Canada’s envoy on the Holocaust departs and has a final warning

2023/10/18 Leave a comment

Of note. Lyons good replacement given her extensive experience:

Former Liberal cabinet minister and global human rights advocate Irwin Cotler exited his role Monday as Canada’s special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism with a warning: hatred against Jews is the “canary in the mine shaft” of human evil.

Cotler said his three years in the role have seen a marked escalation of antisemitism around the world. He cited the hate flourishing on social media, rising numbers of people who hold antisemitic beliefs, and an increase in hate crimes being carried out against Jews.

The attack last week in Israel by the militant group Hamas must also be understood to have global implications for hate, he said.

He called the organization, which Canada and other countries consider a terrorist group, not just an enemy of the Jewish people but of Palestinians as well.

“It’s an enemy of peace itself,” he said.

“And that’s what we’re up against, and regrettably, the Palestinian people end up being human shields and end up themselves being hostages to this murderous terrorist, antisemitic group, letting us understand once again that while it begins with Jews, as we say, it doesn’t end with Jews.”

Cotler has now passed the baton for the role to Deborah Lyons, who has been both Canada’s ambassador to Israel and also the head of the United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan.

“Our world is hurting. We’re a little bit broken. And we are hurting,” she said in her inaugural remarks at a press conference Monday.

“But as we make our way together, through this permeating sense of helplessness, I know that as Canadians, with our wonderful leaders, we will come together, we will see the challenges, and we will face that incredible work that needs to be done.”

Lyons said she’ll emphasize antisemitism education, both on university campuses and in the corporate sector, as well as ensuring more robust data collection to help improve the safety and security of the Jewish community. She also called upon faith leaders and politicians to do their part.

“Please unite us and inspire us through your actions to continue to build that diverse and inclusive Canada, which all your constituents deserve,” she said.

Lyons was asked Monday what, as a non-Jewish person, she brings to the job, and she pushed back saying that all Canadians have a role to play supporting one another.

“What I bring to this job is a commitment as a Canadian.”

The Liberal government created the special envoy role in 2020, following through on previous commitments to international Holocaust remembrance efforts. Lyons is the second person to hold the job, after Cotler. Her’s is a two-year appointment.

The announcement she is taking over from Cotler came at the start of a two-day conference in Ottawa organized by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs on fighting antisemitism.

Former Conservative cabinet minister and Alberta premier Jason Kenney, among the speakers Monday, said that while for now there is cross-partisan consensus in Canada around the moral need to combat antisemitism, there is a blunt reality: the Jewish community is small, and must remain vigilant.

“Do not take for granted the positions being expressed here in Ottawa today,” he said.

“You must redouble your efforts intelligently to build coalitions across the pluralism of this country and to be voices of clarity and courage.”

Source: Canada’s envoy on the Holocaust departs and has a final warning

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Donald Trump defies calls to appoint envoy to combat anti-Semitism around the world | The Independent

2017/06/26 Leave a comment

Interesting that his issue is getting more widespread coverage (Jewish and Israeli media have been covering this extensively). Hard to understand the reluctance to appoint both the envoy and maintain the staff (one can make the argument, as Tillerson has, that special envoys let other officials off the hook but overall, the absence of an envoy and staff means a lower profile domestically and internationally):

Donald Trump has defied calls to appoint a special envoy to combat anti-Semitism across the world despite growing pressure from Jewish groups and Congress.

The two remaining staffers in the US State Department’s office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism are reportedly set to be reassigned next month, which will leave the branch completely unstaffed after 1 July.

Officials are yet to comment on the reported move, but insist they remain committed to fighting discrimination against Jews.

President Trump is legally required to appoint a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, a position created under former president George W. Bush.

Members of Congress from the Republican and Democrat parties have urged his administration to strengthen the office’s status in letters and proposed bills.

But earlier this month Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told them special envoys were not productive and said appointing one could weaken efforts to tackle anti-Semitism.

The US State Department said they had produced annual reports about human rights and religious freedom before the office was created in 2004, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency(JTA).

Anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise under Trump

They told the JTA: “We want to ensure the Department is addressing anti-Semitism in the most effective and efficient method possible and will continue to endeavor to do so.

“The Department of State condemns attacks on Jewish communities and individuals. We consistently urge governments around the world to address and condemn anti-Semitism and work with vulnerable Jewish communities to assess and provide appropriate levels of security.

“The Department, our Embassies, and our Consulates support extensive bilateral, multilateral, and civil society outreach to Jewish communities.

“Additionally, the State Department continues to devote resources towards programs combating anti-Semitism online and off, as well as building NGO coalitions in Europe.

“We also closely monitor global anti-Semitism and report on it in our Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and International Religious Freedom Report, which document global anti-Semitism in 199 countries.”

The Anti-Defamation League has launched an online petition calling for the White House to fill the position.

The group’s CEO John Greenblatt said “maintaining the special envoy for anti-Semitism seems like a no-brainer” in an interview with the JTA.

“The idea of having a dedicated envoy who can travel around the world to raise awareness on this issue is critical,” he added.

