John Ivison: Tolerating the glorification of terror and slaughter is societal suicide

2023/10/12 Leave a comment

Of note:

Sukhdool Singh, an alleged gangster, was gunned down in Winnipeg last month, in a tit-for-tat killing between rival gangs.

Singh was wanted in India for extortion and murder, and was alleged to have links to the Khalistan Tiger Force, which has been designated a terror organization by the Indian government. He is said to have escaped to Canada on a forged passport in 2017 and India has been trying, unsuccessfully, to extradite him ever since.

Singh’s case is instructive because it is at the heart of the dispute between Canada and India. The Indians say Canada has offered a safe haven for Khalistani terrorists in return for votes from the Sikh community.

Canada says that its hands are tied because freedom of speech is protected under the Charter of Rights.

By its actions, the Canadian government has also endorsed the recent findings of the House of Commons justice and human rights committee that concluded suspects could be abused and tortured if returned to India and a host of other countries. Only six people were extradited to India between 2002 and 2020 and none of them were suspected Khalistani terrorists.

Canada is seen as being soft on terror, with some justification.

Its record on clamping down on terror financing is abysmal, as noted by B.C.’s Cullen commission into money laundering, which found that the federal Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre (FINTRAC) is ill-equipped to share intelligence with law enforcement. Proof of FINTRAC’s impotence is the lack of any charges laid between 2009 and 2016, even though it uncovered 683 transactions linked to terror financing

The government is in the process of beefing up its efforts against money laundering and terror financing, with a number of proposed legislative changes aimed at giving FINTRAC and law enforcement more powers.

But Canada’s perennial balancing act with rights and freedoms leads to much hand-wringing. For example, the Canada Revenue Agency has been accused of unfairly targeting Muslim-led charities, leading to calls for the agency to suspend its terror-financing investigative unit. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his sympathy for what he called the systemic Islamophobia in the CRA.

However, the atrocities that the world has witnessed over the course of the past weekend in Israel may tilt that balance away from the indulgence that has prevailed.

The scenes that played out on Saturday night in Mississauga, with joyous crowds cheering and honking horns, as if their team had just won the World Cup, were abhorrent. This was the glorification of the mass murder of children, such as the 40 dead babies discovered at the Kfar Aza kibbutz in southern Israel. This was celebration of Hamas’ deliberate and systemic targeting of civilians to kill as many as possible.

To his credit, Trudeau renounced such scenes in his remarks at a Jewish community centre in Ottawa. “The glorification of death and violence and terror has no place anywhere, especially here in Canada. Hamas terrorists aren’t a resistance, they’re not freedom fighters, they are terrorists and no one in Canada should be supporting them, much less celebrating them.”

Canada has a law against displaying hate — Section 319 of the Criminal Code, which says that anyone who incites hatred against an identifiable group where incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of an indictable offence.

But such is the power of section 2b of the Charter when it comes to freedom of expression, it has been used sparingly — just 20 times between 2001 and 2019.

That is a good thing. I am proud to live in a country where truth cannot be put down by persecution. As John Stuart Mill said about free speech, conflicting doctrines often share the truth between them.

But it is quite another thing to witness fellow citizens lionize rape and murder.

In 2015, the Senate committee on national security and defence released a report in the wake of the terror attack on Parliament Hill.

It made a number of recommendations that were never enacted, including establishing a “no visit” list of identified ideological radicals and working in Muslim communities to create an effective counter-narrative to Islamic fundamentalism.

But one conclusion that it drew has special resonance today — that our hate laws should be updated to ban the glorification of terrorists, terrorist acts and terrorist symbols. The committee said it recognized issues with the Charter of Rights but noted that France and U.K. have similar laws.

There are clearly issues with what constitutes “glorification” — a grey zone where there may not be specific calls for action. France’s law appears to go too far: one 25-year-old man was handed a suspended sentence for scribbling “Vive Daesh” (aka ISIL) on a toilet wall.

Yet, antisemitic chants calling for the destruction of Israel, or in the case of Canada’s Khalistanis, building a carnival float that celebrates the assassination of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi (as happened in Toronto in 2023) create the conditions for violence. The British law includes a clause that specifically says the offence occurs when members of the public might reasonably be expected to infer that what is being glorified is being proposed as conduct that should be emulated.

The introduction of such legislation may go a long way to healing the rift with India — and that cannot be done quickly enough.

We are entering a period of what historian Niall Ferguson has predicted will be a “cascade of conflict,” where Russia, Iran and China will do their best to overturn the international order by testing a fiscally overstretched America in three theatres: Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. It will be no surprise to anyone if China makes an illegal move in the South China Sea in the coming weeks.

Canada needs to recognize that, in W.B. Yeats’ words, anarchy is loosed upon the world and innocence is drowned; that “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

We need to stand with our allies, even if we don’t often like what they do. India’s Narendra Modi is a thin-skinned chauvinist; Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu may be corrupt and is certainly incompetent.

As the former Shin Bet chief, Ami Ayalon, told Le Figaro, the Netanyahu government is largely responsible for the divisions that created an opportunity for Hamas, with its controversial push for justice reforms and a policy that marginalized the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

But these flaws pale in comparison to the what the great autocracies would have in store for us.

I’m haunted by a quote in Avi Shavit’s superb history of Israel: My Promised Land, where he talks about the vitality of the nation. “And yet, there is always the fear that one day, daily life will freeze like Pompeii’s.”

