like to report that in Bethlehem the Reverend Gregerson reminded his fellow Christians that thou shalt not murder, even if the victims are Jews. But actually he spoke on the supposed risk that churches might be called antisemitic when they merely attempt “to be critical of Israel’s policies.”

In our interview, though, Gregerson agreed that anti-Israel activism is indeed sometimes antisemitic. He draws the line at where criticism crosses into attempts to undermine Israel’s right to exist.

Moreover, Gregerson said antisemitism has been a problem within the United Church. He specifically referred to the “very troublesome” background material to the anti-Israel boycott motions presented (and rejected) at the church’s 2009 national conference.

The material included accusations of bribery and the suggestion that some Members of Parliament are “affiliated with Israel” and shouldn’t be trusted with sensitive government portfolios.

This was not the only time boycott supporters within the Church have made "troublesome" remarks. During a trip to An-Najah University in Nablus in 2006, Karin Brothers reportedly suggested that the “Jewish community” controls media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

According to the report published by An-Nujah University, Brothers also claimed that the Jewish community oversees Canadian politicians, stating: “Any politician would be targeted if he turned his back to Israel and would lose his job.”

Miriam Spies, another boycott supporter, wrote an article in the September 2009 United Church Observer which claimed that, at a checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, Israeli soldiers arbitrarily shoot and kill Palestinians. Her Palestinian guide explained that it just “depended on the mood of the soldiers.”

Accusations of Jews controlling politicians and the media have a long and dishonourable history, while the charge that Israelis murder Palestinians on a whim or for sport looks like nothing but a new version of the ancient blood libel.

I asked Gregerson if anti-Israel boycotts are themselves antisemitic. “I’m not prepared to answer that,” he replied. “I’m an officer of the church, and the Church hasn’t yet answered that question.” He added, though, that one “consideration in rejecting the boycott motions” was that the Church “didn’t want to undermine the existence of Israel.”

That’s good to hear. In the meanwhile, though, on terrorism, the United Church wants to have its cake and eat it too – to reject terrorism while standing in solidarity with Palestinians who endorse it.

Update as of January 2011, the United Church still continues to actively promote the Kairos Palestine Document, with its endorsement of terrorism and all.

This article previously appeared in the Feb 16, 2010 Faculty Forum, an electronic newsletter produced by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and on the Harry's Place blog in Britain.

Being a Nazi is no longer cool

2010-11-24T20:11:00.000-08:00

January, 2010. I confess I’m still shocked when I see a university professor spitting out Israel-hatred. You’d think I would have learned that education doesn’t guard against fanaticism.

After all, this isn’t new. The people driving the new antisemitism are the same people who have driven it in the past.

They’re an elitist group who see themselves as more politically advanced than most people, more “progressive.” As such, they think it’s their job to define our political morality.

The new antisemites call themselves leftists. But when it comes to Israel, they happily team up with the right. There is, for example, nothing leftwing about Hamas or Hezbollah.

Yet in a conflict between a liberal democracy and these fascistic terrorist groups, the far left identifies with the fascists. Why? Because their movement isn’t about what they’re for; it’s about who they’re against.

Two heroes of the new antisemites are John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of The Israel Lobby. They describe Israel as a shitty little country with no oil and claim the U.S. supports Israel only because a Zionist lobby controls America’s Middle East policy.

Mearsheimer and Walt call themselves foreign policy realists, in the same school as Kissinger and Nixon. They wouldn’t dream of describing themselves as “on the left.”

Indeed, David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan, pointed out that he’s been saying the same thing as Mearsheimer and Walt all along!

There’s nothing leftwing or rightwing about Israel-hatred. In our time, it’s emerged on the left because of historical accidents.

Back in the 1930s, being a Nazi was cool. They looked at themselves as a progressive movement that was going to wipe away Jew contamination and create a glorious 1,000-year Reich.

As everyone knows, the Nazis enlisted street thugs. But the Nazis also appealed to German intellectuals. At the Wannsee conference, called to discuss the logistics of murdering the Jewish population of Europe, eight of the fourteen participants held doctorate degrees.

Indeed, the Nazis took over the universities more easily than they took the streets. Martin Heidegger, rector of Freiberg University and the foremost German philosopher of his time declared: “The Fuhrer alone is the present and future German reality and its law.”

Some people argue that Heidegger’s Nazism merely reflected his ignorance of reality. But in that case, why did Heidegger attach his enthusiasm to the Nazis?

If it wasn’t because he understood the Nazis, then it was because it was the in thing. All the coolest professors were sporting swastikas in their lapels, and students were wearing their brown shirts to class to show their love of fascism, much as students today wear the Palestinian kefiyeh.

It’s no longer cool to be a Nazi. It’s difficult to even imagine a time when it was. That’s why David Duke gets no respect. But his ideas of a Zionist conspiracy aren’t out of fashion – they’ve just migrated to the other side of the political spectrum.

The other bits of history that put the new antisemitism on the Left are its roots in Soviet antisemitism and in the radical politics of the 60s and 70s.

What’s new about antisemitism is the focus on Israel, and the depiction of Israel as uniquely evil – a colonial project and a racist entity – and the claim that the Jews have become Nazis.

These slanders were the handiwork of Soviet propagandists, who spread them through Europe and the third world.

More than anything, though, our Israel-haters are the bastard children of the radicals of the 60s and 70s. But on top of the old quasi-left, anti-war, anti-American ethos, our new extremists have added a layer of antisemitism.

In an earlier age, they might have adopted the anti-clerical and antisemitic politics of Voltaire. Before that, the religious and antisemitic politics of Martin Luther. Before that, the Catholic and antisemitic politics of the Inquisition.

Antisemitism, it seems, has a special attraction for those who believe they’re entitled to define the political morality of their age.

This makes it different from other forms of bigotry. Racists hate blacks, but they don’t define them as the enemy of mankind. However, that’s exactly how antisemites define Jews.

They create a fantasy of good and evil. They modestly cast themselves in the role of upholding everything that is progressive and holy, and they portray Jews as representing all that is unenlightened and evil. And they try to impose their beliefs on society.

This conflict is again playing itself out. The new antisemites define Israel – and those who support it – as representing the worst political evils: imperialism, racism, apartheid and Nazism. And they’re trying to inflict their twisted vision on the rest of us.

So far, they’re failing. But they can’t be ignored. History shows that whole societies can come to embrace even the most extreme beliefs.

Brian Henry is a Toronto writer and editor and a refugee from the NDP – Canada’s social democratic party. This article previously appeared in the January 14, 2010, Jewish Tribune, a community paper published weekly by B’nai Brith Canada and on Harry's Place blog in Britain.

Israeli settlements, a history

2010-11-12T06:42:00.000-08:00

Unless you're a student of Israeli history, you probably know almost nothing about the Israeli settlements in Gaza (now all gone) and in the West Bank. Michael Weiss, the Director of Just Journalism, has written an article for Foreign Policy magazine on why the exclusive international focus on West Bank settlements is the wrong way forward for a two-state solution. Along the way, he provides a brief history of how the settlements came to be and how they're currently viewed in Israel ....

The Settlement Fixation
Michael Weiss

Of all the problems bedeviling Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the status of Jewish settlements in the West Bank — thrown into the spotlight again this week by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the United States — has surely attracted the most attention. But that does not make it the most important or the most pressing issue.

Contrary to what many believe, Israelis are largely in agreement over the terms and circumstances under which they would compromise over the settlements — a consensus that is surely larger than that which exists in Palestinian society over how to reconcile the feuding Islamist and secular nationalist factions in Gaza and the West Bank. While Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has used settlements as an excuse to disrupt the latest round of peace talks, the open secret in today’s Middle East is that the issue is one of the least problematic obstacles to a final-status agreement.

The settlement project was originally conceived as a response to Israel’s national security concerns and was bolstered through an awkward marriage with the ambitions of Messianic Judaism. But as Israeli realpolitik and demographic calculations have turned against the settlers, the settlements have been emptied of their original ideological justifications and reduced to the status of a mere bargaining chip by even the country’s most hawkish leaders.

The first settlements were built following Israel’s capture of Gaza and the West Bank after the 1967 Six-Day War, but expansionism did not begin in earnest until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Although Israel prevailed in 1973, Israelis believed the war could easily have gone the other way. The Israeli security establishment reckoned that possessing the military buffer zone of the Israeli-occupied territories made the critical difference between victory and defeat. Territorial depth provided the Israel Defense Forces with the room to maneuver and time to recover from the surprise attack by Egypt and Syria. Jordan stayed out of the war, but Israelis worried that it would not have been so restrained if the Hashemite Kingdom still controlled the West Bank and was thus capable of launching an invasion from next door.

Shortly after the Six-Day War, Israel mooted a program for geographical deterrence which, in the wake of a far less confident victory in 1973, now seemed all the more compelling. Conceived by Yigal Allon, then the deputy prime minister, it suggested a plan for the strategic settlement of the West Bank. Although never formally adopted, the Allon Plan attained the level of de facto policy as it was fitfully implemented by successive left-wing Labor governments.

The mountainous rift above the Jordan River was to constitute the best bulwark against Arab invasion. A strip of 12 to 15 kilometers along the west bank of the river would therefore be annexed by Israel, and Israeli towns overlooking the predominantly Arab cities in the West Bank such as Jericho and Hebron would be developed.

The security motive for the Allon Plan was obvious, but there was also a second aspect of the plan’s logic that was equally important: to prevent Israel from permanently acquiring any part of the West Bank that was home to large Arab populations. Allon envisioned that the land falling outside the 12-to-15-kilometer fortified strip would be governed by some form of Arab “autonomy.” As Irish academic and politician Conor Cruise O’Brien observed in The Siege, his magisterial history of Zionism and the early decades of the state of Israel:

In those parts of it which were implemented, the Allon Plan was a document of annexationist tendency. But the questions it raised, or expressed, over the future of the densely populated Arab areas did have the effect, during most of the period between 1967 and 1977, of closing these areas to Jewish settlement. [Italics in the original.]

The goal, then, of the initial settlement project was minimal rather than maximal. The Israeli political class sought to forestall what veteran Israeli diplomat Abba Eban termed “superfluous domination” of Arab land.

However, the escalation of Palestinian terrorist attacks soon provoked an equally hard-edged Israeli response, which gave the settlement project a more ideological underpinning. In May 1974, Arab fedayeen kidnapped 90 schoolchildren and teachers in the northern Israeli town of Ma’alot. The Israeli rescue operation was a calamity, resulting in the deaths of more than 20 children. In October of that year, the Arab League summit held in Rabat, Morocco, formally recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization, which included the faction responsible for the Ma’alot attack, as the “sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinian people. A month later, PLO head Yasir Arafat, by then the public face of Arab terrorism, addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York and received a standing ovation.

Not by coincidence, 1974 was also the year that Gush Emunim — “Bloc of the Faithful” — was founded by young Israeli activists from the National Religious Party. The movement, which was dedicated to the expansion of Israeli settlements, preached that the Jewish nation and its land were holy and given to the Jews by God. Gush Emunim’s official policy with respect to the occupied territories was hitnahalut, which literally means “colonization” and, in practice, meant squatting on Arab territory regardless of state policy. By 1976, then Defense Minister Shimon Peres allowed Gush Emunim to “colonize” the Palestinian village of Sebastia, near Nablus. It was fast becoming clear that the interests of Messianic Judaism and Israeli security had merged.

The first and second intifadas — Palestinian uprisings — only reinforced this precarious dynamic. But following the 1991 Madrid peace conference, the settlements also acquired a role as a bargaining chip in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Israel accepts a “land for peace” arrangement premised on territorial concessions, while continuing to suggest that Jewish real estate in the West Bank knows no limits. It’s a paradox with a point, as historian Walter Russell Mead recently noted: “Without the threat of more settlements, it’s not clear what the incentives are for the Palestinians to accept a territorial compromise based on the 1967 frontiers.” Fueled by this logic, the settlement population has tripled since the Madrid conference.

But the continued growth of the settlements and the international attention directed toward them obscures the fact that their original rationale has eroded. The prospect of Israel fighting a conventional war against another Arab army is outmoded, as both its recent conflicts with Hezbollah and Hamas attest. Terrorists, unlike tanks, are not deterred from crossing over rocky terrain. Moreover, the security wall that now physically separates much of Israel from the West Bank acts as its own buffer and has so far managed to radically reduce the number of suicide bombings in cities such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Furthermore, the West Bank has largely been pacified since the Second Intifada due to the savvy partnership between Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s security establishment, the training of a professional Palestinian gendarmerie by the United States, and the internal policing methods of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

In Israel, settlements have also lost popular support. The 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir, a Messianic rejectionist of the Oslo Accords, marked the beginning of the erosion of the settler movement’s credibility. As recently as this March, a poll conducted by the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found that 60 percent of Israelis support “dismantling most of the settlements in the territories as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians.”

In 2005, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, judging that an indefinite occupation was destructive to Israel’s long-term national interests, withdrew all settlements from Gaza. By Sharon’s reckoning, Israel stood to become an Arab-majority state if its expansionist project in the occupied territories reached a level of de facto annexation. He feared that this would allow Arab inhabitants to vote away Israel’s identity as a Jewish homeland, or force Israel to deny this population equal democratic rights and to establish a system of apartheid.

Netanyahu epitomizes the Israeli establishment’s embrace of this hardheaded logic and the marginalization of Messianic Judaism in its mainstream political discourse. In his 2009 address at Bar-Ilan University, the current prime minister acknowledged the legitimacy of a Palestinian state. Although the speech was criticized as being insufficient by Netanyahu’s leftist critics, it in fact ended the Likud party dream of a state of Israel lying between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River and encompassing all of Gaza and “Judea and Samaria” (the biblical terms for the West Bank).

This speech, which came just four years after Netanyahu quit his post as finance minister in Sharon’s cabinet to protest the Gaza withdrawal, certified a slow reorientation of Israeli politics away from a theological or security-based justification for the settlement enterprise. The prime minister’s latestoffer to extend the construction moratorium in exchange for the Palestinian recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” has been roundly criticized as a diplomatic non-starter while the larger point — that a conservative hawk sees the settlements as leverage and not a divine mandate — is just as predictably elided.

So where does that leave the die-hard settlers? Perhaps bidding for renewed political relevance, the movement has itself begun to flirt with democratic integration — except that its preferred model is the so-called “one-state solution,” which envisions the Jewish and Arab polities in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank merging into a single democratic state. This concept, however, is even more fraught with obstacles and the possibility of bloodshed than the two-state solution. Ethnic power-sharing would, at best, transform Israel into another Lebanon and invite the same wardrobe of calamity, including civil war and tribal assassinations.

If this is God’s will then so be it, argues Uri Elitzur, Netanyahu’s former chief of staff and a leading intellectual of the Israeli religious right. Elitzur recently endorsed the one-state solution in Nekuda, the settler movement’s official magazine. Reuven Rivlin, the speaker of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament,said this year that he “would rather [have] Palestinians as citizens of this country over dividing the land up.”

Wondrous though it undoubtedly is to imagine the religious Jewish right nodding in agreement with theNew York Review of Books, the settlers’ rethink on Greater Israel’s political boundaries also demonstrates their divorce from mainstream Israeli thought and practical reality. It is all the more reason to see their movement for what it is: marginalized politically and curtailed in scope.

That is not to say that the existing West Bank settlements are destined to fall from Israeli control. Land swaps have long been part of the tool kit of final-status negotiations; in late 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas undertook a hypothetical map-drawing exercise that delineated the border between the two states. The end result allowed for large settlement blocs to be incorporated into the Jewish state, while according land currently inside Israel to the new Palestinian state. Ma’ale Adumim, for instance, which was a sticking point in the international debate preceding the construction moratorium, is home to some 36,500 Israelis who aren’t likely to go anywhere, as most Palestinians acknowledge. Building new bathrooms or balconies there is hardly the fatal blow to peace that it has been made to appear.

Settlements should not be the top Mideast priority for the Obama administration. More critical issues will have to be resolved first, such as reconciling feuding Palestinian political factions, guaranteeing that security can be maintained in the West Bank without an IDF presence, and ensuring that Palestinian institutions now being built are stable enough to sustain a functioning democratic government, regardless of which party is elected. The settlement fixation is a convenient distraction from these obstacles, which have no easy remedy and continue to block the way to a two-state solution.

*

Michael Weiss is the executive director of Just Journalism, a think tank based in London, England, that monitors how the British media cover Israel and the Middle East. This piece origianally appeared in Foreign Policy magazine, the most influential journal in the United Stated devoted to issues in American foreign policy.

2010-11-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

Rhonda Spivak has another excellent article in the Winnipeg Jewish Review ...

Canda's minister Peter Kent protested to PA Foreign Minister about PA incitement against Israel

Exclusive: Kent tells Al-Malki PA can't send double messages

By Rhonda Spivak, October 19, 2010

Thornhill MP Peter Kent, Canadian Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas), who was recently in Israel on an eight-day mission, says when he met with Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister al -Malki in Ramallah he raised the issue of official PA incitement and honouring of terrorists.

In a one on one interview when he was recently in Winnipeg on October 8, Kent told the Winnipeg Jewish Review he “made the point very strongly’ to Minister Al Malki that “Palestinian Authority official media continues to incite and encourage martyrdom and terrorism and deny the right of Israel to exist.”

Kent said “I made a protest to him [Foreign Minister al- Malki] about the naming of squares and streets in honour of martyrs ... more

A Peace Proposal

2010-10-30T03:26:00.001-07:00

The last time anything happened in the Israel-Palestinian peace talks was two years ago when then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians a comprehensive peace settlement.

Olmert’s offer included the West Bank and Gaza with a corridor connecting them, a chunk of Israeli territory in exchange for land occupied by Israeli settlements, international control over the holy sites in Jerusalem, and so forth – everything good-hearted people believe the Palestinians can possibly want.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas rejected the Israeli offer out of hand. And he made no counter offer.

Now the Israelis and Palestinians are negotiating about whether to resume negotiations. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (whom the media describes as a hard-liner) is all for talking peace, with no preconditions.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (whom the media calls a moderate) says he’ll concede to talk peace only if the Israelis will again freeze construction within Jewish neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem and settlements in the West Bank.

People pretend to take this demand seriously even though Abbas allowed the previous ten-month freeze to run out without agreeing to talk peace – though admittedly in the final month of the last freeze he sat down with the Israelis to try to extract a new freeze.

Netanyahu has countered with the offer that if the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, he’ll extend the hold-up on any new construction. This was a good move, as it gets close to the heart of the conflict.

Currently, the Palestinians recognize Israel in much the same way as they recognize the world. The difference is they’re okay with the world’s existence. As for Israel, they’re not willing to concede that the Jews have any right to their own state.

This is a problem, because as long as the Palestinians continue to declare Israel illegitimate, there won’t be peace. Even if the leaders eventually sign an agreement, peace won’t follow. “Idealistic” Palestinians will continue to strap on bombs and try to make things right by destroying the Zionist entity.

To no one’s surprise, the Palestinians rejected Netanyahu’s offer. Israel has long recognized the Palestinian’s right to a state, but the Palestinians will not reciprocate. To do so would undermine their identity, which is built largely of grievance.

There’s another reason Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Today, roughly 4 million children and grandchildren of the Palestinians displaced by the Arab wars against Israel live in the West Bank, Gaza and elsewhere in the Arab world.

The Palestinians insist that these descendents of the displaced should be settled in Israel, thereby transforming Israel into a Palestinian state – not a Jewish one. There is no chance Israel will ever agree to this, but nonetheless it remains a key reason the Palestinians keep rejecting Israel’s peace proposals.

I suggest Netanyahu offer another deal: Israel will extend the building moratorium if the Palestinians will agree to renounce terrorism.

In September, when the Palestinian Authority grudgingly negotiated with Israel for a couple weeks, Hamas tried to upset the talks by murdering four Israeli civilians. Abbas denounced the attack – but only as an ill-timed military operation.

If Abbas would like another building moratorium, let him denounce that attack as a crime – as terrorism, as murder.

In addition, let Abbas declare that PA will no longer honour terrorists – will no longer name schools, summer camps or soccer teams after murderers, as has been their custom. For example, 10 months ago, the PA named a public square in Ramallah in honour of Dalal Mughrabi.

Mughrabi was the leader of a terrorist squad that murdered an American photojournalist, then hijacked a bus, commandeered another, and went on a murderous rampage that left 37 Israeli civilians dead, 13 of them children.

