Chait: It Is Actually Possible to Oppose Bias Against Jews and Muslims at the Same Time – New York Magazine

2023/11/07 Leave a comment

Indeed, but not so simple in practice:

Here is a simple proposition: You can oppose antisemitism without condoning hatred of Muslims or Arabs. Likewise, you can oppose bias against Muslims and Arabs without condoning antisemitism.

This may sound like a simple idea. Yet it is one the entire Republican Party seems unable to grasp.

Last May, the Biden administration announced what it called the most ambitious strategy to oppose antisemitism ever undertaken. In the wake of Hamas’s terrorist attack last month, President Biden and Second Gentleman Douglass Emhoff held a roundtable with Jewish leaders to express support for Israel along with opposition to antisemitism. And as antisemitism has grown on campuses, the administration recently announced new stoops to combat it.

Republicans insist Biden and his party are complicit in antisemitism. The main reason they give is that the Democrats also oppose bigotry against Muslims and Arabs.

Given that I am accusing the Republicans of failing to grasp a principle a literal child could easily understand, you may be justifiably suspicious I am either making it up or picking on one or two random outliers. So I am going to supply several examples, all taken from published journalism, not random social-media posts.

Daniel Henninger has written a Wall Street Journal column headlined, “Democrats Have an Anti-Semitism Problem.” Many of the examples he cites consist of people protesting the Democratic Party’s positions (progressive activist groups released a “Gaza 2024 statement” asserting they won’t vote for Joe Biden “if he does not end U.S. support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza. … Anti-Israel protesters paraded in front of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s house in San Francisco last Saturday evening.”), which is obviously evidence for the complete opposite of his point.

But in the midst of that confusion, he cites this as evidence for Democratic antisemitism:

Because the Democrats now consider Muslim Americans an important part of the party’s voting coalition, meetings were held this week at the White House with Muslim leaders. Mr. Biden in his national address last month spoke at length against ‘Islamophobia.’

In a National Review column headlined “Why Joe Biden Is Caving on Israel and Antisemitism,” Charles C.W. Cooke asks, “Why, at this moment, is [Biden] launching a bizarre ‘National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia and Related Forms of Hate,’ when everyone with eyes can see that we are in the midst of the worst bout of antisemitism in recent memory?”

The Federalist’s John David Danielson sneers:

On Wednesday, the White House announced a “National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia,” the necessity of which, according to awkwardly scripted remarks by Vice President Kamala Harris, is that Muslims endure a disproportionate number of ‘hate-fueled attacks and other discriminatory incidents,” Leave it to the Biden White House to pick a moment when a wave of antisemitism is surging across America to announce this.

The New York Post has a news story asserting, “The Biden administration faced backlash Wednesday after announcing that it would develop ‘the first ever US National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia’ in the US amid rising levels of antisemitism.”

Tom Cotton attacks the administration for calling Islamophobia America’s top concern.

If you watch even a few seconds of the video he links, you can see Kamala Harris labels hatred the top concern, and defines this to include hatred against both Jews and Muslims or Arabs.

Cotton is simply lying about this, but there’s a genuine confusion in the right-wing mind about the relationship between Islamophobia and antisemitism. It is true that, broadly speaking, the conflict between Israel and Arabs has pitted antisemites and Islamophobes against each other. But that does not mean that opposing one form of prejudice requires accepting or embracing the other. Not every political conflict must be resolved in zero-sum terms.

Conservatives — ironically, like many radical leftists — see the world in zero-sum terms, so that opposing prejudice against one party to a conflict means accepting it toward the other. Segments of the anti-Israel left cannot bring themselves to denounce antisemitism precisely because they see doing so as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause. The right’s mentality is a mirror image of that thought process.

But the conservative refusal to denounce Islamophobia is an important reason why it is necessary for liberals — especially liberals who support Israel — to do so.

Muslims and Arabs do, in fact, face a lot of prejudice in the United States. This prejudice is routinely inflamed by Republican leaders. Donald Trump has routinely attacked Muslim Americans as foreign and unworthy of participation in civic life, smeared with fake claims of having supported 9/11, and recently vowed to keep them out of the United States unless they accept “our religion.”

The American conservative movement is institutionally committed to ignoring Trump’s flagrant racism, even while it hyperactively engages with the most deranged claims about institutional racism from activists and academics. Meanwhile, Trumpian racism against Muslims and Arabs has spread quickly within the party.

In recent days, prime time Fox News host Jesse Watters said:

“I want to say something about Arab Americans and about the Muslim world. We — and when I say we I mean the West and western technology — have created the Middle East. We made them rich. We got that oil out of the ground, our military protects all of these oil shipments flying around the world, making them rich. We fund their military. We respect their kings. We kill their terrorists. Okay? But we’ve had it. We’ve had it with them!”

Notice how Watters, not unlike Trump, conflates “Arab Americans” with people living in the Middle East, dismissing them all as enemies. It is almost impossible to find Republicans who will denounce any of this rhetoric.

The Republican idea that the Democratic Party’s opposition to prejudice in general somehow weakens any of the particulars is a projection of their own ethnographic view of the world. What they are attempting, instead, is to leverage their dehumanization of Arab and Muslim Americans into a play to attract Jews. But the ultimate safeguard of Jewish security in America lies not in subjugating and demeaning other minorities, but in enshrining the principle of civic equality.

Source: It Is Actually Possible to Oppose Bias Against Jews and Muslims at the Same Time – New York Magazine

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Car: Choose Respect

2023/11/07 Leave a comment

Winnipeg MP on the importance of dialogue, listening and respect:

How can you say you care about combatting Islamophobia or the lives of innocent children without calling for a ceasefire? How can you say you care about the loss of innocent Palestinian life if you attend a vigil for kidnapped Israelis? How can you say you care about defeating Hamas if you want Israel to respect calls for humanitarian pauses so that aid can flow?

