Canada led campaign to save exhibition on Jewish history in Middle East after Arab coalition quashed it | National Post

2014/01/27 1 Comment

Interesting story about the UNESCO exhibit on Jewish history in the Mid-East, caught up in the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Historical narratives are powerful, and both sides want to ensure that the historical narratives reinforces their political position. Denial of the Jewish presence and history in the Mid-East has antisemitic overtones, just as denial of the Palestinian narrative has anti-Arab overtones. And while Canada played a role in reversing the UNESCO decision:

Ultimately, however, it was likely the United States who had the better clout in having the exhibition reinstated. On Jan. 17, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power disavowed any assertion that the Paris show would compromise John Kerry’s peacemaking efforts.

“UNESCO’s decision is wrong and should be reversed,” she said in a statement cited by Reuters. “The United States has engaged at senior levels to urge UNESCO to allow this exhibit to proceed as soon as possible.”

Four days later, the cultural agency reversed its decision, writing in a statement that “the exhibition has not been cancelled but postponed.”

“People, Book, Land” is now set for a June 11 opening.

Canada led campaign to save exhibition on Jewish history in Middle East after Arab coalition quashed it | National Post.

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Universal lessons of the Holocaust | Irwin Cotler

2014/01/25 Leave a comment

Irwin Cotler on the universal lessons of the Holocaust:

The first lesson is the importance of zachor, of remembrance. For as we remember the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah – defamed, demonized and dehumanized, as prologue or justification for genocide – we have to understand that the mass murder of six million Jews, and millions of non-Jews, is not a matter of abstract statistics.

For unto each person there is a name, an identity; each person is a universe. As our sages tell us, “Whoever saves a single life, it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe.”

The second enduring lesson of the Holocaust is that the genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the industry of death and the technology of terror, but because of the state-sanctioned ideology of hate. This teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, this is where it all begins…

The third lesson is that these Holocaust crimes resulted not only from state-sanctioned incitement to hatred and genocide, but from crimes of indifference, from conspiracies of silence – from the international community as bystander….

The fourth enduring lesson of the Holocaust is that it was made possible not only because of the “bureaucratization of genocide,” as Robert Lifton put it, but because of the trahison des clercs – the complicity of the elites – including physicians, church leaders, judges, lawyers, engineers, architects and educators….

The fifth lesson concerns the vulnerability of the powerless and the powerlessness of the vulnerable – as found expression in the triad of Nazi racial hygiene: the Sterilization Laws, the Nuremberg Race Laws, and the Euthanasia Program – all of which targeted those “whose lives were not worth living.”…

Sixth is the tribute that must be paid to the rescuers, the righteous among the nations, of whom Raoul Wallenberg is metaphor and message. Wallenberg, a Swedish non-Jew, saved more Jews in four months in Hungary in 1944 than any single government or organization.

Universal lessons of the Holocaust | JPost | Israel News.

And a link to Canadian Holocaust activities:

Recognizing International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Filed under Antisemitism, Holocaust, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Jonathan Kay: Even some Zionists should find the Tories’ Israel zeal to be disturbingly manic | National Post

2014/01/23 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary by Jonathan Kay of the National Post on the messaging of PM Harper and the Conservative government. Ironically, it is possible that such unqualified support may, over time, undermine support for the Government’s activities and initiatives against antisemitism, given the relative silence of the important linkages with other forms of discrimination that impact on a wide range of communities in Canada:

Perhaps the best adjective I can use to describe the Conservatives’ zeal for Israel — and, indeed for all things Jewish — is manic. In interpersonal terms, it reminds me of a couple that professes their status as soul mates — loudly, and very repeatedly — as they bask in the bloom of first love (as opposed to the occasional bickering that characterizes the long, solid marriage between Israel and the United States). In my email inbox, I have lost count of the number of messages from Jason Kenney advertising his government’s support of Israel, its steadfast opposition to anti-Semitism, and its diligent observance of some anniversary or memorial day honouring a figure connected to Judaism. Many times, whole days pass in which this is the only type of message I get from his office. In each individual case, the spirit is admirable. But the overall effect comes across as a sort of monomania.