The Palestinians have also named two high schools, two summer camps, a computer center, a soccer championship and a high school graduation ceremony in Mughrabi’s honour, all within the past two years.

Let Abbas declare – in Arabic, on PA television and in all their newspapers – that Mughrabi isn’t a hero but a murderer and that henceforth murderers are not to be honored. Perhaps the Palestinian Authority could rename the square in Ramallah, call it the Galit Ankwa Square, in honour of Mughrabi’s youngest victim, a little girl, two years old.

I’d love it if Abbas were to renounce terrorism in this way, because it would suggest he’s serious about peace. Unfortunately, there is no chance at all of Abbas calling terrorism and murder by their proper names.

But his refusal to do so – even in exchange for a settlement freeze – will at least show what the conflict is all about.

*

Photo: Mural at Deheishe refugee camp of Ayat al-Akhras, a suicide bomber who blew herself up at a Jerusalem supermarket, murdering two Israelis. Photo credit: Rhonda Spivak, Winnipeg Jewish Review.

I previously published this piece in the Oct 28, 2010, Jewish Tribune in Canada, on Harry's Place blog in Britain, and in the Nov 3, 2010 Winnipeg Jewish Review.

2010-10-03T07:57:00.000-07:00

In August, I published a piece in the National Post suggesting a referendum be held among the Arabs of east Jerusalem, asking if they preferred to remain part of Israel or if they wanted to be incorporated into a Palestinian state (see here).
My piece was picked up by the Daily Alert and went to the Alert’s many thousands of subscribers around the world.
Now Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, who regularly writes about Palestinian affairs for the Jerusalem Post, has also proposed a referendum ...

Ask the Arabs of east Jerusalem: Should Jerusalem be divided?
Khaled Abu Toameh

The future status of Jerusalem is back on the negotiating table between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and Israel. It is being described as one of the "core issues" in the US-sponsored direct talks that were launched in early September.

Both Israeli and Palestinian negotiators need to take into account that it's completely unrealistic to talk about restoring the pre-1967 situation where Jerusalem was divided into two cities.

The division was bad for Jews and Arabs back then and it will be worse if it happens once again.

Jerusalem is a very small city where Jews and Arabs live across the street from each other and on top of each other. Since 1967, Israel has built many new neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city, rendering it impossible to imagine a reality where Jerusalem would exist as a divided city.

Redividing Jerusalem will turn the lives of both Jews and Arabs into a nightmare, especially with regards to traffic arrangements. Every day, tens of thousands of Jews and Arabs commute between the two parts of the city freely.

Redividing Jerusalem will result in the establishment of checkpoints and border crossings inside many parts of the city. Jews and Arabs will find themselves confined to their homes and neighborhoods, which will be surrounded by security barriers and checkpoints.

In addition, the negotiators must concede the possibility of asking the Arab residents of the city about their preferences. There is no reason why more than 200,000 Arabs in Jerusalem should be denied the right to voice their opinion on a matter that has a direct affect on their lives and future.

This can be done through a referendum where the Arab residents would be asked if they would like to live in a divided city under the rule of the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. Most likely, a majority of the Arab residents would say that they prefer the status quo to the other options.

Most Arabs in the city prefer to live under Israeli rule for a number of reasons. First, because as holders of Israeli ID cards they are entitled to many rights and privileges that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip don't enjoy. They include freedom of movement and social, economic, health and education services that Israeli citizens are entitled to.

Redividing Jerusalem means bringing either the Palestinian Authority of Hamas into the city. The Arab residents of Jerusalem have seen what happened in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past 16 years and are not keen to live under a corrupt authority or a radical Islamist entity.

Over the past few years, many Arab residents of the city who used to live in the West Bank have abandoned their homes and returned to Jerusalem. They did so mainly out of fear of losing their rights and privileges as holders of Israeli ID cards.

But many of them also ran away from the West Bank because they did not want to live in territories controlled by militiamen, armed gangs and corrupt leaders and institutions. ... more

Director of Education supports The Shepherd's Granddaughter

2010-08-27T06:04:00.000-07:00

Chris Spence, the director of education for the Toronto School Board, has issued his decision in regard to the Shepherd’s Granddaughter. He’s decided to accept all nine recommendation of the committee looking into my compalint about the book. So he’s rejected my suggestion that The Shepherd’s Granddaughter be used as an example of the kind of book that should never get on a recommended reading list for kids in grade school.

Well, it would have been a surprise if he’d rejected the recommendations of the Board’s own committee and gone with my recommendation instead. Besides, the most important issue is that our schools have been promoting books recommended by the Ontario Library Association without anyone on the school board ever reading them and without the books ever being vetted by any teacher or school librarian.

The Board’s now realized that they can’t take it for granted that the Library Association will recommend wholesome books. In future, books recommended by the OLA will be vetted and school librarians will actually read them before giving them to any students.

Concerning The Shepherd's Granddaughter, the issue is that the TDSB was recommending a book of anti-Israeli propaganda to all kids in grades 7 and 8, a book that defames Israelis and Jews as child murderers.

After I complained, the Board decided that this book should be classed as a "controversial book." This meant that teachers were supposed to guide students before, during and after they read the book, and school libraries were supposed to make material available so that it would be possible for students to get other views on the conflict. However, it doesn’t appear that these policies were followed.

Again, no surprise. School librarians don’t have the time to guide students as they read a book, and it’s impossible to provide students with alternate, less biased material on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because for this age group, such resources don’t exist.

I then made a formal complaint about the book, arguing that The Shepherd's Granddaughter is a perfect example of the kind of book schools should not recommend to our children. That when the schools recommend a book about a contentious political issue, it should be an intelligent book that makes an attempt at even-handedness and that shows the humanity of people on both sides of the conflict.

The Board disagreed. The committee that looked at this book argued it's a good thing the book is biased, as this gives kids an opportunity to practice their critical skills. The director of education for the Board has now said he agrees with them.

And for the time being, that’s where the matter rests…

Happy in Israel by Fabian

2010-08-19T06:41:00.000-07:00

You know, the other day I was counting the things I have here, and yes I am very happy. Actually these are the best and happiest years of my life and I know it. Funny how - in spite of being a recent immigrant - I would answer yes, I am happy, like the rest of the Israelis.

The feeling of safety here compared to Argentina is one of the things you cannot value enough. No need to watch your back when entering your home at night, or when extracting money from an APM. No need to put your backpack on the front when you get on the bus.

Parks with games for children everywhere. And with grass even. The cranes everywhere, building more places to live and you know, you can feel, touch and see that your city is progressing and getting nicer every day (as opposed to Buenos Aires where you cannot see or touch or feel any of these things).

I haven’t been much to the beach this summer cause of the baby, but the beach, man! The beach 10 km away instead of 500! The mountains at the same distance, not 1000 km away! The children learning Hebrew, and every day a new aspect of Judaism I wasn’t aware of is mentioned by someone, a friend, a coworker, the TV, etc.

The forest I pass by on my way to work. And when you know that Jews planted and each and every tree you see, helped by the Jewish National Fund, man the forest is worth a hundred times more in your eyes.

And finally, the knowledge that you being here is a miracle after 2000 years of Exile. Can’t put a price on that - but of course you can rank it.

I heard that the Palestinian government in the West Bank is planting lots of trees nowadays. Good for them. I wish that will help them see more green instead of red.

This posting is re-blogged from Harry's Place. Fabian from Israel blogs here.

The happiest people in the world

2010-08-18T07:02:00.000-07:00

I originally published this piece in the National Post, Tuesday, Aug 17, 2010.

Canada and Israel have much in common. We're both big believers in democracy and in fairness, we're both highly diverse multicultural societies and both of us have dynamic economies.

But I was tickled to learn this summer that Canada and Israel have yet one more thing in common: We're tied for eighth place among the happiest people on Earth.

Some people might be surprised to find Israelis at the top of the happiness charts. After all, Gallup conducted this poll from 2005 to 2009, and during that time, Israel fought two wars.

On top of that, Israel is often protrayed as a monstrous, apartheid state. Surely Israeli Arabs must live in utter misery -- and since they make up 20% of the population, their despair ought to pop the happiness bubble, right? Apparently not. It seems Israeli Arabs are pretty happy, too.

Arab-Israeli soccer star Beram Kayal has an easy explanation for misconceptions about Israel. "People watch too much television," he recently told Scotland's Sunday Herald.

"What the television shows about Israel is totally different [from] what happens. The life between the Jews and the Arabs is very good. I'm an Arab and my agent is Jewish but we're like family ... Maccabi Haifa has seven or eight Arab players and that's normal. The only difference is their religion, but there's no conflict."

But what about all those wars in Israel? Shouldn't they make Israelis miserable? Not really.

The 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon lasted just 34 days. The operation in Gaza against Hamas, in 2008-2009, lasted just 22 days. In total, that's only eight weeks of war.

For the other 252 weeks in the last five years, Israelis spent their time pretty much like Canadians: working, raising their families and enjoying themselves. That's normal life in Israel, but what's normal isn't news, so we don't hear about it.

Besides, being at war doesn't necessarily make people unhappy. During the first hours of the Lebanese War, Israel destroyed all of Hezbollah's long-range missiles, making Israel's major cities safe for the duration.

Hezbollah did fire thousands of missiles into northern Israel, trying to kill as many Jews as possible. But Hezbollah's missiles caused few injuries, as a million Israelis simply

evacuated to the south, and those who stayed waited out the bombardment in bomb shelters.

Meanwhile, the country was absolutely behind the war. Overseas, people may have been confused over what the war was about, but Israelis all knew they'd been attacked without provocation, with missiles striking Israeli towns and an ambush on an Israeli patrol that left three soldiers dead and two more kidnapped.

Standing together in the face of aggression doesn't make people miserable; quite the contrary. It puts fire in the belly and the warmth of fellow feeling in the heart.

Similarly, while people overseas may have been confused by the media coverage, Israelis know that their operation against Hamas in Gaza was one of the most justified wars in history -- that it was an answer to naked terrorism after all other solutions had been tried and failed.

For years, Hamas had tormented the townsfolk of Sderot with daily rocket and mortar attacks that struck schools, homes and health clinics. The purpose of the war was to allow Sderot and other Israeli towns coming under terrorist attack to enjoy the same peace and happiness as the rest of Israel. And whole country supported the cause.

Israel isn't paradise of course -- except in comparison to most places in the world. For example, the Palestinian-controlled territories rank 96th on the happiness list. Which brings me to a modest proposal: Among other intractable issues, the status of Jerusalem is one of the major stumbling blocks to an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

Why not hold a referendum? Ask Jerusalem's Arabs if they want the continuing happiness of being part of a compassionate and caring liberal democracy or if they prefer the abject misery of living under the infinitely corrupt Palestinian Authority.

No one can seriously doubt the result of such a referendum. During the Camp David talks, it was proposed that, as part of a peace agreement, some Israeli Arab towns should be placed on the Palestinian side of the border.

So the Israeli Arab weekly Kul Al-Arab polled the Arabs of Um al Fahm to ask what they thought of their city joining a Palestinian State. Only 11% were in favour; 83% said they preferred to remain Israeli.

A referendum among Arab Jerusalemites would have a similarly lopsided result. And allowing Jerusalem's Arabs to tie themselves permanently to Israel of their own free choice would be an excellent way to begin a new stage in the relationship.

Final(?) arguments re The Shepherd's Granddaughter

2010-07-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

The Toronto School Board committee struck to consider The Shepherd's Granddaughter finally got around to issuing their report a few weeks ago. As expected, it was long, carefully worded and about as intelligent as one should expect from any report written by a committee of bureaucrats. The committee sent the report to me and to the Director of Eductaion, Chris Spence, for his final decision.

I sent a note the Chris Spence, as well...

Dear Mr. Spence,

I believe the committee struck to consider The Shepherd’s Granddaughter has gone astray; though with reservations, I support eight of their nine recommendations.

I do hope that, in future, school librarians spend scarce dollars on better books, but I am not concerned that the committee recommends The Shepherd’s Granddaughter simply be available. The book has a large cast of poorly developed characters whom the reader can’t keep track of, while the author is utterly humorless, incapable of irony and possessed of an earnestness that’s exceeded only by her ignorance. Few children will ever read the book without encouragement.

My complaint was never about whether The Shepherd’s Granddaughter should be available to students, but rather that the schools shouldn't have been recommending this book to students. Unfortunately, the committee simply ignored this objection.

If schools are going to promote a list of 10 books to all students in grades 7 and 8, the schools should ensure that the list of such highly recommend books are actually good. I would have thought it obvious that the standard must be higher than for a book that is merely available to students in the library.

If I were to amend the list of recommendations, I might simply amend recommendation #8 to read that in considering whether a book should be actively promoted to students (as in the Forest of Reading program, for example), The Shepherd’s Granddaughter should be taken as an example of a book that should be excluded, because:

- The book’s obvious bias throws into doubt its veracity. That is, in the absence of certainty about contested events, a book that is so obviously one-sided should be assumed to be both unfair and untruthful. Rather than being a good faith attempt to portray a complex situation, the book should be recognized as being mere propaganda.

- The book portrays people of a certain nationality (Israeli) as arbitrarily violent, as child murderers. The presence of a few exceptions to the norm who show they are good Jews by siding with the Palestinians does not mitigate the hateful depiction.

- The book defames a religion, depicting Jews as commanded by their God to steal and kill. It must be noted that this depiction is voiced by the novel’s main character and confirmed by the only developed Jewish character.

- The author clearly prefers non-violent “resistance” to the evil Israelis, but the book represents violence as a legitimate option. While there are many purely villainous Israelis in this book, the author depicts dear Uncle Hani – who champions suicide bombing and declares no Israeli is innocent – as a sympathetic character. The book also refers to friends of Omar who are engaged in violent “resistance” in an approving way.

The committee agrees the book is biased but underestimates the extent of that bias and overestimates the practical ability of teacher-librarians to deal with the problem. For example, I strongly concur with recommendation 7: “that school libraries provide students with access to a variety of resources which give them an understanding of the contexts of the controversial issues contained in their independent reading.”

This recommendation restates what’s already contained in the Board document on dealing with controversial material. But in fact, school libraries don’t have resources that might provide context and act as a corrective to the bigoted portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict contained in The Shepherd’s Granddaughter.

Nonetheless, after the Board designated this book as controversial, schools continued to promote it as part of the Forest of Reading program, even in the absence of corrective resources. Indeed, schools still continue to make the book available to students without providing resources that could place the book in context and act as a corrective to the book’s bias – contrary to Board policy.

When schools make controversial books available (never mind actively promoting them), resources that can provide balance and act as a corrective to bias must be in place first.

In dealing with The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, the Board was clearly at fault in that it’s failed to withdraw the book until corrective resources can be provided.

Of course, for that to happen such age-appropriate resources need to exist, and in regards to the Middle East, I don’t think they do.

Moreover, for all that we have many marvelous teachers in the Toronto Board, very few of them have any expertise in the Middle East, and while they might be able to support critical reading of The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, they’ll be unable to provide context and will be just as clueless as the students as to which parts might be true or half-true and which parts are wholly false.

The committee acknowledges "that the novel portrays the Palestinians in a sympathetic light as compared to the Israelis depicted in the novel." But to pretend that Israelis are merely portrayed less sympathetically is a gross understatement, a whitewash. The Israelis are depicted as villains, as continually and mindlessly violent, as child-murderers.

The committee engages in special pleading on behalf of the book. They claim the book can be defined as "oppositional reading"; that is, as a work that encourages readers to see events from a viewpoint in opposition to the preferred, mainstream or dominant perspective. The committee evidently means to suggest that Canadians don't usually get a Palestinian perspective; rather that they usually get a perspective sympathetic to the Israeli point of view. This is wrong in three ways:

First, it's simply untrue. In general Canadian media give the Palestinian narrative at least as much weight as the Israeli view.

Second, it's out of touch with the reality of children in grades 7 and 8. The overwhelming majority of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds aren’t familiar with some dominant perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; they've had almost no exposure to the issue at all. For nearly all of them The Shepherd's Granddaughter will have been their first substantial exposure to the issue and for most will be their last substantial exposure, as well. As such, this book, which the committee agrees is biased, will likely form the students’ perspective.

Third, The Shepherd's Granddaughter does not give a Palestinian perspective. It shows the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as appropriated by a Canadian anti-Israel activist; and there's no reason to suppose that its depiction of Palestinians is any more authentic than its depiction of Israelis. If "oppositional reading" simply means propaganda, if it means the book shows an off the wall perspective not taken seriously by anyone outside the Libby Davies wing of the NDP, then this is indeed "oppositional reading," and as such certainly should never be recommended to students.

The committee claims a good feature of the book is that it represents characters from different religions. But in regards to Jews, the committee is confusing representation and defamation. In The Shepherd’s Granddaughter the main character “represents” Jews as having a God who commands them to steal and kill and the only significant Jewish character confirms this defamation as being true.

The committee chose a member of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations to aid them in their deliberations, a woman named Tam Goossen. It’s a pity they didn’t choose someone with some knowledge of Jewish issues. On the contrary, Goossen is prominent in Toronto NDP circles, and as it’s well-known that most NDP activists have an anti-Israel bias (see here), her inclusion on the committee cannot generate confidence.

The Committee claims a good feature of the book is that it addresses issues from a variety of perspectives. This is facile. Which perspectives are chosen is obviously far more important than the mere number of perspectives. The book does not represent any mainstream Israeli perspective. Rather, a group of murderous religious settlers are depicted as the Israeli norm.

Another supposed Israeli perspective depicted in the book is voiced by the Israeli soldier who claims that "We [Israel's soldiers] kill Palestinian boys." Again, this is defamation, not representation. The committee fails to recognize the difference.
In addition to these false and grossly negative portrayals there are a couple very minor Jewish characters who don’t represent any distinct Israeli position but simply side with the Palestinians. The main Jewish character is an American boy who, we’re told, doesn’t know enough Hebrew to take a bus.

On the Palestinian side, there is no perspective represented that is in the least critical of the Palestinian leadership; no Palestinian character wishing that their own leaders would pursue peace.

Rather, the perspectives provided all conform to the author’s vision of Palestinians as victims, unable to do anything but resist the evil Israelis who are intent on cleansing them from the land. In short, the book is a mere a collection of anti-Israel clichés.

It’s good that the committee confirmed the earlier recommendation that someone from the Board should actually read these books recommended by Ontario Library Association before encouraging students to read them. What’s needed is a clear statement from the Board that The Shepherd’s Granddaughter is an example of the kind of bigoted text that teachers and librarians should never recommend to students, either within the Forest of Reading program or elsewhere.

Yours,…

P.S. I have lots more to say, but no time to say it.

Update on The Shepherd's Granddaughter

2010-06-07T07:53:00.000-07:00

This update is long overdue - my apologies. But I expected the whole process of complaining to the school board about this book to be over long ago - which just goes to show how badly I underestimate bureaucracy. But there has been progress.

First and most importantly, the Toronto Board has decided that in future it won't assume that the Ontario Library Association recommends good, wholesome books. Instead, the Board will do it's own assessment to make sure books recommended by the librarians meet the board's anti-racism standards. As far as I'm concerned, this is the most important step for the Board to take and anything beyond it is gravy.

Second, the Board has classified The Shepherd's Granddaughter as a "controversial book." This means that students are alerted that the book may be biased if not downright bigoted and teachers are to guide students before, during and after they read the book.

In addition, teachers are supposed to supply students with other books that provide differing(and more accurate) views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, the Board hasn't carried through with this last bit, probably because they can't: for children in this age group, there aren't any good books about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or even about the broader Arab-Israeli conflict.

This isn't a big surprise. Take any contemporary conflict and you'll find very few children's books about it - for the obvious reason that most authors can distinguish between their own obsessions and children's actual interests. Unfortunately, anti-Israeli activists are an exception to this rule and feel no shame about attempting to propagandize children. (For a report on another example, of Israel-haters trying to propagandize students, see here.)

I do know of one Young Adult book on the Palestinian Israeli conflict which does an excellent job of humanizing people on both sides: A Bottle in the Gaza Sea by Valerie Zenatti. But it's for kids in high school, not grades 7 and 8.

But back to my update: The York Region School Board also put a caution on The Shepherd's Granddaughter so that it's only available in the context of teacher-guided reading, and the Niagara Board "red-flagged" the book so that librarians and teachers will warn students that the contents aren't to be believed. To me these seem to be reasonable steps and better than banning the book outright, which I don't favour.