For too many Israelis, life did indeed freeze this weekend. The existential threat there is palpable. Canada cannot allow pluralism and reasonable accommodation to plant the seeds of our self-destruction.

Source: John Ivison: Tolerating the glorification of terror and slaughter is societal suicide

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Sean Speer: Shocking pro-Hamas, anti-Israel rallies lay bare the limits of Canadian pluralism

2023/10/11 Leave a comment

Expect to see more similar commentary. The formal limits are essentially our laws and regulations with informal limits even harder to enforce consistently. Without getting into “both side-ism,” the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and repression of Palestinians draws insufficient coverage and commentary. But the barbarism of Hamas needs to be condemned without reservation:

As Palestine supporters continue to organize themselves in different Canadian cities to effectively demonstrate in favour of Hamas’s abhorrent attacks on the State of Israel, the inherent tensions and limits of pluralism have been laid bare for everyone to see. 

Pluralism is a key part—arguably the key part—of Canada’s conception of itself and our common citizenship. The country’s basic promise is one of peaceful co-existence. Our institutions, norms, and practices are set up to accommodate a multiplicity of viewpoints and persuasions concerning the most fundamental questions about justice, human flourishing, and what constitutes the good life. 

Pluralism is also a key—arguably the key part—of my own worldview. Although, as I’ve grown older, I’ve become more comfortable in my own thinking about these questions, I’ve also grown less comfortable with the idea of imposing my answers on others. Our own limitations (what Kant referred to as our “crooked timber”) invariably constrain the individual pursuit of truth. The public square should therefore be a crowded, complicated, and contentious marketplace of ideas. The state must resist imposing a singular conception of truth on the society. 

Yet pluralism cannot be an open-ended promise either. Just because our ability to discern the truth may be imperfect and incomplete doesn’t mean that we should give into an empty relativism. Some ideas are bad and wrong. We cannot permit our pluralistic commitments to provide license for those who reject our society’s basic values or even wish to do it harm. Pluralism cannot be a one-sided surrender to illiberal and reactionary forces. 

We’ve witnessed in recent days these tensions and limits inherent to Canadian pluralism. While most of us mourned and lamented the inhumanity of Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel, a small minority among us have defended and even celebrated them. These individuals and organizations have relied on Canada’s promise of freedom to countenance and glorify the indiscriminate violence of a group designated as a terrorist organization by our own government. 

There have been pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country that have effectively affirmed Hamas’s terrorism. The videos from these pro-Hamas rallies in cities such as Mississauga and Montreal have been shocking. It must be said that rallies in support of a terrorist organization that has carried out a systematic campaign of killing women and children are incompatible with Canadian values.

Meanwhile, groups such as the Muslim Association of Canada and National Council of Canadian Muslims (which according to online records have received more than $1.34 million in federal funding between them since 2018) may be more careful in their messaging, but they’re still ultimately equivocal about what the world has witnessed. Their tendency towards “two-sideism” and other prevaricating devices have obscured the extent to which they implicitly affirm Hamas’ narrative. If in the face of overwhelming evidence of brutality and cruelty against Israelis your first instinct is to lament “the tyranny and terrorism of the Zionists” or criticize Israel’s democratic leadership, you’ve for all intents and purposes exposed your true character. 

Which it must be said is fair enough as far as some pluralistic protections go. One can oppose the current Israeli government or even critique the State of Israel itself and of course still find him or herself able to avail Canada’s protections of freedom of conscience or expression. We cannot and should not police one’s thoughts per se. But it certainly doesn’t mean that radical groups are entitled to taxpayer dollars or that individuals who cross the line from reasonable disagreements to the promotion and glorification of violence shouldn’t face sanction. 

These basic observations shouldn’t in and of themselves be controversial. Our commitment to pluralism must be uncompromising up and until it comes to undermine the basic security and stability of our own society. As my former boss Brian Lee Crowley has often said: “[we cannot permit] our list of freedoms to become our suicide note.”

Drawing these lines is of course complicated. Our default assumption must be highly permissive. Just because an idea is controversial or at odds with the majority’s views isn’t a reason to exclude it from the public square. The health of our society is measured in part by our willingness to protect ample space for such views. Imposing parameters around the public square therefore comes with great risk. Those parameters can be misapplied, misread, or even wielded by those whose primary goal is to constrain ideas that don’t match their own preferences. Just because it’s hard, however, doesn’t mean that it’s a task that we should shrink from. 

There are perspectives that should rightly be denounced, marginalized, and precluded from receiving public dollars. Even if one is squeamish about laws and policies that criminalize acts like the glorification of terrorism, there ought to be a minimum agreement that we have a collective responsibility to condemn such behaviour in order to effectively raise its social costs and signal to those inside and outside of our society that our pluralism isn’t a license for depravity or violence. 

Canada has essentially bet its future on pluralism. As our population gets more and more diverse, the multiplicity of views will grow and pluralism will be crucial for managing our diversity. I think it’s a good bet. Unlike some conservatives, I’ve tended to disagree with the instinct to mock Prime Minister Trudeau’s assertion that “diversity is our strength.” I think it’s broadly true. But if our pluralism isn’t principled, if it doesn’t involve some limits, then diversity will cease to be our strength and may eventually become the source of our undoing. 