This fixation is beginning to express itself in somewhat reckless gestures. One of the members of Harper’s official delegation in Israel, for instance, is a Rabbi who has offered public support to Pamela Geller, an anti-Islamic conspiracy theorist. When taken to task for the Rabbi’s inclusion, the PMO shot back with the lazy, apparently baseless, and possibly libelous charge that the Muslim group raising the objections has “ties” to Hamas. This is the not the way a serious government responds to the legitimate concerns of its citizens.

The Harper government is to be lauded for the overall tendency of its foreign policy — which is to offer full-throated support for democratic nations that share our values. But where the Jewish state is concerned, our support is crossing the line into a sort of emotional mania. And it has never been on fuller display than this week, during the Prime Minister’s trip to Israel.

Jonathan Kay: Even some Zionists should find the Tories’ Israel zeal to be disturbingly manic | National Post.

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Freedom of speech debate sparked by draft law to ban use of ‘Nazi’ in Israel | World news | theguardian.com

2014/01/21 Leave a comment

Interesting debate on freedom of speech and the proposed ban of “Nazi” in Israel. The US was often criticized in a variety of Holocaust and antisemitism fora for its invoking of the First Amendment as an explanation for not having hate speech laws unlike many countries in Europe and Canada. Always a fine line between freedom of speech and anti-hate speech, although generally better this be handled by social norms and discussion what is acceptable and what is not.

Freedom of speech debate sparked by draft law to ban use of ‘Nazi’ in Israel | World news | theguardian.com.

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PM Harper on Antisemitism at the Knesset

2014/01/21 Leave a comment

Full text in link below, section on antisemitism is stronger restatement than in Minister Kenney’s pre-visit interview (Canada has “moral obligation” to support Israel, stop anti-Semitism: Jason Kenney):

And in the garden of such moral relativism, the seeds of much more sinister notions can be easily planted.

“And so we have witnessed, in recent years, the mutation of the old disease of anti-Semitism and the emergence of a new strain.

We all know about the old anti-Semitism.

It was crude and ignorant, and it led to the horrors of the death camps.

Of course, in many dark corners, it is still with us.

But, in much of the Western world, the old hatred has been translated into more sophisticated language for use in polite society.

People who would never say they hate and blame the Jews for their own failings or the problems of the world, instead declare their hatred of Israel and blame the only Jewish state for the problems of the Middle East.

As once Jewish businesses were boycotted, some civil-society leaders today call for a boycott of Israel.

On some campuses, intellectualized arguments against Israeli policies thinly mask the underlying realities, such as the shunning of Israeli academics and the harassment of Jewish students.

Most disgracefully of all, some openly call Israel an apartheid state.

Think about that.

Think about the twisted logic and outright malice behind that: a state, based on freedom, democracy and the rule of law, that was founded so Jews can flourish, as Jews, and seek shelter from the shadow of the worst racist experiment in history, that is condemned, and that condemnation is masked in the language of anti-racism.

It is nothing short of sickening.

But this is the face of the new anti-Semitism.

It targets the Jewish people by targeting Israel and attempts to make  the old bigotry acceptable for a new generation.

Of course, criticism of Israeli government policy is not in and of itself necessarily anti-Semitic.

But what else can we call criticism that selectively condemns only the Jewish state and effectively denies its right to defend itself while systematically ignoring – or excusing – the violence and oppression all around it?

What else can we call it when, Israel is routinely targeted at the United Nations, and when Israel remains the only country to be the subject of a permanent agenda item at the regular sessions of its human rights council?

Read the full text of Harper’s historic speech to Israel’s Knesset – The Globe and Mail.

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Canada has “moral obligation” to support Israel, stop anti-Semitism: Jason Kenney

2014/01/18 Leave a comment

While most observers would disagree with Minister Kenney’s characterization of the Canadian approach to the Mid-East as “balanced,” his interview well worth reading as an overview of the Canadian government’s position on Israel and antisemitism, on the eve of the PM-led delegation to Israel.

Kenney was instrumental in increasing the focus on antisemitism, through participation in a number of international fora, hosting the Ottawa Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition Combatting Antisemitism, joining the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance,withdrawing Canada from the follow-up to the Durban Anti-racism conference,  and shifting general racism and discrimination programming to address specific forms such as antisemitism, among others.

While political parties always take into account the political advantage of positions (“shopping for votes”), this is more driven by beliefs, rather than electoral calculations (Stephen Harper’s deceased father a key influence in PM’s support for Israel).