Still better would be to spend precious library dollars on books that are actually good and don't tell students that the Jewish God commands them to kill and steal and that Israelis are child-killers. But for most school libraries in Ontario, it's too late for that.

(My complaint to the Board has nothing to do with banning the book. I objected to the schools promoting The Shepherd's Granddaughter to grade 7 and 8 students as a book they should read - which I'm sure the Board would never have done on its own account. The book got distributed on the recommendation of the Ontario Library Association, without anyone from the Toronto Board reading the book first.)

Meanwhile, The Shepherd's Granddaughter did not win the Red Maple Award. No surprise there, as the book is not only bigoted, it's boring. It was nominated by a committee of librarians, obviously on the basis of its politics, not its literary qualities. The winner of the Red Maple for 2010, as chosen by Ontario children is Word Nerd, a great book by Susin Nielsen.

And the Toronto Board continues its formal review of The Shepherd's Granddaughter. It's been a couple months now, but I'm not complaining. The board conducted its initial, informal review very quickly and slapped the "controversial" label and all the restrictions that go with that label within in days of receiving my complaint.

Every few weeks someone from the board phones me to assure me that they haven't fallen off the planet and that the bureaucracy's slow grind is continuing. Doubtless, sooner or later, they will issue a very cautiously worded report. But in the meanwhile, the chief victory - making sure that in future books recommended by the Ontario Library Association are vetted first - is already won.

Note: For my original complaint to the Toronto School Board (and to the Ministry of Education), see here.

Let's keep political propaganda out of our elementary schools

2010-04-01T03:41:00.000-07:00

When teachers enter a classroom – especially an elementary school classroom – they leave their political agendas at the door. They're not allowed to use our schools to preach their own views. Neither are they allowed to bring their agenda in through the back door by having the kids read a book that just happens to present their views and no other.

However, in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is exactly what the Ontario Library Association has done – twice. If you want to know what it's all about, read my open letter to the Minister of Education, below.

In response, the Minister has chosen the path of least courage and is pretending the issue doesn't exist. So, as she's useless, it's up to us. Please help keep our elementary schools a politics-free zone. Google your school board, (you don't need to have a child in school to do this) and email the Superintendent of Education (or the Director of Education) or a Trustee. Tell them:

– We don't want our schools used to promote anyone's political agenda.
– We don't want our schools to recommend books to our kids that might promote hatred of any people or of any religion
– Ask the Board to investigate whether The Shepherd's Granddaughter is an appropriate book for our teacher-librarians to be promoting and whether it should be removed from the Red Maple program
– Ask that, in the future, the school board vet books recommended by the Ontario Library Association, as they've shown they can't be trusted.
– Urge them to act quickly. For a few weeks now, teacher-librarians across Ontario have been innocently urging our children to read all the books in the Library Association's Red Maple program, including the odious Shepherd's Granddaughter.

Note: In Toronto, school board trustee Sheila Ward has vowed to get the Shepherd’s Granddaughter off the shelves. See here.
And in York Region, access to the book has been restricted. See here.

The Shepherd's Granddaughter, an open letter

2010-03-31T16:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of Education:

I have a child in a Toronto elementary school, and it's come to my attention that children in her class and children across Ontario in grades 7 and 8 are reading The Shepherd’s Granddaughter by Anne Laurel Carter, a book that seems designed to teach kids to hate Israelis.

The book is part of the Red Maple program – ten supposedly outstanding books selected by the Ontario Library Association and which teacher-librarians across the province are innocently encouraging children to read.

The heroine of The Shepherd’s Granddaughter is an adolescent shepherd girl named Amani. In her first encounter with an Israeli, he shoots one of her sheep. Amani flees before the Israeli can kill any more of her sheep – or her. Later, the Israelis poison her whole flock.

What provokes them to do this? Nothing at all. In this book, it’s just the sort of crime Israelis commit – all the time. Indeed, I can barely begin to list the atrocities these fictional Israelis heap on an innocent Palestinian family.

They build a settlement on the family’s grazing land, and when the Palestinians stage a peaceful sit-down protest, the Israeli army punishes them. They chop down the family orchards, crush their houses and barns with bulldozers, and shoot the heroine’s dog.

The father rides up on a donkey, shouting at the Israelis to stop, so they shoot the donkey out from under him. Then they beat the father, kicking him as he lies on the ground and striking him with their rifle butts.

When Amani throws a stone at one of the bulldozers, the driver pursues her, attempting to crush her to death.

The author has Israelis speak, too, but only to reinforce her damning portrayal of them. At a roadblock outside Hebron, an Israeli soldier informs the family: “We shoot Palestinian boys.”

But the main Israeli spokesperson is the son of one of the settlers, a sixteen-year-old American kid who befriends Amani. He explains to her that the Palestinians should simply leave because God gave this land to the Jews.

Amani says, “Your God says kill us? Steal our land?”

“They don’t see it as stealing,” the Jewish boy replies. “They’ll provoke you, kill you if that’s what it takes to get back their Holy Land.”

Note that the boy doesn't deny that the Jewish God commands Jews to kill; he rather confirms it.

In fairness, there is also a very minor second sympathetic Jewish character in this book - a rabbi. However, again, this character does not present the Israeli side of the debate. Rather, he's a good Jew because he takes the side of the Palestinians.

Also, anyone familiar with anti-Israel propaganda will recognize the theme of ethnic cleansing enunciated by this book. Of course, that Israel's supposed policy of forcing Palestinians to leave is pure fantasy can be seen by the population explosion in the West Bank over the past 40 years. But the depiction of Israelis as not merely brutal but genocidal helps build the rationale for terrorism – as it does in this book.

The heroine’s uncle Hani declares: “They want our land, our water. They want to drive us out, village by village.” Significantly, this character continually urges violence and applauds news of a suicide bombing that kills 11 young people, aged 14 to 21.

“No Israeli is innocent,” he declares.

It should go without saying (but apparently doesn’t) that the Israeli army doesn’t go around shooting children – boys or girls – and doesn’t favour crushing girls with bulldozers. This depiction of Israeli evil is so over the top it’s medieval, though admittedly the Jews in this story don’t poison wells, just sheep.

Further, Israel hasn’t built new settlements since 1999, and most settlements were built in the 1970s and 1980s. Continuing disputes about the settlements concern building within the boundaries of existing settlements.

Back when the sort of isolated settlements described in this story were being built, they were generally situated on barren, unused land, and contrary to the claims of this book, Palestinian villages were not mowed down to make way for them.

Israel has indeed torn down Palestinian houses – in particular the homes of suicide bombers in an attempt to discourage further mass murder, but not as this book claims, to punish Palestinians leading peaceful protests.

It must be noted that the heroine’s father is appalled by Uncle Hani’s enthusiasm for murder as a political tool, and the book’s author clearly prefers peaceful opposition to Israel. Nonetheless, Carter portrays terrorism – “resistance” as she calls it – as a legitimate side of the Palestinian dialogue. Indeed, with this book, Carter has made her own small contribution to the legend of Israeli evil, which is the narrative that fuels terrorism.

On “Goodreads” a website where readers review books, I came across this comment from a girl calling herself Madeline: “Reading this book made me want to go to Palestine and kill Israelis” (here). Unfortunately, that’s a perfectly natural reaction to this book which our kids are being encouraged to read.

You must realize that for the large majority of our children, this book will be their first substantive introduction to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and having read the book, its contents will comprise their entire knowledge of the subject. And not only are they not being encouraged to also consult better and more even-handed sources, but for this age group, such books don’t even exist.

I don't want to this book banned, but our teacher-librarians should not be encouraging our children to read a biased, one-sided and prejudicial account of such a complex and sensitive issue.

The Shepherd's Granddaughter should be withdrawn from the Red Maple program immediately.

Moreover, this is the second time in a few years that the Ontario Library Association has slipped anti-Israeli propaganda into their Forest of Reading Program. Two years ago, the OLA recommend Three Wishes, a book that normalizes terrorism, including an interview with a girl who admires her older sister for having become a suicide bomber and murdering two Israelis. The OLA recommended this book for 10- and 11-year-olds.

Generally the Forest of Reading is a wonderful program. But as the OLA seems determined to to use our schools to promote a particular extremist political view, the school boards must review how they vet books recommended by the OLA.

Finally, on a personal note, as a parent I’ve always known that my children will eventually encounter anti-Israeli propaganda, but I'd hoped it wouldn't be something we'd have to deal with in elementary school. I’m sick at heart to see that I was wrong.

Yours truly

…

Post script: "Madeline," the girl who wrote: "Reading this book made me want to go to Palestine and kill Israelis" turns out to be 21, not a teen as I'd supposed, and she had the good sense to realize the book's depiction of Israelis couldn't possibly be right. I guess this shows the difference between a 21-year-old and the 12- and 13-year-olds who were being encouraged to read this book.

To see how the kids in grades 7 and 8 reacted to the The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, we can go to RedMaple OnLine, a site maintained by the Ontario Library Association where Ontario students reading books in the Red Maple program make comments.

There are only 18 comments about the Shepherd's Granddaughter, because students were much more interested in the other, much better books in the Red Maple program. But of those 18, only one student, book_freak1011, noticed the possibility of bias. I think we can assume this student was already aware of the Israeli-Palestinian issue beforehand and, from the vehemence of his/her response, perhaps felt the book as an assault.

The other students all accepted the book as a factual depiction of the supposed cruelty Israelis inflict on Palestinians, expressing no awareness of the possibility of bias or misrepresentation. See the student remarks below:

Taylorgirl Dec 20, 2010 BORING! But I guess they want us to kno how bad the Jwsh are.

McDj27 Apr 22, 2010 looked at it didnt read but want too

Ecogirl101 Apr 20, 2010 This book was ok, but I found it too sad. I liked how it was about real life, though, because it can help people understand what's happening in the real world.

robin15 Apr 06, 2010 This book was an amazing book! it brought tears into my eyes to see how human biengs like us are bieng treated like this in palestin! This book got me thinking, that we take soooo many things for granted. But in this book, it opened a new point of view for me.

1knigh Mar 26, 2010 I think that the sheperds granddaughter is a great book for beginner readers. This book is really interesting when the girl that wants to be a sheperd but her uncle and her father thinks that it is to risky and she might get shoot by the settlers and the armys trying to build the highway on top of the property.

Silvy Mar 25, 2010 A very gripping story. I'm glad the piano got saved :) On April 22, it's either this one, or submarine outlaw!

zezedaoui Mar 25, 2010 The Shepherd's Grand-daghter is a pretty good story. I thought it was sad. And i cannot believe that events like that happen today aswell. I really recommend this to people , and i think everyone would really enjoy this book.

darkdaughter2 Mar 24, 2010 boring

bhaloon Mar 23, 2010 This book was pretty good and eye-opening for me, but I found it kind of boring.

patmunroe Mar 23, 2010 The Shepherd's Granddaughter is a story of faith and fearlessness in times of trial. It's about a young girl who follows her dreams and brings with them the true meaning of friendship and family. Her story is very sad, but her strength is admirable.

spookum Mar 11, 2010 I think it was so sad but very realistic for those living in Palestine.The relationship between Amani and Johnathon was very lifelike and is amazing for the language barrier between the two.

Nixknox Mar 10, 2010 A very lifelike and realistic book. You could believe it was true, and the read wasn't bad.

GlobalGenius Mar 05, 2010 didn't really like this book much, it had a slow writing style and took me a week to read (I can read the Harry Potter series in one day, so that means I was morer then a bit bored by it. This was the #10 book in all the Red Maple books, i honestly think they should've switched this book with Vanishing Girl, by Shane Peacock, he's an awesome Canadian author. One of the few parts I found entertaining in this book was when the house collapsed, but the piano was unharmed. Overall I wasn't a big fan of this book, but I did read it all the same.

Aberacadabera Mar 04, 2010 This is a saddening book, but really opens the eyes of the reader.

peacebellreads Mar 04, 2010 this book was really sad. i cant beleive this is still happening today. it really opened my eyes i definitely recommend it

Hermione905 Mar 03, 2010 Report This not a great book it was just boring

book_freak1011 Mar 03, 2010 This book was very horendous, it was boring and i don't agree with the author!

beloved12 Mar 02, 2010 this book was good, really good and although it was sad it had a ----- ------

(Shepherd's Granddaughter at RedMaple online: here)

Our Quebecois Problem

2009-12-28T06:08:00.000-08:00

Toronto, February 2007. A recent poll by Sun Media (Jan 2007) indicates that anti-Jewish feeling in Quebec is again on the rise. Thirty-six percent of Quebeckers have a bad opinion of Jews. That’s double the rate elsewhere in Canada.

In part this is no surprise - polls always show anti-Jewish feeling as higher in Quebec. But not this high, not for a long time.

As it happens, anti-Israel feeling is always much higher in Quebec, as well. To give one example: this past July at the outset of the Hezbollah War, a poll for CanWest News Service found that across the county two-thirds of Canadians supported Israel - except in Quebec where 62% condemned Israel’s response to the attack by Hezbollah.

Quebeckers who instantly disapprove of Israeli action aren’t all Israel haters. But many are. Their loathing for Israel is unstained by any tincture of rationality. They see Israel as having been conceived in sin, as evil in its very nature, criminal in its every action and deserving of any outrage committed against it.

People who put their faith in coincidence will see no relationship between the high incidence of anti-Jewish and of anti-Israel sentiment in Quebec. The rest of us, though, can point at a pair of surveys by the Association for Canadian studies.

In early July the ACS polled Canadians on their attitudes toward religious groups. The ACS found that Canadians held Christians and Jews in equally high regard, with 79% having a positive view of Jews and 81% having a positive view of Christians. Outside Quebec, only 6% had a negative view of Jews. In Quebec, the number was three times as high, at 18%.

In late August, the ACS conducted a second survey, asking identical questions, but this time only of Quebeckers. It turned out that in one month, anti-Jewish feeling in Quebec had jumped by a third - to 24%.

Why? Because in between the two surveys the Hezbollah War was fought.

Obviously many Quebeckers can’t distinguish between their hatred for Israel and animosity toward Jews. Frankly, I can’t tell the difference either.

We should of course keep in mind that nearly two-thirds of Quebeckers have no problem with Jews, and that Quebec isn’t the only source of bigotry - especially bigotry against Israel.

For example, although Hezbollah is a terror organization that preaches genocide against Jews, 90% of the delegates to the New Democratic Party policy convention this past September voted for a resolution that castigated Israel for the war initiated by Hezbollah and declared Hezbollah a legitimate political organization deserving a seat in any peace negotiations alongside the legal government of Lebanon.

Few NDP delegates come from Quebec.

Education is the usual antidote to prejudice, and indeed the ACS study found that Quebeckers with only primary education were the ones most likely to have a negative view of Jews. The Quebeckers most likely to spurn antisemitism, though, had only high school education, while university educated Quebeckers were more likely to view Jews negatively.

In 2001, Dr. Conrad Winn of COMPAS found an even odder result in a survey he conducted for B’nai Brith Canada. Rather than asking how Canadians felt about Jews as religious group as in the ACS study or about Jews as an ethnic group as in the Sun Media poll, Winn asked whether Jews have too much power - a question that’s been used to gauge levels of racism for fifty years and one with political overtones.

Winn found that in Quebec 26% of respondents perceived Jews as having too much power. Elsewhere in Canada only 10% shared this perception. This skewed response wasn’t a surprise. However, the distribution of antisemitic sentiment within Quebec was.

Winn found that among Francophones with high school education or less, the rate of anti-Jewish feeling had plummeted from 40% as measured in a 1986 survey to 21% in Winn’s 2001 survey. But among Quebeckers with higher education, levels of antisemitism had risen. Better educated Quebecers were now more likely to be prejudiced, with the level of anti-Jewish feeling now at 29% for college graduates and 30% for those with university degrees.

It appears Quebec’s old xenophobic antisemitism may be literally dying off. The new antisemitism, though, which expresses itself as hatred of Israel is a fashionable form of bigotry. It looks like the cure for this prejudice might be to keep kids out of university - especially in Quebec.

*

I'm just getting around to posting it on my own blog now, but a slightly shorter version of this article appeared in the February 8, 2007, Jewish Tribune, a community paper published weekly by B'nai Brith Canada. The article also appeared on the anti-racist blog, Engage. For a collection of my articles on Engage, see here.

Worse than bias

2009-12-24T04:30:00.000-08:00

The media commonly commits two sins: slanting the news and writing the news. Of these two, writing the news is worse, because by its nature, news has a problematic relationship with the truth.

Slanting the news, or bias, can be illustrated by a recent CBC.ca article, “Is Netanyahu's promised moratorium coming undone?”

This article was slanted to suggest – incorrectly – that Israel is reneging on its moratorium on construction in the West Bank and that it wasn’t a significant concession to begin with.

The CBC article also claimed that, in his Cairo speech in June, US President Barack Obama called on Israel to freeze settlement construction: “as a precursor to good-faith negotiations.”

Obama did call on Israel to freeze construction but he didn’t suggest that this needed to happen as a precursor to peace talks or that, without a freeze, Israel’s good faith was in doubt. The CBC reporter added those bits herself.

The CBC doesn’t usually twist the news so obviously, especially not since Tony Burman, the CBC’s former editor-in-chief, switched jobs and started working for al-Jazeera.

I think the Toronto Star now tries to play fair, too, although its stories about Israel used to be at least as twisted as the CBC’s.

However, even without deliberate bias, reporting on Israel will always be negative. It’s in the nature of journalism.

Israel is a multi-cultural marvel, a high-tech giant, a world leader in medicine, but news about Israel will always focus on war and conflict. Consequently, the media will create the impression that Israel is the place where people are always fighting.

The media treats both sides in a conflict as if they were equally legitimate. In consequence, news stories blur the distinctions between a liberal democracy like Israel, a corrupt regime like the Palestinian Authority and a terrorist death cult like Hamas. Over time, the news tends to make them look pretty much all alike.

The media also treats the spokespeople for the various actors as if they were all equally reliable. Of course, this is nonsense. Palestinian spokespeople lie all the time.

Any journalist with illusions on this score was surely cured of them years ago when Palestinian sources, including chief spokesman Saeb Erekat, repeatedly claimed that Israel had massacred at least 500 Palestinians civilians in Jenin and bulldozed them into mass graves.

Of course, the “Jenin massacre” turned out to be a fairy tale, and since then Palestinian spokespeople haven’t grown any more reliable. Journalists know this, but in the name of being even-handed, they report what the Palestinians say and what the Israelis say, as if these sources were equally reliable.

The media has to work fast and reports breaking news before they have time to check whether it’s true. This gives liars a huge edge, and because the Israeli Defence Forces investigates what happened before making statements, they’re at a fatal disadvantage.

The media likes violence; if it bleeds, it leads. A Toronto Star story headlined: Israeli soldiers run wild in Gaza gets the front page. A follow-up about how, as it turns out, Israeli soldiers acted rather well gets buried on page 20. Because, you see, that’s not news; it’s merely true.

Finally, the media is lazy. Consequently, reporters are suckers for propaganda stunts such as Palestinians pulling down a section of Israel’s security barrier on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall and the Security Barrier have nothing in common. So what? The story has good visuals and gives the media something to put on air.

The net effect of all this is that the more Israel is in the news, the more people will tend to think that the Israelis and the Palestinians are the same – bloody-handed mirror images of each other. This isn’t the result of anti-Israel bias; it’s much worse than that: it’s the nature of contemporary media.

What can be done? Well, it’s important to complain when our media does a lousy job. The CBC has no business airing idiotic stories comparing the barrier Israel built to keep out suicide bombers with the wall the East German's erected to prevent people escaping their brutal regime. We pay the CBC; we have a right to demand better.

But I’d suggest the priority is to try to take Israel off the agenda (at least as much as possible). What Israel needs is the indifference that the media shows to all other low-level conflicts in far corners of the world.

So when I write to the CBC or wherever to complain about a story – and I do that a lot – I also ask why they’re doing a story about Israel in the first place. Couldn’t they please give us more news about Pakistan, India or Russia, or other parts of the world that are vastly more important than Israel?

As Jews, we’re endlessly interested in Israel. Antisemites devour news about Israel because hating Israel is their reason for existing. And the media has a serious Israel habit, I think just because it’s their longest-playing soap opera.

But most Canadians would like to change the channel. With a bit of prodding, I think the media might oblige them.