Source: Sean Speer: Shocking pro-Hamas, anti-Israel rallies lay bare the limits of Canadian pluralism

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Portugal to Consider Changes on Time Required to Obtain Citizenship This September

2023/09/12 Leave a comment

Interesting the large number of Israels who have taken advantage of the Descendants Policy to become Portuguese citizens, mainly citizens of convenience as most are non-residents:

The Parliament is considering a change in the current legislation, which would enable foreigners who already live in the country to obtain Portuguese citizenship more easily.

According to Journal Jurid, all foreigners who have spent a certain time necessary to achieve naturalisation can be subject to this potential change. The Parliament is expected soon to analyse the current legislation and propose changes to the time required for a foreigner to stay in the country to acquire naturalisation, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

“Currently, a foreigner residing in the country has his time count reset when receiving formal authorisation to stay in Portugal,” the Journal Jurid points out.

The interest in Portuguese nationality has risen in the past few years, as the local media report that in 2022, around 37 per cent more people have filed their applications. According to the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), the total number of applications during this time reached 74,506.

Out of this total, the respective authorities issued 64,040 opinions, with only 911 of those being negative, while the majority received a positive answer. As per the origin countries, the majority of those who obtained Portuguese citizenship in 2022 came from Israel (20,975), followed by Brazil (18,591) and Cape Verde (3662).

However, for the acquisition of nationality in terms of marriage or de facto union, the majority of applications were filed by Brazilian nationals (9,435), followed by Venezuelans (1,536) and Cape Verdeans (900).

Israeli nationals, who are the main nationality group that applied for Portuguese citizenship in recent years, have overtaken Brazil as the largest nationality group that wants to acquire Portuguese nationality, despite the fact that the European country and the South American country have longstanding ties in culture, linguistics as well as history.

What is really interesting about Israelis in Portugal is that, more than often, they don’t reside in the country after obtaining their citizenship. Only 569 Israeli citizens are Portuguese residents despite 60,000 Israelis having Portuguese nationality as of 2022. As per  Brazilians, 239,744 of them continue residing in Portugal after obtaining citizenship.

Some of the benefits that Israelis can enjoy after obtaining Portuguese citizenship include paying less taxes, having better living costs and, in general, spending a less stressful life compared to other countries. However, as pointed out, some disadvantages are the language barrier and lower income.

But one of the greatest benefits of Portuguese citizenship is travelling in the Schengen borderless zone, which Israeli passport holders are still subject to talks for the EU and US visa waiver programmes.

“This was a big deal for Israelis as carrying an Israeli passport is much more restrictive. This general conversation also touched on higher education. The academic prerequisites for state universities in Israel are high, and private schools are costly. In the EU, however, the terms of acceptance are more relaxed, and the cost is lower if you are an EU national. This general discussion motivated many families with European origins to apply for EU nationalities,” Lior, an Israeli national who now has Portuguese nationality, pointed out.

However, the number of Israelis applying for Portuguese citizenship might experience a decrease as 2022 was the last year when they could apply for nationality under the Descendants Policy – a programme that enables Israeli nationals with descendants in the country to acquire Portuguese nationality easier compared to other nationalities.

Source: Portugal to Consider Changes on Time Required to Obtain … – SchengenVisaInfo.com

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Cohen: American Jews are loudly protesting Israel’s anti-judiciary law. In Canada — not so much, Juneau: Canada must rethink its friendship with Israel

2023/07/29 Leave a comment

Significant contrast:

On the day Israel’s Knesset passed the Reasonableness Standard Law — a frontal assault on the independence of its judiciary — something strange and wondrous happened among America’s fractious Jews: they agreed, broadly speaking, that the law is a mistake and said so.

The chorus of disapproval came not just from progressive Jews but organizations representing mainstream Jews, and some conservative ones, too. The American Jewish Committee issued a statement expressing “profound disappointment” and lamenting that the new law was “pushed through unilaterally by the governing coalition,” causing “discord” in Israel and “straining the vital relationship” with the diaspora.

The committee argued that “dramatic changes” to the judicial system should come from “a deliberative and inclusive process” respecting checks and balances, minority rights and judicial independence. Other mainstream U.S. organizations echoed the criticism. The Anti–Defamation League said the law “could weaken Israeli democracy and harm Israel’s founding principles.” The Jewish Federations of North America was “extremely disappointed” the law had been passed “without a process of consensus,” despite “serious disagreement across Israeli society” amid strenuous efforts to forge “a compromise.”

Pointedly, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, among the most stalwart pro-Israeli organizations, did not comment. But Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel committee within the Democratic Party, said it was “a serious mistake” for Israel to ignore the protests of “the majority of its citizens …”

This displeasure of the Jewish establishment, though not as strong as in other quarters, shows an evolution among American Jews. Criticizing Israel was once heretical among these groups. No longer.

None of these organizations is as angry as many among this country’s 5.8 million Jews, who are increasingly skeptical of Israel. A growing number think it’s time that President Joe Biden lean heavily on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his old, unreconstructed adversary. “Bibi” has fallen in with the hard right on judicial reform, from settlers who want to annex the West Bank to orthodox Jews who want to enshrine exemption from military service.

Biden has issued appeals but no threats. He never raises, for example, the $3.8 billion U.S. in assistance Israel receives annually from the United States. Interestingly, Israel, a wealthy country more secure than ever, no longer needs the money. Still, it is seen as untouchable.

While Jews in Britain, Australia and other countries have joined those here in opposition, it’s entirely different in Canada, an unserious country, where only progressives see the danger.