Source: Donald Trump defies calls to appoint envoy to combat anti-Semitism around the world | The Independent

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Tillerson retreats from pledge to fill anti-Semitism envoy post | The Times of Israel

2017/06/16 Leave a comment

While I understand Tillerson’s arguments (Canada has had similar debates over special ambassadors/envoys in the past), the politics will be interesting to watch:

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson retreated from his department’s commitment to fill the post of envoy to combat anti-Semitism, saying the effort may be more effective without one.

“One of the questions I’ve asked is, if we’re really going to affect these areas, these special areas, don’t we have to affect it through the delivery on mission at every level at every country?” Tillerson said in testimony Wednesday to the foreign operations subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee. “And by having a special envoy, one of my experiences is, mission then says, ‘oh, we’ve got somebody else that does,’ and then they stop doing it.”

Since Congress established the position with a 2004 law, the role of the envoy has been to train career State Department officers and diplomats in identifying and combating anti-Semitism and to encourage embassies and bureaus to more closely monitor anti-Semitism. The envoy has not functioned as a stand-alone entity but rather is part of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and supervises about five career State Department staffers.

European Jewish community officials have said that having an envoy has delivered a message to their governments that the United States is focused on anti-Semitism.

At the subcommittee hearing, Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., asked Tillerson for a timeline for the hire. Earlier this year there were reports that the Trump administration, eyeing massive budget cuts to the State Department, planned to eliminate the role. National Jewish groups and Congress members expressed outrage, and in April a State Department spokesman told JTA that the department did not in fact plan to eliminate the position and was reviewing candidates to fill it.

Lawmakers have noted that because the role was created by statute, the Trump administration cannot eliminate the post. Tillerson said he would seek to persuade Congress to cut the position if he deems it necessary.

“Those that are mandated by statute, we will be back to talk with you about those as to whether we think it’s good to have it structured that way or whether we really think we can be effective on those issues in a different way,” he said at the hearing.

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., the ranking Democrat on the foreign operations subcommittee, was appalled by the possibility of the position being eliminated.

“It is outrageous and offensive that Secretary Tillerson would even suggest appointing a Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism is unnecessary, particularly given that his State Department committed to filling the post back in April,” she said in an email to JTA. “As reports of hate crimes against Jews continue to rise in the United States and around the world, it is essential that Secretary Tillerson fill the Special Envoy position immediately.”

Bipartisan legislation under consideration would enhance the position to ambassador level.

Source: Tillerson retreats from pledge to fill anti-Semitism envoy post | The Times of Israel

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Holocaust Organizations, Scholars Slam Possible Defunding of Anti-Semitism Office

2017/03/17 2 Comments

Will be surprising if the Trump administration pursues defunding as they should have learned from previous mistakes (i.e., not mentioning Jewish victims of the Holocaust, delayed condemnation of antisemitic acts and hate crimes). But who knows:

As President Donald Trump prepared to enter the White House, reports began to circulate about what his first budget proposal would look like. The day before his inauguration, The Hill reported on plans of the incoming administration to make drastic cuts in government spending, including the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and reductions in funding and program eliminations within the Departments of Commerce, Energy, Transportation, Justice and State.

Within this last department, Bloomberg reported late last month, the administration was considering whether to eliminate several special envoys, including one on anti-Semitism. On Monday, more than 100 Holocaust organizations, educators and scholars released a statement in response, following similar efforts by the American Jewish Committee, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-N.J.). William L. Shulman, president of the Association of Holocaust Organizations, tells Newsweek it took the intervening time to put together the statement, edit it and circulate it for signatures.

“We are alarmed by reports that the President plans to defund the US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, an office that tracks and counteracts anti-Semitism abroad,” the Association of Holocaust Organizations wrote. “We urge the U.S. government to maintain and strengthen the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism and to create a new office to address this urgent issue domestically.

“The need becomes clearer by the day as hatred, like a tidal wave, sweeps across the nation,” the statement explained. “Cemeteries, synagogues, churches and mosques are being desecrated. Jewish Community Centers and schools are targets of bomb threats and shootings. Swastikas and white supremacist threats appear on walls and on social media. Now is the time to increase vigilance, not roll it back.”

The office in question was created via the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004, which expressed “the sense of Congress [that] the United States should continue to support efforts to combat anti-Semitism worldwide through bilateral relationships and interaction with international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)” and that “the Department of State should thoroughly document acts of anti-Semitism that occur around the world.” The act directed the Secretary of State to establish an Office to Monitor and Combat anti-Semitism, which would be headed by a special envoy, to take on the role of tracking, reporting on and combating anti-Semitism.

“Anti-Semitism is not only a Jewish problem,” Ira Forman, who served as the most recent Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism under former President Barack Obama, is quoted as saying in the release. “Jew-hatred—like other forms of religious and ethnic prejudice—is a threat to the very foundations of liberal democracies.” Speaking to Jewish Insider about the possible defunding, Forman said, “I can’t believe someone at the White House won’t have better sense than to realize that this is a disaster…. This is as bipartisan an issue as you can get, and I just hope folks at the White House come to their senses.”

Source: Holocaust Organizations, Scholars Slam Possible Defunding of Anti-Semitism Office

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