Photo: Israeli youth wearing a One God, One Planet t-shirt

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A shorter version of this article previously appeared in the December 15, 2009, Jewish Tribune, a community paper published weekly by B’nai Brith Canada, and at the Canadian blog Dust My Broom.

"Nora Clean’s guide to boycotting Zionist entities," by Nora Clean

2009-10-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

Now that the stars have gone back to Hollywood, I can say that our boycott of the Toronto International Film Festival was a success. True, we got tons of negative press, with lots of people observing that we’re idiots and bigots. But for two solid weeks, we got to say nasty things about Israel, and the media reported it – and after all that’s the point, right?

But, oh dear. John Greyson withdrew his little documentary on the Sarajevo queer festival in order to spark the “Boycott TIFF!” movement, and it’s not like anyone’s exactly clamouring to see his flick.

I thought it would be cool to get it shown in Gaza. But the Hamas minister of culture? He wasn’t entirely encouraging.

He’s like, “Dear, Ms. Clean: I’m afraid our policy is to ban un-Islamic activity. Normally, if anyone tries to show a movie in Gaza, we shoot him in the knee and send him to an Israeli hospital. But for Mr. Greyson’s homosexual film, we will behead him. Yours in solidarity, etc. etc.”

Oh, well. Maybe I can organize a special showing at Le Select Bistro, the Toronto restaurant that sparked the “Boycott the Royal Ontario Museum!” movement.

It’s like this: Israel lent the ancient Torah scrolls and other fragments of Hebrew holy books known as the Dead Sea Scrolls to the ROM for a special exhibit. Whoa! Talk about cultural imperialism. Those scrolls are Palestinian!

I’m so upset no other restaurant in Toronto gets this that I’m boycotting all of them!

But most especially, we’ve got to boycott the Liquor Control Board!

Listen: I’ve got two favourite groups – the Israeli Apartheid Coalition, which tries to keep Zionists apart from the rest of mankind, and Co-dependent Jewish Voices, a group for Jews who have converted to anti-imperialism but are still confused. You might have heard them called Lefty Jews for Jesus, because of their identity issues, don't you know, and because the United Church funded them (but regretted it).

Anyway, the Apartheid Coalition and the Co-dependents organized a demo against the LCBO, because it sells Israeli wines. And what happened? Hundreds of Jews showed up and bought out the store’s entire stock! That’s so not fair!

And Zionists play the same trick all the time. The Tel Aviv films at TIIF all sold out, and ticket sales for the Dead Sea scrolls skyrocketed. Now marketing people actually phone and ask to be boycotted!

Don’t let it get you down, though, because next, you’ve got to burn all your Leonard Cohen books, CDs and posters.

Whenever those of us in the movement hear that some musician plans to tour Israel, we bombard them with mail, begging them to enforce Israeli apartheid. But they ignore us! They just go and play concerts in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as if Israelis are people, too.

And don’t forget to boycott Starbucks – though maybe you already know about this from the news. British anti-Zionists decided that the chairman of Starbucks, Howard Shultz, has a Zionist-sounding name, so they started fire-bombing Starbucks franchises. Whoa! Talk about revolutionary.

The next step was a biggy for me because I’m no longer a perky 14-year-old, but you’ve got to boycott Wonderbra. Not many people know this, but they’re a Zionist entity!

So how do you get this info? Well, the Apartheid Coalition keeps a list and so does Stormfront. But if you visit their site, don’t go thinking the swastika and the Iron Cross are anti-Zionist symbols. True, Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch thinks SS jackets and Iron Crosses are way cool, but his fetish hasn’t been approved yet.

Next, whatever you do, stay out of hospitals! Okay, maybe you’ve been in a horrific accident, but the miracle procedure that could save your life was probably developed in Israel! Better to take two aspirins and stay in bed.

In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein – who is the coolest anti-Zionist ever – she says Israelis actually like terrorism, because it creates a market for stuff they’re good at making.
I confess, at first I couldn't get my head around this, but when I thought about how important Israeli medical know-how is to the world, it began to make sense!

Finally, to enforce Israeli apartheid, we’ve got to get radical. Think about this: the first two Hebrew letters are alef and bet. Yes, Alef-bet … Alphabet! So, as of the end of this sentence, I’m taking the ultimate step and boycotting the written word – that’ll show those Zionists!

Note: Additional instructions on boycotting Zionist entities can be found on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saeky9I5T9c&feature=related

Nora Clean” was previously published on Harry’s Place here and on Dust My Broom.

The United Church has a Jewish problem

2009-08-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

The anti-Israel activists in the United Church of Canada outdid themselves this year. For the church’s national Council, they tabled four anti-Israel proposals that were unrivalled for venom.

Three of the proposals came from Toronto (the fourth from Montreal) and were the work of a small clique of Israel-bashers who use the United Church to promote their agenda. But it’s no accident that Israel-haters find the UC a comfortable home.

Although it recognizes Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, the UC consistently objects to Israel defending itself against attack. Instead, it spreads the lie that Israel is guilty of “collective punishment and violence … on the Palestinian people.”

There is, of course, one side in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that targets a civilian population, but it’s not Israel.

The UC does call on both the Palestinians and the Israelis to end all violence but the UC blames only Israel. In January, Reverend David Giuliano, Moderator of the United Church of Canada (the church’s highest official) called the violence a “consequence of the hatred and hostility bred by the occupation.”

So, according to the Moderator, not only is Israel responsible for its own deeds, but also for breeding hatred into the Palestinians. Thanks to the Israelis, the Palestinians can’t help themselves; they’re compelled to fire rockets at hospitals and lob mortars at kindergartens.
The Moderator’s stance is bad enough, but even worse, no matter how vile the Israel-haters within the church become, the UC still defends them.

The Reverend Bruce Gregerson, a spokesman for the UC, admits that seeking to undermine Israel’s existence is antisemitic. But, he says, the boycott proposals merely tried to encourage Israel “to make moves toward peace.”

Uh-huh. Israel is a liberal democracy like Canada, committed to the equality of all its citizens. Yet the proposals called Israel “evil” and compared it to apartheid South Africa – a racist state that was removed from the political map.

The proposals called on the people of Israel to be cut off from the rest of humankind, with a boycott of all Israeli athletes, scholars and cultural institutions.

They called for economic warfare against Israel, with a boycott of all Israeli products and of all “companies supporting the Zionist policies of Israel.”

The process boycotters use to identify Zionist companies is mystical but apparently productive, as the proposals listed dozens, including the Arsenal Football Club (owned by Jews, you know), Huggies diapers, and Victoria’s Secret lingerie.

As a resolution to the conflict, the boycott proposals called for the 4 million descendants of Palestinians displaced by Arab wars against Israel to be allowed to settle in Israel and thus end the “evil” of Zionism by transforming Israel into another Arab state.

On the other hand, the boycotters didn’t urge the Palestinians to do anything. They didn’t call on the Palestinian Authority to resume peace talks, even though Israel has repeatedly offered to do so.

Nor did the boycotters urge Hamas to give up on terror, recognize Israel, or even renounce their ambition to slaughter Jews everywhere, as called for in Hamas’s constitution. The boycott proposals didn’t even refer to Hamas except to confer legitimacy on it as “the newly elected Palestinian party.”

Moreover, while seeking to wipe Israel off the map and implicitly siding with the terrorists, the boycotters spread the lie that some Jewish members of Parliament are Israeli citizens and implied they’re potential traitors.

As it turned out, the Council rejected the language of the proposals – the references to apartheid, the suggestion that Jews are disloyal and so forth, and it rejected a national boycott as too divisive.

However, the Council did invite member churches to boycott Israel and reaffirmed its stance that Israel is solely to blame for the conflict, calling on its churches to “resist the occupation.”

I’m disturbed that the UC has adopted the language of terrorists.

Moreover, if Israel were to withdraw from the West Bank without a peace agreement, expecting it to become a launching pad for rocket and mortar attacks as happened with Gaza, would this satisfy the United Church?

Not for a moment. The Council declared Gaza still occupied, although every last Israeli left years ago. Apparently, like the rest of the anti-Israel crowd, the UC can’t stand to let the occupation go.

Finally, the Council committed itself to the World Council of Churches’ Amman Declaration, which calls for settling millions of Palestinians in Israel, thus transforming it into an Arab state.

At the Council, many representatives did speak in Israel’s favour, and doubtless these speakers represented the majority of ordinary church members.

However, as an institution, the United Church of Canada used this Council to assert its abiding hostility toward Israel.

Ah, well. I’ll do my bit by spending against the boycott. The kids are too old for diapers, but I’m sure my wife would like some Zionist lingerie.

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This article previously appeared on the Dust My Broom blog, and on Harry's Place in Britain. It was first published, in a shorter version, in the August 20, 2009, Jewish Tribune, a community paper published weekly by B'nai Brith Canada.

Hamas runs wild in Gaza

2009-08-13T13:39:00.000-07:00

Another day, another tale of Israeli soldiers misbehaving. The last time this happened back in March, I was horrified when I picked up my Toronto Star and read about Israeli soldiers saying they’d witnessed deliberate murders of Palestinians. But then I took a deep breath and reminded myself that such “news” is usually bogus.

Sure enough, the next day, it began to come out that these weren’t eye-witness reports, merely rumours, and that some of the soldiers passing on stories of abuse weren’t even in Gaza.

No real surprise. The Israeli army (the IDF) has a well-deserved reputation for professionalism and decency. Most of the soldiers involved in large operations are ordinary people, like me and you. They were called up to help clear the rocket launching sites out of Gaza, and they behaved well and occasionally heroically. (See here.)

However, the Toronto Star followed up its original yarn with an article explaining how war dehumanizes, resulting in indiscriminate killing. This story tried for even-handedness in that it wasn’t just about Israel.

It noted how the Palestinians glorify terrorism and referred to Hamas’s TV programming for children in which J is for Jihad and S is for Shahid – a martyr who kills Jews for Allah.
But the Star’s premise was all wrong. In this conflict, only Hamas targeted civilians.

Indeed, not only does Hamas attempt to murder Israelis, it’s also careless of Palestinian lives. Its soldiers shed their uniforms and hid behind civilians. They used mosques as weapon depots and fired upon Israeli troops from houses.

For its part, Israel went to extraordinary lengths to spare civilians, individually phoning residents of buildings and warning them to get out – a level of care never taken by any other army in the history of warfare. (For a military perspective on this see here.)

When the IDF eventually released the results of its investigation into the allegations, the Star did report it, but as in most of the media, the article was brief and buried in the back pages.
Worse, after stating the IDF had dismissed the allegations as hearsay, the bulk of the story repeated details of some of the worst allegations. And of course it’s details that stick in a reader’s mind.

The Star also left out that the IDF had meticulously tracked the rumours back to their sources and found they were simply untrue.

That won’t happen again, because this time around, the sources of the rumours have been carefully concealed.

For Israel’s reputation, this makes little difference. If the IDF were able to investigate the allegations, the media would again report the conclusions in a paragraph buried in the back pages and would again use the IDF’s report mainly as an opportunity to refresh the original allegations.
This isn’t malice (not usually). It’s just that when the Toronto Star headlines a story: “Israeli troops run wild in Gaza,” it sells papers. A story headlined: “Israeli troops behave well” is merely true.

“If it bleeds it leads,” as the saying goes. So when a source offers them blood, journalists have a hard time saying no, even if the story can’t be verified and the source has an axe to grind.

This is the case with the latest allegations. The reports come from Breaking the Silence, an organization dedicated to blackening the image of Israel’s military. As for the allegations themselves, they’re at least third hand: Breaking the Silence saying what a soldier says that another soldier told him.

Breaking the Silence claims the stories come from soldiers who were in Gaza and claims they edited the stories only to conceal the soldiers’ identities. But because of that concealment, not a word can be verified.

Nonetheless, most media applied little scepticism. The Toronto Star put the story on the front page, with the sensationalist headline: “Gaza invasion: ‘If you’re not sure – kill.’” But midway through, the Star did at least get around to mentioning Israel’s side of the story.

The Globe and Mail’s article was much worse, with no pretence of even-handedness and not a whiff of skepticism.

CBC.ca did a far better job. Its story is full of the language of doubt: “Breaking the Silence…said it has testimony.” The soldiers, “say they took part in January's military operation in Gaza.” The soldiers “are claiming.” The soldiers “allege...”

The CBC article noted the difficulty of verifying any of the information, gave space to the IDF’s rebuttal starting in the second paragraph – not halfway through the article – and as befits such a dodgy story, CBC.ca buried it in the back web-pages.

By foregoing sensationalism, the CBC surely missed getting people’s attention. But they kept their integrity, and hopefully, in the long run, that counts for more, even in the news business.

Of course it's possible that some of the stories reported by Breaking the Silence are true or partially true. In every war there's a danger of soldiers abusing the civilian population. It's occasionally happened with Canadian soldiers and with Israeli soldiers, too.

We know this because, like all well-disciplined armies, the IDF investigates allegations of abuse and, when evidence of a crime exists, prosecutes. The other day, a soldier was convicted of stealing a Palestinian's credit card, and the IDF is pursuing a dozen other criminal investigations.

But by concealing the soldiers' identities, Breaking the Silence has insured that nothing can be done about their allegations - no investigation, no disciplinary action or exoneration, no changes made to do a better job of protecting civilians next time around.

But then Breaking the Silence isn't interested in protecting Palestinian civilians. The Israeli army is much more interested in doing that.

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A shorter version of this piece previously appeared in the July 28, 2009, Jewish Tribune, and on Dust My Broom.

Academic circus

2009-07-08T05:40:00.000-07:00

Gary Goodyear, Minister for Science and Technology, recently called for the reconsideration of a $20,000 grant for a conference about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at York University. In response, James Turk, president of the Canadian University Teachers Association, called for Goodyear’s resignation.

The two men are just doing their jobs. Goodyear represents the people of Canada. He had reason to believe that “Israel/Palestine Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace” might be more a propaganda exercise than an academic conference, and so he questioned whether Canadians should pay for the event.

For his part, Turk represents university teachers. His job is to get as much money as he can for the country’s universities and professors, preferably with no questions asked and no strings attached.

Speakers at the supposedly academic conference represented a rogue’s gallery of anti-Israel activists. For example, no one would mistake Ali Abunimah for an academic. He’s a professional propagandist and the co-founder of Electronic Intifada, a website that glamorizes terrorism as "resistance" and considers all of Israel occupied Palestinian territory.

Abunimah didn’t merely give a talk at the York conference. He was a member of the advisory committee, responsible for recommending the conference speakers. I'm not as familiar with the other organizers, but I'm confident that if David Duke (former Grand Wizard of the Klan) were on a committee recommending speakers for a conference about the future of the American South and what to do about tensions between Blacks and Whites, nobody would be saying, "But he's only one of the organizers – the rest aren't as bad."

Of course, when he called for Goodyear’s resignation, Turk didn’t go into details about what Abunimah and other anti-Israel activists were doing at a supposedly academic conference. He simply wrapped himself in the banner of academic freedom. This isn’t a convincing stance.
First, there’s bad blood between the CAUT and Goodyear. When the government budgeted an extra $2 billion for university infrastructure, the CAUT chose to complain about a $148 million cut to research funding. The CAUT met with Goodyear to press their case, but according to a CAUT official, Goodyear eventually: “stormed out of the room warning that we’ve burned all our bridges with them.”

With this fight over money already poisoning the relationship, it’s not surprising Turk found an excuse to call for Goodyear’s resignation.

Second, CAUT stands up for academic freedom only if it fits their self-interest or political bias. When the University and Colleges Union in Britain called for the blacklisting of Israeli scholars, most university presidents across Canada and hundreds of Canadian professors decried the move as an outrage against academic freedom (not to mention a clear cut case of bigotry). But the CAUT kept quiet.

I could understand if the CAUT felt they had no business meddling in Middle Eastern politics, but in fact, the CAUT issued a statement just this past January condemning Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

Strangely, in the year preceding the offensive, as thousands of Palestinian rockets and mortars rained down on Israeli towns, the CAUT issued no statements condemning this terrorism, nor even a friendly warning that sooner or later the Israelis were sure to respond.

The CAUT statement singled out Israel’s bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza, but didn’t object to Hamas having turned the school into a bomb-making factory. Nor did the CAUT ever condemn the Palestinian rocket attack on Sapir College in the Negev – an attack that killed a student there.

The CAUT also condemns Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank. These checkpoints have proven effective at stopping suicide attacks. But while preventing mass murder, checkpoints also make students late for school, and so the CAUT calls for Israel to take them down.

Third, politicizing the campus doesn’t enhance academic freedom; it restricts it. For Jews, York University is already hostile territory. The Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario’s infamous motion to boycott Israel originated with the CUPE local at York, with people who consider all of Israel occupied Palestinian territory.

Two of the prime movers of CUPE’s boycott resolution were Rafeef Zadiah and Adam Hanieh, both of whom spoke at the Israel/Palestine conference.

York also hosts an annual anti-Israel hate-fest, known as Israel Apartheid Week. Jewish students have been threatened by fellow students and harassed by instructors. And in February, a mob chased a group of mostly Jewish students, shouting: “Israelis off campus,” “Racist Zionists,” “Die, bitch, go back to Israel,” “Die, Jew, get the hell off campus,” “Fucking Jew” and so forth.

The mob then besieged the Jewish students in the local Hillel office until the police arrived and freed them.

If the CAUT were really interested in academic freedom, James Turk would be battling to preserve the campus as place for open inquiry, free of intimidation. He’d be condemning professors who use their podium to indoctrinate students. And he would have been the first in line to ask whether this conference at York really met the standards of academic inquiry.

The conference turned out pretty much as everyone expected; that is, it was largely given over to demonizing Israel. According to reports (here and here for starters), speakers presented Israel as a racist, apartheid state, as a military machine intent on dominating the Palestinians, as an illegitimate entity that ought to be replaced.

At the conference, the Palestinians were presented purely as victims. The possibility that they might share some responsibility for the conflict simply wasn’t entertained. And although the conference was subtitled “Paths to Peace,” there was no discussion about re-invigorating the peace process.

“Zionists” were blamed even for domestic violence perpetrated by Palestinian men against Palestinian women.

As for the few speakers who were sufficiently well-meaning to express sympathy for Israel, they were jeered and heckled.

Before receiving funding, the conference did go through a peer review process. Evidently that process didn’t work. As Professor Martin Lockshin of York University put it: “[The peer review process] failed to distinguish between political activism and academic research” (here).

Why didn’t Andrew Turk concern himself about whether the conference at York might really be a propaganda event? Because for the CAUT, academic freedom is a rhetorical device, not a real concern.

Still, even by the light of the CAUT’s grab the money and run philosophy, Turk should notice that the shenanigans at York are turning away donors and may end up costing the university millions. Indeed, one professor at York already objects to “Zionists” being involved in fund-raising.

More generally, if it wants Canadians to be enthusiastic about funding university research, the CAUT should be doing its best to insure that money is spent well, not squandered on an anti-Israel circus.

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A shorter version of this article previously appeared in the July 2, 2009, Jewish Tribune, a community paper published weekly by B'nai Brith Canada, on the Dust My Broom blog, and on Harry's Place in Britain

The one-state conference at York University: A Rogue’s Gallery

2009-07-03T04:54:00.000-07:00

Some serious and well-meaning academics attended the conference at York University. If they were sufficiently well-meaning to express sympathy for Israel, they were abused and heckled from the floor. “This is an academic conference or at least it’s supposed to be,” protested Na’ama Carmi, a conference speaker from Haifa University.

Carmi was brave to attend, but if she supposed it was ever seriously meant as an academic conference, she was mistaken. Really, it was a propaganda event. Discussion of any Palestinian responsibility for the conflict was excluded, while Israel was under constant attack. The conference’s purpose was political; namely, to attack the legitimacy of the State of Israel and to present the replacement of Israel with a bi-national Palestinian-Jewish state as a legitimate alternative policy goal.

The one-state solution isn’t supported by either Israelis or Palestinians. Rather, recent polls show 74% of Palestinians and 78% of Israelis would support a two-state solution. Indeed, no one seriously interested in resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict promotes the idea of a single Israeli-Palestinian state. Rather, the one-state solution is recognized as a rationalization for destroying Israel in order to replace it with a Palestinian state.

