The Editorial Board

Spreading pain, not peace

A member of Israel’s Knesset spoke at a Kristallnacht commemoration event this week and equated Israel’s actions to the events of Nov. 9-10, 1938.

Hanin Zoabi, an Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset, spoke at a Kristallnacht “memorial” in Amsterdam that was organized by a group known for its antipathy to Israel and its sympathies for Hamas. It appears the event was not meant to sincerely mark the solemn anniversary but rather, as is so often a tactic among the most extreme anti-Israel hate groups, to rub salt in the wounds of Jewish history.

“Kristallnacht didn’t suddenly fall from the sky, come out of nowhere,” Zoabi said Sunday. “It was the result of a development over time. We can see a similar development happening in Israel over the last several years.”

She acknowledged that, during Kristallnacht, thousands of businesses and hundreds of synagogues were attacked and destroyed.

“Perhaps the majority of Germans did not approve, but they kept quiet,” she said. “When in Israel two churches and tens of mosques are burned; and hundreds of Israeli supporters of Beitar shout ‘death to the Arabs’ after each soccer match; when a family is burned to death; when a 15-year-old boy is burned to death, the majority keeps quiet, although they are perhaps shocked.”

Of course, Zoabi is wrong. When these tragic and despicable incidents have happened, they have been condemned from the highest offices, by the most respected voices and across the political spectrum of Israeli society. When the far more frequent incitements to kill Jews occur, and when terrorists stab or drive over Israelis, these acts are lauded by Palestinian political and religious leaders and are cause for celebration among Palestinian civilians. That’s a big difference.

Zoabi is a member of the Arab Israeli party Balad, which calls for a binational state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean – in other words, the effective end of the world’s only Jewish-majority nation. She is an elected official in the parliament of a country she does not believe should exist. Fine. That’s a fact of democracy. We have such a phenomenon in our own federal parliament.

Zoabi is not only a citizen of a democratic state, but one who was democratically elected by other citizens to represent them in the Knesset, which, in itself, goes some distance in undermining her hyperbolic claims.

Zoabi, because she is a citizen of a free country, has the right to say what she wants, short of the sort of incitement banned by law in every democratic society. (Although she has crossed that line, with minimal repercussions, in calls for “popular resistance” and justifying the kidnapping of three Israeli teens last year who were later found murdered.)

How ironic that a person in her position could invoke such vicious, ahistorical imagery and do it at a time and place that should call for the barest sense of human compassion and decency – and get away with it. Because, despite a few outraged comments from politicians and media, she will get away with it. There will be no legal or parliamentary repercussions for her words. She is a free person – one of the freest and most powerful Arab individuals in the Middle East, when you come down to it. Were her political agenda to be realized and the land in which she lives to come under the governance of Hamas or Fatah or any other political entity currently on the scene or even on the horizon, and she were to use her words to attack her country in this manner, the outcome would almost certainly be far more grievous for her.

Beyond this individual case, though, this kind of language is a treasured tactic of the anti-Israel movement. Clearly it is a strategy of the Amsterdam group that invited her to speak and we have seen it even on campuses and at rallies here in Vancouver: anything that can be done to cause pain to Jewish people is not only acceptable, it is a legitimate tactic.

Whether it is literally a knife in the neck of a Jew in Jerusalem or the inhuman exploitation of Jewish history against the Jewish people themselves in Amsterdam or the exploitation of Holocaust imagery and language against the state of Israel at rallies worldwide, including here in Vancouver, there is a streak in the anti-Israel movement that is more concerned with inflicting pain than finding solutions.

Tone is important

Once we’ve watched the videos of our new prime minister Bhangra dancing, scrolled through the rehashed pics of him shirtless at the weigh-in for his boxing bout against Senator Patrick Brazeau and perused the swooning of global commentators, we may turn our attention to Justin Trudeau’s policies in his first days as our leader-designate.

One of his first acts was to inform U.S. President Barack Obama by telephone that Canada would withdraw from combat missions against ISIS. This was a central part of Trudeau’s election platform and Canadians voted for him strongly, so this move was consistent with what he said he would do.