These are several of the questions I have faced from people upset with the perspectives I have shared in relation to what has been happening in the Middle East. For some, it does not matter that I am speaking with members of both the Jewish and Muslim community every day. It does not matter that I have called for more aid to flow to Gaza, for the hostages to be released by Hamas, or for a two-state solution that can bring peace to this conflict. It does not matter that I am actively organizing meetings with police, elected officials, community leaders and experts to address the rise in hate against both the Jewish and Muslim community.

Every single word we utter, every single action we take, is parsed through by too many who are looking for some iota of ammunition they can use to establish what they believe to be an allegiance to one side or the other. It is not always about choosing a side, it is not always black and white, and it is certainly not always static.

It is possible to disagree on the ways in which we solve conflicts, without having to denigrate the character, morals, or intentions of the person with whom we disagree. President Obama said recently that “we should choose not to always assume the worst in those with whom we disagree.” How we conduct our behaviour towards others is a choice, and it is a choice we should pause to consider often.

I have had many respectful and productive conversations about the conflict recently with constituents, some Jews, some Muslims, and many from neither community. What made them respectful and productive?

First, we listened to each other. No interrupting, no positioning for the last word, just moments of genuine pause and reflection as the other spoke. Second, we were calm. No shouting, and no attempts to leave scars behind. Third, they were honest. The words conveyed stayed true to the values of those conveying them, and in that, each maintained their integrity. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, the objective in that moment was not to change the mind of the other – or to see the inability to do so as a failure – however, it was to leave the other with a broadened understanding of an opposing point of view that provided an opportunity for further reflection. It is this that contributes to the meaningfulness of thinking critically through difficult issues.

I am grateful to those who are continuing to reach out. However difficult the discussions, they need to happen. I hope that when they do, they can unfold in the ways I have highlighted from recent experiences noted above.

Protesting outside of businesses owned by members of a specific religious community, with calls to boycott them, simply because they are members of that community, is wrong. Intentionally intimidating people in the streets, is wrong. Calling for Jews to be flushed into the sea, or for Muslims to “go back to where they came from”, is wrong. These actions are not only hateful, they also prevent the conditions necessary to foster healthy relationships and peace from taking root.

As an educator, I often worked with kids and families who had experienced traumas in their lives. In order to help heal, it required trauma informed language and practices. This means reframing our own bias, making an effort to shift from asking “what’s wrong with you?”, to “what happened to you?’. We must do our best to move from judgement to curiosity.

These are fundamental principles in a trauma informed approach to conflict resolution. The intention is not to adjudicate on questions of who or what is “right” or “wrong”. The intention, is to guide us towards greater understanding of one another’s perspectives, and to restore a sense of humanity to a societal dialogue that has become increasingly void of it.

As difficult as the conversations are that we are having right now, we must have them. One day, we all hope soon, this war will end. When it is over, we will still be neighbours, co-workers, and family. We will still want the best for our kids and our communities. In order for us to overcome the trauma and wounds left behind from this current crisis here at home, we will need to lean as heavily as ever before, on the principles of respect, compassion, and love, while choosing to see the best in one another. That starts now.

Ben Carr is the Member of Parliament for Winnipeg South Centre

Source: Choose Respect

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Goldberg: When It Comes to Israel, Who Decides What You Can and Can’t Say?

2023/11/06 Leave a comment

Good discussion of the players and the issues:

Last week, the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law sent a letter to nearly 200 college presidents urging them to investigate campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine for potential violations of federal and state laws against providing material support to terrorism. As evidence for these very serious accusations, the ADL and the Brandeis center offered only the student group’s own strident rhetoric, including a sentence in its online tool kit, which praised Hamas’s attacks on Israel and said: “We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of the Palestinians on the ground.”

Under the direction of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has also ordered state universities to shut chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine. Citing the same tool kit, DeSantis said, “That is material support to terrorism, and that is not going to be tolerated in the state of Florida, and it should not be tolerated in these United States of America.” Virginia’s Republican attorney general has opened an investigation into American Muslims for Palestine, a national group that, according to the ADL, helps coordinate the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine, “for potentially violating Virginia’s charitable solicitation laws, including benefiting or providing support to terrorist organizations.” Several Republicans, including Donald Trump, have called for revoking the visas of pro-Palestinian student activists.

Ever since Hamas’s slaughter and mass kidnapping of Israelis on Oct. 7, there has been mounting fear and fury over the mistreatment of Jews at American colleges and universities. The Homeland Security, Justice and Education Departments are all taking steps to combat campus antisemitism. Congressional resolutions have condemned it. But while plenty of pro-Palestinian students have behaved in appalling ways, many also feel besieged, and for good reason.

For Palestinian and Muslim students, the invocation of terrorism law is especially frightening. Attempts to curtail anti-Zionist activism are not new; about 35 states have laws targeting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. But now advocates for Palestinian rights describe a new level of repression. “The ADL is calling for the mass violation of students’ rights in a manner that’s reminiscent of the post 9/11 environment, but with a more intensely Palestinian twist,” said Radhika Sainath, a senior staff attorney at the civil rights organization Palestine Legal. She predicts that if federal and state governments follow through on the ADL’s demands, Palestinian activists will be subjected to an increase in surveillance, infiltration and investigation, even though their groups “pose zero threat and have done nothing but engage in speech 100 percent protected by the First Amendment.”

Columbia University’s Rashid Khalidi, a pre-eminent historian of Palestinian history, readily acknowledged a rash of recent antisemitic incidents on college campuses. But he drew a distinction between interpersonal harassment and an institutional crackdown. “Both sides have feelings of being victimized,” he told me, but the forces arrayed against them are not the same. “The Patriot Act may be mobilized to shut down speech” deemed supportive of Palestinian terrorism. “That’s the difference.”

