[Palsem09] Ottawa conference to stifle crticism of Zionism

[lagatta]

Dear friends and comrades,

Thanks to Peter for the conference address, hoping it works!

There is a major event convened at the Canadian Parliament buildings  
in Ottawa this weekend, with significant public funding, but closed  
to the public and the media. As you probably know, the current far- 
right Tory government here has outdone itself to be even more  
slavishly pro-Zionist than the German, Dutch or US governments. Some  
members of this government are fundamentalist Christians who have  
made egregious antisemitic comments in the past, or sought to  
"convert" Jews.

Article on a progressive Canadian news and discussion site (founded  
by Judy Rebick, a prominent feminist, "self-hating Jew" and former  
leading comrade...)

There is more about the conference and opposition to it at the  
rabble.ca site

Marie, à Montréal



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Published on rabble.ca (http://rabble.ca)
Anti-Semitism and free speech: In Parliament this weekend

By rabble staff
Created Nov 3 2010 - 11:54pm


Story Publish Date:
November 4, 2010


Coming Nov. 7 to 9: An international conference hosted in the  
Canadian Parliament Buildings, closed to the public and the media,  
financed by $451,280 of public funds, provided by Minister of  
Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney.

The guest: Inter-Parliamentary Committee to Combat Anti-Semitism  
(ICCA), chaired by Irwin Cotler, former Liberal Minister of Justice.

The hosts: Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism  
(CPCCA), Minister Kenney and Irwin Cotler, key ex officio members.

Participants: Self-selected supporters of Israel who are members of  
Parliaments in various countries.

The goal: to produce a declaration and "protocol," to be adopted by  
all Canadian political parties, greatly expanding the definition of  
"anti-Semitism" to include criticism of Israel, declaring such  
criticism "hate speech," putting free speech seriously at risk.

There are two fronts in the Palestine/Israel conflict. The first  
takes place on the ground in the historic land of Palestine and  
directly impacts the people there. The second front is the struggle  
to win the hearts, minds, and support of people internationally.

While leftists and progressives are aware of the general historical  
contours of the conflict in Palestine, they may be less aware of one  
important dimension of the second front. This is where the struggle  
to expose the full story, including its moral and political  
dimensions, is pitted against attempts to censor and suppress free  
speech.

The CPCCA (Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism)  
and the ICCA (Inter-Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism)  
are important beachheads in Israel's attempts to create a political  
environment and legal system that suppresses a full story of events  
on the ground.

As the very names of the CPCCA and ICCA indicate, the campaign of  
suppression centres on anti-Semitism -- both real and imagined. So  
let's think about anti-Semitism.

In 1937, this notice was posted at the entrance to the St. Andrews  
Golf Club in Toronto: "After Sunday, June 20, this course will be  
restricted to Gentiles only. Please do not question this policy."

In May 1939, the government of Canada refused landing rights to the  
M.V. St. Louis, a ship carrying over 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi  
Germany.

Undeniably, bigotry against Jews, as well as others, is a part of  
Canada's history. Two prominent Jews, who may not agree on other  
things, agree on the current situation:

"By any conceivable standard, we Canadian Jews are surely among the  
most privileged, most secure, most successful, most influential  
minorities in Canada and indeed in the entire world."
- Gerald Caplan, academic and NDP organizer

"We have come to a point in the 21st century where at least in the  
halls of government, and I think very much in the mainstream of  
Canadian life, we are viewed as part and parcel of Canadian polity."
- Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress

So why, then, is anti-Jewish bigotry (anti-Semitism) the only concern  
of Irwin Cotler, Jason Kenney and other members of parliament who in  
2009 formed the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat  
Antisemitism (CPCCA)? No coalition of parliamentarians is pursuing  
remedies for any other group that is a target of bigotry in Canada  
today.

So much noise on one side -- so much silence about others.

Indeed the CPCCA claims that anti-Semitism is "at its worst level  
since the end of the Second World War," despite several witnesses  
they themselves carefully selected giving contrary evidence at  
hearings held in Ottawa.

Among them, Mr. Robert Steiner, assistant vice-president, University  
of Toronto, testified that: "There is no evidence of generalized anti- 
Semitism on the University of Toronto's campuses. There is no  
evidence of Jewish students being systematically harassed and  
intimidated on our campuses. There is no evidence that it is  
dangerous to be a pro-Israeli student, faculty member, or staff  
member on our campuses -- in fact, quite the opposite."