“This is a dark day,” declared Joe Roberts, chair of JSpaceCanada. “I cannot begin to explain how gutted I am.” He and others worry about an emasculated court that can no longer protect the rights of Palestinians, migrant workers, women and the LGBTQ+ community in Israel against an oppressive government.

The New Israel Fund of Canada has issued an urgent appeal. “Today we need you more than ever,” said executive director Ben Murane. “We will never back down.”

Astoundingly, though, from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the “advocacy agent” that “represents the diverse perspectives and concerns of more than 150,000 Jewish Canadians,” there was not a peep of protest. Maybe it missed the news.

Then again, the director of CIJA’s office in Jerusalem is David Weinberg, who supported the judicial reforms in a published commentary. These are his personal views, CIJA insists. But it’s likely they are equally those of CIJA’s unelected and unaccountable executive, especially CEO Shimon Fogel. He knows that these are not those of Canadian Jews but hasn’t the courage to say so.

It raises the question: Why doesn’t CIJA stop hiding and come out and support the reforms? At least that would be honourable. For its part, the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto issued yet another purée of platitudes. It is concerned that Israelis are divided and hopes for “compromise.” What we need is more dialogue, it urges, finding solace in earnestness and ambiguity.

Oh. Lord. As Israel’s Supreme Court prepares to hear petitions on the new law — which may well spark an unprecedented constitutional crisis there this autumn — behold, once again, the sad silence of Canada’s Jewish establishment.

Source: Cohen: American Jews are loudly protesting Israel’s anti-judiciary law. In Canada — not so much

Thomas Juneau asking a needed question:

This week, the Israeli parliament approved a controversial law that constrains the Supreme Court’s ability to provide judicial oversight of government actions. According to many critics, this is only the first step in a plan by the coalition government led by Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu to concentrate power in the executive branch. The Netanyahu government, which includes Jewish supremacists and is the most extreme in the country’s history, has also taken steps, and will likely take additional ones, toward Israel’s further annexation of the West Bank.

This raises difficult questions for Canada: should we stand by as the assault on democratic norms and Palestinian rights continues? The easy answer would be to muddle along, perhaps offering timid condemnation. The status quo, however, is increasingly unsustainable.

Like its allies, Canada’s position is to support the two-state solution, according to which Israel and an eventual Palestinian state would co-exist. Yet it is now difficult to see how this outcome can be achieved. On the Israeli side, intransigent governments have expanded settlements in the West Bank, largely closing the door on a viable Palestinian state. The road has been further blocked by the fragmentation of the Palestinian leadership, with the incompetent Palestinian Authority barely governing in the West Bank and the extremist Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip with an iron fist. In the meantime, the status quo is deeply unfair to Palestinians and destabilizing for the region.

The case can certainly be made that maintaining the fiction of the two-state solution is the least bad approach given the absence of viable alternatives. It is one thing to recognize that the two-state solution is dead; it is another to come up with a better, realistic alternative. Moreover, proponents of the status quo argue that Israel is and should remain a close friend. This is partly valid: There is no serious proposal to jettison the partnership, which indeed is beneficial for Canada. To their discredit, some supporters of the status quo far too easily launch accusations of antisemitism in response to criticism of Israeli policies. This is dishonest and stifles constructive and necessary debate. The question here is not to reject Israel’s right to exist, but to criticize some of its policies and ask whether Canada’s current approach is optimal.

The broader objectives of Canada’s foreign policy matter. It is inevitable that Canada’s focus on the Middle East will diminish. Ottawa simply has other priorities: The most important one, and one which could come under severe strain in the near future, remains the management of its relations with the United States. In addition, Canada needs to boost its presence in Asia, while the war in Ukraine shows the necessity of continuing its contributions to transatlantic security. The remaining bandwidth, for the Middle East and other areas, will shrink.

In this context, Canada should publicly state that it refuses to deal with the more extremist ministers in the Netanyahu government. It should vocally express its opposition to the proposed reforms and freeze or reduce co-operation with Israel on some issues. Ottawa should also boost its support for Palestinian civil society and increase pressure on the Palestinian Authority to reform itself and organize fresh elections. More concretely, Canada should evaluate whether its longstanding mission to train Palestinian security forces should continue since doing so entrenches the status quo by allowing Israel to delegate to the Palestinian Authority the day-to-day administration of the occupation in the West Bank. Ottawa should also suspend its policy of almost systematically voting with Israel at the United Nations General Assembly on resolutions dealing with the conflict.

Given its marginal influence when it acts alone, Canada should also engage in serious conversations with like-minded allies and partners, including through the Group of Seven, about options to change the status quo in relations with Israel and the Palestinians. Canada’s partnership with Israel has been premised on shared values, and with Israel’s government now dominated by extremist elements who are undermining the two-state solution, we can’t keep acting like it’s business as usual.

Source: Canada must rethink its friendship with Israel

Filed under foreign policy, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Facial Recognition Powers ‘Automated Apartheid’ in Israel, Report Says

2023/05/05 Leave a comment

Of note:

Israel is increasingly relying on facial recognition in the occupied West Bank to track Palestinians and restrict their passage through key checkpoints, according to a new report, a sign of how artificial-intelligence-powered surveillance can be used against an ethnic group. 