No one should underestimate how awful the campus climate is for many Jewish students, who’ve experienced a surge in violence and abuse. At Cornell, an engineering student was arrested after threatening to shoot up a kosher dining hall and calling for Jews to be raped and murdered. Demonstrators at a rally in support of Palestinians assaulted Jewish counterprotesters at Tulane; one student had his nose broken. In October, Erwin Chemerinsky, the law school dean of at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote an opinion essay headlined, “Nothing Has Prepared Me for the Antisemitism I See on College Campuses Now.” In it, he told of a student who insisted that she would feel safe on campus only if the school got “rid of the Zionists.”

This hostile environment stems, at least in part, from the nearly vaunted role played by the Palestinian cause in the left’s understanding of global dispossession. Because America helps underwrite Israel’s military occupation, Palestinians are often viewed as singular symbols of imperialist oppression. For decades, radical Black activists in America have seen, in Israel’s occupation of Palestine, a mirror of their own subjugation, and that identification was supercharged during America’s 2020 racial justice protests, when a mural of George Floyd appeared in Gaza City. In some social justice circles, then, support for Israel is viewed as something akin to support for the K.K.K.

This contempt for Zionism has only accelerated with the pulverizing bombing of Gaza and its thousands of civilian casualties. And too often, on hothouse campuses full of young people with half-formed ideas and poor impulse control, anti-Zionism segues into hatred directed at Jews.

For some Jews on campus, the vituperation against Zionism has been particularly disorienting because, for years now, they’ve been trained in exquisite sensitivity to identity-based slights.

Not all Jews identify with the state of Israel, of course, and activists from Jewish groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow have led protests against Israel’s war on Gaza. But many Jews see their relationship with Israel as an essential part of their Jewishness, and even some fierce critics of Israel’s government were shaken by the widespread demonization of the country so soon after Hamas’s atrocities. When they say that the campus climate makes them feel unsafe — a rhetorical trump card in other contexts — they expect official action.

On Wednesday, the presidents of several Israeli universities wrote a letter to their international colleagues calling on them to accord Jewish and Israeli students and faculty members “the same respect and protections as any other minority.” Citing principles of safety and inclusivity, the letter said, “Just as it would be unthinkable for an academic institution to extend free speech protections to groups targeting other protected classes, so too should demonstrations that call for our destruction and glorify violence against Jews be explicitly prohibited and condemned.”

But this demand for protection can collide with the First Amendment rights of Zionism’s critics, and with academic freedom more broadly. “I wouldn’t compare this with the internment of the Japanese Americans in World War II, but the point I’m making is that there are times when people get really upset about what’s happening in the world and do things that are unwise at best and really harmful to people and democracy at worst,” said Kenneth Stern, director of Bard College’s Center for the Study of Hate and author of “The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate.”

Stern occupies a unique position in this profoundly polarizing debate. He’s a liberal Zionist and an expert on antisemitism, as well as a committed civil libertarian who critiques the way mainstream Jewish groups wield institutional power to try to silence pro-Palestinian voices.

As he describes in his book, in 1982, he resigned from the left-wing National Lawyers Guild rather than face what felt like a purge for refusing to sign onto a strictly pro-Palestinian line. Years later, he became the in-house antisemitism expert at the American Jewish Committee, but eventually left in part over concern that, in its ardent defense of Israel on college campuses, the group was forsaking a commitment to academic freedom. He helped draft an internationally adopted definition of antisemitism that includes some forms of anti-Zionism. He’s also inveighed, in opinion essays, congressional testimony and in his 2020 book, against the use of that definition, put out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016, to traduce the free speech of Israel’s critics.

“The complexity of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict should make it an ideal subject to teach critical thinking and how to have difficult discussions,” writes Stern. “Instead, it is being used as a toxin that threatens the entire academic enterprise.”

As with the conflict between Israel and Palestine more broadly, there’s plenty of blame to go around. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a libertarian-leaning free speech organization, shared data with me showing that, since 2002, there have been more attempts made to de-platform pro-Palestinian campus speakers than pro-Israel ones. But attempts to shut down pro-Israel speakers, by disinviting or disrupting them, are more likely to be successful.

Both sides, then, have credible stories to tell about being censored and intimidated. The difference is where that intimidation is coming from. For supporters of Israel, it largely comes from peers and, in some cases, professors. For supporters of Palestine, it comes from powerful outside institutions, including the state.

There is little reason to think that the pressure brought to bear by these outside institutions is making Jewish students any safer. One result of the denunciatory mood that overtook many progressive spaces toward the tail end of the Trump years was to give reactionary ideas a rebellious frisson. You could see this in the little subculture of New York scenesters who adopted the trappings of conservative Catholicism as a rebuke to liberalism, but also in more significant cultural phenomena, like the popularity of the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast and the right-wing radicalization of Elon Musk. Among young people, the appeal of right-wing heterodoxy was limited by the fact that relatively few want to give up either a commitment to human equality or premarital sex. Anti-Zionist activism, by contrast, offers something that’s been missing from left-wing politics for years: the chance to stand up for the downtrodden and scandalize elites.

“By trying to censor anti-Israel remarks, it becomes more, not less, difficult to tackle both antisemitism and anti-Israel dogma,” Stern writes in his book. “The campus debate is changed from one of exposing bigotry to one of protecting free speech, and the last thing pro-Israel advocates need is a reputation for censoring, rather than refuting, their opponents.”

Of course, Israel’s partisans already have that reputation. “What can you say about what settlers are doing in the West Bank?” asked Khalidi. “What can you say about ethnic cleansing in 1948,” the year of Israel’s founding? “How can you defend any of those things? They don’t have an argument. They have to shut down debate.” Those who disagree with him might try to prove him wrong.

Source: When It Comes to Israel, Who Decides What You Can and Can’t Say?

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Trump-era antisemitism policy expected to fuel flood of student lawsuits against universities

2023/11/06 Leave a comment

As so often happens, lawsuits emerge, more broadly than just antisemitism:

As campuses across the country continue to erupt in protests over the Israel-Hamas war, a little-known 2019 presidential executive order is expected to fuel a flood of student legal claims against universities.