And Dr. Fred Lowy, president emeritus of Concordia University but  
speaking as an individual, said that "Canadian campuses are safe.  
They are not hotbeds of anti-Semitism or racism of any kind although,  
of course, these conditions do occur."

Anti-Semitism is marginal in Canadian society. Why then do  
politicians and community leaders fall over each other to prove they  
are the most politically correct in opposing it? Why is this so when  
other forms of racism are not taken as seriously?

Dominant Canadian culture has been white, and European-centred for  
many generations. People's sense of identity -- including their  
feelings of self-respect and human decency -- derives from their  
understanding of events in western European history. Revulsion is  
appropriately profound at the Nazi slaughter of Jews, yet  
inappropriately absent relative to British, Belgian and other massive  
colonial slaughters of Africans and Asians. The first, not the  
second, has become the litmus test of decency in Canadian culture.  
And the corollary of this single litmus test of decency is insecurity  
and moral panic when a Jewish person launches an accusation of anti- 
Semitism.

Were we to become universal in our outrage at injustices, we would  
perhaps not be so easily made to feel guilty by false accusations of  
anti-Semitism.

And it is this accusation of false anti-Semitism that is the key to  
what Irwin Cotler, Jason Kenney, and the CPCCA are up to.

Denunciation of a Jew, just because s/he is a Jew, and not because of  
what that person does, is authentic anti-Semitic bigotry and is  
reprehensible. Irwin Cotler, Jason Kenney, and members of the CPCCA  
know such authentic anti-Semitism is today a marginal phenomenon in  
Canada. Hence the CPCCA uses the concept of a "new" anti-Semitism.

What is "new" anti-Semitism and why is it a hoax?

Irwin Colter has answered this question for us. Speaking to the  
Canadian Jewish News, he asserted that whereas old anti-Semitism  
"wished to eliminate individual Jewish people, the new anti-Semitism  
aims at getting rid of the Jewish state."

A desire and an effort to eliminate any people is hatred and bigotry,  
and anti-Semitism is one form. But a "Jewish state" is a very  
different phenomenon. The "Jewish state" is a political idea; a  
political structure flows from that idea; and a set of actions flows  
from that structure. It is not a people.

Those who had the political idea to establish a "Jewish state" called  
themselves Zionists. For decades only a minority of Jews supported  
this political idea. From the earliest days of the Zionist movement,  
individuals as well as organized groups of Jews have held varied and  
intensely different views about this political movement.

Just one illustration, far from exceptional, was a public letter sent  
in 1919 to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles  
negotiations at the end of the first world war by more than 300  
prominent Jews in the U.S. (members of Congress, diplomats, judges,  
officers of major Jewish organizations included). They wrote: "As a  
future form of government for Palestine will undoubtedly be  
considered by the approaching Peace Conference, we, the undersigned  
citizens of the United States, unite in this statement, setting forth  
our objections to the organization of a Jewish State in Palestine as  
proposed by the Zionist Societies in this country and Europe and to  
the segregation of the Jews as a nationalistic unit in any country."

Signatories of such a statement today would be denounced as "self- 
hating Jews." The CPCCA might well call it "hate speech."

The hoax, attempted by the proponents of the "new anti-Semitism,"  
pretends that the "new anti-Semitism" is the same as the "old anti- 
Semitism."

Apply the same logic to Canada. Who would label as "hate" and  
"bigotry" -- as "new anti-Canadianism" -- those who seriously  
question the colonial origins of our political structures and  
government practices, or the bigoted attitudes held by Canadians at  
different times?

If we went down this path we would have to denounce the expression,  
and demand the suppression, of those who wished to publicly discuss  
the government of Canada's oppression of aboriginal people, the  
imprisonment of Canadians of Japanese origin during the second world  
war, and the exclusion of Jewish refugees before the war.