At high-fenced checkpoints in Hebron, Palestinians stand in front of facial recognition cameras before being allowed to cross. As their faces are scanned, the software — known as Red Wolf — uses a color-coded system of green, yellow and red to guide soldiers on whether to let the person go, stop them for questioning or arrest them, according to the report by Amnesty International. When the technology fails to identify someone, soldiers train the system by adding their personal information to the database.

Israel has long restricted the freedom of movement of Palestinians, but technological advances are giving the authorities powerful new tools. It is the latest example of the global spread of mass surveillance systems, which rely on A.I. to learn to identify the faces of people based on large stores of images.

In Hebron and East Jerusalem, the technology focuses almost entirely on Palestinians, according to Amnesty’s report, marking a new way to automate the control of interior boundaries that separate the lives of Palestinians and Israelis. Amnesty called the process “automated apartheid.” Israel has strongly denied that it operates an apartheid regime.

“These databases and tools exclusively record the data of Palestinians,” said the report, which is based on accounts by former Israeli soldiers and Palestinians who live in the surveilled areas, as well as field visits to observe the technology’s use in affected territories.

The Israel Defense Forces, which plays a central role in the occupied territories of the West Bank, said in a statement that it carries out “necessary security and intelligence operations, while making significant efforts to minimize harm to the Palestinian population’s routine activity.”

On facial recognition, it added, “Naturally, we cannot refer to operational and intelligence capabilities.”

Government use of facial recognition technology to so explicitly target a single ethnic group is rare. In China, companies have made algorithms that sought to identify minorities as they passed by the country’s ubiquitous cameras. China’s government has also used facial recognition checkpoints to control and track the movements of Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other ethnic minorities.

Israel’s use of facial recognition at checkpoints builds on other surveillance systems deployed in recent years. Since protests in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah over the eviction of Palestinian families in 2021, the presence of cameras has increased in the area, most likely supporting an Israeli government video surveillance system capable of facial recognition known as Mabat 2000, according to Amnesty.

In one walk through the area, Amnesty researchers reported finding one to two cameras every 15 feet. Some were made by Hikvision, the Chinese surveillance camera maker, and others by TKH Security, a Dutch manufacturer.

TKH Security declined to comment. Hikvision did not respond to a request for comment.

Government forces also use the cameras on their phones. Israeli authorities have a facial recognition app, Blue Wolf, to identify Palestinians, according to Breaking the Silence, an organization that assisted Amnesty and collects testimonials from Israeli soldiers who have worked in occupied territories.

Soldiers use the app to photograph Palestinians on the street or during home raids to register them in a central database and to check if they are wanted for arrest or questioning, according to the 82-page Amnesty report and testimonials from Breaking the Silence. Use of Blue Wolf was reported earlier by The Washington Post.

The surveillance is partly an effort to reduce violence against Israelis. This year, Palestinian attackers have killed 19 Israelis. At least 100 Palestinians this year have been killed by Israeli security forces, many during gunfights that broke out during military operations to arrest Palestinian gunmen. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 after capturing it from Jordan during the Arab-Israeli war that year.

Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist in Hebron, a West Bank city where there is regular violence, said people are under constant surveillance. He, his friends and family are regularly stopped by soldiers to be photographed using the Blue Wolf app. Surveillance cameras line the streets and drones commonly fly overhead.

Mr. Amro said the Israeli military has become so dependent on the automated systems that crossing the checkpoints grinds to a halt when there are technical problems.

“Everything is watched. My whole life is watched. I don’t have any privacy,” he said. “I feel they are following me everywhere I go.”

Mr. Amro said Palestinians are angry that the surveillance tools never seem to be used to identify crimes by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

Ori Givati, a former Israeli tank commander who is now the advocacy director of Breaking the Silence, said the new surveillance systems began being put in place around 2020. The technology has allowed the Israeli government to move toward an automated occupation, he said, subjecting Palestinians to constant oversight and supervision.

The facial recognition systems work, he said, “not just as an invasion of privacy but a powerful tool for control.”

Source: Facial Recognition Powers ‘Automated Apartheid’ in Israel, Report Says

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Cohen: The unspeakable silence of the Canadian Jewish establishment

2023/03/20 Leave a comment

Of note:

In its 75 years of nationhood, Israel has lived under a regime of unrelenting threat. Challenges to its security, unity and prosperity are as old as the country itself. Whatever the danger – invasion, war, terrorism, intifadas, boycotts, sanctions – it has come from beyond Israel’s borders.

No longer. The forces convulsing Israel over the past 10 weeks are made in Israel. They come from citizens protesting a religious, revolutionary government that wants to make the judiciary less independent, weakening the checks and balances that have protected minority rights. If Israel is in upheaval today, blame not marauding infidels, foreign armies or fifth columnists. Blame Israelis.

Oh, the irony. The power of its military, diplomacy and economy ensures Israel dominates the neighbourhood. As political scientist Steven A. Cook has noted, Israel has broadened relations with regional partners while ensuring Israel’s armed forces, brandishing nuclear weapons, are matchless. There is a mortal threat from Iran, yes. But Israel is less vulnerable than it was during the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, or any other time. “Israel is in a better strategic position than ever,” Mr. Cook argues. “And its sovereignty is beyond question.”

At home, though, Israel is roiling with insurrection. Its soul is under siege. Ehud Barak, the former prime minister, calls for “civil disobedience” if the new government passes its agenda; he says Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition is using “the tools of democracy in order to destroy [Israel] from within.” From afar, the Jewish diaspora watches this unravelling with a mix of acquiescence, incredulity, resignation, helplessness, fear and anger.

