Check out this extraordinary exchange in Ontario’s legislature (Hoskins is the Liberal Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, the other two are Conservative members of the provincial parliament.) Here's a portion:
Mr. Steve Clark: My question is for the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Jewish groups are criticizing the University of Toronto for accepting a shockingly anti-Semitic master’s thesis. The Holocaust is a horrible chapter in human history that claimed the lives of six million Jews, yet this disgusting paper attacks educational programs working to ensure such evil is never repeated.
Minister, this House unanimously passed a resolution from the member from Thornhill condemning Israeli Apartheid Week. What are you doing as Minister of Citizenship to stop the rising tide of anti-Semitism?
Hon. Eric Hoskins: I deeply appreciate the member opposite raising this. I too was greatly disturbed and, in fact, disgusted when I read the media reports. I want to say first and foremost that this government remains absolutely committed to fighting discrimination in all its forms. I want to add as well that the McGuinty government denounces all acts of anti-Semitism, which we believe are a particularly vile and pernicious form of discrimination, and we will continue our work to protect the human rights of our Jewish community and of all Ontarians.
I was proud that earlier this year, this Legislature in fact came together to condemn anti-Semitism on our university campuses, and we will continue our hard work on behalf of all Ontarians, including our Jewish community. . . .
Mr. Peter Shurman: I wish I could say that this hateful and poorly researched paper attacking programs that use the horrors of the Holocaust to somehow show the dangers of discrimination and racism by Jews was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, it’s only the latest example that we’ve seen. There are too many other cases, including this summer, where anti-Semitic material was found at the Scott Library, not to mention an attack on the Jewish student association. Minister, will you today speak up on behalf of Jewish groups who have been so deeply hurt by this piece of garbage and condemn it, not as an academic paper but for the hate it actually is?
Hon. Eric Hoskins: Again, I appreciate the question from the member opposite. I join them in condemning this attack on Ontario’s Jewish community.
I want to reiterate that, as I mentioned, I was very proud earlier this year when the Legislature came together to condemn anti-Semitism on our campuses and in other fora.
What’s going on up in Canada? Is there a frightening new wave of anti-Semitism sweeping the land? I take on the debate over “the new anti-Semitism” in Canada in my latest documentary for Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English TV.
One of the people I interview in the piece is Jenny Peto – the author of the Masters thesis cited above. She’s not a face-tattooed neo-Nazi pamphleteer, but a Jewish anti-Zionist, active in Canada’s Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. Contrary to what those Ontario politicians suggested, she is not opposed to Holocaust education – she is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor and deeply engaged with that history. However, her thesis is critical of a particular form of Holocaust education, namely the March of the Living, which, as Mondoweiss readers well know, are the subject of intense debate inside and outside academia. In the midst of a mini media storm, Peto’s graduate work has become what is likely the only unpublished student paper ever to be debated on the floor of a Canadian legislature.
What happened is that a right-wing blogger dug up her thesis, and wrote a shrill undergraduate-style hit piece about it, which was picked up by the comment site of Canada’s most right wing national newspaper. The story was followed up both in that paper, The National Post, and Canada’s most liberal daily, The Toronto Star, and voila – suddenly Ontario parliamentarians are falling over each other to denounce it, while at least one of them has admitted that he hasn’t even read it.
So what does this episode tell us about the “rising tide of anti-Semitism” in Canada?
Well, there is actually no such thing, according to the conservative Zionist who is the opinion editor of The National Post. Jonathan Kay, who couldn’t resist his own contribution to the Peto party, told me in an interview what he has written before - that “Canada is the least anti-Semitic country in the entire world, including Israel.”
So I asked Scott Reid, Conservative politician and Chair of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism if there is a spike in the kind of hate his Coalition was formed to address. He said, “No, no, no. Absolutely not. It’s funny – I’ve heard people who have criticized us saying that we think this, but there is absolutely no spike in the kinds of anti-Semitic incidents that appall us.”
Ok, so what exactly is going on here?
Well, first of all, Canada has been ruled for the last five years by a hard right Conservative government that is now widely recognized as Israel’s most fervent supporter on the world stage. In the same period, the BDS movement has been growing stronger in Canada, along with Israeli Apartheid Week – which launched in Toronto in 2005 and is now in more than 60 cities around the world.
Amir Gissin, Israel’s Consul General in Toronto, says in the documentary that Canada has emerged as “the most important arena in the world…for this new battlefield that on one hand has all those who want to delegitimize Israel and on the other all those who want to represent it in all its colors.”