Here's a few of the cnfernce attendees:

Ali Abunimah: No one would mistake Abunimah for an academic. He’s a professional propagandist and the co-founder of Electronic Intifada. Electronic Intifada supports the murder of innocent men, women and children as "resistance." Abunimah demonizes Israel as an apartheid state and engages in Jew-baiting by likening Israelis to Nazis.

Abunimah won’t merely be presenting at the York conference. He’s a member of the advisory committee, responsible for recommending the conference speakers. I'm not as familiar with the other organizers, but I'm confident that if David Duke (former Grand Wizard of the Klan) were on a committee recommending speakers for a conference about the future of the American South and what to do about tensions between Blacks and Whites, nobody would be saying, "But he's only one of the organizers – the rest aren't as bad."

Abigail Bakan: Bakan is Professor of Political Studies and Women's Studies at Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. She’s also a leader the Trotskyite group, the International Socialists (a Canadian branch of Britain’s Socialist Worker’s Party) and a leader of the anti-Israel group known as NION.

Bakan reportedly was one of the representatives of NION at the 2007 Cairo conference, where radical Islamist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Jamaat al-Islamiya (a branch of al-Qaeda best known for murdering 71 tourists in Egypt in 1997) sat down to talk strategy with the worldwide “anti-imperialist” left.

The Cairo Conference Declaration was big on Hezbollah’s “heroic resistance” to the “Zionist entity.” (Yes, that’s the term they use.) And the conference praised Hamas’s “refusal to surrender to… the Oslo agreements,” and called for “a revival of the Intifada and the weapon of resistance.” In other words: two states living in peace, no; human bombs, yes.
The conference also urged boycotts against the Zionist entity in order to bring about its demise, a course of action Bakan pursues as best she can.

Rafeef Zadiah and Adam Hanieh: Zadiah and Hanieh are both PhD candidates at York and leaders of the anti-Israel group, the Coalition Against Israel Apartheid. This Apartheid group also participated in the Cairo Conference, and Zadiah and Hanieh are active in the anti-Israel boycott movement. As members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, they worked to bring about CUPE Ontario’s resolution to boycott Israel.

Omar Barghouti is a professional propagandist, not an academic,. He’s a leader of the anti-Israel boycott movement. Barghouti denigrates Israel as an apartheid state and argues that Israeli scholars, artists and musicians should be blacklisted - cut off from the rest of humanity. According to Barghouti, anyone who engages in intellectual or artisitic co-operation with Israelis is guilty of “moral blindness.” “Dialogue does not work,” says Barghouti.

Marc Ellis: A professor at Baylor College, Ellis argues that Jews worship violence and that Torah scrolls in synagogues should be replaced with replicas of helicopter gunships as symbols of what Jews really believe in. At the conference Ellis is reported to have expressed the wish that Israel would suffer a catastrophe to teach it a lesson, but alas, any such catastrophe would also engulf Palestine and the surrounding Arab states.

Jeff Halper: Halper is a pro-Palestinian activist, not an academic. He runs an organization opposing the demolition of illegally constructed Palestinian houses. According to Gerald Steinberg, of NGO Monitor:

[Halper] participated in sailing a few small boats from Cyprus to
Hamas-controlled Gaza, hoping to engage in a publicity-generating confrontations
with the Israeli navy.
Halper often appears in support of Naim Ateek, whose
speeches include classical anti-Semitic references, such as accusing Israel of
"crucifying Palestinians." …
An Israeli columnist recently witnessed Halper
urging "his Muslim listeners in an American university to reject the Arab peace
initiative, because it serves the Muslim tyrants. He told his audience that
Israel is a force that serves world capitalism, in the framework of the attempt
to make enormous populations in the world disappear.

Dana Olwan is a PhD candidate at Queen’s University, but her area is English literature. She wasn’t invited to the conference as an academic, but as an anti-Israel activist, national chair of Students for Palestinian Human Rights. Olwan spreads lies such as the claim that Israel’s creation “was legitimized through racist Zionist narratives that depicted Palestinians … as “semi-savage.” She also writes that Israel “actively engages in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians,” a claim that is not only unture, but absurdly so as the Palestinians have had a sustained population boom for the last 40 years. At the conference, Olwan’s was speaking on using the one-state solution as a “rhetorical strategy for activists.”

Rats don’t vote

2009-06-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

With this strike on in Toronto, we may end up with the plague, but at least we’ll get rid of McGuinty and Miller.

A poll shows that 80% of Torontonians want Premier Dalton McGuinty to legislate our striking city workers back to work. Astonishingly, Dalton seems content to let the strike run. I’m embarrassed to say I voted for this guy.

Windsor has put up with a strike by city workers for more than two months. But if Dalton didn’t have a chauffeur to drive him around, he’d know Toronto isn’t like Windsor. We’re not known for our patience.

Two months! That will take us right through the summer. That’s two months of no swimming pools, no summer camps, no daycare. Two months of garbage stinking and rotting in the streets. With such a feast laid out, our rat population will quadruple. The premier seems to have forgotten that rats don’t vote.

I give Dalton a week to stop dithering. Then if he hasn’t brought in back-to-work legislation, he’s toast.

Mayor Miller is already gone – he just doesn’t know it yet. Before the strike started, our NDP mayor’s approval ratings had already sunk to 43%.

To date, his response to the strike has been to come down heavy – not on the strikers, but on voters. He’s established a zero tolerance policy for garbage dumping. It’s a $380 fine, he’s warned us repeatedly – a $380 fine that can go up to thousands if you’re really messy.

Why the heavy hand? Because as soon as the strike was announced, people started dumping garbage in parks. They didn’t even wait for a missed pick-up day. Why? Because we’re ticked off.

Of course this is terribly misguided, Torontonians shouldn't dump garbage in parks. We should bring it straight to the steps of the Legislature, to City Hall, and to the offices of the two CUPE locals that are on strike, at 110 Laird Drive and 34 St. Patrick Street.

We now have 20 official temporary dumps / rat-breeding grounds, but in the first days of the strike, well-behaved Torontonians took their trash to transfer stations. They learned their lesson quick. Strikers wouldn’t let them in. The strikers blocked access completely or allowed one person in every 15 minutes, causing two-hour waits.

Were the strikers arrested for public mischief, as you or I would be? Don’t be silly.

But what about ticked off people who left their garbage bags at the entrance to a blocked transfer station? That’s a $380 fine, please. Ka-ching!

I doubt Torontonians will wait till election day to show our displeasure. People imagine that a couple thousand angry Tamils were a problem – what with blocking the Gardner Expressway and all. Ha!

Wait until there are mountains of garbage rotting in the street, and see what happens. There are two and a half million people in this city and none of them very patient.

Note: This piece previously appeared on Dust My Broom

"I can tell you what it’s like," Yocheved Menashe

2009-05-27T04:05:00.000-07:00

Here’s another reaction to “7 Jewish Children.” It’s from my friend Yocheved (Yo for short) in Israel….

I can tell you what it's like to be a teacher of grade 11 and 12 students whose school bus just ran over a land mine, which for some reason didn't explode immediately but shortly thereafter. It's a miracle of G/d that they were all still alive to talk about it – and I was the first one they told.

I can tell you what it's like to have a class discussion, with kids from different grades and different schools, to find that every one of them has been directly affected by a suicide attack – me included.

I can tell you what it's like when a suicide attack occurs and you're frantic until you get to school and can make sure all your students are present and accounted for.

I can tell you what it's like to see a bombed out bus.

I can tell you what it's like to have a student in your class whose parent was killed in a suicide attack.

I can tell you what it's like to be on a bus on your way to teach young people or on your way home when it's stoned by Palestinians. Or what it's like when they’ve surrounded the bus and boxed it in with trucks and a mob, including children, and you're stuck there until the IDF comes to get you out.

I can tell you what it's like to have two of Israel's finest guard you with assault rifles while you wait for a bus.

I can tell you what it's like when I do get to the school and I get to teach the greatest kids in the world. I wouldn't live anywhere else.

All the best,
Yo
Jerusalem, Israel
(Formerly of Toronto)

"7 Jewish Children" & ugly knit blankets

2009-05-19T04:07:00.000-07:00

My husband and I were both listening to Michael Enright's CBC show last Sunday when he played a "read" of “Seven Jewish Children.”
We’re not dumb as stumps. We generally have the intelligence to have lively discussions on many views of many topics. But neither one of us could follow what was going on.

He thought it was seven sets of parents talking to seven children. I thought it was supposed to represent the voices of children, but that it was some freaky sort of nostalgia because the voices were all adult.

When they got to the part that went something like "Tell her we didn't mean to kill the babies," I couldn't listen anymore.

In the AGO they have a display of ugly knit blankets laid out on the floor. Somehow this too is art, but I don't get that either. I find myself irritated that this collection of thrift store uglies is given space and credibility in an art gallery. The play annoys me in the same way.

Margaret Beach

What it’s actually like to raise kids in Israel, an Israeli mother’s reaction to “Seven Jewish Children”

2009-05-10T03:36:00.000-07:00

What really annoys me about the Caryl Churchill play is this: I’m an Israeli parent. I have raised 5 children in Israel, which is no easy task, over and above the normal difficulties of parenting. Like the majority of Israeli parents I have wrestled with the dilemma of how to raise happy, balanced children in an environment with so many instances of violence and fear.

One has to cope with the fears of a child whose father and / or brother has gone to war. One has to cope with the anxieties of children forced to wear a gas mask for hours at a time for weeks on end and forbidden to leave the house. One has to cope with the nightmares resulting from seemingly unending terror attacks. One has to decide on a balance between the freedoms a teenager demands and the obvious dangers. One has to comfort teenagers who have buried friends.

But all the while, from their infancy, one tries not to opt for the easiest route. So one buys children’s books promoting Arab-Israeli co-existance. One takes them to play with the children of Arab friends. One encourages them to study hard in Arabic lessons in school. One discusses current affairs and politics, taking care to present the other point of view. When they go to the army one makes sure that they discuss their difficulties and moral dilemmas over a shabbat meal.

And then along comes Caryl Churchill and makes a complete stereotypical lie out of all those years of parenting and all those sleepless nights of dilemma.

- An Israeli Nurse (and Mom)

Photo: Israeli & Palestinian children at a soccer camp near Haifa with Argentinean football coach Daniel Passarella, 2008

"Seven Jewish Children," an incitement to hatred

2009-05-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

There are those who delight in Jews admitting to their crimes, and with confessions in short supply, they invent them. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is one such invention. Supposedly written by Jews, though actually concocted by the Czarist secret police in about 1895, the Protocols outlines a Jewish plot for world domination. It’s the stuff of comic books but was Hitler’s guiding text.

“Seven Jewish Children,” a ten-minute play by Caryl Churchill, follows in the tradition of the Protocols. The play pretends to show Jews discussing what to tell their children at seven points in modern Jewish history, beginning with the Holocaust and ending with the recent conflict in Gaza.

Using this set-up, Churchill has her Jews confess to the worst lies of the Israel-haters. But Churchill goes a step further than usual: her play drops the standard “anti-Zionist” fig leaf and explicitly targets Jews.

Churchill’s Jews trade on the Holocaust: “Tell her we’re the ones to be sorry for,” they say. “Tell her they [the Palestinians] can’t talk suffering to us.”

Churchill’s Jews confess to having become Nazis: “Tell her we’re the iron fist now.”

The world hates Churchill’s Jews, but they’re defiant and declare themselves superior: “Tell her I don’t care if the world hates us, tell her we’re better haters, tell her we’re chosen people,”

Churchill’s Jews are genocidal and racist and revel in killing Palestinians: “Tell her I laughed when I saw the dead policemen, tell her they’re animals living in rubble now, tell her I wouldn’t care if we wiped them out.”

Churchill’s Jews are child killers: “Tell her to be proud of the army. Tell her about the family of dead girls, tell her their names, why not tell her, the whole world knows why shouldn’t she know? Tell her there’s dead babies, did she see babies?”

In short, like the Protocols, “Seven Jewish Children” has all the sophistication of a bad comic book. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make the play less dangerous. Performed in respectable venues, the play may help make supposed crimes of the Jews a subject for legitimate debate.

Also, there’s an audience that’s hungry to hear nasty things about the Jews, especially among the chattering classes in Britain. It’s no surprise the play was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London, England.

For its part, Britain’s Guardian newspaper was so eager to spread Churchill’s propaganda worldwide that they commissioned their own production and made it available on-line.The Guardian’s theatre critic Michael Billington praised the play, stating that Churchill: “Shows us how Jewish children are bred to believe in the ‘otherness’ of Palestinians.”

In fact, Jewish children aren’t “bred” for anything. Nor are they taught to be racists, as Billington and Churchill suggest – not in my house, nor in other Jewish homes in Canada, Israel or elsewhere. And, for the record, we don’t kill babies, either.

The play had its Canadian premiere on May 3 at the Espace Geordie in Montreal. It was directed by Rose Plotek, who teaches drama at York University’s Glendon College, and was sponsored by Independent Jewish Voices Montreal.

Independent Jewish Voices labels itself a group for Jews opposed to Israeli policies. More accurately, it’s a group for Jews who have converted to the orthodoxy of the far Left.

With so many Jews associated with it, the Montreal production is reminiscent of medieval times when Jewish converts to Christianity would make a career of slandering their former co-religionists.

I wish this play had sunk into the obscurity it deserves. Unfortunately, its extremism has insured that “Seven Jewish Children” has been widely noticed.

The National Post devoted a front-page story to the controversy over the play.
On the Radio Canada website, the CBC promoted the play with a short puff piece headlined: “Une pièce pour les enfants de Gaza.”

In English, the CBC devoted the first hour of “The Sunday Edition” to the play. Michael Enright, the show’s host, interviewed Howard Jacobson, an English novelist and one of the play’s most articulate critics.

Enright also interviewed Abby Lippman of the IJV and put some sharp questions to her. Unfortunately, the program began by broadcasting a reading of the play – all 10 antisemitic minutes.

“Seven Jewish Children” will make its Toronto debut at Theatre Passe Muraille, where I’ve seen many plays. I won’t be going there any more.

Notes: Be sure to read "What it's actually like to raise Israeli kids, an Israeli mother's reaction to "Seven Jewish Children." It's short and from the heart:
here.

Howard Jacobson has an excellent piece in the Independent on “Seven Jewish Children” and contemporary antisemitism in Britain here.

Dave Rich and Mark Gardner of the Community Service Trust (the body that monitors anti-Jewish racism in Britain) have a piece analysing the antisemitism of “Seven Jewish Children” here.

This article, "'Seven Jewish Children,' an incitement to hatred," previously appeared in the 7 May 2009 Jewish Tribune, a community newspaper published weekly by B’nai Brith Canada, in the Canadian blog Dust My Broom, the British blog Harry’s Place, and will be in the May 20 edition of the Jewish Post & News in Winnipeg.

The new antisemites & the CBC

2009-03-12T19:42:00.000-07:00

I've received a reply from the Manager of Moderation at the CBC (posted below), and I think his reply shows they're taking the issue of antisemitism seriously.

In an earlier email to the moderator, I suggested the CBC follow the Globe and Mail's example and entirely close down comments on stories concerning the Middle East, and the CBC moderator now says they will revisit this option.

Good. Even apart from the open antisemitism (which the CBC is now seriously trying to block), the majority of people posting at the CBC demonize Israel as an evil, racist, terrorist, apartheid entity that has no right to exist.

These Israel-haters will argue that they aren't old-fashioned antisemites. Yes, they have an irrational loathing of Israel. Yes, half the Jews in the world happen to live in Israel. Yes, the Israel-haters often extend their loathing to Israel's supporters, thus including the other half of the world's Jews. But, they will argue, they're not racists. They've nothing against Jews who convert to their religion.

I think that's true enough; the Israel-haters aren't old-fashioned racist antisemites; they're post-Holocaust anti-racist antisemites.

But for Jews, this is a distinction without a difference.

Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran don't bother to disguise their Jew-hatred or their desire to wipe Israel off the map. And even when they’re not directly propagandizing on behalf of these terrorists (which they do often enough), our contemporary antisemites are busily inventing a rationale for the genocidal intentions of Iran and company.

For its part - courtesy of Canadian taxpayers - the CBC provides Canada's most important forum for Israel-haters to promote their views, in effect for promoting genocide. That's why I say, close it down.

CBC Responds

2009-03-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

Here's the reply from the CBC's Moderation Manager (i.e., the person in charge of the team that screens what gets posted on the CBC's message boards)

Apologies for the delay in responding. Thank you for your e-mail of February 17, once again drawing our attention to anti-Semitic messages you found in the audience comments pages on CBC.CA.

I acknowledge that on a handful of highly controversial topics - the Middle East, among them - it continues to be a challenge for us to provide an open and lively forum for Canadians to share their often strong opinions, while at the same time, maintaining a space where people feel safe and comfortable participating. We have not always been successful.I have read the comments and users you pointed out in your e-mail and agree that many contravene our submission guidelines. I have once again reviewed them with the moderation team.

Moreover, since my e-mail to you a month ago (February 4), we have taken additional steps to tighten up our procedures respecting abusive posts. We have requested our technical team to make a number of changes to the system designed to improve the quality of our moderation. The changes will make it easier for the moderators to assess pending comments, and to deal effectively with problematic users. As an example - and as you suggested - one of those changes
will automatically highlight the posts of known problem users. Our procedures include banning users - and we do. (Although, we have found that it has not been particularly effective, since the user will simply register another account. This puts the moderation team at a disadvantage because we don’t know who to look out for. We also find these re-registrants can return with decreased community spirit.) But we have also adopted a new procedure that will allow us to issue a temporary suspension, or “time out,” for users who fail to follow the guidelines, in order to give us more time to assess their contributions. We have made more changes, as well, and posted them here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourbeststuff/2009/03/your_comments_ii_news_from_the.html

Despite our precautions, when dealing with a projected 1,500,000 comments this year, our efforts will minimize problematic comments from appearing but cannot totally eliminate them. If comments appear that fall outside our guidelines, we will remove them as quickly as possible.

We are continuing to reinforce our procedures and strengthen our team. We believe there are good reasons for not banning comments entirely on Middle East stories, for example, as some other news sites do, (including The Globe and Mail), but that is a decision we will continue to review.

Finally, yes, the Moderation Manager uses a generic name because of the sensitive nature of the position. Thank you again for writing us. I hope my reply has reassured you of the continuing integrity of our service.

Sincerely,

CBC Moderator

The CBC bans Jew-haters

2009-03-05T19:26:00.000-08:00

Until recently, the CBC was Canada’s largest publisher of antisemitic material.
In some ways, it still is.

The problem hasn't been the CBC reporters; it's the audience, posting antisemitic attacks on the CBC website.

Courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer, antisemites can reach far more people by posting on CBC.ca than through the wacko sites that specialize in Jew-hatred. Worse, they can preach to a mainstream audience, not just their fellow bigots.

The antisemitic attacks reached a crescendo during Israel’s recent war with Hamas, but this problem of Jew-haters using the CBC as their message board stretches back for years.

Last April, I wrote about the antisemitic comments that greeted a CBC.ca story about Steven Harper laying a wreath at Auschwitz (http://tinyurl.com/d62oxl). For example, a reader calling himself “baltzera” asked which would be cheaper vacation, “a day pass to Disney’s theme park or Dachau?”

Similar filth greeted a story about B’nai Brith’s 2007 audit of antisemitic incidents in Canada, with one reader asserting that Jews are “despised for all the right reasons here and globally.”

Back in 2004, writing in the Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente noted the problem with antisemitic reader comments at the CBC, and quoted this one: "Jesus may have been a Jew himself but I know for a fact that he didn't take part in the eating of blood-filled pastries made from the blood of Palestinian children."

The theme of Jews thirsting for blood resurfaced during Israel’s war with Hamas. For example, a reader identifying himself as “LoranHayden” portrayed Jews as racist, genocidal baby-killers, savouring “Muslim juice.”
In Canada, anti-Jewish extremists like this are part of the lunatic fringe. On the CBC message boards, they represent the majority.

For example, 536 CBC.ca readers clicked on the link to recommend a comment by “sandy411” in which he compared Israel’s assault on Hamas to the Holocaust and added a reference to Israel wanting “pounds of flesh,” like Shylock the Jew.
“Sandy411” added: “How many tons of Palestinian women and children will settle your account, Israel?” It was the most popular comment of the day.
I wrote to the CBC to complain, citing eight of the most odious comparisons of Jews to Nazis, all of them taken from reader comments on a single story published December 27.

