Rats don’t vote

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

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

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”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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?

“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

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

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