Attorneys — from a mix of white-shoe corporate firms to Jewish advocacy groups — are meeting with students who say their schools are failing to protect them from antisemitic or anti-Israel conduct.

In 2019, then-President Donald Trump signed an order instructing federal officials to expand the interpretation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include “discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism” as a form of discrimination based on race, color and national origin — prohibited behavior for programs that get federal funding. Trump signed the order amid a series of violent incidents against Jews, including the 2018 killing of 11 congregants in a Pittsburgh synagogue and a 2019 attack that killed three inside a Kosher supermarket in New Jersey.

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not include the word “religion” as a subject of discrimination. Because the law does not list religious characteristics, legal experts say, federal officials have gradually expanded interpretations to include ethnoreligious groups.

Trump told federal agencies “to consider” using the Sweden-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which includes “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

The alliance promotes Holocaust education and research, and has come under criticism by both Jewish and non-Jewish groups for suggesting that broad criticism of Israel can be construed as antisemitic.

In January 19, 2021, the day before Trump left office, the U.S. Department of Education, released a five-page questions and answers memo defining what constitutes antisemitism at schools.

An NBC News review of the department’s current investigations showed 15 pending cases related to race or national origin. The most recent filing listed was against Oberlin College in Ohio, dated a week before the Hamas attacks on Israel. Melissa Landa, an alumna of the college, told NBC News that she filed the letter because the school didn’t intervene after a professor taught students that “Israel is an illegitimate settler colonial apartheid regime,” according to Landa.

“I think that students need to file Title VI complaints so that universities can have federal money withheld from them, and maybe that will make them act,” Landa said. “I hope that my Title VI complaint will serve as an example for them.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Education said that since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis, “we have seen an uptick in complaints and the department is assessing them all.”

Lawyers said they have received an overwhelming number of calls from across the country from Jewish college students and their parents requesting representation in Title VI claims. Kenneth Marcus, who ran the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights during the Trump and George W. Bush administrations, said he is getting many calls.

“Oh, my God, I can’t tell you how many campuses we’re dealing with every single day. We have never been so inundated with cases,” said Marcus, who now runs the Brandeis Center for Human Rights, a nonprofit focused on protecting the civil rights of Jews.

In recent years, the Brandeis Center has filed Title VI complaints against the University of Vermont and the State University of New York at New Paltz on behalf of Jewish students who said their universities have allowed antisemitism to fester on campus.

In April, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights said it found that the University of Vermont failed to investigate student claims of antisemitism and did not examine whether the complaints had created a hostile environment for Jewish students.

The University of Vermont signed a resolution agreement with federal officials later that month vowing to enact reforms such as expanding the school’s discrimination policy to include protections for students based on shared ancestry, including antisemitism. In June, the Office for Civil Rights opened a formal investigation into SUNY-New Paltz.

For years, Marcus has also been fighting to broaden Title VI protections to members of other ethnoreligious groups. He said prior to the Trump administration, he wrote guidance memos that said Title VI could be interpreted to include protecting members of other ethnoreligious groups such as Sikhs and Arab Muslims. But in 2019, Trump kept his executive order focused on protecting Jews.

In September, President Joe Biden issued a statement noting that Title VI also prohibits Islamophobic activities in federally funded programs. But the U.S. Department of Education has not released a detailed memo that defines Islamophobia as it has done for antisemitism.

Gadeir Abbas, a senior litigation attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his team is preparing discrimination complaints on behalf of Muslim and pro-Palestinian students, who he says are being unfairly labeled as Hamas sympathizers or unfairly accused of providing support to terrorists.

“I think that pro-Israel groups, groups that are seeking to marginalize Palestinian voices on campus, see the Title VI claim as a way of attacking not the administration, but the other student groups,” Abbas said. “The idea is that [they’re] going to censor or penalize or punish any advocacy for equal rights of Palestinians.”

As a result, he said, Palestinian students — or students who say they support Palestinian civilians in Gaza — feel vulnerable on campus and in their communities, and some are considering filing their own Title VI claims.

NBC News has reported that bias incidents against Muslims are on the rise. CAIR said that it received 774 reports of bias incidents and requests for help from Muslims across the country from Oct. 7 through Oct. 24, nearly triple the number compared to a similar time period last year.

Abbas said that students, like all Americans, have a right to protest in the United States. “In a conflict between the First Amendment and Title VI, the First Amendment wins,” Abbas said. “Those student groups are participating in lawful activity. They’re recognized willingly by their colleges and universities.”

Three weeks before the Hamas attacks and the subsequent protests on American campuses, Palestine Legal, an advocacy organization for Palestinian rights, filed a Title VI complaint with the U.S. Department of Education. Attorneys demanded a federal investigation after the University of Illinois Chicago barred students “with Arab sounding names” from attending a January 2023 informational session on a university-sponsored Israel study-abroad program.

Legal experts said they expect the largest number of future Title VI cases to be filed against universities by Jewish students. The Anti-Defamation League recently reported that nationwide, “incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault increased by 388 percent over the same period last year.”

One of the most outspoken advocates for Jewish students’ use of Title VI since Oct. 7 has been the Lawfare Project, a nonprofit that represents Jewish clients. Lawfare staffers have met with Jewish students on campuses, posted solicitations for cases in Jewish WhatsApp groups, and used the organization’s social media accounts “End Jew Hatred” to recruit young clients.

“While we always had students reaching out to us, after Oct. 7, that became a flood,” said Lawfare senior counsel Gerard Filitti, while standing on the sidelines of a recent pro-Israel rally at Columbia University. “The phone was ringing nonstop.”

Georgetown Law student Julia Wax, 25, was also at the Columbia rally. Wax said she is in talks with Lawfare to file a Title VI lawsuit against her law school, claiming that pro-Palestinian student organizations on her campus have been publicly supporting Hamas.