So Canada is the site of a vigorous proxy battle in the Israel-Palestine debate, the government of Israel is watching very closely, and the government of Canada has abandoned its traditional pretense of being neutral and is energetically backing one side – including slashing funding to organizations that are critical of Israeli policies, and hosting an international conference on combating anti-Semitism.
While the savvier players will not even attempt to argue that Canada is in the grips of a renaissance of Jew-hatred, a climate has been created in which growing criticism of Israel’s actions is easily conflated with anti-Semitism, and mainstream media outlets report enthusiastically about each supposed hatefest.
Peto’s thesis is just the latest fuel for this fire.
Avi Lewis is a documentary filmmaker and host of the Al Jazeera English show Fault Lines. Lewis is the former host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) current-affairs program On the Map.
What is going in Canada is Election time. The Ontario Govt will be going t the Polls in 2011 and the Pro Israel groups are raising the heat across all media outlets to make sure the polotical parties are “pledging” their allegiance to the lobby.
There has been many incidents in the past few months where the Canadian Jewish Congress, B’nai Brith and the ADL have been wooing political figures to squash all ciriticsm of Israel and raising the Anti Semitism banner as the wand to make sure political parties voice their support to Israel. This incuded banning books in school curriculums that show poor treatments of the Palestinians, blocking school essays that may encourage students to question the Settles treatment of Palestinians, a visit by Ontario ruling party to Israel and West Bank to encourage trade and many more examples.
This is the Canadian Jewish lobby at work before an election trying to score the same gains AIPAC has on the US govt.
The Federal Conservatives have already pledged their allegiance and Steven Harper is well entrenched in the Pro Israel lobby with his famous declaration to the Candian Jewish Congress with “an attack on Israel is an attack on Canada”.
Canada is being put through the lobby gauntlet to make sure the Government here bows before the pro Israel Lobby just like congress does in the US.
The whole think seems very contrived. I think it’s a litmus test and a chance for the diaspora Zionist henchmen to test another government, ultimately hedging their bets in the hopes of receiving reinforced support for a Israel.
But why are they stretching their web to Canada? Are their powers waning here?
“But why are they stretching their web to Canada? Are their powers waning here?”
By Allah, let’s certainly hope so. Our gain is Canada’s loss.
Wow, the world gets nuttier and nuttier.
One day the entire country may just disappear in Israel’s a**, but there’s still some sanity left:
“Faculty for Palestine (F4P), a network of 450 academics from more than 40 Canadian universities and several colleges, condemns this attack and sees it as a serious threat to academic freedom and university autonomy. It constitutes an attack on the main tenets of scholarly inquiry, undermines the integrity of research and teaching in public institutions, and sends a chill across the university system particularly for students and faculty whose work challenges the racial and colonial power of the Israeli state.
Faculty for Palestine is calling for immediate and widespread condemnation of the use of public power to intimidate individual students and faculty members and, ultimately, to regulate what can be said and done in Canadian universities. It is no coincidence that these MPPs are targeting the work of a well-known Palestine solidarity activist who has been outspoken in her support for the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid. These same MPPs have a consistent record of attacking Palestine solidarity activity and defending increased trade relations with Israel. This is a blatantly political attack, and we reject these MPPs’ claim to be motivated by a concern about the scholarly legitimacy of Ms. Peto’s academic work. ”
link to oyetimes.com
On the other side of the academic aisle, there’s Janice Stein and her friends. From a review of one of their recent findings on the eternal issue of anti-semitism, which according to them defies all rational explanation. Well, that’s what academic research is about: study nonexistent phenomena that defy rational explanation. The eternal existence of anti-semitism is the new religion: credo quia absurdum
“Portraying anti-Semitism as a gathering plague infecting ever-widening segments of humanity, the half-dozen or so contributors set out to document its alleged spread, analyze its causes and offer prescriptions for its cure. It is this core premise that anti-Semitism is “reappearing in new ways and in unexpected strength.” which constitutes a fundamental flaw in this work. Not that hatred of Jews doesn’t exist. There are enough examples provided, but none of the authors come even close to demonstrating that such attitudes pose a real threat to the Jewish community. While vandalized headstones and grafitti of Swastikas may be deeply upsetting to a people traumatized by the Holocaust, they are hardly life-threatening. Last year, a Muslim teenager firebombed a Jewish library in Montreal, angry over Israel’s assassination of the quadraplegic Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. This most vicious attack was timed to damage property, but not people. If anything, the ensuing public outrage over this incident only underscored how much socially unacceptable anti-Semitism has become.