While I waited for a reply, the Hamas war got into full swing and CBC.ca readers began posting more than 1,000 comments a day on the topic. I collected 50 more examples of antisemitic attacks: everything from “DrDavid” referring to Jews as vermin and praising Hitler to “FRTknocker” denigrating Canadian Jews as “zionazis” and telling us to get out of Canada.
I could have found hundreds more, but I took my 50 examples and submitted another complaint.

Two weeks later, the CBC replied. They’d reviewed the comments I’d pointed out and agreed the “vast majority” were unacceptable. They reviewed other comments posted by the same users, found many were just as bad and removed them, too.

Even better, management showed the moderators who screen reader comments the antisemitic attacks that they'd allowed through, made them “aware of the problem users,” and refreshed them “on the issue of anti-Semitism in general.”
Moreover, the CBC agreed that comparisons of Israel (and Jews) to the Nazis and of Gaza to a concentration camp “fall outside acceptable discourse on the topic.”

In short, it was an outstanding, highly professional response. And I wasn’t satisfied.

A glance at recent stories showed the moderators were still allowing some gross antisemitism and Holocaust-taunting to slip through. Besides, though the CBC would block or remove a comment suggesting Jews are baby-killing Nazis, the reader was welcome to come back with some more subtle Jew-baiting.
So I wrote and complained again (http://tinyurl.com/butgrb).

I’m still waiting for a reply but not impatiently, because in the meanwhile – to their great credit – the CBC has gotten better at screening out antisemitic attacks.

Also, they’ve posted a new policy, stating that people who offend the CBC’s policies may have their account suspended. In other words, Jew-haters can get themselves banned.

Most readers commenting at CBC.ca still demonize Israel. They call it racist, terrorist, apartheid; they're still preparing a rationale for wiping Israel off the map, still in the business of supplying a warrant for genocide.

But the CBC has finally drawn a line. Explicitly attacking Jews is going a step too far. So is comparing the Nazi Jew-killers to the Jewish state. That sort of thing used to get posted at the CBC all the time. Not anymore.

Earlier versions of this piece appeared in the 3 March 2009 Jewish Tribune, a community paper published by B’nai Brith Canada, at Harry's Place in Britain - where lots of people commented, and on Honest Reporting Canada blog. "Scaramouche" takes issue with me here.

Al-Jazeera north

2009-03-03T06:28:00.000-08:00

Earlier versions of this article appeared in the 17 June 2008 Jewish Tribune (http://tinyurl.com/c2tlyy), a community paper published weekly by B'nai Brith Canada, and on the Engage website (http://tinyurl.com/anbvnw).

To the great surprise of no one, Tony Burman, former editor-in-chief of the CBC has accepted a senior position at Al-Jazeera’s English language news service.

Burman was always a fan of Al-J. In November 2007 while still in charge of all CBC news and current affairs, Burman published an essay applauding Al-J and arguing that Canadians should get to watch its new English language service (http://tinyurl.com/2bntd6).

Millions of people around the world already watch Al-J in English, and cable companies could make it available in Canada, too. But they don’t because the Canadian Radio and Television Commission ruled that cable companies must insure Al-J conforms to broadcasting regulations that forbid “abusive comment.”

Al-J’s Arabic service features guests who are open Jew-haters and Holocaust deniers – material that might constitute a criminal offence in Canada, never mind a mere breach of broadcasting regulations.

In his essay published on CBC’s website, Burman remarked that Al-J “had been accused by some Canadian groups of ‘anti-Semitism.’” Apparently Burman couldn’t see the antisemitism or didn’t have a problem with it, because having noted the accusation, he ignored it.

What’s more, after watching the first few days of Al-J’s English language service, Burman wrote: “I couldn’t detect any pattern of overt ‘bias’ in its handling of the key issues.”

The rest of the world sees Al-J’s anti-Israel and anti-Western bias. But not Burman. Apparently Al-Jazeera tells it the way Tony Burman sees it.

Burman isn’t the first CBC journalist to join Al-J. Talking bubblehead Avi Lewis announced his move to Al-J months ago. At the CBC, Lewis hosted a string of failed talk shows with a distinct loony left bias. Al-J had no problem with his track record of cancelled shows. I wonder why.

For his new employer, Lewis heads up a program called “Frontline USA,” which is following the U.S. elections. One of Front Line’s first programs looked at the so-called Israel lobby, which Front Line implied, has American politics and media pretty much under its thumb (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aitqHMmIjFs).

By way of proof, Front Line examined media reaction to Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement of Barak Obama. Farrakhan leads the Nation of Islam and is infamous for saying that Jews have a “gutter religion” and similar charming remarks.

An endorsement from a notorious bigot – no matter how unwelcome – was news, and the media pursued Obama for his response. But Front Line suggested there was something extraordinary about the media’s reaction. Front Line’s apparent message: look how Obama is forced to fall all over himself to appease the Jews.

The program had a certain stink about it, but that can’t be – Lewis is Jewish himself, right? No wonder Al-J loves him.

Some other CBC journalists write as if they’re auditioning for Al-J. Perhaps they are. Neil McDonald, for example, who for now, still works for the CBC, keeping track of the Jews on our dime.

A recent article of McDonald’s, “Is Obama anti-Israel?” concerned anti-Obama emails circulating on the internet. These emails allege that Obama asked to be sworn into the U.S. Senate on the Quran, that he refuses to recite the American pledge of allegiance, and similar nonsense (http://tinyurl.com/bmkzk7).

McDonald writes: “The messages are aimed principally at American evangelical Christians and American Jews.” McDonald seems to have simply invented this claim. Certainly, he cites no proof, and in fact, emails like this aren’t “aimed” at anyone. They spread virally: people who like the email forward it to everyone in their address books.

Who forwards anti-Obama emails? People who dislike Obama of course, and mostly that’s not Jews. According to polls at least 60% of American Jews support Obama – compared to 45% of all Americans.

But McDonald wants to pretend that, if Obama has been tainted as anti-Israel, it’s because of reactionary Jews and conservative Christians.

He notes that usually closer to 80% of Jews support the Democrats, not just 60%. “A shift of 20 percentage points can matter a great deal in places like Pennsylvania and Florida,” McDonald claims.

Hardly. Florida’s population is 4% Jewish. Twenty percent of that is less than 1 percentage point. Pennsylvania is just 2% Jewish – as is the United States overall.

Jews never decide American elections. However it’s true that Obama’s attitude toward Israel does affect his chances of winning, but that’s because in America, close to 80% of everybody subscribes to basic Zionism. Liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, atheist, Christian or Hindu – support for Israel is part of the American national consensus. That’s a fact McDonald just doesn’t want to report.

But hopefully McDonald is burnishing his resume. I’m sure Al-J would snap him up, and the CBC’s loss would be our gain. Go, man. Go!

CBC plays host to antisemites

2009-02-28T20:10:00.000-08:00

Earlier versions of this article appeared in the 28 May 2008 Jewish Tribune (http://tinyurl.com/c2tlyy), a community paper published weekly by B'nai Brith Canada, and on the Engage website (http://tinyurl.com/anbvnw).

Cranks and bigots are always looking for a soapbox. We saw this in Quebec when the provincial government put on a travelling sideshow called the Bouchard-Taylor Commission.

The commission explored the question of reasonable accommodation of minority groups. It also gave a platform to a parade of angry people who stepped up to the microphones to complain about Jews, Muslims and immigrants.

But the bigot brigade doesn’t have to wait for the sort of once in a lifetime opportunity provided by the B-T Commission. News media such as the CBC provide a public forum for antisemitism every day.

Check it out. Go to CBC.ca and have a look at the comments section following articles related to Jews or Israel.

When Stephen Harper laid a wreath at Aushwitz, a reader calling himself baltzera objected. “I got a bad feeling about this one,” he wrote. “Getting a little too close to Americans and Jews, aren’t we folks? … I’m stuck here watching my Canada deteriorate and become another vassal of Zionist and American imperialists.”

Later baltzera added: “I’m thinking of vacation next year and have to watch my spending. Which is cheaper? A day pass to Disney’s theme park or Dachau.”

Another reader calling himself cbczifit accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing of Palestine” and added, “Zionists control the U.S. foreign policy.”

Similarly, a reader, going by the name Patrice, accused Israel of “genocide” and continually compared Israel to the Nazis – which seems to be a favourite form of Jew-baiting these days.

Another CBC.ca article reported on B’nai Brith’s annual audit of antisemitic incidents in Canada. A few readers expressed dismay at how often Jews are harassed and shock about the firebombing of a Jewish community centre. Most of the comments, though, were directed against Jews.

A fellow identifying himself as archboca defended harassment of Canadian Jews as “a reaction to what is going on in the middle east,” where he explained, the real Semites are the Arabs and the Israel is the anti-Semite.

Archboca also condemned the B’nai Brith because it “is very active in hunting down former German soldiers close to the Nazi government.”

While archboca’s support for war criminals suggests he speaks from some point on the neo-Nazi right, his sentiments were echoed from the anti-Jewish left.

This “so-called antisemitism,” wrote a fellow calling himself Bobalink, is nothing but an attempt to recast “Israel and Jews as ‘victims’ rather than perpetrators of human rights violations.”
Jews aren’t really even Semites, wrote Bobalink, yet they misuse this term for “silencing public criticism of the state of Israel’s policies.” And, he said, “their influence is so pervasive that most western media and journalists will practice a form of ‘self-censorship’ … rather than print … criticism of Israeli history.”

EastVanMan summed up a few of the main anti-Jewish smears: “This report is rubbish… You lot best tidy your own house before you come and disapprove of how people perceive these people. I am not fond of Jewish and often Zionist control of media… Your despised for all the right reasons here and globally.”

Well, I’m relieved to be “despised for all the right reasons.” It’s not mere prejudice – antisemitism doesn’t even exist! Rather “my lot” is despised because we control the media and commit human rights violations. Personally, I can’t recall doing either but perhaps manipulation and cruelty come so naturally to my lot that I do it in my sleep.

I could go on. This is only a sample of the nasty comments posted in response to the articles about Harper’s visit to Aushwitz and about BB’s audit of antisemitic incidents. CBC readers posted many more such slurs – as they do in response to every article related to Jews.
And mind you, these are moderated discussions. I can only imagine the comments the CBC moderator blocked or removed after someone complained.

Antisemitic comments at the CBC and the Guardian and at the websites of other media do matter. First, the Judeaphobes encourage each other and swap propaganda.

In one comment, Patrice recommends people read Israel Shahak, a notorious antisemite. As Paul Bogadanor notes, Shahak’s “articles and translations carry titles such as The Jewish Hatred Towards Christianity, The Jewish Laundry of Drug Money, The Jews Who Run the USA” (http://tinyurl.com/as3tvt).

Another poster explains that Israel actually treats Palestinians worse than the Nazis treated Jews because, you see, the Nazis killed Jews quickly.

Can people truly believe such things? Probably not. But they repeat them and so the lies spread.

Second, on media websites, the anti-Jewish fringe meets the centre; on these soapboxes the bigots are no longer raving just to themselves.

Third, words lead to action. In November, while the B-T Commission was holding public hearings, antisemitic incidents spiked. Likely the trigger was that parade of bigots stepping up to the microphones to complain about Jews.

Of course, most of the rants on the media sites don’t target Jews directly. Rather, they demonize Israel, written by people who, I expect, would hand out sweets if Israel were erased from the pages of history.

We’re not antisemitic, these people claim: we don’t foam at the mouth when we think of Jews – only when we think of Israel. And if half the world’s Jews happen to live in Israel? Well, too bad for them, eh?

Brian Henry is a Toronto writer and editor, and a refugee from Canada’s social democratic party, the NDP.

P.S. The B’nai Brith’s audit of antisemitic incidents in Canada in 2007 is available here: http://www.bnaibrith.ca/publications/audit2007/audit2007.html

Information from the BB’s annual audits is incorporated into an analysis of antisemitism worldwide compiled by the Stephen Roth Institute in Tel Aviv. Their 2007 report is available here: http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2007/gen-analysis-07.pdf

Photo: Gate to the SS compound at Dachau

The CBC should ban Jew-haters

2009-02-22T04:07:00.000-08:00

Dear Moderator,

Thank you very much for your reply, and please, no need to apologize for the delay; I know you're busy.

I'm pleased you're treating the problem of antisemitic reader comments with due seriousness. And I'm very glad indeed that you've tightened up your stance regarding comparisons to concentration camps and Nazism and agree with me that these comparisons fall outside acceptable discourse on the topic.

However, I glanced at the reader comments for one recent story, "Livni, Netanyahu vie for Israeli coalition partners," (Feb 12, 2009, http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/02/12/israel-election.html#socialcomments) and found a posting by JordanThornton in which he claims Israel turned Gaza into: "the world's largest Concentration Camp."

In the the very next reader posting, "TheFacts," wrote:

Israel bring allways the Holocaust subject to life ..... Israel: what about the Holocaust you inflict Palestinians? ((2009/02/12 at 8:38 PM ET)

So again, while it's great that you've tightened up your stance, please be aware that these comparisons continue to slip past the moderators.

Also, it's good that you removed the antisemitic attacks I pointed out [in my last email] and that you found and removed many more such attacks.

Unfortunately, this is a case of cleaning up a program after it's already been broadcast.

You write that:

Our users are quick to alert us to these cases via the 'report abuse' link.

But the 50-plus comments I noted had already been up for hours if not days. If I'd had time to look at all the thousands of comments posted throughout the Gaza crisis, I'm sure I would have found many more antisemitic attacks - many hundreds more. And of course your team did find plenty of other antisemitic comments posted by the users I alerted you to.

So while it's certainly useful, the 'report abuse' link is no answer to the problem.

For myself, I do often use the 'report abuse' link, but I use it with a sense of futility, knowing that the offensive comment has already been broadcast and that most of the people who are going to read it already have. Moreover, reporting abuse takes time, since I feel it's necessary to explain the problem with a given posting, as it's already been screened and okayed by a moderator. Finally, merely deleting their worst postings is in some ways a service to the bigots: it disguises where they're coming from and may result in making them appear halfway credible.

I was much more encouraged to hear that you've reviewed the inappropriate postings with your moderation team, refreshed your team on the issue of antisemitism and, most especially, that you've made them aware of the problem users.

Do you have a feature that automatically highlights comments by these users as they come in? If not, I'd think your IT people could set up something like that quite easily.

In the meanwhile, I note that antisemitic attacks continue to slip through. For example, on February 6, the day after your reply to me, "FRTknocker" (who believes the CBC is a "Zionist mouthpiece") contributed a rant against "Zionists," by which he means "Jews," specifically including Canadian Jews, and brings up the old antisemitic canard that Jews ("Zionists") believe they're "the elite, chosen people":

More zionist lies.
It is the PALESTINIANS attacking the terrorist occupiers. One
of the many problems with the zionist mouthpiece is that it tries to get us (the non-zionist public) to believe that everyone who attacks the zionist/terrorist occupiers is a member of hamas. PALESTINIANS attack the zionist terrorists because said terrorists have invaded the Palestinians' land and are murdering their women and babies en-masse. If you take a country by force, displace and exterminate it's people, then call yourselves 'the chosen people'; those who you've invaded will likely respond with violence.
Are you terrorist/zionist sympathizers starting to get the picture?! No. Of course not. Because many of you have been brainwashed into believing zionist bs since you were children. Growing up you were stuffed with all this bs about you being the elite, chosen people, and now your agendas on zionism/israel etc etc have been ingrained.
People raised this way will likely believe their own lies until their time on this earth is finished. It is really sad.
ZIONISM IS TERRORISM!
77 People recommended this comment Report abuse - Reported
(Posted 2009/02/06 at 9:00 AM ET)

This is the same FRTknocker who (as I pointed out in my last email) invited Canadian Jews to leave, writing:

Go home zionazis. We want none of your fascist, racist terrorism here in Canada.
(2009/01/09 at 2:13 PM)

I don't understand the CBC's reluctance to ban problem users, especially as this problem of Jew-haters using the CBC as their message board isn't new.

Last year, when Stephen Harper laid a wreath at Auschwitz (story April 5, 2008, http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/05/harper-poland.html#storycomments), a reader calling himself baltzera objected, writing:

I got a bad feeling about this one. Getting a little too close
to Americans and Jews, aren't we folks? I'm stuck here watching my Canada deteriorate and become another vassal of Zionist and American imperialists.

Later baltzera added:

I'm thinking of vacation next year and have to watch my spending. Which is cheaper? A day pass to Disney?s theme park or Dachau.

Similarly, a reader, going by the name Patrice, accused Israel of genocide and continually compared Israel to the Nazis, which seems to be the 21st Century equivalent of calling Jews "kikes."

On April 9, 2008, another CBC.ca article reported on B'nai Brith's annual audit of antisemitic incidents in Canada http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008/04/09/anti-semitic-incidents.html#storycomments). Some readers expressed dismay at how often Jews are harassed and shock about the firebombing of a Jewish community centre. Many comments, though, were directed against Jews.

A fellow identifying himself as "archboca" defended harassment of Canadian Jews as: "a reaction to what is going on in the Middle East," where he explained, the real Semites are the Arabs and the Israel is the anti-Semite.

Archboca also condemned the B'nai Brith because it: "is very active in hunting down former German soldiers close to the Nazi government."

While archboca's support for war criminals suggests he speaks from some point on the neo-Nazi right, his sentiments were echoed from the anti-Jewish left.

This "so-called antisemitism," wrote a fellow calling himself "Bobalink," is nothing but an attempt to recast "Israel and Jews as 'victims' rather than perpetrators of human rights violations."

Jews aren't really even Semites, wrote Bobalink, yet they misuse this term for "silencing public criticism of the state of Israel's policies." And, he said, "their influence is so pervasive that most western media and journalists will practice a form of 'self-censorship'" rather than print "criticism of Israeli history."

EastVanMan summed up a few of the main anti-Jewish smears:

This report is rubbish? You lot best tidy your own house before you come and disapprove of how people perceive these people. I am not fond of Jewish and often Zionist control of media? Your despised for all the right reasons here and globally.

As far back as April 8, 2004, writing in the Globe and Mail, Margaret Wente noted the problem with antisemitic reader comments at the CBC, and quoted this one:

Jesus may have been a Jew himself but I know for a fact that he didn't take part in the eating of blood-filled pastries made from the blood of Palestinian children. (http://tinyurl.com/bww5wc)

The theme of Jews thirsting for blood resurfaced during the crisis in Gaza. For example, on January 2, 2009, a reader identifying himself as "LoranHayden" (a problem user if ever there was one) portrayed Jews as rejoicing in "Muslim juice":

Gideon: "Great news, my friend - did you not see the explosions next to the mosque? sadly, there were no swine inside, but we did manage to wipe out a potential sty of their young. Oh, we are doing very well now, Moshe!"
Moshe: "Oh, my good and righteous friend, Gideon - I agree. What can I do, but agree with this continued and beautifully bloody affair - tell me, was there vapor? Was there Muslim juice?"
Gideon: "Yes, my friend - there was Muslim juice - look now
and you can see from our ultra high-tech surveillance drones - given to us from our good friend Condoleeza Rice - see how they bleed, Moshe? See how the tanks keep progressing regardless of their tracks being slick and lubricated with human blood. Yes, this is a good week for Israel - the very best ever!"
(Posted 2009/01/02 at 6:29 PM ET, "Foreign passport holders exit Gaza" http://tinyurl.com/dlzxnh).

I applaud the CBC's desire to "provide an open forum for debate for all Canadians." But in reality, this isn't a forum for all Canadians; it's dominated by a hate-filled fringe represented by the likes of LoranHayden. Within Canada, only a tiny minority subscribes to anti-Jewish politics. On these forums, they're a majority.

For example, as of February 14th, 536 people have recommended a posting by "sandy411" in which he compares Israel's war with Hamas to the Holocaust and adds a reference to Israel wanting "pounds of flesh" - like Shylock the Jew - and adds:

How many tons of Palestinian women and children will settle your account, Israel? (http://tinyurl.com/b9bjy9)

Similarly, 769 readers have recommended a posting by "Bobsan" (on 2009/01/08 at 1:40 AM ET), comparing what the Nazis did to the Jews to what Israel does to the Palestinians.

I don't see how this problem can begin to get turned around unless the CBC starts banning problem users. Banning repeat (or even first time) offenders is standard procedure on most message boards; it's how they remain functional.