“I think in a perfect world, Georgetown would create some sort of an open forum for this conflict to be discussed,” said Wax, adding that she wants Georgetown to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

In February 2020, Lawfare represented one of the first Jewish college students to file a Title VI complaint against a university after Trump’s executive order. Jonathan Karten, then 24, was a Columbia University student who said he was harassed by members of the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine. (The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Karten’s complaint said students called him “racist” and a “Zionist pig.” Tensions further escalated as professor Joseph Massad, who teaches modern Arab politics and has a history of criticizing Israel, referred to the military wing of Hamas as “armed resistance,” according to the complaint. Karten’s uncle was killed by Hamas militants in 1996 while hitchhiking in Israel.

“My professor endorsed the very same monsters,” Karten, who recently rejoined the Israeli army, said in a WhatsApp message.

The Department of Education declined to comment on the status of the case.

Karten’s younger brother, Isidore, also a Columbia alumnus, is pressuring the department to do more. Since the Hamas terrorist attacks, he has also helped organize pro-Israel events around the city and says he is frustrated by what he sees as Columbia’s muted response to antisemitism.

On Wednesday, Columbia University announced it was starting an antisemitism task force to come up with changes to academic and extracurricular programs. Columbia spokesperson Samantha Slater said in a statement that the university is beefing up security.

“Over the past few weeks, we have increased our public safety presence across all our campuses,” Slater wrote. “We are also working closely with outside security firms and are in regular contact with the New York City Police Department.”

Isidore Karten said he and other young Jewish activists continue to feel that Columbia can do more. “I don’t think they are doing enough,” he said

Source: Trump-era antisemitism policy expected to fuel flood of student … – NBC News

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Canadian Muslim charity wins ‘milestone’ settlement after being falsely accused of funding terrorism

2023/06/12 Leave a comment

Of note and welcome accountability:

One of Canada’s largest faith-based charities has won a settlement over a set of publications that falsely claimed it was a “front” to fund terror groups abroad.

Islamic Relief Canada reached the out-of-court settlement earlier this month in a lawsuit against Thomas Quiggin — a former military officer turned self-described researcher who last year emerged as one of the more recognizable names in the truck convoy protests — and six others who it argued made “false, malicious and defamatory” statements aimed at harming the charity.

Along with Quiggin, the $2.5-million lawsuit from December 2018 took aim at Benjamin Dichter, who later emerged as a convoy spokesperson; writer Tahir Aslam Gora and an online television channel of which Gora is CEO; writer Raheel Raza and her husband Syed Sohail Raza; as well as a Yarmouth-based man named Joseph Hazelton who interviewed Quiggin about the charity in a YouTube video that garnered over 10,000 views.

Source: Canadian Muslim charity wins ‘milestone’ settlement after being falsely accused of funding terrorism

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Islamophobia widespread in Canada, early findings of Senate committee study indicate

2023/04/25 Leave a comment

Of note:

Islamophobia and violence against Muslims is widespread and deeply entrenched in Canadian society, early findings from a Senate committee studying the issue indicate.

Muslim women who wear hijabs – Black Muslim women in particular – are the most vulnerable, and confronting Islamophobia in a variety of public spheres is difficult, the committee on human rights has found.

“Canada has a problem,” committee chair Sen. Salma Ataullahjan said in a phone interview with The Canadian Press.

“We are hearing of intergenerational trauma because young kids are witnessing this. Muslims are speaking out because there’s so many attacks happening and they’re so violent.”

The problem is worse than current statistics suggest, Ataullahjan said.

Many Muslims across Canada live with constant fear of being targeted, especially if they have experienced an Islamophobic attack, witnessed one or lost a loved one to violence, the committee found.

“Some of these women were afraid to leave their homes and it became difficult for them to take their children to school. Many were spat on,” Ataullahjan said. ” Muslims have to look over their shoulder constantly.”

Last month, figures released by Statistics Canada indicated police-reported hate crimes targeting Muslims increased by 71 per cent from 2020 to 2021. The rate of the crimes was eight incidents per 100,000 members of the Muslim population, based on census figures.

The Senate committee’s work began in June 2021, not long after four members of a Muslim family died after being run over by a pickup truck while out for an evening walk in London, Ont. A man is facing terror-related murder charges in their deaths.

The committee’s senators, analysts, translators and other staff travelled to Vancouver, Edmonton, Quebec, and across the Greater Toronto Area to speak with Canadians who attend mosques, Muslims who were victims of attacks, teachers, doctors and security officials, among others.

The findings from those conversations are now being put together in a report, which the committee began drafting this week, Ataullahjan said.

The final version of the report – set to be published in July – is expected to include recommendations on what can be done to combat Islamophobia and how government can better support victims of attacks, she said.

Among the committee’s findings is an observation that attacks against Muslims often appear to happen out on the streets and appear to be more violent than those targeting other religious groups, Ataullahjan said.

Analysts and experts interviewed by the Senate committee said the rise of far-right hate groups and anti-Muslim groups are among the factors driving attacks against Muslims, Ataullahjan said.

The committee looked at the cases of Black Muslim women in Edmonton who were violently assaulted in recent years.

“Some of them sat in front of us and everyone was getting teary-eyed because it’s not easy to tell your story especially where you’ve been hurt,” she said.

The 2017 shooting at a Quebec mosque when a gunman opened fire, killing six worshippers and injuring several others, is another example of violent Islamophobia, she said.

The Senate committee’s report will also address recent violence against Muslims, including an alleged assault outside a Markham, Ont., mosque where witnesses told police a man tore up a Qur’an, yelled racial slurs, and tried to ram a car into congregants.

The committee will also detail day-to-day aggression against Muslim Canadians, including accounts from hijab-wearing girls in schools who don’t feel comfortable reporting instances of Islamophobia to police, Ataullahjan said.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims said the initial findings align with what it has been observing and trying to inform government leaders about for years.

“We’re happy that this is being done,” said spokesman Steven Zhou. “It’s something that everyone everywhere needs to study up on. It’s a worsening problem.”