Among Canada’s 400,000 or so Jews, the response is muted. Some have voiced their opposition to Mr. Netanyahu’s plans through the campaigns of progressive Jewish organizations. From more centrist Jewish groups: silence.

It has come to this: In Israel’s hour of crisis, as thousands fill the streets, protesting the assault on democracy and human rights, mainstream Jews in Canada are unseen and unheard. They have been orphaned by timid, tepid leadership out of step with their views. This is the unspeakable silence of the Canadian Jewish establishment.

The emblem of that establishment is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). It calls itself the “advocacy agent” of the Jewish Federations of Canada, an umbrella of organizations providing social services and advancing Jewish interests.

CIJA initially called itself “the exclusive agent” of Canadian Jews. Now, more modestly, it “represents the diverse perspectives of more than 150,000 Jewish Canadians affiliated with their local Jewish Federation.” That claim is dubious. Is every one of these 150,000 individuals “affiliated” with a federation (presumably as donors or volunteers) duly represented by CIJA? How does CIJA know? And even if all were aligned with CIJA, this would still represent less than half of Canadian Jewry, suggesting that CIJA – for all its hopes and boasts – is far less relevant than it admits.

Then again, CIJA has overstated its stature since it was created in 2011, when it absorbed the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and the Canada-Israel Committee. Discarding its “legacy name” like day-old bagels, CIJA dropped “Canadian” and added “Israel.” It insisted its restructuring had “the overwhelmingly support of the community.” Not necessarily. Bernie Farber, who was at Congress (as it was called) for most of his long, distinguished career in Jewish advocacy, calls it a hostile takeover of what was known as “the parliament of Canadian Jewry.”

For many Canadian Jews, the end of Congress was an affront, reflecting the agenda of wealthy Jews sympathetic to Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. For me, it was a loss. Congress was founded by my great uncle, Lyon Cohen, among others, in 1919. He was president until 1934, supported by my grandfather, Abraham Zebulon Cohen. Although at first the CJC did little beyond establishing the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society, Congress eventually became a spirited democratic voice led by prominent Jews in business, law, the clergy and the academy. Among them were Samuel Bronfman, Gunther Plaut, Reuven Bulka, Irving Abella, Dorothy Reitman and Irwin Cotler.

Prof. Abella, the late eminent historian, called it “a unique organization” with “no parallel anywhere else in the Jewish world.” It was a forum “where all the problems of Canadian Jewry could be debated,” including human rights, equity, immigration, free speech, social justice and interfaith dialogue. “No one doubted that when the CJC spoke, it spoke on behalf of all Canadian Jewry,” he said.

Today no one believes CIJA speaks for Canadian Jewry. It is not a parliament. Its officers are unelected. Its annual budget is secret. It is evasive (after pleasantly acknowledging my queries, none were answered.) The organization does admirable things, such as fighting antisemitism. It also champions Israel, about which, let it be said, its chief executive officer, Shimon Fogel, cannot utter a discouraging word.

Scour CIJA’s Twitter account, its news releases and Mr. Fogel’s interviews, and it’s hard to find a single criticism of the Netanyahu government (except, recently discovering intestinal fortitude, it denounced Israel’s hateful Finance Minister for urging the eradication of a Palestinian village.) CIJA presumably believes its subtlety and caution serves the community, whose views on the unrest in Israel have been unclear.

Now, though, we know more. A comprehensive poll by EKOS Research Associates finds that Canadian Jews overwhelmingly oppose changes to Israel’s high court and other proposed measures, such as banning gay pride parades and imposing gender segregation in public spaces. That is just one poll, commissioned by JSpaceCanada and the New Israel Fund of Canada (NIFC). Still, it provides “a fair baseline representation of Jewish community perspectives in issues of vital importance,” says Robert Brym, a sociologist at the University of Toronto who oversaw the survey.

If this is a correct reading of Jewish attitudes, CIJA is ignoring them, even as Mr. Fogel insists otherwise. “While marginal groups may heckle from the sidelines,” he told the Canadian Jewish News, “in fact, CIJA not only has the access but has used its privileged position to meet with senior Israeli leadership” in and out of government. Those recent meetings were preceded by other private interventions, he reported.

Mr. Fogel, who lacks the influence of the luminaries who ran Congress, suggests his quiet diplomacy is more effective than public pressure. His scorn for other Jewish voices – heckling from the sidelines – reflects an erosion of civility within the community. Relations are so fraught that CIJA has threatened, in writing, to sue the NIFC and JSpaceCanada for attributing statements to Mr. Fogel that he denies are his.

Mr. Farber, who was CEO of the CJC, says this level of rancour is unprecedented in Canada. “There were always differences, sometimes prickly, but it was always ‘Macy’s versus Gimbels.’ It was always kept within the community. There was an unwritten rule that we ought not air our dirty laundry in public. We kept things unzera, in Yiddish, ‘among ourselves.’”

Then, again, it’s understandable that some Jews are reluctant to speak out, even though Jews are acutely sensitive to injustice and have historically protested it everywhere, notably as leading participants in the U.S. civil rights movement. They were raised to revere Israel and to remember the Holocaust. They don’t want to give ammunition to antisemites. The rabbi of my synagogue, who presides over a large, conservative congregation, says that were he an Israeli, he would join the protests. From his pulpit, though, he argues Israel is “a liberal democracy” that will get by without his advice.