In other CBC programming, if guests start making racist comments on-air, the CBC doesn't invite them back. But for its reader comments pages, the CBC has made an exception, and the result has been to turn them into a playground for bigots.

I urge the CBC to change its policies and to ban problem users.

Yours truly,
Brian from Toronto

P.S. I notice you don't sign your name. I assume this isn't a lapse in professionalism but reflects your delicate position as referee for highly emotional topics?

P.P.S. For Jews (as opposed to antisemites), "chosen-ness" is the theological concept that Jews have additional religious obligations; for example, Jews traditionally observe 613 commandments, not just the usual 10.

The UN, the media and antisemitism

2009-01-12T12:02:00.000-08:00

The best thing about the General Assembly of the United Nations is that it’s almost always ignored. This was brought home to me recently when I was scanning the reader comments on a story about Israel in the Globe and Mail.

Among the usual accusations that the Jews control the media and similar “criticism of Israel” as they like to call it, one reader complained that Israel had kicked out the UN human rights rapporteur.

It was the first I’d heard of it. A minute’s research showed that Press TV played the story big, but then Press TV is owned by the antisemitic regime in Iran. The Israeli media covered it of course, and so did other media that pays special attention to Israel. But the Canadian media ignored the story.

Why? Two reasons I think. First, because the media mostly ignores international antisemitism. Second, because when it comes to human rights, the UN has no credibility. The UN Human Rights Council is a club for the world’s worst human rights abusers, and Richard Falk, the rapporteur whom Israel kicked out, embodies the UN’s perverse perspective.

Falk believes international law gives Hamas the “right of resistance.” But while giving Hamas a pass, Falk compares Israelis to Nazis, a comparison so far removed from reality that it can only be understood as Jew-baiting – the 21st Century equivalent of calling Jews “kikes.”

Mind you, Falk isn’t deluded only about Israel. He also suspects that the U.S. inflicted the September 11 terrorist attacks on itself. Any day, I’m expecting to read that Falk believes the moon landing was faked, too.

Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the UN General Assembly, condemned Israel for expelling Falk. But then d’Escoto has his own Jewish problem. In September, president Ahmadinejad of Iran gave an antisemitic rant at the UN, saying that “Zionists” (meaning Jews) control the money supply and secretly rule “some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner.”

Barack Obama, president-elect of the U.S. condemned Ahmadinejad’s words as hateful and antisemitic. Miguel d’Escoto President of the UN General Assembly reacted rather differently: he embraced Ahmadinejad in a warm hug. (That’s Ahmadinejad and d’Escoto in the photo.)

But d’Escoto doesn’t just embrace the Jew-hatred of others. Every year at the end of November, the General Assembly mourns the creation of Israel with a “UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.”

This year, the General Assembly went beyond even its usual Israel-bashing when d’Escoto called for an organized boycott against Israel to force it into submission and accused Israel of “crucifying” the Palestinians.

D’Escoto, I should note, is a Catholic priest who’s been suspended by the Vatican – but for his political activities on behalf of Nicaragua’s corrupt governments, not for the kind of religious antisemitism rejected by the Vatican and embodied in accusations of Jews crucifying people.

Mostly, the media ignored d’Escoto’s capers, just as it ignores the Human Rights Council’s squirrely rapporteur, just as it ignores almost everything coming out of the UN’s General Assembly, because really, who can take the place seriously?

But Ahmadinejad is serious. He’s the president of a bellicose nation on its way to acquiring nuclear weapons, and the world media widely reported Ahmadinejad’s speech to the UN. For the most part, though, the media gave no hint that his speech was infused with Jew-hatred.

The CBC focused on Ahmadinejad’s complaints of U.S. “bullying,” a complaint likely to gain approval from the CBC’s audience. The Toronto Star’s Olivia Ward began her report by claiming that Ahmadinejad took “a high moral tone.” It was left to the more rightwing CanWest media to report Ahmadinejad’s antisemitic ranting.

It seems the Iranian regime’s Jew-hatred doesn’t fit the agenda our more left-leaning media. Even the Globe and Mail carried an AP story that stated merely that Ahmadinejad “criticized Israel.”

Such bleaching of reality seems to be what passes for objectivity in the media these days. Thus, for example, did the BBC report in Mumbai that “gunmen” (not “terrorists” of course) were “holding people captive in an office block.”

To report that these “people” were Jews and that the “office block” was the only Jewish community centre in a city of millions of Hindus might remind viewers that the “militants” subscribe to a genocidal Jew-hatred. The BBC evidently felt that would be too real, not their sort of objectivity at all.

Note: This piece previously appeared on the Engage Forum (http://tinyurl.com/4bz6ak), on Dust My Broom (http://dustmybroom.com/), and in the January 6, 2009, Jewish Tribune (http://tinyurl.com/97r4g9), a community paper published weekly by B'nai Brith Canada.
You can find a collection of my pieces at the Engage Forum here: http://tinyurl.com/9xqne8

CUPE’s progressive disease

2009-01-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

He’s probably Canada’s most prominent Israel-basher: Sid Ryan, President of CUPE, Canada’s largest union. The Jewish Tribune reports that at a recent anti-Israel protest, Sid said, “Jews have no right to be there [in Israel] in the first place” (http://tinyurl.com/7lfgyk).

Contacted by the Tribune for clarification, Sid said that the conflict with Hamas wouldn’t be happening if not for “Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands for the past 60 years.” That is, since 1948 when the State of Israel was established.

It’s not really a surprise that Sid apparently considers Tel Aviv occupied Arab territory. Back in 2006, CUPE’s Ontario branch passed a motion to boycott Israeli goods and called for an end to “the occupation.” I pointed out at the time that the people who framed that resolution consider all of Israel occupied. (see “CUPE’s Ally,” http://tinyurl.com/75rkj2).

Also, CUPE sends a representative to the annual Cairo Conference where Islamist terrorists sit down to discuss strategy with the “anti-imperialist” left (see: A World Movement of Terrorists and Lunatics http://tinyurl.com/9kydbq). Groups such as Hamas and al Qaeda prefer murder, CUPE prefers boycott, but they're agreed in their loathing for the Zionist entity.

Sid’s latest antic is a call for CUPE to "ban Israeli academics doing speaking, teaching or research work at Ontario universities” (http://tinyurl.com/a5qouh).

Maybe someone should tell Sid that blacklisting people because of their nationality breaks Canadian anti-discrimination law.

Or has discrimination become a progressive cause?

Perhaps. Sid at any rate seems to like comparing Israelis to Nazis, which in my books is just plain Jew-bating.

And maybe someone should tell Sid that CUPE doesn’t represent full-time faculty at Canadian universities, so CUPE can’t ban Israeli scholars.

Or have delusions of power become another progressive cause?

Perhaps, or perhaps just a progressive disease - one leading to blindness to reality and the atrophy of all moral sense.

Notes: Terry Glavin has a great piece on Sid Ryan here: http://tinyurl.com/a2yoml
This piece previously appeared on the Dust My Broom blog (http://dustmybroom.com/).

You can find a collection of my pieces here: http://tinyurl.com/9xqne8

A world movement of terrorists and lunatics

2009-01-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

June 21, 2007, Toronto

Once a year radical Islamist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Jamaat al-Islamiya (an official al Qaeda franchise best known for murdering 71 tourists in Egypt in 1997) gather in Cairo. At this conference, they sit down to talk strategy with the worldwide “anti-imperialist” left. And every year, there’s a Canadian contingent.

This year, according to the Ottawa Citizen, the Canadian Arab Federation was there represented by Ali Mallah, who also represented the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Mallah has attended four out of five of the past Cairo Conferences on behalf of CUPE.

The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) was in Cairo, too. Hopefully they were hearing about Palestinians in Lebanon so they could learn what actual apartheid looks like. But not likely – at this conference, honesty was blacklisted.

The CAIA’s sister organization Not In Our Name – Jews Against Israel's Wars was also in Cairo, doubtless waving safe-conduct passes.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, Cairo attendee “Suzanne Rice” (apparently a misidentification of Suzanne Weiss of Not In Our Name) enthusiastically declared: “What we saw in Cairo were the first signs that a world movement is beginning to come together.”

Wonderful. Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda and the rest of the witch’s brew of Islamist terrorists are dedicated to fighting America, extinguishing Israel and killing Jews. That CUPE and other Canadian groups seek out such associates says ugly things about them.

The Cairo Conference Declaration was big on Hezbollah’s “heroic resistance” to the “Zionist entity.” (Yes, that’s the term they use.) The conference also praised Hamas’s “refusal to surrender to … the Oslo agreements” and called for “a revival of the Intifada and the weapon of resistance.” In other words: peace no, human bombs yes.

The conference also urged boycotts against the Zionist entity. Not surprisingly many international attendees agitate for such boycotts in their own countries. John Rees of the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) was in Cairo. In Britain, the SWP and similar far left types are behind the proposed British academic blacklist of Israeli scholars and universities.

In Canada, CUPE Ontario infamously passed an anti-Israel boycott resolution last year. And the Coalition Against Israel Apartheid is boycotting Chapters/Indigo because Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, the majority shareholders, provide scholarships to former Israeli soldiers.

Not In Our Name endorses the Apartheid Coalition’s boycott of Chapters and they both applaud CUPE Ontario’s boycott of Israel. Indeed, the relationships among these groups is positively incestuous. For example, Rafeef Ziadah, an Apartheid Coalition activist, spoke at the CUPE convention that voted to boycott Israel.

The Apartheid Coalition is especially close with CUPE Local 3903. This local represents contract faculty, teaching assistants and graduate assistants at York University, a group that just happens to have more to do with lunatic politics than with traditional unionism.

Local 3903 was one of the sponsors of CUPE’s anti-Israel boycott motion, and on its website, Local 3903 promotes the boycott and provides links to the Apartheid Coalition and to an article by Adam Hanieh, a doctoral candidate at York and a member of both CUPE and the Apartheid Coalition.

CUPE Ontario is developing: “an education campaign about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state” in consultation with Palestinian and “human rights” groups. Given CUPE’s pilgrimages to the annual Cairo Conference, I wonder who they’re consulting.

Of course Hamas is busy lately. When they’re not firing missiles at Israeli civilians, they’re murdering fellow Palestinians – throwing Fatah supporters from rooftops and executing them in front of their wives and children, all in aid of Hamas’s bloody coup in Gaza.

With Hamas so heavily engaged, I suspect the Apartheid Coalition is helping CUPE develop its mis-information campaign.

The Apartheid Coalition and Not In Our Name are even closer. In an article in the Socialist Voice, Suzanne Weiss of NION identifies herself with the Apartheid Coalition and explains their relationship:

“In Canada, we have built a broad alliance … called the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), uniting … fighters against Zionism. CAIA has a Jewish sister organization called Not In Our Name (NION).”

Groups such as NION provide cover to the lunatic left. Since these Jews compare Israel to Nazi Germany, maybe it’s kosher to call Jews Nazis. Since these Jews brand Israel with the apartheid label, perhaps Jewish nationalism somehow is inherently racist. Since these Jews claim that Israel creates antisemitism, perhaps Jew-hatred is justified.

But in fact the politics of Jews who hate Israel are just as anti-Jewish as the politics of their gentile comrades. What, after all, can you say about people who make common cause with Hezbollah, Hamas and al Qaeda – groups that aren’t shy about their desire to kill all Jews everywhere?

They call themselves “Not in My Name.” I say, Amen: Israel has nothing to do with such people and such people have nothing to do with the Jews.

P.S. OPIRG (which I think stands for the Ontario Fascist Interest Research Group;) provides this list of some of the Canadian participants in the Cairo Conference:

The Canadian Peace Alliance
The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War
The Canadian Arab Federation
The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
Not In Our Name - Jews Against Israel's Wars
Artists Against War
Venezuela We Are With You Coalition
The Toronto-Haiti Action Committee
The Toronto-Egypt Solidarity Campaign

Note: Earlier versions of this article appeared in the June 21, 2007, Jewish Trbune (http://www.jewishtribune.ca/TribuneV2/), a community paper published weekly by B'nai Brith Canada, and in the Engage Forum (http://engageonline.wordpress.com/).

You can find a collection of Brian’s pieces here: http://tinyurl.com/9xqne8

CUPE's Ally

2009-01-07T14:51:00.000-08:00

June 15, 2006, Toronto.

It’s bad enough that among all the nations of the world CUPE Ontario chose to boycott a liberal democracy – the only democracy in the Middle East. But to clarify exactly where it stands on the political compass, CUPE has also aligned itself with a Palestinian group that is pro-Hamas.

It hasn’t been much noted, but in its anti-Israel resolution, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario commits itself to creating an educational campaign “with Palestine solidarity,” a group represented at the CUPE convention by one of the leaders of the Toronto wing, Rafeef Ziadah.

The CUPE motion adopts the language and positions of Palestine solidarity, most obviously in the attempt to smear Israel an illegitimate, apartheid state and in the demand for the "right of return." This doesn’t refer to a right for Palestinians to settle in a future Palestinian state. It’s a demand to turn Israel into an Arab state by giving automatic citizenship to the 4 million grandchildren of Palestinians displaced during Arab wars against Israel.

CUPE also adopts the term "Israeli state" from Palestine solidarity. The group uses only the adjective “Israeli,” not the noun “Israel,” which names a state they wish to eradicate. In other words, "Israeli state" is an updated synonym for "Zionist entity” but it’s meant to be more broadly acceptable and, perhaps, by rhyme, structure and association of ideas to recall the phrase "Nazi state."

(Similarly, the deligitimization of Israel as an “apartheid state” just repackages the old “Zionism is racism” canard. The accusation applies a blatant double-standard, as only Jewish nationalism is criminalized, and behind the double-standard stands a long history of branding Jews as intrinsically criminal.)

Alongside of not recognizing Israel, Palestine solidarity regards all of Israel as occupied territory. Similarly, the CUPE resolution refers to "the occupation of Palestine.” Likely most of the delegates believed this was a reference to the occupied West Bank, but the framers of the resolution doubtless had in mind all of Israel.

Still, while not understanding every word of the resolution, when they voted unanimously to approve the "right of return” and to condemn Israel as an illegal, "apartheid" state, all 896 delegates surely understood they were voting in favour ending Israel’s existence. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has been widely quoted as saying that CUPE hasn't taken into account recent political developments such as the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the election of the terrorist group Hamas to lead the Palestinian Authority.

Quite the contrary is true. The people who crafted this motion consider the Hamas victory a good thing, the peace process an instrument of apartheid, and President Abbas a traitor. At least this is the position of Rafeef Ziadah and Palestine solidarity.

In a March 4, 2006, article published in the magazine Left Turn, Notes From the Global Intifadah and on the international Palestine solidarity website, Ziadah and Adam Hanieh, another leader of Palestine solidarity in Toronto and a CUPE member, set out their views. They write about: “The overdue end of the Oslo process and its attempt to narrow the ‘Palestinian question’ to a state-building project in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” That is, as opposed to a Palestinian state in all of “historic Palestine.”

They write:

Hamas' victory is a striking indictment of this so-called "peace process."
Promoted with the deliberate deceit of Western governments and the corporate
media, the myth of negotiations was fully shared in by the leadership of the
Palestinian Authority (PA), most particularly by individuals such as
Palestinian President Abu Mazen [Abbas] and Prime Minister Abu Ala.

The PA leadership came to represent submission and surrender under the banner of peaceful negotiations and empty condemnation of violence. Indeed, immediately prior to the Legislative Council elections, Hamas leader Khaled Mishaal pointed out that "the experiment of fifty years taught us this road was futile" and Hamas would not continue to deceive the Palestinian people with this "political fiction."

Note the reference to the “empty condemnation of violence.” Palestine solidarity fully supports terrorism and applauds Hamas’s violent “commitment to the national struggle.” Palestine solidarity saves its derision for such "political fiction" as the idea of peaceful coexistence.

On the other hand, while CUPE Ontario does represent 200,000 workers at the bargaining table, it doesn't in any way represent the politics of its members. Most CUPE members would be appalled if they understood their union was allying itself with the suicide bombers.

Indeed, in the past few weeks, CUPE’s anti-Israel motion has been widely condemned. On the Michael Coren show (a Toronto TV talk show), Sid Ryan, the president of CUPE Ontario, responded by berating the “Jewish lobby.” Challenged by host Michael Coren to say who precisely he meant, Ryan had no reply, but simply asserted that “this lobby will not push me one inch, not one inch.”

So who is this “Jewish Lobby” that’s trying to push around Sid Ryan? Of course, there are the major Canadian Jewish organizations, such as B’nai Brith which has issued a “manifesto” denouncing the CUPE resolution. To date, thousands of Canadians, Jewish and non-Jewish, including many CUPE members have signed the manifesto.

The “Jewish Lobby” is also CUPE local 265, which withdrew from CUPE Ontario in protest. The “Jewish Lobby” is Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Autoworkers, Canada’s largest private sector union, who wrote an op-ed for the Toronto Star disagreeing with the CUPE resolution. The labour movement, Hargrove argued, should encourage peace “with calls for genuine dialogue and exchange, not by finger-pointing and boycotts.”

The “Jewish Lobby” is columnists such as Rex Murphy in the Globe and Mail who denounced CUPE for smearing Israel with the apartheid label, Jonathan Kay in the National Post, who characterized CUPE’s stance as bigotry, Naomi Lakritz in the Calgary Herald who called CUPE antisemitic, and of course Michael Coren, a personal friend of Sid Ryan’s, who described his union’s resolution as shameful and suggested Ryan’s talk about “the Jewish lobby” might be described as racist.

In short, the “Jewish lobby” in Canada is like the “Israel lobby” described by Mearsheimer and Walt in the United States: it includes everyone who happens to disagree with anti-Israel bigots.

I previously published this article in the June 15, 2006, Jewish Tribune and on the Engage Website, where you can find a collection of my pieces, including this one: http://tinyurl.com/9xqne8

What should the Govenor General do?

2008-12-05T14:14:00.000-08:00

I'm no constitutional expert, but I believe the GG can do just about anything she wants, and the arguments are really about what she should do.

If the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc defeat the govt in January, Harper will ask for a new election and Dion will ask for a chance to govern with a Liberal-NDP coalition propped up by the Bloc.

Some say she should order a new election because (a) it's her job to follow the prime minister's advice - an argument that doesn't persuade me - or (b) because it's traditional for Canadians to elect their govt. and we sure haven't elected this coalition - an argument I find far more persuasive.

Others say the GG should give the coalition a chance because, while we elect our members of parliament, it's up to our MPs to elect the govt, and if Dion's coalition can command a majority among the MPs, the coalition deserves a chance to govern. I also find this argument persuasive.

However, the coalition isn't requesting just one chance - they're actually requesting two: a govt led by Dion until May and then a govt led by whoever replaces Dion after May. This is absurd.

In our system, when a new leader replaces a sitting Prime Minister, he must call an election to get a mandate from the people.

So I'm okay with the GG calling a new election should the govt fall in January. Personally, that's what I'd prefer. But I'm also okay with her giving the coalition a chance, but only provided they pledge to hold an election within six months of getting a new leader, as convention demands.

Could the GG require such an undertaking? Absolutely. At this point, she holds all the cards. For the sake of our democracy, she should play them.

New Macmillan encyclopedia recycles old lies

2008-11-30T16:50:00.000-08:00

Next time your kids look up ‘Zionism’ in an encyclopedia, they may read that Israel is a racist state based on an ideology akin to Nazism. This article, recycling the old lie that Zionism is racism, appears in the new Encyclopedia of Race and Racism published by Macmillan Reference U.S.A.
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) notes that Noel Ignatiev, the author of the article, “has no track record of scholarship in Middle Eastern or Jewish studies.” (See here: http://blog.z-word.com/category/macmillan-reference/) Earlier versions of Ignatiev’s Zionism article appear in an obscure rag called Race Traitor and in Counterpunch, a self-described “muckraking” magazine notorious not just for Israel-bashing but for antisemitism.

The Macmillan Zionism entry shows none of the objectivity and scholarship you usually find in an encyclopaedia, but it does have everything you’d expect from an article in Counterpunch: it’s tendentious, offensive and wrong.

Perhaps worst of all, the entry conflates Zionism and Nazism. Ignatiev claims that Zionism: “shared the [Nazi] belief that the Jews were a racial community based on blood.” Beyond the obvious falsehood here (i.e., that Zionists see Jews as a race), Ignatiev is implying that Zionists used the same language of race and blood as the Nazis and shared the same outlook as the Nazis. Indeed, he goes on to claim that Zionists “collaborated” with the Nazis.