The council gets calls every day from Muslims across Canada detailing instances of Islamophobia, Zhou said, underscoring the need for action.

“People don’t like to report these things,” he said. “It takes a lot out of them to actually go to courts or talk to the police who might not understand exactly what they’ve gone through.”

Zhou said he expects the committee will make recommendations similar to suggestions the council has already put forward, including changes to hate crime legislation, creating policies that would prevent hate groups from gathering near places of worship, and legislation to deal with online hate.

The National Council of Muslim Canadians also hopes the report will help Canadians familiarize themselves with the Muslim community.

“We want to address hate,” he said. “But also it’s about building bridges. For people to learn about Islam, for people to learn about what this religion is actually about, how the community works.”

Source: Islamophobia widespread in Canada, early findings of Senate committee study indicate

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La lutte contre l’islamophobie est un écran de fumée

2023/03/31 Leave a comment

Extreme take IMO but valid critique of the some of the polemic around CRA audits and reflects the tensions between the more and less secular:

Lors de l’annonce du poste de représentant canadien à la lutte contre l’islamophobie, nous avons été nombreux à souligner l’utilisation abusive et militante de ce terme qui confond dans son usage le respect de la personne de conviction musulmane avec le respect absolu des préceptes de l’islam.

Le dernier sondage Angus Reid illustre bien notre propos en reconduisant une telle confusion. Selon ce sondage, les Québécois auraient une opinion plus négative de l’islam que la moyenne canadienne et seraient davantage favorables à la loi 21.

On le sait, le Québec a une vision plus négative que le reste du Canada de toutes les religions et une plus grande aspiration à la laïcité. Cela découle de son parcours historique et de son attachement à un modèle de vivre ensemble basé sur des valeurs citoyennes communes. Or, la firme Angus Reid ne manque pas de conclure que les Québécois seraient plus islamophobes, au sens de racistes, que le reste du Canada. La lutte contre l’islamophobie consisterait-elle, au nom d’un antiracisme dévoyé, à inculquer une vision positive de l’islam ? Faudrait-il en faire autant pour toutes les religions ?

Ce que cache la lutte contre l’islamophobie

Plus concrètement, on vient d’apprendre que la Division de la revue et de l’examen (DRE) de l’Agence du revenu du Canada, chargée de veiller à ce que les organisations caritatives ne soient pas utilisées pour financer le terrorisme, fait l’objet d’une enquête en raison d’allégations d’islamophobie. Les plaignants font notamment valoir que 75 % des organismes dont le statut d’organisme de bienfaisance a été révoqué sont musulmans. Il appartiendra à l’Office de surveillance des activités en matière de sécurité nationale et de renseignement de trancher après enquête, mais soulignons d’emblée qu’un tel écart statistique ne présume aucunement d’une injustice.

Parmi les organisations révoquées, les médias ont déjà rapporté le cas du Centre islamique d’Ottawa pour promotion de la haine et de l’intolérance, de l’IRFAN-Canada pour financement du Hamas ou de l’ISNA pour financement de Jamaat-e-Islami, tous deux inscrits sur la liste des entités terroristes du Canada. Un simple parcours de cette liste permet d’ailleurs de constater qu’elle est constituée dans sa grande majorité de groupes islamistes. Du reste, un document sur la stratégie antiterroriste du Canada tire la même conclusion : « L’extrémisme islamique violent est la principale menace pour la sécurité nationale du Canada ».

En fait, suspendre les travaux de la DRE était l’une des recommandations du Conseil national des musulmans canadiens (CNMC) lors du sommet national sur l’islamophobie de 2021 ayant mené à la création du poste de représentant canadien à la lutte contre l’islamophobie. Parmi ses autres recommandations, le CNMC appelle le gouvernement à interrompre sa stratégie nationale de lutte contre l’extrémisme violent et la radicalisation, ainsi qu’à surveiller les organismes de sécurité nationale, dont le Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité et l’Agence des services frontaliers du Canada. Pourquoi ? Le CNMC les soupçonne de racisme, d’islamophobie et exige même une étude sur « la pénétration de la suprématie blanche » en leur sein.

Faire cesser la surveillance des organisations susceptibles de financer le terrorisme et mettre sous contrôle les organismes de sécurité nationale sous prétexte de racisme, est-ce à cela que contribuera le poste de représentant canadien à la lutte contre l’islamophobie ? Les Canadiens prennent-ils la pleine mesure de ce que tout ceci implique ?

La laïcité comme arme de diabolisation massive

À la suite du sondage Angus Reid, les médias ont relayé des propos outranciers sur la supposée « islamophobie » rampante au Québec, le CNMC allant même jusqu’à parler de danger de mort pour les musulmans.

À ce propos, Fatima Aboubakr a apporté un témoignage éclairant sur la façon dont la loi 21 était utilisée, quitte à exagérer son champ d’application, pour diaboliser le Québec et faire avancer des objectifs islamistes. Témoin de la radicalisation de jeunes de son entourage, Mme Aboubakr a participé à la fondation d’une association arabo-musulmane à vocation humaniste et laïque pour aider ces jeunes. Or, cette vocation humaniste a rapidement été mise à mal par des pressions interdisant tout propos favorable à la laïcité. Elle témoigne aussi de l’état de dépendance dans lequel se trouvent de nombreux immigrants embrigadés par des intervenants associatifs en rupture avec leur société d’accueil.

Ce n’est pas la première fois qu’un tel constat est brossé. En 2016, dans le cadre du départ d’une dizaine de jeunes du cégep Maisonneuve vers la Syrie, un rapport du Centre de prévention de la radicalisation menant à la violence faisait état d’un climat polarisant entretenu par des « agents de radicalisation » manipulant le sentiment de victimisation des jeunes en instrumentalisant le projet de Charte de la laïcité. Ces agents de radicalisation auraient considérablement contribué « à semer la haine chez les jeunes, en insistant sur le rejet collectif des musulmans et de l’islam de la part de la société québécoise ».