There are other explanations for this reticence. It may be our character, which is less assertive than Americans, Australians and Britons. It may be that shutting up is the price of access, be it in Ottawa (which has been less critical of Israel than other governments) or Jerusalem. It may be the absence of a lively Jewish press as a forum for liberal Zionist voices.

And what good, skeptics might ask, is rushing to the ramparts anyway? Do we think Jerusalem really cares? Actually, Mr. Netanyahu might listen to the diaspora and foreign governments, if they made enough noise – and some threats, too. Meanwhile, he pushes his illiberal project forward because he can.

It isn’t that there are no critics among prominent Canadian Jews. Former Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella has warned of the dangers to the independence of Israel’s judiciary. So has Mr. Cotler among about 175 jurists who have signed a petition. The NIFC and JSpaceCanada are rallying opposition and raising public awareness, vigorously and effectively, as are Canadian Friends of Peace Now. To them, CIJA and its silent partners are marginal while they are mainstream, and this is no time for nuance.

But where are other Jews – entrepreneurs, doctors, artists, professors? Where are the philanthropists declaring their alarm, as Charles Bronfman, the Canadian co-founder of Birthright, and other Jewish billionaires and foundations have in the U.S.? Where are rabbis as passionate as Micah Streiffer of Toronto, who says it is our obligation to speak up when Israel abandons basic values, a response that is the real expression “of our love”?

In 1965, a young Elie Wiesel visited the Soviet Union to observe the life of its three million Jews. That produced his haunting cri de coeur, The Jews of Silence. Curiously, he confessed that he was less concerned about Soviet Jews than the detachment of his American co-religionists, a lament that has an eerie contemporary resonance amid Israel’s moral crisis.

“What torments me most is not the silence of the Jews I met in Russia,” he wrote, “but the silence of the Jews I live among today.”

Andrew Cohen is a journalist and professor of journalism at Carleton University. His most recent book is Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History.

Source: Cohen: The unspeakable silence of the Canadian Jewish establishment

Filed under Antisemitism Tagged with , , , , ,

Israel broadens law to strip ‘terror’ convicts of citizenship

2023/02/17 Leave a comment

Of note:

Israel expanded Wednesday its policy of stripping citizenship over “terrorism” offences, with parliament announcing lawmakers had passed legislation targeting those who receive funds from the Palestinian Authority.

The bill, which passed with 94 votes in favour and 10 against in the Knesset, also paves the way for Israel to expel people from the country or annexed east Jerusalem.

A rights group said the move was “in violation of international law”, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed it on Twitter as “our answer to terrorism”.

A statement from parliament said lawmakers had approved “the revocation of citizenship or residency of a terrorist operative who receives compensation (from the PA) for committing an act of terrorism”.

The Palestinian Authority gives stipends to numerous families of prisoners, or detainees themselves, including those convicted of killing Israelis.

Israel says making payments to the families of attackers encourages further violence, but for some Palestinians such payments are a key source of income.

Adalah, an organisation that advocates for Palestinians’ rights in Israel, said the law “not only creates an additional avenue for the revocation of the citizenship of residency of Palestinians… under the Israeli regime, but also facilitates their expulsion”.

“The law explicitly and exclusively targets Palestinians as part of Israel’s entrenchment of two separate legal systems based on Jewish supremacy,” the group charged in a statement.

The law may affect hundreds of east Jerusalem Palestinians and dozens of Israeli citizens, according to Dani Shenhar, head of the legal department at Israeli rights group HaMoked.

“The threshold is very low, so we’re very worried about it, especially the effect on east Jerusalem,” he told AFP when the bill was tabled last month.

The text approved by lawmakers lays out a judicial procedure for denying legal status following a request by the interior minister.

– ‘Conditional citizen’ –

Most Palestinians living in east Jerusalem hold Israeli residency permits rather than citizenship.

The new legislation allows deportation “to the territories of the Palestinian Authority (in the occupied West Bank) or the Gaza Strip”.

Gaza, controlled by Hamas Islamists, has been under an Israeli-led blockade since 2007.

Israel has occupied the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Ahmad Tibi, an Arab opposition lawmaker, denounced the law as discriminatory.

“When an Arab commits a crime, they are a conditional citizen, whereas when a Jew commits even a more serious crime, revoking their citizenship is unheard of,” he said during Wednesday’s debate in parliament.

Lawmakers on Wednesday also approved in a preliminary vote a bill to allow the deportation of family members of those convicted of “terrorism”, in cases in which they are found to have supported the crime or known about it and failed to report it to the authorities.

Israel has previously stripped residency and citizenship, including that of French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri who was deported in December.

The Jerusalem resident had been arrested and jailed on several occasions by Israel, which revoked his residency permit citing ties the outlawed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

In 2017, an Israeli court revoked an Arab citizen’s nationality over an attack against Israelis.

That was the first time an amendment passed in 2008 had been used to revoke an Israeli citizenship.

Also in 2017, Israel announced it was stripping citizenship of 20 people who had allegedly joined the Islamic State group.

