Zionist lobby groups in Canada have been on an anti-Palestinian rampage in the last two weeks. Both B’nai Brith and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) have invested considerable energy in an inflammatory and over-the-top smear campaign against Palestinian-Canadian writer Khaled Barakat and the prisoner support group Samidoun. Just before that launched, B’nai Brith released its annual “Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents”, which reached new lows in conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
The intensified push in Canada seems to be in tandem with similar outrageous actions in the U.S. by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), whose CEO recently singled out several pro-Palestine advocacy groups claiming they were as dangerous as white supremacists.
These positions by the Zionist lobby groups in North America are not new of course; however, the level of vitriol and anti-Palestinian hatred with which they are now being pursued is shocking, as they frantically try to shut down the growing support for Palestine, especially on university campuses.
The case of Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat and the advocacy group Samidoun is a good example. The media focus by the National Post and its affiliates on the subject of Barakat’s alleged role as a “senior member” of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), over the space of one week, has been astounding – a feature online article widely carried across the country, and then two further front page articles, including a full cover photo of Barakat on the April 30 print edition.
Based on this media frenzy, B’nai Brith and CIJA have renewed their push to have Samidoun placed on Canada’s “terrorist list”. They have been campaigning for this at least since February of last year; CIJA made it one of the points in its federal election platform last summer. This time around, B’nai Brith is even calling for the deportation of Barakat, a Canadian citizen. Samidoun has publicly stated Barakat is not a member of the group although they do respect him, as do many other community activists.
This is circular logic at its finest. You help orchestrate a media push (the author of the initial feature article even admitted he was approached by the pro-Israel lobby groups themselves with “their files”); this then gets picked up by a member of the Canadian Senate and is again amplified in the same media; and then you reiterate that drastic measures like deportation and “terrorist” listings are necessary. It doesn’t matter that the original article that spawned all of this was a re-hash of old social media posts and based on allegations from Israeli intelligence and other official sources. Or that in March of last year, 35 concerned organizations had already put out a statement detailing their rejection of attempts to criminalize Samidoun and asking: “Should Canada’s policies on these important issues be decided by what the Israeli government and its lobby dictates?”
Yet the language in the latest B’nai Brith “Deport Khaled Barakat” petition campaign goes so far as to make this ridiculous allegation: “Every second wasted places Canadian Jews and Israelis in additional danger, for no justifiable reason.”
All of this comes in the context of B’nai Brith’s 2021 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, in which they lump together pro-Palestine actions and social media posts with actual vile acts of hatred against Jews. We know that their strategy is to implant the idea that defending Palestinian rights is antisemitic, but it also allows them to compile faulty and invalid statistics. Canada Palestine Association (CPA) released a statement on April 28, in which they questioned the credibility and the false foundation for B’nai Brith’s data. The statement noted that this “data led them to conclude that 2021 was another record year for anti-Semitic incidents. And although their report does include clear cases of vandalism against synagogues and hate graffiti, how much of their ‘assessed data’ also includes cases of political protest by Palestinians and their allies?”
The photo that introduced the section on “Assessing the Data” was of a pro-Palestine supporter, holding up a sign saying “Canada & Israel: Allies in Apartheid, Allies in Colonialism”. If this is the accepted basis for determining what is antisemitic in Canada, there may be a lot of calls for deportations on the horizon!
However, solidarity activists in Canada have no intention of allowing these types of warped and defamatory actions to hold sway; they know that support for Palestine is growing, and the stronger it becomes, the more ruthless the Zionist lobby will become. And although the federal Canadian government has not yet indicated that it is ready to put Samidoun on the “terrorist” listing or enact “deportation” procedures, activists know they can’t count on politicians to uphold Palestinian rights or the rights of Palestinian-Canadians to freely express their political opinions. In fact, the record of the current Trudeau government would indicate the exact opposite. Their insistence on adoption and promotion of the IHRA definition and a steadfast refusal to recognize Israel as an apartheid state are cornerstones of a staunch pro-Israel policy. The fact that Marco Mendicino, the Canadian Minister of Public Safety (who handles the “terrorist listings” portfolio), is also vice-chair of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the impartiality of these government decision-makers.
A new statement “Stop the Smear Campaigns against Palestinian Advocacy” has gathered over 60 endorsements from Canadian and international organizations, as well as notable individual endorsers including Roger Waters, Jonathan Kuttab, Rehab Nazzal and Tony Greenstein.
Another action letter addressed specifically to the Canadian government, emphasizing that these smear tactics are unacceptable, has resulted in thousands of letters being sent to Canadian political leaders from all major parties. The action letter concluded: “Palestinian-Canadians and their supporters are frankly sick and tired of being the target of racist and defamatory attacks every time they speak up for the Palestinian peoples’ national and human rights.”
And that is the new reality, a reality that was built on the Unity intifada from May 2021 and has brought forth diverse voices to demand justice for Palestine; this is the growing momentum that the Zionist lobby is so desperate to try and suppress.
The CBC published the following articles last week which clearly shows the Canadian Government is under pressure.
Claims that Israel is imposing ‘apartheid’ on Palestinians put new pressure on Trudeau Liberals
Why should anyone take shit from supporters if Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Palestine. (The latter is clearly evident in the Jews / Zionist-only illegal colonies, where a Palestinian is taking his life in his hands if he dares to walk were he once did in his own country.) & don’t put up with the line “anti-Zionism is anti-semitism”. By far the most Zionists are Christian, and far from all Jews support colonial Zionism or/and messianic Zionism.