La lutte contre l’islamophobie est un écran de fumée permettant à des individus peu scrupuleux ou radicalisés de maintenir leurs concitoyens dans un état d’enfermement communautaire les isolant du reste du Québec, sans parler d’OBNL à vocation religieuse profitant de l’impunité qui en découle pour servir de courroie de transmission au financement du terrorisme international.

Si le gouvernement canadien doit assurément lutter contre la haine, il ne doit pas se laisser berner par l’usage volontairement confus du terme « islamophobie » au point d’entraver le bon fonctionnement des organismes de sécurité nationale. Son rôle premier est d’assurer la sécurité de ses citoyens tout en préservant sa crédibilité à l’étranger.

Source: La lutte contre l’islamophobie est un écran de fumée

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Le «Québec bashing» pour faire avancer l’agenda islamiste

2023/03/24 Leave a comment

Of note:

Je suis arrivée du Maroc en 2005 accompagnée de mes deux jeunes garçons de un et trois ans. Je ne me sauvais pas d’une situation de violence particulièrement grave, mais d’un état de dépendance et de soumission assez banal pour une femme dans une culture arabo-musulmane.

Cela n’a pas été facile de redémarrer une vie de mère de famille monoparentale dans un nouveau pays, mais le Québec a été pour moi une destination de rêve, et je suis reconnaissante de l’accueil dont j’ai bénéficié. J’ai toujours trouvé injustes les accusations de racisme et d’islamophobie dont les Québécois sont la cible. Je me sens plus respectée au Québec que je ne l’étais dans mon pays d’origine. C’est ici que je me suis sentie citoyenne à part entière, libre de mener ma vie comme je l’entendais, sans jugement, et j’ai le sentiment d’avoir bénéficié de l’égalité des chances.

On parle beaucoup d’islamophobie, mais on ne parle jamais de la pression communautaire qui pèse sur les ressortissants des pays arabes pour les forcer à se conformer à des normes culturelles et religieuses et les empêcher de s’intégrer dans leur pays d’accueil. Mon expérience récente dans le milieu associatif montre à quel point il est difficile de faire émerger un islam humaniste au Québec, et comment les accusations de racisme et d’islamophobie contre les Québécois sont utilisées pour faire avancer des objectifs islamistes.

J’avais envie de m’investir dans le milieu associatif pour aider d’autres ressortissants de pays musulmans, surtout les jeunes, à s’en sortir. Je voyais le danger de la radicalisation et l’influence que certains prédicateurs ont sur les jeunes ici même, à Montréal. Mon neveu de 25 ans habitant à Laval, plein de talent et de joie de vivre, artiste peintre, parolier, bon joueur de soccer, est soudain tombé entre les griffes du radicalisme. Du jour au lendemain, il a arrêté ses études, ses activités artistiques et le sport, pour se consacrer à la religion. J’avais tellement envie de crier fort : laissez les enfants vivre sans influence religieuse, arrêtez de les endoctriner.

Dès que j’en ai eu la possibilité, j’ai donc décidé de m’investir dans la société civile. Le passage à Montréal d’un penseur égyptien prônant une approche humaniste de l’islam m’en a donné l’occasion. Autour de ce penseur, la possibilité de créer une association de citoyens de culture arabo-musulmane favorables à la laïcité s’est présentée. Dans le cadre de cette nouvelle association, nous avons commencé à organiser des activités culturelles et des rencontres virtuelles avec des membres dans différentes villes du Canada et des États-Unis.

Arme aux mains des intégristes

Cependant, une personne très connue dans le milieu associatif et très influente dans une certaine communauté musulmane de Montréal prenait de plus en plus de place dans la direction de l’association. Le temps accordé aux personnes non pratiquantes, athées ou favorables à la laïcité diminuait au bénéfice de nouvelles personnes qu’il invitait, ayant des idées plus proches d’un islam radical. Lorsque je lui en parlais, il m’expliquait qu’il était important d’écouter ces personnes pour les amener un jour à changer d’idées.

Je n’étais pas convaincue par ses arguments, mais étant donné sa notoriété et son expérience associative de plus de trente ans, j’acceptais. Cependant, plus le temps passait, plus des personnes défendant l’islam politique se joignaient à l’association qui, rappelons-le, avait été créée justement pour faire face aux idées de l’islam politique.

À chaque occasion qui se présentait — rencontres en personne, virtuelles ou téléphoniques —, ce monsieur trouvait le moyen de décrire le Québec comme une province raciste et islamophobe. Il utilisait toutes les tribunes pour diaboliser le Québec. Lorsque j’intervenais pour parler de mon expérience positive au Québec, il ridiculisait mes propos et expliquait que si j’étais bien accueillie, c’était en raison de mes positions « anti-islam ».

Ma position en faveur de la loi 21 est ce qui m’a valu le plus de moqueries de sa part. Il insinuait que je voulais plaire aux Québécois et que je n’étais qu’un instrument entre leurs mains. Lors de la nomination d’Amira Elghawaby comme représentante canadienne à la lutte contre l’islamophobie, il fit des pressions sur moi pour que je ne puisse pas exprimer mon avis contre sa nomination.

C’est à la suite de la dernière rencontre que j’ai décidé de quitter l’association. Parmi les intervenants, il y avait une maman syrienne qui racontait son expérience douloureuse en nous montrant la photo de sa fille dans la vingtaine tuée par Daech [groupe État islamique]. Lorsque la réunion fut terminée, ce monsieur réagit violemment en interdisant la diffusion d’une vidéo présentant nos interventions et déclara que la maman n’aurait pas dû qualifier Daech d’organisation terroriste.

L’association dont j’avais été membre fondatrice n’avait plus rien d’humaniste ni de laïque.