Canada’s role in the fight has not been insignificant, though we are by no means the foremost military in this battle. In the past year, six Canadian CF-18 jets have been involved in more than 180 airstrikes against ISIS targets. Trudeau promises this will end. He says, though, that Canada will remain a part of the 65-country coalition by increasing humanitarian aid and continuing to train Iraqi security forces.

On other matters of foreign affairs, Trudeau says that his government will restore diplomatic relations with Iran. We do not know yet whether the multipartite agreement intended to prevent Iran from constructing nuclear weapons will meet this objective. It will be years before we can conclusively answer this. But we wrote in this space when the Conservative government cut diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic – long before negotiations over the nuclear program even began – that it was wrong to do so.

If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. These were the wise words of Moshe Dayan. More to the point, from a practical standpoint, diplomatic relations will improve the situation for Canadians of Iranian descent and those with families there, who were probably punished more than the government in Tehran by the diplomatic break.

Continuing on foreign affairs, circling from ISIS to Iran and around to Israel – Trudeau spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu four days after the election.

The specifics of the conversation are private, but Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Rafael Barak, said he is optimistic Canada’s friendship with Israel will be unchanged.

“Mr. Trudeau has been very consistent from the very beginning of his campaign, in expressing his support for Israel,” Barak told Canadian Press. “I’m sure maybe the style will change. But I don’t feel there will be a change on the substance. I’m really reassured.”

A Trudeau spokesperson said “there would be a shift in tone, but Canada would continue to be a friend of Israel’s.”

We will watch closely, of course, to see what “a shift in tone” looks like. As we noted in this space two weeks ago, the Liberal party ran an ad in the last days of the election campaign in Canadian Jewish News promising, “On Oct. 19, our government will change. What won’t change is Canada’s support for Israel.”

That is an unequivocal statement and it probably reassured a great many voters who believed a change of government was desirable but a change in approach toward Israel was not.

The importance of a potential “shift in tone” is that, frankly, tone is just about all we have to offer. The impact we had under the Conservatives – for better or for worse, depending on one’s politics – was based almost exclusively on our words.

Proud as we may be of our significant sacrifices and achievements during the First and Second World Wars, which we will mark next week on Remembrance Day, and significant as our contribution has been in Afghanistan, Canada’s impact on the global stage today is mostly one of principled voice. We are not a major military power. We have economic power, but less than our major trading allies. Agree or disagree with the content, former prime minister Stephen Harper showed that a Canadian voice – even a lonely one in the wilderness, as it often was when he defended Israel – can have powerful resonance.

Tone matters a lot.

Mispoken history

Exploiting the memory of the Holocaust and its victims is a far too commonplace event. Israel’s detractors accuse it of perpetrating a holocaust on Palestinians. Politicians and others frequently make inappropriate comparisons to the Holocaust. But when the prime minister of Israel – the man who refers to himself as the leader of the Jewish people – exploits the Holocaust, it is especially egregious.

Last week, at the meeting of the World Zionist Congress, Binyamin Netanyahu told a story that historians contend was cut largely from whole cloth. This much is true: in November 1941, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, met with Adolf Hitler in Berlin. Al-Husseini opposed Jewish migration to the Holy Land and rejected the idea of a Jewish state there. Increased Jewish migration to Palestine strengthened Zionism and the grand mufti had been a vocal opponent of it – to the extent that Arab rioting he incited helped form British policy on the matter, closing the doors to Jews escaping Nazi Europe. The mufti and Hitler had mutual interests, but al-Husseini was concerned that Nazi antisemitism could drive more Jews to Palestine (although, by late 1941, this was largely a moot point).

In Netanyahu’s curriculum, though, it was the mufti who put the seed in Hitler’s brain to enact the “Final Solution.” (Perhaps the prime minister had recently read the book Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, which is reviewed in this issue, but not any of its critiques.)

“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time,” Netanyahu told the congress. “He wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here [to Palestine],’ … ’So what should I do with them?’ [Hitler] asked. [Al-Husseini] said, ‘Burn them.’”