Tel-Aviv University Professor Ran HaCohen recently proclaimed that it is high time to say aloud that “in the entire course of Jewish history, there has never been an era blessed with less anti-Semitism than ours.” While even a single act of anti-Semitism is one too many, it is sheer ethnocentrism to imply that expressions of antipathy towards Jews are more deserving of alarm than those targetting other minorities. In an article on the on-line political newsletter, Counterpunch, Trent University Professor Michael Neumann argues that regarding anti-Semitism “as a world-shattering calamity, is racism–pure and simple.”
link to findarticles.com
“… So I asked Scott Reid, Conservative politician and Chair of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism if there is a spike in the kind of hate his Coalition was formed to address. He said, “No, no, no. Absolutely not. It’s funny – I’ve heard people who have criticized us saying that we think this, but there is absolutely no spike in the kinds of anti-Semitic incidents that appall us.”
… Amir Gissin, Israel’s Consul General in Toronto, says in the documentary that Canada has emerged as “the most important arena in the world…for this new battlefield that on one hand has all those who want to delegitimize Israel and on the other all those who want to represent it in all its colors.”
(Avi Lewis)
Canada used to be just about the most neutral country but it’s slowing changing for the worse because of neverending gimmicks of people like Gissin and the parliamentary antisemitism commission that was set up are causing Canadians to start hating the Jews. One week, we are told that the most important thing for Israel’s survival is to take down Iran, and another week, we hear from Israelis that the most important thing is to counter the “biggest threat to Israel” is BDS. Now Gissin is saying that Canada has emerged as “the most important arena in the world”. All this crying of a different wolf every 20 minutes by Israel is doing a giant disservice the world’s Jews.
Avi Lewis has to make up his mind whether or not Canada hates the Jews. His article like his Jazeera report goes both ways.
I know Avi Lewis and I believe he has already made up his mind, but don’t forget he is a reporter, so he is obligated to present both sides of an issue to allow us to make up our own minds. We are not children that need our news fed pablum style like they do over at Fox.
Ivan.
Ivan, what side is he on? I still haven’t gotten over how at the age of 5 he was traumatized by the swastika etched on his school’s main door. Must have been super brilliant to have known about this symbolism at such an age.
The thesis that started this is available here: link to scribd.com
Initially, Ms Peto tells us how she went from being a zionist to an anti-zionist although she was raised in a very insular Jewish education system within Canada. Her analysis of how international human rights developed since WW2, America’s Civil Rights movement, tolerance, diversity, identity politics, “anti-semitism,” and The Shoah are used to benefit the Jewish Establishment in the diaspora, and, in turn, to benefit the apartheidesque state of Israel, are relentlessly on target. Too, her coverage of how & when Jews “became white” and how many have used the benefits of white privilege while simultaneously denying they have had/have such privilege is also on target–this analysis extends to how Spanish and Arab Jews have been left out of Zionism’s implemented ideology, and how and why Eurocentric space occupies the ambitious Zionist mind to the exclusion of the rest of the world’s space (outside of Israel).
If memory serves, Jenny Petro is about age 30 now. She is a perfect youthful example of how a very honest, sharp, moral, ethical, and inquiring mind
inevitably concludes that the trinity knowledge, reason and the heart universal must apply the principle “Never Again!” to evil in all its forms and places. Hitler was not the “devil incarnate,” for evil appears in many forms.
my hunch is the anti semitism mantra is the best pr available and it is being massively ratcheted up to counter bds as part of the ‘israel deligitimization’ campaign. anything to keep the the victimizing in the headlines and front and center puts pressure on the public to back away from taking strong positions.
bummer. oh canada. do they have campaign finance laws in canada?
Annie, Canada has very serious campaign finance laws that include limits on spending but what you’re seeing here is the start of various campaigns that can bypass these laws since every Jewish community organization gets involved in spreading the necessary spooking to influence people. If you take the new Israeli campaign to counter the BDS movement that will start next month, its budget is only $6 million which appears very little but when you consider that there are over US 600 separate Jewish organizations each with a budget of its own that will be called on to help out in the anti-BDS campaign, the 6 million will go very far. Same thing will be happening in Ontario at elections time with various stories about turning the heat on as Brad mentioned like with Gissen here saying Canada will be the most important arena, without having to go through the campaign financing limitations.
thanks walid. what brad describes is all too familiar, i just thought canada was different. it blows my mind how this obsession w/anti semitism where little exists can have such a detrimental effect wrt paving the way towards a very dangerous political environment.