Canada has “moral obligation” to support Israel, stop anti-Semitism: Jason Kenney.

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Anti-Semitism Should Not Be Criminalized « Commentary Magazine

2014/01/10 Leave a comment

Commentary magazine on the dangers of criminalizing hate-speech and antisemitism. It was always interesting to listen to the US delegation at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance explain the US First Amendment, to general scepticism of the other countries, largely European but that like Canada, had hate speech laws or equivalent.

But in general, agree that antisemitism and other forms of racism and discrimination need to be defeated by society, and what is considered acceptable discourse, to have more widespread impact:

But those ideas–when they remain ideas, and not battlefield cries–should be defeated by a society, not outlawed by the government. Jailing anti-Semites for their opinions won’t reduce anti-Semitism. Incarceration can deter action, but it’s unlikely to alleviate grievance, and anyway it is an unjust method of changing minds. The same goes for the government banning “comedians” whose act offends basic notions of decency.

It’s also worth reminding the Jews of Europe that their religious beliefs contain ideas that the modern secular left consider offensive as well. They may find that a heavyhanded government enforcing a standard of righteous thought is on their side this time. If they think it will stay that way, then they, too, have unlearned the lessons of the past.

Anti-Semitism Should Not Be Criminalized « Commentary Magazine.

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What is anti-Semitism? EU racism agency unable to define term

2013/12/05 1 Comment

Surprising (to me) as this work by the EU was fundamental to many in having a working definition of antisemitism over the past years, and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) formally adopted this definition at the Toronto plenary meeting this fall (Working Definition).

The actual text adopted by IHRA, in contrast to the earlier version of the EU, kept a narrow definition of antisemitism, dropping any reference to linkages between antisemitism and anti-Isreali positions.

What is anti-Semitism? EU racism agency unable to define term | JPost | Israel News.

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Klug: Charges of anti-semitism and Israel-lobby conspiracy are an ‘acrimonious circle’ we must step outside

2013/11/29 Leave a comment

Commentary on the controversial lecture in some circles by Brian Klug, the Oxford philosophy scholar, and his efforts to distinguish between antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes:

Then what is it? What do we mean when we say, in a particular case, that anti-Zionism is antisemitic? … the figure of the ‘Jew’ is projected onto Israel because Israel is a Jewish state (or onto Zionism because Zionism is a Jewish movement). Sometimes this is obvious to the naked eye. But what if we think it is hidden behind a mask? Then we must look between the lines; and if we are right we will uncover the same figure implicit in the text. Text or sub-text, the figure is still the figure of the ‘Jew’: that is the point. And there are ways of bringing subtexts to light. Suppose there is a group that presents itself as pro-Palestinian, but… we suspect that there is an antisemitic motive. We could look at the literature they produce, their history, their membership, their political connections, and so on. Then we are in a position to form a judgment, a judgment based on evidence.

There is no algorithm for doing this. The evidence might be insufficient. Moreover, we can be wrong. There might be room for argument by people of goodwill who weigh the evidence differently, some believing that antisemitism does lie between the lines, others not. But this would be a rational process of argument, rather than the vicious circle of acrimony that I described earlier. The decisive issue would be this: Does the group in question project the figure of the ‘Jew’ (directly or indirectly, openly or otherwise) onto Israel? Do they, so to speak, pin a yellow star on the place, like the badge that was pinned to [Andre] Kertész’s breast? Do they, in short, turn the Jewish state into the ‘Jewish’ state?

This has always been a hard distinction to develop criteria for, beyond the working definition that provides some guidance (i.e., European Fundamental Rights Agency Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion). People have been cautious in taking this to the next step with more specific criteria or examples from the “grey areas”.

Klug: Charges of anti-semitism and Israel-lobby conspiracy are an ‘acrimonious circle’ we must step outside.

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Why racial hatred laws are vital to Australian multiculturalism

2013/11/23 Leave a comment

Australia’s new government is following the lead of the Canadian government in scaling back hate and racism provisions. Canada repealed s. 13 of its Human Rights Act earlier this year, not without some debate between civil liberties advocates in favour of repeal, and some communities who wanted it maintained. Hate speech remains, however, in the Criminal Code; the threshold, however, is higher than the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Why racial hatred laws are vital to Australian multiculturalism.

‘Hate speech’ no longer part of Canada’s Human Rights Act …

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