There is no evidence that any such discussion took place. In fact, the Nazis’ exterminationist intent was already well formed before al-Husseini came to Berlin. The Wannsee Conference, which set out the plan for the “Final Solution,” was mere weeks away and its agenda was set before the mufti had tea with Hitler.

History suggests that al-Husseini was supportive of the Nazis’ plans, but he certainly was not their architect, as Netanyahu implied.

The prime minister’s speech raised outrage globally. Academics and experts in the Holocaust decried his rewriting of history. Critics claimed his remarks were meant to incite hatred against Palestinians at a time when Israel is condemning Palestinian incitement against Jews. Netanyahu was diminishing Hitler’s guilt for the fate of European Jewry, said others. Even Germany’s leader Angela Merkel reiterated her country’s responsibility for the Holocaust.

It is clear what Netanyahu was trying to do. He wanted to demonstrate that Palestinian antisemitism and incitement against Jews and Israelis go back a long way, and he is correct. But to do so, he apparently made stuff up and, far, far worse, exploited the history of the Holocaust and the memory of its victims to score political points. It was shameful, unbecoming his office, and certainly undermines any claim he has to call himself the leader of the Jewish people.

Will Israel policy change?

Days before the federal election, the Liberal party ran an ad in the Canadian Jewish News promising, “On Oct. 19, our government will change. What won’t change is Canada’s support for Israel.”

This message effectively echoes what Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau told the Jewish Independent in an exclusive interview in July. However, what candidates say and what elected officials do can sometimes differ. When the Liberal party was last in office, their approach to international affairs, particularly during votes at the United Nations, took a “go along to get along” approach that too often saw Canada siding with despotic regimes against Israel.

Jewish and Zionist voters may have thought that Conservative rhetoric on Israel was just that, rhetoric. But very shortly after Stephen Harper became prime minister, the Gaza war erupted and Canada became Israel’s most vocal ally on the international stage. Our country would remain such for nearly a decade.

Critics – inside the Jewish community and beyond – often saw cynical motivations in the Conservative government’s position vis-a-vis Israel. Either it was motivated by political expediency, Jewish votes and financial support or millenarian Christian theology. Harper repeatedly insisted that the government’s policy was motivated simply by the principle of standing by a democratic ally and the Jewish people, nothing more or less.

Whether the decade of Harper’s unapologetic support for Israel is the reason, or whether Canadians have come to the judicious conclusion that Israel is not the malevolent entity that some extremists proclaim, Harper’s view is now mainstream in Canada. So much so that the Liberal party felt obligated to promise that there would be no change in approach. Even the New Democrats, who have a history of harboring some of Canada’s most strident Israel-haters, officially takes a pro-Israel position.

The NDP’s collapse in Monday’s election may change that. It was during the NDP’s weakest period, in the 1990s, that anti-Israel extremists were able to seize the Middle East policy reins of the party. Leader Tom Mulcair steadfastly dragged his party back to a more reasonable position on the topic, but he will certainly be gone soon from the leadership and everything he did and stood for seems likely to be analyzed for a place to lay blame, whether deserved or not.

Of course, outside of a small cluster of voters, Israel and Palestine were not core issues. They were certainly not issues that turned the election. In the end, it was a desire for change and, perhaps, a backfiring of Conservative attack ads and rhetoric that led to the outcome.

The Conservatives blanketed Canada with ads promising us that Trudeau was “just not ready,” which lowered expectations so dramatically that when he was able to hold his own in successive party leaders debates, he could hardly help but exceed the low threshold the Conservatives had created for him among Canadian voters. This, combined with a comparatively positive Liberal campaign and the fact that, in the final days, it was clear that the Liberals, not the NDP, were to be the choice for change, seems to have created the perfect storm that led to the majority government.

We now have the opportunity to see if the Liberal party will indeed stand by its word. Liberals have repeatedly insisted that they are every bit as committed to Israel’s security as the Conservative government. Now they have a chance to prove it. If they do, it will be evidence that support for a Jewish, democratic state, our greatest ally in the region, is not a Conservative value, but a Canadian one.