The rhetorical trick of this hoax is to force anyone who raises a  
specific, factual criticism of Israel -- let's say the bombing of  
Gaza and the killing of several hundred children -- to answer the  
charge of anti-Semitism. Instead of arguing that "the facts are  
wrong" or the "interpretation of international law making this a war  
crime is ill-founded," supporters of Israel shift the ground  
entirely. They allege that the initial factual criticism is -- really  
-- the medieval European anti-Semitic accusation known as "blood  
libel." (The "blood libel" accused Jews as a people with sacrificing  
Christian children, to use their blood for ritual purposes.) Now,  
instead of answering your fact-based criticism, they move the terrain  
from fact to metaphor, making you defend yourself against the false  
charge of anti-Semitism.

Dr. Jack Lightstone, President and Vice-Chancellor of Brock  
University, bluntly told the CPCCA in his testimony: "We can't look  
into the soul of someone and say, ?Your criticism of Israel is really  
based on your anti-Semitic sentiments.' We can't do that as a people,  
as a government, or as a society, nor should we."

"Lawfare" is another weapon in Cotler's arsenal for avoiding real  
debate. He says "lawfare is the waging of war under the cover of law"  
-- "legalized anti-Semitism." His target is those he calls  
"sophisticated" people who present fact-based argument that Israel  
has violated international or human rights law or committed war  
crimes. These are dismissed as hateful efforts to "single out" and  
"delegitimize" Israel.

But in fact it is Irwin Cotler who "singles out" Israel by decreeing  
it to be above such criticism. He can't imagine that Israel's actions  
may be what discredits it. Here again, accusations of anti-Semitism  
replace fact-based argument.

What is equally astounding is the insincerity of this professed  
intense concern to rid the world of anti-Semitism. Those who shout  
loudest about "new anti-Semitism" too often make close allies with  
the proponents of the old anti-Semitism. The Anti-Defamation League  
honoured Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi days after he  
praised Mussolini, a fascist dictator and ally of Nazi Germany, as a  
benign leader of Italy. The Canadian B'nai Brith maintains close  
relations with the televangelist John Hagee even after it was  
revealed he had praised Hitler for doing god's work driving Jews to  
seek refuge in Palestine, facilitating the "rapture" and "salvation"  
of Christians.

Finally, doesn't Irwin Cotler's formulation of Israel as the  
"collective Jew" hold all Jews responsible for the acts of a state, a  
state where most Jews do not live, and where there is a range of  
opinion among those who do? What then is different between the  
"collective Jew" and the old anti-Semitic mantra of "world Jewry?"

The counter to such stereotypes -- whether of "world Jewry" or the  
"collective Jew" -- is the reality that Jews, like every social  
group, have a variety of opinions and engage in a variety of actions.

Effort to silence discussion and to eliminate the opportunities for  
public conversation about differences of understanding is exactly  
intended, among other things, to hide from public view the reality of  
that diversity among Jews. Thereby it fertilizes the soil of bigotry  
which the propagandists of "new anti-Semitism" fervently claim to  
oppose.

Where reason and discussion are given no space, all forms of bigotry  
flourish. This promotion of a "tea party" culture of anger and  
denunciation weakens the opportunity for Canadians to formulate their  
own understanding of the source of the Israel-Palestine conflict and  
how to promote its just and peaceful resolution.

Rights are weakened or strengthened around concrete problems, not in  
the abstract and the metaphorical. The conflict in the Middle East is  
the concrete situation around which we must strengthen our democratic  
right to express publicly differences of opinion.

Was the creation of Israel a colonial project or not? Was there not,  
some, significant "ethnic cleansing"? Are the ideas of a "Jewish and  
democratic" state compatible or contradictory? Have war crimes been  
committed and by whom? Does the Israeli state impose apartheid  
structures? Is the very concept racist? Is a non-violent campaign of  
boycott, divestment and sanctions to resolve the conflict morally  
respectable and politically practical? Neither, one, both?

If the Cotlers and Kenneys and all the parties involved in the CPCCA  
and ICCA are successful, suppression will intensify in Canada and the  
chill will extend to public discussion on other issues as well.

Right now in France people are being brought to court and charged  
with "hate" for sticking a boycott label on an Israeli product. Do we  
want that here?

Brian Campbell is co-chair of the Seriously Free Speech Committee,  
and Mordecai Briemberg is a member of the Seriously Free Speech  
Committee. This is for identification purposes only. For more  
information about the committee click here [1].


summary:
MP Irwin Cotler and Minister Jason Kenney host a meeting to produce a  
declaration and 'protocol,' expanding the definition of 'anti- 
Semitism' to include criticism of Israel.