Human Rights Watch said Israel has stripped 15,000 east Jerusalem Palestinians of their right to residency since 1967, warning the practice may constitute a “war crime”

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/02/israel-broadens-law-strip-terror-convicts-citizenship#ixzz7tSJe8PQY

Filed under Citizenship, Revocation Tagged with ,

Demand for French Citizenship Soars Among Israelis After …

2023/01/14 Leave a comment

Of interest. More than just general interest given applications, not just enquiries, as was largely the case with many Americans following the Trump 2016 election:

The French embassy in Israel has witnessed a 13 per cent increase in applications for citizenship, following the November elections where the most-right wing and religious government the country has seen so far, was installed.

According to Zaman Israel, a total of 1,210 applications recorded in October reached 1,365 in November, with data for December anticipated to be even higher. The French Embassy in Israel said that nearly 60 per cent of those applying for citizenship are doing so for the first time. This is the highest rate for Israelis seeking French citizenship ever recorded, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

A source further reveals applications for French citizenship among Israelis have increased by almost 45 per cent compared to last year, with this share risking to be higher if the COVID-19 pandemic wouldn’t occur in 2021.

However, the demand for foreign citizenship among Israelis is noticed in other EU countries too, especially in Portugal. According to Dror Hayek, owner of a law firm designated to obtain Portuguese citizenship, the authorities in Portugal have recorded a 68 per cent increase in such applications. In October, a total of 100 applications were filed, with these rates reaching 168 in the following month.

He also pointed out the number of applications sixfold on the day after the election and nearly 115 applications were filed during December.

Since 2013, descendants of Sephardic Jews were eligible for naturalization in Portugal, following passed legislation that intended to welcome back those that were subject to Inquisition in Spain and Portugal during the 16th century. During this period, thousands of Jews were forced to emigrate or hide their Jewish identity.

However, due to a controversy over how Jewish Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich was able to obtain citizenship in Portugal, the government suspended the law and authorities are only processing past applications.

“From April to September, there was a mad rush for Portuguese passports in order to have time to issue them before the law changed. Since September, we have been working only on the promotion of old applications and granting citizenship to spouses and children,” Hayek noted.

On the other hand, the number of applications for German citizenship, as Toti Eschbel, a lawyer specializing in European citizenship pointed out, rose by ten per cent in the last two months. Similarly, a ten per cent increase in applications for Polish citizenship has been reported by experts on the field, while the Romanian embassy says no noticeable increases have been recorded but the rates for Romanian citizenship were always high as there is a significant number of Israelis of Romanian origin and rights to Romanian citizenship.

Source: Demand for French Citizenship Soars Among Israelis After …

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , ,

Likud said to weigh residency, not citizenship, for ‘grandchild clause’ immigrants

2022/12/17 Leave a comment

Of note. While the law of return is of course controversial from a citizenship and immigration perspective, this proposed change reflects increased weight of religious and ultra religious parties and risks further undermining Isreal’s international reputation:

A Thursday report indicating that the incoming government is considering altering the Law of Return to offer residency but not citizenship to grandchildren of Jews sparked outrage among members of the outgoing coalition.

According to Ynet, the Likud party is working to negotiate an agreement with its expected coalition partners that would grant people who have only one Jewish grandparent, and who are not considered Jewish under Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law, the status of permanent resident but not full citizenship.

The religious parties in the presumed next government have demanded the cancellation of the so-called grandchild clause of the Law of Return, which effectively guarantees citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent so long as they do not practice another religion.

The parties calling for the change, chiefly the Religious Zionism party, consider the immigration of non-Jews to Israel a threat to the country’s demographics and its Jewish identity. Most such immigrants to Israel come from the former Soviet Union, and many have arrived from Ukraine and Russia this year following Russia’s invasion.

Yesh Atid’s outgoing Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov, a native of Russia, called such a compromise “shameful.”

Source: Likud said to weigh residency, not citizenship, for ‘grandchild clause’ immigrants

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with ,

Russia moves to shut agency handling immigration to Israel amid Ukraine rift

2022/07/26 Leave a comment

Of note:

Russia has threatened to shut down a major Jewish agency that promotes immigration to Israel amid tensions between the two nations over the invasion of Ukraine.

The Justice Ministry seeks to liquidate the country’s branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel, according to a notice from Moscow’s Basmanny district court, where the case will be heard Thursday.

The court’s website does not say what laws the nonprofit agency had broken, and Russia’s Justice Ministry, which filed for its dissolution on July 15, did not respond to a request for comment.

Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said the dissolution was related to a breach of “compliance with Russian legislation.” He refused to give further details at a news conference Friday.

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a statement Thursday that a delegation with representatives from his office and several other ministries would travel to Russia for talks ahead of the hearing about the agency, which operates in coordination with his government.

Lapid accused Russia of carrying out war crimes in Ukraine when he was foreign minister in April.

Established in 1929, the Jewish Agency, or Sochnut, was instrumental in the formation of the state of Israel in 1948.

It was banned by the Soviet Union, where state-sanctioned antisemitism barred Jews from many jobs and schools. Yuri Kanner, the president of the Russian Jewish Congress, told NBC News on Friday that an office opened in Russia shortly after the Soviet bloc collapsed in 1989.

Since then, it has helped to advance Israel’s Law of Return, which states that any Jewish person, or a person with one or more Jewish grandparents, has the right to settle in Israel and obtain citizenship.Hundreds of thousands of people have relocated from Russia.

“This is an old and reputable institution,” Kanner said, adding that it had never been embroiled in any scandals.

NBC News has asked the agency for comment.

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

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