Je ne sais pas quel sera le mandat de la représentante canadienne à la lutte contre l’islamophobie, mais je sais que ce concept est une arme aux mains des intégristes pour faire avancer leurs objectifs politico-religieux et pour creuser un fossé entre les musulmans et les autres. Il y a de quoi s’inquiéter.

Source: Le «Québec bashing» pour faire avancer l’agenda islamiste

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Intelligence watchdog investigating CRA following Islamophobia claims

2023/03/16 Leave a comment

Of note:

One of Canada’s intelligence review bodies has launched an investigation into the Canada Revenue Agency’s work on charities in response to allegations of bias and Islamophobia.

On Tuesday, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) — the watchdog set up to monitor the activities of Canada’s national security and intelligence bodies — released a letter it sent to Bob Hamilton, commissioner of the CRA, announcing its intention to probe the department’s review and analysis wing.

That CRA division is tasked with making sure registered charities aren’t being used to finance terrorism. It has been accused of unfairly targeting Muslim charities for audits based on questionable grounds.

NSIRA said the review will focus on the CRA program’s “national security activities and decision-making relating to registered Canadian charities, to assess their reasonableness, necessity and compliance with the law.”

National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier said she welcomes the investigation.

“The government of Canada stands with and supports Muslim communities across Canada and reaffirms its commitment to take action to denounce and tackle Islamophobia, hate-fuelled violence and systemic discrimination whenever and wherever it occurs,” says a media statement from her office.

A 2021 report by the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group said CRA’s review and analysis division carried out audits “with little accountability or independent review.”

The national civil liberties coalition reported that 75 per cent of the organizations whose charitable status was revoked following division audits from 2008 to 2015 were Muslim charities, and at least another four have seen their status pulled since then.

NSIRA will have access to classified information

One of those charities, the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), said a years-long audit has been plagued by bias and Islamophobia. The charity,  which describes itself as Canada’s largest grassroots Muslim organization, is pursuing a Charter of Rights challenge.

Source: Intelligence watchdog investigating CRA following Islamophobia claims

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Angus Reid Survey: Islamophobia in Canada-Four mindsets indicate negativity is nationwide, most intense in Quebec

2023/03/16 Leave a comment

No real surprises as similar findings in other surveys. But an evidence-based riposte to criticism of Shachi Kurl’s (ED of Angus Reid) for raising anti-muslim attitudes in Quebec during the 2021 election debate:

A new study from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds unfavourable views of Islam prevalent across the country at varying levels and highest in Quebec.

Indeed, two-in-five Canadians outside of Quebec (39%) hold an unfavourable view of Islam. In Quebec that number reaches half (52%). These views take more concrete forms, however, than just the overall sentiment that the religion receives. Its followers face the risk of being unwelcome in a number of areas of Canadian society.

To clarify the picture further, the Angus Reid Institute created the “Views of Islam Index”. Respondents were asked six questions about five religions – Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Hinduism, and Judaism. The dimensions measured included:

  • Feeling favourable or unfavourable about the religion
  • Support or opposition to people wearing distinctive religious symbols in public
  • Levels of comfort with working in the same space where colleagues wore these symbols
  • Support or opposition to the establishment of different places of worship in their neighbourhood
  • Acceptance of a child marrying a member of one of these religions.

For the purpose of this analysis and given the ongoing discussion about the level of Islamophobia in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, responses to this national survey were analyzed according to the level of positivity or negativity towards Muslims across all six question areas. Four groups were created, those with Very Positive, Positive, Negative, and Very Negative views of Islam.

A comparison of Quebec with the rest of Canada reveals stark differences. Outside of Quebec, Very Positive and universally accepting views of Muslims and their religious symbols are evident in 37 per cent of the population. A further one-quarter (27%) hold generally positive views but not in all circumstances assessed in the study. On the other end of the spectrum 16 per cent of Canadians outside Quebec hold Very Negative views on Islam and religious practices of this faith in nearly every circumstance assessed in the survey.

In Quebec, positive views are more muted but still represent almost half the attitudinal landscape with one-in-five (20%) displaying Very Positive views and a further one-quarter (25%) on the generally positive side of the index.

That said, the largest segment of the population in Quebec (30%) displays Very Negative views toward Islam. The level is about twice that observed in the rest of the country (16%). This “Very Negative” segment in Quebec is similar to the group of the same name in the rest of Canada with one important exception: among this group in Quebec there is a distinct level of negativity towards Judaism and Christianity that is less prevalent elsewhere in the country.

Amid this, Quebec’s Bill 21 continues to be supported by more than half in that province (57%). That law, which prohibits the wearing of religious symbols for individuals in certain public positions of authority while they are on the worksite, is unpopular in the rest of the country with one-in-four (25%) supporting the concept for their own province and two-thirds (65%) opposing it.

Cliquez ici pour lire le rapport complet en français

More Key Findings:

  • Asked whether Canada has a problem with Islamophobia more broadly, Canadians are evenly divided, with 50 per cent saying it does and 50 per cent saying it does not. Those most likely to view Islam negatively, both in Quebec and in the rest of Canada alike, are also most likely to say there is no problem.
  • There is some correlation between age and education when it comes to the Views of Islam Index. Older Canadians are more likely to be in the Very Negative group than younger ones while younger Canadians are more likely to be in the Very Positive group. As well, half of the Very Negative group has a high school diploma or less, while the Very Positive group is much more likely to have graduated from university than other segments.
  • More than two-in-five (44%) Canadians believe it is unnecessary to have a special representative on combatting Islamophobia, a position recently appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This view is the overwhelming majority one (82%) of those who have Very Negative views of Islam.
  • Seven-in-ten outside of Quebec (72%) support the wearing of the hijab in public spaces, while 28 per cent oppose it. In Quebec, slightly more than half (55%) are supportive, while 45 per cent voice opposition. In Greater Montreal support for the hijab rises to 63 per cent, while it drops to 46 per cent in the rest of Quebec.

Source: Islamophobia in Canada: Four mindsets indicate negativity is nationwide, most intense in Quebec

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

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