Why in the world did the editors choose Ignatiev to author this encyclopedia entry? This incident damages Macmillan U.S.A’s reputation and the reputation of its parent company, Gale, Cengage Learning. It doubly damages their reputation since it raises an obvious question: As the author of the Zionism article has an anti-Israel track record, how many other entries were written by someone with a political agenda?

Underlining the scandal, no other form of nationalism appears in the Macmillan encyclopedia, only Jewish nationalism. The name for this kind of practice might be found under D for discrimination.

Worse, the AJC reports that John Hartwell Moore, the encyclopedia’s editor-in-chief, defended the Zionism entry by suggesting that Zionism is racist because it embodies an idea of racial superiority based on the idea of Jews as a chosen people. That is, Moore defended the modern slander that Zionism is racism by reaching for an older anti-Jewish slander that Jews think of themselves as superior. But although these notions of ‘chosen-ness’ as meaning superior and of Jews as a race have been widely spread by antisemites, they have no basis in Jewish reality.

For starters, early Zionists were a secular lot, and in the unlikely event that they had wanted to borrow a theological concept, they wouldn’t have picked chosen-ness, the idea that God set apart the Jews for particular religious obligations. After all, the Zionist project was about making the Jews a normal nation with our own country, not a people set apart in any way.

The lies Ignatiev peddles in his Macmillan entry aren’t new. They originated during the Cold War when the Soviets decided to use antisemitism in their efforts to orient the Third World against the West. Soviet propagandists manufactured the notion that Jewish nationalism is inherently racist and that Jews are the new Nazis, then spread this manure to Communists around the world and taught it to a generation of potential Third World leaders.

Mahmoud Abbas, for example, the current president of the Palestinian Authority, received his doctorate at a Soviet institution by writing a pseudo-academic thesis on supposed Zionist collaboration with the Nazis. For good measure, he added some Holocaust denial to his thesis, claiming that numbers killed were grossly exaggerated.

I suggest that Macmillan replace its entry on Zionism with an article on the durability of antisemitic myths. The Soviet Union has collapsed into the dust of history but its propaganda lives on. It's even managed to worm its way into an encyclopedia published by a hitherto reputable company.

In an attempt to quiet its critics, Macmillan has announced it will add alternative perspectives on Zionism to the on-line version of encyclopedia alongside Igantiev’s propaganda piece (http://tinyurl.com/6dq2fl). But treating lies and truth as equals subverts the very idea of knowledge. And an encyclopedia is supposed to be a compendium of knowledge – not a hodgepodge of knowledge and nonsense.

Academics especially, but ordinary people too, need to insist to Macmillan Reference and its parent company, Gale Cengage Learning, that an entry on Zionism simply has no place in an encyclopedia of racism.

Your concerns on this matter might be addressed to: Hélène Potter, director new product development for Macmillan Reference USA: Helene.potter@cengage.com, or to Frank Menchaca, executive vice president of Macmillan Reference USA: frank.menchaca@cengage.com

Note: This piece also appeared in the Engage Forum: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2241

And in the Jewish Tribune: http://tinyurl.com/6msl7j

The UN – Curse or Blessing?

2008-11-23T11:55:00.000-08:00

“Canadians love the idea of the United Nations, but know little about it,” said Dr. Adam Chapnick in a recent lecture at Beth Tikvah’s popular Lunch and Learn program. Chapnick explained that in surveys Canadians consistently rank second or third among the countries of the world in our support for the UN.

Given that the General Assembly often seems obsessed with denigrating Israel, I find the Canadian enthusiasm for the UN worrying. Not Dr. Chapnick. He suggested that most Canadians pay no attention to anti-Israel reports issuing from the UN. “It goes in one ear, out the other,” he said. The General Assembly’s many anti-Israel resolutions may embolden anti-Israel propagandists, but they don’t change how anyone sees Israel.

Currently an Assistant Professor of Defence Studies and Deputy Chair of Education at Canadian Forces College, Dr. Chapnick has a particular interest in the history of Canada’s involvement with the UN and the place the UN holds in our national mythology.

Chapnick pointed out that the vast majority of resolutions regarding Israel are passed by the General Assembly, not the Security Council and that the General Assembly was designed to be powerless.

According to Chapnick, President Roosevelt, one of the principal architects of the UN, envisioned the General Assembly as a forum where “small countries can vent.”

Chapnick suggested that the UN’s Human Rights Council is similarly irrelevant. He described the UN’s old Human Rights Secretariat as an “embarrassment,” a club for some of the world’s worst human rights offenders. The reformed Human Rights Council is just as bad, he said, and because it lacks credibility, it lacks influence.

Chapnick argued that the United Nations is a blessing as well as a curse, even for Israel. He stated that Israel will never be elected to a seat on the Security Council because of “the General Assembly’s racist bias.” However, in the United States, “Israel has an ally on the Security Council that looks out for Israel’s interests.”

Also, Chapnick explained that the UN’s primary purpose is to prevent a third world war, and, he argued, in this, the UN has been successful. Moreover, he pointed out the UN’s usefulness in disaster relief efforts, such as the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian Ocean, and in disease eradication programs, such as the elimination of polio.

Ultimately, Chapnick said that blaming the UN is a mistake. He suggested that the UN is a place where countries gather to talk. What gets done and doesn’t get done in the world is up to individual countries, which can and do act without UN authorization. Even Canada acts without the UN’s blessing, he said, such participating in NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo.

When the UN supports them, countries use the UN “to cloak themselves in legitimacy,” and when the UN doesn’t support them, they ignore it.

Geographic amnesia

2008-10-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

CAMERA has recently pointed out that media outlets habitually refer to Israel’s blockade of Gaza, as if Israel is the only country that borders Gaza. But Egypt lies to the south of Gaza, and where the Egypt-Gaza border runs through the town of Rafah, there is an important border crossing. The CAMERA piece gives a full backgrounder here: http://tinyurl.com/6k7r6b.

Back in February 2008, I wrote a piece for the Jewish Tribune about the bias demonstrated in the media's amnesia about Gaza’s Egyptian border. Too frequently, the media portrays Arabs and Islamists as amoral agents, no more responsible for their actions than polar bears. Thus, for the media, the Egyptian blockade simply doesn’t count. Only Israel’s actions are up for judgement.

I’ve posted by my piece from the Tribune, “Egypt blockades Gaza,” below.

Egypt blockades Gaza

2008-10-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

You likely never heard a word about Egypt’s blockade of Gaza. But from June 2007 to January 2008, the Egyptian-Gaza border was continually closed.

The seal wasn’t watertight. The Egyptians opened the border on occasion. Also, so many tunnels go between Rafah in Egypt to Rafah in Gaza that smugglers need a subway map to find their way around. But although guns, explosives and missiles travel readily under the border, food, fuel and medicine didn’t have such an easy time crossing the border up top.

Not a peep from the media. But as soon as Israel sealed its border with Gaza for a couple days, you heard all about it – that is, you heard all about Israel, but still next to nothing about Egypt.

“Israel blocks fuel supply,” said the Toronto Star. “Israel closes Gaza's borders,” reported the BBC. “Israel agrees to ease blockade,” the CBC chimed in a bit later.

The EU declared that Israel was “collectively punishing” Gaza. No mention of Egypt, though the Rafah border had been closed for seven months, not a couple days.

Virtually alone among the world’s media, the Associated Press accurately referred to “Israel’s and Egypt’s blockade of Gaza.” But otherwise the media suffered geographic amnesia. They’d simply forgotten Gaza’s southern border.

In an article on its website, the BBC claimed that although “Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 … it still controls the territory's borders and supplies.” Except for Gaza’s Egyptian border, the BBC should have added, but did not.

The media remembered the Gaza-Egypt border when Hamas blew it up and hundreds of thousands of Gazans flooded into Egypt. But even while reporting on how Hamas broke Egpyt’s blockade, the media refered to Israel’s blockade.

For the media, the Egyptian blockade didn’t count. Only Israel’s actions were up for judgement.
This sort of double-standard isn’t unusual. The media watchdog group, Honest Reporting (HR) recently released an analysis of the BBC’s reporting of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the second half of 2007.

HR found that in stories about Palestinian attacks, the headlines never named the aggressors. The BBC preferred headlines such as “Rocket injures dozens in Israel” (http://tinyurl.com/24xvkq).

That is, BBC headlines report Palestinian attacks in the same way they report the weather: as something that just falls out of the sky.

“On the other hand” Honest Reporting stated, “in 63% of articles addressing Israeli military operations, the headline was much more clear and direct … (e.g.: ‘Israel strikes kill six in Gaza’).”

An unintentional racism is at work here. When it comes to political conflicts, the media often portrays Arabs and Islamists as amoral agents, no more responsible for their actions than polar bears.

On the other side of the double standard, the media judges Israel as hyper-responsible. No one would dream of asking why Canada doesn’t supply fuel to the Taliban. But it’s front-page news when Israel holds up Gaza’s fuel supply.

Israel-haters take the double standard one step further: they hold Israel responsible for Palestinian crimes.

For example, the Guardian newspaper carried a video that allowed 12 seconds to reporting the recent suicide attack in Dimona, gave another 12 seconds to a representative of Abbas’s government, who condemned the attack, but blamed Israel for it. Then, for the benefit of the hardcore anti-Israel faithful, the Guardian got to the meat of the report: a 72-second clip of a Hamas official justifying the attack.

Murdering a 73-year-old woman in a shopping mall and wounding 11 others was a “normal response to this shape of collective punishment,” the Hamas official said. It was a “resistance operation” against the “occupation.” That is, against Jews occupying their own homes in Israel; there are no Israelis in Gaza.

The Dimona suicide bombers are just the latest reminder of why Israel and Egypt need to blockade Gaza. However, the bombers reportedly crossed into Egypt from Gaza, then infiltrated into Israel throught the Sinai, once again illustrating how poorly Egypt guards its border with Gaza.

Perhaps Israel would be smart to create an arms control line just north of the Egypt-Gaza border. Then, if Egypt likes, it can unite Rafah. Put a few trains in the tunnels and Rafah will have a better subway system than Toronto.

In any case, it will have nothing to do with Israel. Whatever the media may imply, the Palestinians and Egyptians aren’t polar bears. They’re responsible for their own crimes, their own failings, and their own futures.

This piece was originally published in the Jewish Tribune here: http://www.jewishtribune.ca/tribune/PDF/jt140208.pdf

Jack Layton endorses Canadian Dementia

2008-10-16T03:41:00.000-07:00

On its website, Canadian Dimension quotes New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton praising their magazine as: “Thoughtful, persistent, challenging, unflinching.”

Uh-huh. James Petras regularly contributes to Canadian Dimension and is a member of its editorial collective. He writes about how Jewish bankers and the “Zionist power configuration” control America’s foreign policy. Terry Glavin comments: “Petras will also explain how the culprits behind last year's 'Mohammed cartoons' conniptions, which involved embassy-burnings and riots and at least 139 deaths, were - you guessed it - Mossad agents” (http://tinyurl.com/4xwt2z).

With Petras in mind, Jack might add another word to his description of Canadian Dimension – a word that starts with: "anti".

Conspiracy theorist Prof Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa is another member of Canadian Dimension's editorial collective. The Ottawa Citizen ran a piece on Chossudovsky that begins thus:

“A Jewish group has filed a complaint to the University of Ottawa against one of its professors after the discovery of content on his website that blames Jews for the terrorist attacks on the United States, and claims the numbers who died at Auschwitz are exaggerated. The website, globalresearch.ca, also reprints articles from other writers that accuse Jews of controlling the U.S. media and masterminding the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."

The neo-Nazi Adelaide Institute has the rest of the article posted here: ttp://tinyurl.com/4lnozr.

Also check out a short piece about Chossudovsky’s nutty conspiracy theories that I wrote for the Jewish Tribune and also published on the Engage website here: http://tinyurl.com/5888d8. And speaking of conspiracy theories, Barrie Zwicker, dean of the Canadian 9/11 Truther movement, is yet another member of Canadian Dimension’s editorial collective.

Hmm, with Chossudovsky and Zwicker in Canadian Dimension’s editorial collective, maybe Jack should consider the term “tinfoil hat.” Indeed, Canadian Dimension goes so low that if Jack has a modicum of decency, the magazine would leave him speechless. The current issue (Sept / Oct 2008) includes an article concerning the attempt by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid to bring their brand of visceral Israel-hatred into Canadian high schools.

CAIA favours the terrorist group Hamas and rejects Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas because he would negotiate peace with Israel. In the CAIA’s peculiar vocabulary, the idea of two states living side by side in peace is “apartheid.” Thus, the CAIA praises:“[the] Palestinian people for decisively rejecting Israeli Apartheid through the election of Hamas” (http://tinyurl.com/4g2o7x).

By setting up a high school division of their group, the CAIA hopes to indoctrinate Canadian kids with their vision of a Middle East without Israel, a project that Canadian Dimension reports on enthusiastically.

Right now, Jack Layton is running to be Canada’s next Prime Minister. He won’t make that goal, but his party will win seats, and with the Liberal Party in freefall, the NDP might possibly form the official opposition.

However, if Jack wants Canadians to take the NDP seriously, he has to stop appealing to the political fringe. You can’t endorse an extremist rag like Canadian Dimension one day, then ask Canadians to make you Prime Minister the next.
This piece is also published on the Engage Forum here: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2106
And on Dust my Broom, here: http://dustmybroom.com/content/view/5427/
You can find a collection of my pieces here: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/search.php?search=Brian+Henry

The lunatic fringe goes mainstream

2008-10-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

I will remember the 2008 Canadian election as the one in which three candidates were asked to step down over alleged antisemitic remarks. As the election in which a whole slew of lunatics stood for MP under the banners of supposedly mainstream parties.

First to be forced out was John Shavluck, a Green Party candidate, formerly a member of the Marijuana Party. In the midst of a semi-coherent rant against the United States (the usual stock in trade on his blog) Shavluck referred to: “your governments complicate [i.e., complicity in the] attack on your shoddily built Jewish world bank headquarters. you know 'the 2 towers'" (http://tinyurl.com/4mayn9).

There was never anything especially Jewish about the twin towers of the World Trade Center, except to people who believe Jews – and especially Jewish bankers – rule the world and to people who believe the Jews instigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks for their own nefarious purposes. The Green Party had the good sense to kick Shavluck out as soon as a blogger uncovered this posting and before the mainstream media even picked up on it.

Shavluck wasn’t the only former Marijuana Party member forced to step down during this election. As part of an apparent policy of courting the political fringes, Jack Layton had cultivated the stoner constituency. (See here, for example: http://tinyurl.com/5xx2fr). And this election, two former members of the Marijuana Party ran as NDP candidates.

Dana Larsen was the first to step down after a blogger uncovered shows he’d done for Pot TV, including one that featured him driving while stoned on LSD (http://tinyurl.com/4x2vbl). The other former Marijuana Party candidate stepped down soon after when people realized (a bit slowly on the uptake) that he, too, took drugs.

For myself, I was more concerned about Larsen’s politics. He was campaigning against “deep integration.” Within the sliver of sanity on this issue, some people oppose harmonizing regulations between Canada and the U.S. because they fear it will result in reduced sovereignty for Canada and in greater power for corporations.

Usually though, people who talk about “deep integration” see it as a secret plot for an American take-over of Canada. The NDP official website expresses the paranoia succinctly with a map of North America coloured all over with the stars and stripes of the American flag.

The NDP shares this paranoia with the 9/11 Truthers, another fringe group Jack Layton has cultivated. At a Calgary book signing, a member of the Calgary 9/11 Truth cornered Jack for an impromptu interview. A forthright politician might have said that, while some people may have gravitated toward truther ideas in all innocence, the notion that the September 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job represents the politics of bigotry: it’s a product of virulent anti-Americanism, antisemitism, or both.

Jack said nothing of the kind. Instead he volunteered that Barrie Zwicker – dean of the Canadian Truther movement – is a close friend. “I have all the [Truther] materials, which we study, ” Jack said. He added he was glad that, like the NDP, the 9/11 truth movement opposes deep integration (http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=3mw-VhY6a2Q).

Not surprisingly, the NDP had a Truther candidate running in this election: Bev Collins, former president of the paranoid fringe Canadian Action Party. Last year Collins wrote an article predicting that the American take-over of Canada would be complete by 2010. “Are you ready for your children to be drafted under Bush's army?” she asked.

“To bring about this merging of Canada, US and Mexico,” Collins wrote, there may be: “Another false flag terror attack (http://tinyurl.com/3jcqfq).” In Truther talk, the original false flag operation was the attacks of September 11, apparently carried out by Arabs but secretly directed by the Americans themselves or, in the antisemitic version, by the Israelis / Zionists / Jews.

Lesley Hughes, another 9/11 conspiracy enthusiast, ran for the Liberals. She was asked to step down after a blogger discovered an article she’d written repeating the myth that Israeli businesses broke their leases to vacate the World Trade Towers just before the terrorist attack (http://members.shaw.ca/mclachla/page3.htm).

Given that Hughes was a regular contributor to Canadian Dimension Magazine and a member of its editorial collective, nothing that came out of her mouth should have surprised anyone. Canadian Dimension is the magazine of the Canada’s lunatic fringe and publishes people such as James Petras, who believes the “Zionist power structure” directs American foreign policy.

Indeed, the only surprising thing in the whole affair was that Hughes ran for the Liberals and not the NDP, given that Jack Layton had enthusiastically endorsed Canadian Dimension. (See here: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2106.)

After the Liberals gave Hughes the boot, there were calls for the NDP’s truther candidate Bev Collins to step down, too. But as Collins hadn’t made any antisemitic comments, Jack stood by her.

Jack’s wooing of the political fringes resulted in other questionable candidates running for the NDP, as well, such as El-Farouk Khaki, the NDP candidate for Toronto Centre.

Earlier this month, a young Muslim was convicted of belonging to an Al Qaeda–inspired terror cell that had acquired enough bomb-making material for several truck bombs. Khaki claimed the youth’s conviction just shows that in Canada, “Everybody who is Muslim who is accused of anything terror related is presumed to be guilty until proven innocent."

Khaki was a founding director of the Canadian Muslim Union – not exactly a moderate organization. According to the CMU: “As far as 9/11 and terrorism is concerned, those are well designed illusions, intentionally created to keep the simpletons of the world busy in irrelevant debates while the American imperialists take care of the real business of destroying others.”

The CMU claims the people plotting "the real business" are “Zionists, some Christian and others Jewish” (http://www.muslimunion.ca/20061003.html).

Another NDP candidate was Andrew McKeever. The Liberals demanded he step down after uncovering charming comments he’d made in a facebook group; such as: “Answer a direct f**king question you c*nt…. You are prejudiced and you are ignorant. You are a moron” (http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/080925_facebook_mckeever.pdf).

But the NDP stood by McKeever until his comments on his MySpace page came to light, where among other things, he says: “I like the part in Schindler's List when the guard starts waxing the prisoners” (http://tinyurl.com/3vf36v).

As the prisoners McKeever so enjoyed being waxed in this Holocaust film were Jews, the Liberals labeled McKeever's remark antisemitic and again called for him to step down. This time he did, doubtless after a strong push from the NDP leadership (http://tinyurl.com/4wrewo).

So many certified members of the lunatic fringe ran in this weirdest of all Canadian elections that it would take another 1,000 words to enumerate them all. But in closing I must mention the Liberal candidate David Orchard.

Orchard is a kind of minor cult figure in Canada, particularly among the anti-American crowd. In his zeal to pin crimes on the U.S., Orchard has labelled the invasion of Afghanistan – in which Canada participated – a “supreme international crime,” comparable to the Nazi invasion of Europe. Presumably, then, Orchard considers the Canadian government of the time a bunch of war criminals. But that government included the present leader the Liberal Party, Stéphane Dion.

Now, the Liberals have always been a big tent party, a party that includes a wide diversity of views, but how Dion could bring himself to sign Orchard’s nomination papers is beyond me. Unlike Layton, Dion hasn’t actively wooed the political fringes, but with people like David Orchard and Lesley Hughes running for the Liberals, it looks like Dion doesn’t understand the difference between a big tent and a circus tent.

Note: You can also find this piece on the Engage website here: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2158

And you can find a collection of my pieces here: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/search.php?search=Brian+Henry