Walid, if Canada has tight and serious campaign finance laws, I imagine that would mean Canadian election campaigns do not amount to a flood of propaganda for one side or the other on an issue like Israel. Without such an advantage in beating the drums for one side and eclipsing the other, isn’t there more to it than being organized so much you can “spook to influence people?” Is it that the few Canadian hasbara folks and the 600 US hasbara folk organizations join together to spread anti-semitic innuendo against the more multiple–issue non-Jewish Canadian candidates and office holders seeking another term? Or, what else do you mean? I am trying to see what would happen if the US had strong campaign finance laws–would the same result happen here regarding rubber-stamping Israel as you say happens in Canada? Why? Why not?
Citizen, you’ll be seeing those 600 American Jewish organizations springing into action against BDS starting in the new year, especially against Israel Apartheid Week at the end of February. The rubber-stamping of Israel is not as open as in the US but scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with a 2-year old Peto thesis is keeping the flame alive. Openly muzzling criticism Israel wouldn’t be tolerated but associating being antisemitic with being anti-Israel works on most Canadians since they are terrified of being branded racists. Zionists keep the fire going with gimmicks such as this University of Toronto/Peto affair and somewhere along the way, we’ll probably see another remake of the Diary of Ann Franck or some other holocaust movie as part of the campaign. This controversy in the Ontario Legislature gets the Zionists tons of news coverage for free and keeps the I love Israel campaign outside the scope of elections laws. While Israel is passing laws to outlaw things like the nakba, Europe and North America are passing laws condemning or outlawing criticism of Israel.
8 years ago, Canada was number 5 on the list of Press Freedom and last year, it dropped to number 19 thanks in good part to this type of muzzling. In 2009, over 150 Jewish Canadians signed a statement expressing their concerns about the campaign within Canada to suppress criticism of Israel . Curiously, although Naomi Kline’s name is on the list, Avi Lewis’s name is not; he appears to go both ways on this issue. Here’s the link to the statement and the names of the 150 Canadian good guys:
link to rainbowwarrior2005.wordpress.com
Thanks, Walid. I don’t disagree. I can’t speak for Canadian culture, but it’s interesting to me that American Jewish secular literature (and stand-up comedy) is crammed with remarks about what the novel writers have viewed as an essential characteristic of Jews, guilt complexes; this is usually juxtiposed with the absence of same in the Gentile characters, who are presented as much less sophisticated people, when not simply stereotypes. A Bud-Lite version of this is the insightful but neurotic Jew, often played off against some well-meaning but ignorant or obtuse Gentile, preferably a blonde shiksa to keep up prurient or romantic interest for the reader. Are Canadian novels of some literary stature filled with Gentile characters chock full of that guilt you speak of as such a motivating force when it comes to manipulating folks up there when it comes to anything Israel?
Citizen, I’m not knowlegeable on Jewish literature to answer you but of the many Jews that I knew a few years back, none were neurotic. In fact, they were all likable people whose company I enjoyed; maybe it was semitic bonding or something. The subject of Israel hardly ever came up and when it did, they were not against it but they weren’t for it either. Guess I was lucky or they were being polite.
Has anyone noticed how few people go from being non Zionist to Zionist, as opposed to the other way around?
Shingo, that’s what those special trips to Israel for the Jewish American kids is trying to change, most especially the ones that went to US public schools.
Once again – Since Zionism does not = Judaism, anti-Zionism doe not = antisemistism. Why then are Zionists accusing anyone & everyone who criticizes Israel of being antisemetic? Perhaps the answer lies in the public response to a Canadian Parliament’s antisemitism commission, which, no surprise, is increasing antisemitism (see Walid, 11:49 am, this thread). Doesn’t this suggest that Zionists all out campaign against barely existing antisemitism amounts to their turning the maxim, “be careful what you wish for” into “be totally reckless about what you wish for?
“Why then are Zionists accusing anyone & everyone who criticizes Israel of being antisemetic?”
Because crying “anti-Semitism” is easy and pretty effective.
Why struggle with moral reasoning? Why carry the burden of a sense of decency? Why bother with tedious facts?
Use Anti-Semitism (TM) and watch your critics dissolve!
Anti-Semitism (TM) now comes in three colours: blue, white, and Canadian.
And red, or is that passe now a la the Israel Firster Glen Beck and millions of end-timers?
Some of us have been watching the situation in Canada for some time, and it looks ominous, for a variety of reasons. But in the main the intent is clear. This is about the Conservatives trying to set themselves up in power over the long term, adopting some–but not all–of the neo-con/Republican strategy from the US. My sense is that there’s some very serious influence-peddling negotiations going on. Harper wants money and influence from the Israel Lobby, and will get it, some of the big bucks coming from Israel and the US after being filtered through all the Lobby organizations.
