Groups closely aligned with the far-right Israeli government have declared “lawfare” on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Canada.
Lawfare, as it is commonly known, is the use of legal methods and the courts to damage an opponent, usually with the intent of winning a political or public-relations battle.
Recent events in Canada’s parliament, the Ontario Legislature and on Canadian campuses reveal the increasingly forceful trajectory of this strategy.
As predicted by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and opposition MPs, the Canadian Parliament’s controversial condemnation of BDS back in February has served to bolster the Israel lobby’s efforts to target groups and individuals who promote BDS as a means of achieving equal rights between Israelis and Palestinians.
Back in July 2015, then opposition MP, now Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau wrote that BDS is “not about our shared Canadian values of respect, openness, and engaging with each other.”
But, has Parliament’s condemnation of BDS done anything to further the cause of respect and engagement?
In fact, it was almost immediately followed by several offensives by Israel advocacy organizations that have chosen not to engage with the substance of the concerns of Canadian groups and individuals who are trying to hold Israel accountable for its occupation of the Palestinian territories and other violations, but to take the more convenient path—widened by Parliament—of imposing a chill on them.
From an aggressive push against a York University campaign that even Israel advocacy groups admit does not single out Israel, to the failed anti-BDS motion at the Ontario Legislature, Canadian supporters of BDS have found themselves increasingly under attack.
After a protest calling for weapons-divestment at York University in February, Hillel Ontario CEO Mark Newburgh told the Canadian Jewish News that “They [the protesters] were chanting numerous slogans about the university divesting from weapons manufacturers. There were no chants about Israel, and there were no chants about Jewish students.” Yet the far-right Jewish Defence League (JDL) staged a counter-protest “to stop incitement to murder Jews,” according to the JDL’s Facebook page.
In May, a private member’s bill to stop the Ontario government from doing business with companies that back BDS was defeated. Progressive Conservative Tim Hudak and Liberal Mike Colle brought forth the motion, which lost by 39-18 in a free vote. That same week, Ontario premier Kathleen Wynn stated, “I entirely oppose the BDS movement” but added freedom of speech is “something we must vigorously defend.”
Hasbara’s national director, Robert Walker, claims that his Israel advocacy group was discriminated against when it was denied participation in “Social Justice Week.”
An email to Walker from the assistant of UOIT and DC’s faculty association explained that because the Student Association (SA) passed a BDS motion at their last annual general meeting, it would be against the motion to provide resources to a group that is “closely tied to the state of Israel.”
According to the National Post, Walker stated in his filing that “I was perceived as being ‘tied’ to the state of Israel because I am Jewish and work for a Jewish organization.”
However, the president of Students for Justice in Palestine, the group that lobbied the Student Association to endorse BDS, said, “Hasbara Fellowships is not a religious or cultural group. It’s a political group that was founded partly by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and it describes itself as an Israel-advocacy organization that runs Israel-advocacy training programs.”
Mariam Nokerah, VP of University Affairs at the SA, stated, “Walker says his group was ‘banned’, but Hasbara Fellowships isn’t even a student club on this campus. It’s an organization external to our UOIT and DC community. They wanted to use student funds, space and resources without having been invited. And the SA is accountable to its members. In addition, the group’s objective of supporting Israeli military policy in the occupied territories conflicts with the mandate of Social Justice Week.”
When asked where they think BDS advocacy is headed in Canada, Elatawani and Nokerah are both optimistic about its growth, but say they are preparing for difficult challenges ahead.
“Criticism of Israeli policies and its military occupation is not anti-Semitism,” Elatawani insists.
“The sooner we can untangle the two, the sooner we’ll realize freedom, justice and equality for both, Palestinians and Israelis.”
“The sooner we can untangle the two, the sooner we’ll realize freedom, justice and equality for both, Palestinians and Israelis.”
Not quite sure what to make of this particular comment. Israelis ie JSILis = Jewish citizens of the Jewish State in the Levant already have justice,equality and freedom in bucketloads (with the exception of the likes of the dark skinned Ethiopian Jews who are perceived as not quite European looking enough to be deserving of equal treatment and liable to be beaten up as looking like “terrorists” or “infiltrators). The Arabs citizens in the Jewish state in the Levant patently do not the same levels of freedom,justice and equality as their “fellow” Jewish citizens.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.550152
As for the realisation of this dream of freedom,justice and equality for all be they Palestinian or Jewish this can only happen in a single state and the overwhelming majority of Jewish JSILis who have been thoroughly brainwashed into being ugly braindead racist bullies will resist it to the bitter end – with the exception perhaps of all those Aliyahsing Brooklynites etc who will unearth their second passports and high tail it back home as soon as they realise that their ZioBible dreamland has to be shared in full with Goy untermenschen
Is Mr. Walker upset because other supremacist groups were permitted to participate in SJW while his supremacist group – tasked with defending Jewish supremacism in/and a religion-supremacist “Jewish State” in as much as possible of Palestine – was not?
Or is he upset because his group was denied participation in SJW even though – according to Zio-supremacists like him – Jews are entitled to do unto others acts of injustice and immorality they would not have others do unto them?
can you just imagine the JDL demanding a booth at the university’s social justice week and JDL Executive Director Meir Weinstein suing the university claiming, after being turned down, it was because: “I am Jewish and work for a Jewish organization”
is there no end? does the student organization putting on the social justice week get to have a say about what they do or do not perceive as social justice? because jdl probably think they’ve meted out justice too!
Maybe a coalition of various advocacy groups can be formed to initiate/pass SLAPP legislation in Canada.
Sounds like a sharp rise in frivolous lawsuits is in the works there.
My understanding is that in that the situation in Canada is different than in the U.S. The loser of a law suit in Canada is usually required by the court to pay the legal costs for the winner of a suit. This has the effect of discouraging frivolous cases.