Incitements to stab

It is an alarming phenomenon, to say the least. Seemingly ordinary Palestinian civilians, acting not on behalf of an organized terrorist organization but apparently on their own, taking everyday household instruments and stabbing Israelis with them on the streets.

Violence, in fact, has been a top-down factor in the Palestinian body politic. As recently as last month, the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was glorifying the murder of Jews, responding to the riots and killings in Jerusalem with this:

“Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every shahid [martyr] will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God.”

An imam in Gaza last Friday waved a dagger as he gave his sermon – a sermon broadcast weekly over the internet – urging followers to stab and kill Jews.

These incitements to murder are omnipresent in Palestinian society, from the “radical” Hamas to the “moderate” Fatah. So, the spate of stabbings is the natural fruit of seeds of hatred planted by decades of political and religious leaders, relentless media propaganda and the glorification of “martyrs” gone before.

It is often said that the Israeli-Arab conflict is an intractable one with complexities and nuances that make it drag on. That’s true. There are complexities, but some things are simple – when you inculcate violence, you get violence.

Our hearts go to those killed and wounded, their families and all who are suffering.

Make sure you vote

Voting always matters. But this election is among the least predictable in living memory. British Columbians’ choices could tip the balance to one party or another, or determine whether the next government is a majority or a minority.

In a world where journalists are advised to write to a Grade 8 reading level, the Jewish Independent is proud to treat our readers like adults. We will certainly not suggest for whom you should vote nor deliver a civics lesson on the importance of voting. We merely remind you that polls are open this Monday, Oct. 19, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. If you have not received your voting card in the mail, visit elections.ca for details on how to vote.

We also invite you to review the four articles we have run in recent weeks, featuring representatives of the four parliamentary parties. At jewishindependent.ca, you can find interviews with the leaders of the Liberal party, the NDP and the Green party, as well as a senior Conservative cabinet minister. Each makes their case directly to Independent readers and we urge you, if you have not already, to take the time to review these pieces, since Canada’s top political leaders took the time to speak with us in order to get their messages directly to you.

OK to disagree

Last week, at the annual parade of speeches by world leaders at the United Nations, Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas were among those using the General Assembly podium as a pulpit for their respective cases. To say there is disagreement between these two individuals is an understatement. Netanyahu rightly condemned the hypocrisy of the world, and its ostensible parliament in which he was speaking, for its ludicrous obsession with the Jewish state while parts of the Middle East literally burn. Abbas offered the “laugh line” that the Palestinians no longer need to be bound by the terms of the Oslo process. The humor, such as it is, comes from the fact that the Palestinians never bound themselves to Oslo. While Israel had a long list of obligations under the peace process, the Palestinians effectively had only one, which they have ignored: stop inciting your people to genocide and prepare them to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors. To come to the UN and make the case that they have been forced by circumstances to abandon principles they never accepted in the first place is typical of the made-for-TV claptrap this annual performance has become.

In Canada, though, we have a different problem. While others in the world find it impossible to agree on much of anything, our political leaders are finding it tough to find much of substance upon which to disagree. Oh yes, when you watch the debates and the bombardment of partisan ads, it seems like there are chasms between the parties. There really are not. Some of the differences – the number of refugees we should take in, the recipe for economic advancement, approaches to social issues – mostly come down to nuance and decimal points.

There is such a thing as too much agreement. Is it a distinctively Canadian characteristic that our politicians should careen so insipidly to the middle of the road? An election campaign is the time when parties should be ferociously demonstrating their differences. Yet when we delve into the actual policies and plans, one potential government looks much like another. This may be, thankfully, due to the fact that we are among the most fortunate people in the world, blessed with natural resources, human wealth, economic and political stability and relative peace. That’s great.

But when we do see genuine differences of policy and approach, we also see a disparaging of exactly the phenomenon we should be encouraging. It emerges in the use of the term “wedge issue.”