The Canada Lobby basically wants to do what’s already been done in the US, but in a more stringent way. It definitely will try to make criticism of Israel illegal in certain venues, especially academia. (Thus the big stink about the thesis.) That’s what the Inter-parliamentary Coalition to Combat anti-Semitism is all about. It’s a hard-right Zionist group that wants to use the law to shut people up, and they’re very serious about it. That’s why the parliamentarian in Ontario talked about a single thesis at a local college–which isn’t even any of his business–constituting some kind of horrible upsurge in anti-Semitism. ANY criticism of Israel’s government will constitute an upsurge (or outbreak, or whatever) of anti-Semitism, and the nice Christian money-grubbers of the Conservative party will keep spieling it up like it was the next Kristalnacht.
The real danger here is that there could be a backlash. Canada is basically a bit less crazy than the US, and its politics less chaotic. The constant insistence that criticisms of Israel are really anti-Semitism are just not going to fool a majority of Canadians over the long term. (Even the Conservatives say publicly that there’s no anti-Semitism in Canada.) Sooner or later I’m afraid there might be a backlash against Jews, especially against the traditional Jewish organizations that no longer believe in any kind of social justice, but instead worship the Holy State. Canadians will eventually find the groveling victimology of the Lobby quite annoying, and that’s when there could be a backlash.
I hope that strong, outspoken Jewish organizations that oppose apartheid in Israel will arise in Canada, and get more media coverage, so that people can see that there is more than one kind of Judaism, and more than one kind of Jewish identity. The Jewish values of the traditional Canadian organizations have mainly turned to national-religious rants, and are an embarrassment to everybody concerned. Furthermore these organizations are extremely visible in promoting Islamophobia. Finally, they operate on an almost Leninist model, getting their instructions from above and all using the same talking points.
How sad that so many previously independent Jewish groups have merged their identities into rightwing Zionism, operating together like the “respectable Leninist party” that the old US socialist Max Schachtman dreamed of organizing. (Anybody remember who Max Schachtman was? If so, you get a prize.) But the big difference, sadly, is that these new Leninists have billions from which to organize. Guess that’s what Max meant by “respectable.” The cash-out line forms at the left–I mean, right.
PilgrimSoul is right.
This is about long term political advantage for a rather shaky Conservative regime. It’s rather difficult to round up enough people to vote for retrograde non-inclusive policies like the Conservatives espouse. Basically the left in Canada is split between the NDP and the Liberals which keeps the Conservatives in business in our parliamentary system.
Anti-semitism is one of those gifts which keeps giving for the Conservatives as the vast majority of both Liberals and NDP (voters and representative) support rights for Palestinians – like they support rights for blacks, hispanics, Pakistanis, Native Indians, Inuit, Vietnamese and Jews.
With the anti-Semitism stick, Harper will keep attacking any strong opponent or party for as long as he lives (which will be awhile as he is a relatively young politician, starting with his partisan schtick in his 20′s as a member of the Western Reform party). Fundamentally, like the Republicans in the US, Haper’s just sold his soul to the devil for power here. What Harper was all about historically is anti-government (i.e. no control of the West from Ottawa, smaller government).
Deep in his tiny heart, Harper couldn’t give a rat’s toss about human rights, Jews, Palestinians or Israel.
Yes, PilgrimSoul eloquently described the brewing backlash against the Jews from the oversell, especially from the likes of Gissin and Dore Gold that have all the moves of a haberdasher. It doesn’t take much to piss off Canadians and when that happens, Israel will have one more reason to get into its antisemitic schtick but maybe this is what it wants. This seems to have already started with Quebecers annoyed with both Jews that have been there for a long time and the more recently-arrived North African Arab Muslims. Israel doesn’t know when to stop pushing.
Harper has made 2 or 3 attempts at having the election laws amended to allow for increased contributions and spending because the current law is preventing the lobbies from showering the legislators with all kinds of mony like in the States.
Sounds like the Gentile Republican leaders in the USA. What a bunch of snakes.
I mean alec’s description of Harper. In Florida, the state & bar association laws and rules assure politics will remain in the hands of snakes like Harper–no carpet bagging lawyers down here crying about the poor Palestinians. Or about the complete dominance of the insurance industry, for another example.
“Canada is basically a bit less crazy than the US, and its politics less chaotic. ”
Not quite a ringing endorsement, that.