Canada’s pro-Israel lobby is pressuring New Democratic Party leadership to suppress debate around a resolutions that seeks to rebuke the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.
Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz has declared he is adding the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network to Israel’s “terror list.” Canada may soon follow suit.
On August 18, 2020, CBC’s current affairs program “The Current” carried an interview with Joe Sacco where the host used the word Palestine. The word was deleted in an online version and apologized for the next day, and now an Ombudsman says the program was “at odds with the CBC’s usual practice,” but producers should have left it as it was.
It appears Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC, is not willing to take up the story when it contradicts Canadian foreign policy.
Canada says it supports the Palestinian right to self-determination, but refuses to recognize any Palestinian state.
While The Jewish Federations of North America claim apolitical status and operate tax-exempt charities, it is one of the most significant institutional purveyors of anti-Palestinian bias in Canada.
The story of Canadian psychotherapist Hammam Farah is the latest example of how Canary Mission’s relentless attacks on free speech threaten the future of professionals who speak out in defense of the rights of Palestinians.
The CBC’s censorship of the word “Palestine” had the unintended result of shining a spotlight on this decades-old erasure of Palestinian national identity in both the Canadian media and government.
Justin Trudeau’s appointment of Irwin Cotler is a blatant rebuke of any sense of a fair-handed approach by the Canadian government to the Palestinian cause.
Ontarians must stand up to antisemitism and all instances of racism and discrimination wherever they appear, but the IHRA definition is flawed and, at worst, limits society’s ability to fight oppression in all is forms.