We have heard this a lot in recent weeks. The Conservatives are accused of using issues like the niqab and Canada’s support for Israel as wedge issues. The implication is that the very discussion of these topics divides Canada in an unwholesome manner, that the issues are being raised solely for political gain.

Well, any issue raised in an election is raised for political gain. If opposition parties think the Conservative approach to Israel or the niqab or anything else is off base, they should advance their own case and let voters decide. That’s how election campaigns are supposed to work. It is a cop-out to deflect an issue outright by dismissing it as a wedge. If anything, an election campaign is precisely the time to accentuate differences. In a little more than a week, voters can decide who is right and who is wrong.

More or less immigration?

For political nerds, last week offered a cornucopia. A week ago Wednesday, 11 Republican candidates for president of the United States lined up in front of Ronald Reagan’s Air Force One and squabbled, insulted, demeaned and debated one another. The next night, the three leading candidates for prime minister of Canada lined up and, in a more Canadian manner than their American counterparts (albeit, perhaps, in a more American manner than most previous Canadian debates) did much the same thing.

There was plenty to differentiate the two events. The production values of the American version were Hollywoodesque. The Canadian debate looked high schoolish. With 11 candidates in the American debate, content took a back seat to quips and barbs. The Canadian debate was somewhat more substantive.

What was common between the two was an emphasis on immigration and refugees. With the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe making front-page news worldwide, and immigration a perennial hot button issue in the United States, candidates came at the topic through particular prisms.

The Republican candidates mostly clamored over one another to burnish their anti-immigrant cred. Who could build the highest, most impenetrable wall along the southern border, it seemed, was the worthiest candidate. The day after the debate, a pro-immigrant organization released a video that contrasted the current crop of candidates’ comments on immigration with those of Ronald Reagan, in whose presidential library the debate took place and who is generally venerated among Republicans.

Reagan, at least in his rhetoric, viewed America as a “shining city on a hill” to which people around the world aspired to come and where, presumably, they would be welcomed. Typifying the prevalent approach of current Republican candidates, Donald Trump said before the debate: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.… They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Emma Lazarus Trump is not. The American approach to immigration once – before the 1920s and at intervals since the Second World War – was idealized in Lazarus’ poem, affixed to the Statue of Liberty, and it clearly does not demand “the best” from other countries: “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me / I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

It can still evoke chills. Chills that are different from those evoked by the language and views of some of today’s Republicans.

What was encouraging in the Canadian debate the next day was seeing our leaders similarly clamoring over one another, but in this case to burnish their pro-immigration cred.

We recognize that some of the people we welcome have endured great challenges, and need resources and programs to learn the languages of our country, develop or adapt their skills, perhaps recover from deep trauma. Piles of evidence prove that immigrants and refugees who come here succeed brilliantly.

Of course, Jewish Canadians especially may be torn between heart and head on this matter. Our families came here, more often than not escaping repression and violence, and we understand the life-and-death implications of immigration policies.

We also understand that many immigrants and refugees today are coming from places that deliberately inculcate antisemitism in their citizens, who have been known to then act out on these impulses once they move to places where Jews exist. However, the current crisis involves refugees who are fleeing violent jihad and are likely to be among those Canadians who are most vigilant against that form of hatred.

Above all, we need to understand that we are one world. We need to address security challenges at home and confront, with our allies, the sources of those challenges. This security imperative impacts on our immigration policy, but we should not delude ourselves or punish those who need refuge by pretending we can immunize ourselves from world realities by closing our doors.

Gender equality lacks

Political parties are sometimes accused of pandering to blocs of voters, especially at election time. The Conservative government’s vocal support for Israel, for example, is seen by some as a slick means of grabbing Jewish votes. (Jason Kenney, the minister of defence and multiculturalism, responds to this claim in this week’s story, “Kenney discusses priorities.”)

But it would be nice if, every now and again, a government was accused of pandering to the biggest bloc of votes of all – women – because it might mean someone is actually paying attention to their issues.

This is slippery terrain, because all issues are “women’s issues.” Women care about the economy and foreign affairs, as well as domestic affairs and social issues. Yet government actions (or inaction) and societal norms still play negative, detrimental and sometimes fatal roles in the lives of women and girls.

We are now more than halfway through the longest federal election campaign in living memory. This Sunday – a month less a day before the Oct. 19 election – has been dubbed a National Day of Action on Gender Equality. The day, initiated by women in Canadian film and television, is intended to “stimulate more public dialogue on gender equality,” especially on social media.

Women and men all across Canada who support gender equality are being asked to get active on social media on Sunday, especially between the hours of 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Pacific, using the hashtags #WomenVote, #elxn42 and #cdnpoli.

The day of action has been in the planning for some time, but the timing is particularly providential, not just because the election is approaching – that was obviously planned – but because of a shocking and damning report just made public about the place of women in Canadian society.

An internal federal government report marked “secret” was obtained by the CBC under the Access to Information Act. Obviously not intended to be made public, particularly at the peak of election season, the report by Status of Women Canada paints a largely dismal picture.

Canada has one of the developed world’s biggest pay gaps between men and women, below average support for child care and parental leave, and our Parliament ranks 57th in the world in terms of female representation. Poverty among single elderly women and female-headed households is increasing.

Perhaps most damningly, Canada does not have a national strategy on violence against women. Rural and immigrant women are at particular risk of being victims of violence – and aboriginal women are 450% more likely than other Canadian women to be murdered.

With the refugee crisis making front-page news daily, foreign affairs has taken an outsized role so far in this election campaign. Moreover, for many in our community, the foreign policy positions of the various parties already figure prominently in our calculations as we ponder our democratic options.

It is worth reminding ourselves that, as rough as things may be elsewhere in the world, we still have an imperfect country here and these are also things we should be addressing with those who seek our votes.

Be present as possible

On Rosh Hashana we will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur we will be sealed, who will live and who will die, who by fire and who by water. It’s a jarring incantation. Religious or not, however, this time of year – with fall approaching, a new school year starting – is a time for introspection and account-taking that extends to the very essence of our mortality.

Unless we are consciously faced with it, it is rare for people in our society to think deeply about our own deaths. (For an interesting reflection on the topic, see page 46.) But we would do well to keep the transience of life closer to front of mind throughout the year – not to be needlessly grim or to dwell on the negative, but because it is life’s finite nature that affords its value. Like anything that is limitless, life would lose some of its value if it were unending.

Time is central to Judaism. We mark the coming and the going of the day, the arrival of Shabbat and the return to the week, the numerous times in the calendar that call our attention to the seasons, our history, biblical events, the new year.

Time is likewise central to our existence. Our lives have a beginning and an end; what happens in the middle is what we make it, given the resources we are born into or develop. We do not know when we will die nor what happens to us afterward. We know, though, what happens when others die. We grieve our loss.

We lament and experience stages of pain and eventual relative acceptance.

At this time of year, as we gather with families and in our congregations and communities, there are countless obligations placed upon us. Our tradition tells us that we accept these obligations willingly and with openness. Our tshuva may be painful or involve humbling ourselves to make amends with those we have harmed, but we do this to improve ourselves, our relationships and our world.

In some interpretations, this is when our personal fate will be determined. But our attention naturally turns also to those around us. Who will be at the table this Rosh Hashana and not next? Whose presence do we miss even more keenly at this time of year than on an average day?

We are reminded now not to take for granted any of those we love. This is something we should certainly commit to carrying with us throughout the year. The presence of loving family and friends is a joy that we can easily forget to appreciate and we must remember to value these moments.

We should also be reminded of the presence of loved ones in a different, more ordinary sense. Perhaps there has never been a society more distracted than our own. The most obvious distraction is our digital devices, which can remove us from the presence of those we love even as we sit across from them at a table. Other distractions have been around longer – worries about work or some other aspect of our lives; obsessions and addictions; the myriad things that can take us away from what is truly most important in our lives.

As we mark the High Holidays and the start of a new year, let us be thankful for the presence of those around us, and let us try to be as present as possible in return.