The Editorial Board

Migrants fleeing for their lives

Interior ministers from the 28 member-states of the European Union will meet next week to address the crisis of migrants flowing into the continent from across the Mediterranean. But just what constitutes a crisis – and whose crisis is it?

Some politicians and commentators allege that the migrants are primarily “economic refugees,” people just seeking economic advancement. But Britain’s Guardian newspaper reports that 62% of the refugees who made it to Europe by boat in the first seven months of the year were from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan, with more coming from Darfur, Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria, all places where mere survival in war-ravaged zones supersedes economic advancement on the hierarchy of needs.

Fears stoked by the stream of migrants have led some, such as the British foreign secretary, to warn that the entire European social order is endangered. In fact, the 200,000 migrants who have made it to Europe so far this year represent 0.027% of the total EU population. Compare these numbers with the situation in Lebanon, a country of 4.5 million people currently hosting 1.2 million refugees from the Syrian civil war.

There is no question that much of the social unrest in Europe these days and a vast proportion of its antisemitism derive from immigrants from the same parts of the world from which today’s migrants originate. That is not a problem to be easily dismissed. But neither is it a justification for ignoring a humanitarian crisis.

Addressing the small proportion of radicalized or Jew-hating individuals within groups is an issue that Europe must confront and address – and it has so far not done an exemplary job. But the problem facing the migrants in their places of origin makes the “crisis” faced by the places in which they hope to settle pale in comparison.

Europe just happens to be the nearest beacon of freedom and peace these people can reach and, therefore, they are clamoring to make their way to the continent. But it is the responsibility of all of us, Canada included, to accommodate a share of people seeking escape from violence and war.

Israel has also been a destination for African migrants and the treatment of some has rightly raised concerns of refugee watchdog groups and, last month, the Israeli Supreme Court. The court ruled that the migrants who had been held in a sort of low-security detention facility, about 1,200 people from Eritrea, Sudan and Darfur, could not be held longer than a year. They were not confined to the encampment, but were required to be present twice daily for a roll call.

In all, Israel has about 45,000 asylum-seekers, the vast majority from Eritrea and 9,000 from Sudan. Most made their way by foot through the Sinai into Israel’s southern frontier. Most have been given visas that allow them to stay but not to work, which puts them in a predictably difficult position.

Meanwhile, countries like Hungary are rolling out razor wire along the southern border, an entry point to the European Union, beyond which migrants are comparatively free to travel throughout the 28 countries of the EU.

Recent days have brought particularly horrendous news, with 71 refugees, including a baby, found dead in a truck in Austria, victims of profiteers exploiting the desperation of migrants trying to reach Europe. In Libya, more than 100 bodies washed ashore after a boat sank filled with people trying to cross the Mediterranean. At least 2,600 people are known to have drowned this year in similar incidents.

It is a sign of the desperation that drives this mass migration. Most of these people leave behind everything they have to make their way to what they hope will be a peaceful and prosperous future. They are met with suspicion, incarceration, violence and worse.

It is a striking reversal of the Jewish people’s own history of the 20th century, when those trying to flee Europe were denied entry at every turn, including to what was to become the Jewish homeland in the Middle East. Now, thousands of people from the Middle East are fleeing to Europe and facing every obstacle.

It should not be ignored that many of the refugees are coming from places whose education systems and popular culture instil suspicion and hatred of Jews (and Western culture), and this will be no consolation to the remaining, beleaguered Jews of countries like France. But that underlying problem – and it is a significant one – must be addressed over the long term both in Europe and in the countries where cultural norms breed intolerance and antisemitism. In the meantime, thousands of people are fleeing for their lives and the world cannot turn our backs.

Rapper makes us proud

Matisyahu, the reggae rapper whose refusal to be bullied into a political pledge resulted in his being removed from the lineup of a Spanish music festival, was eventually allowed to perform last weekend.

Global outrage over the politicizing of the musical event – and the potential whiff of antisemitism – led organizers of the Rototom Sunsplash Festival to reverse their demand that the Jewish American musician pledge support for an independent Palestine. (Not a two-state solution, mind you, or a negotiated settlement of the conflict.)

After he received an apology, Matisyahu accepted the invitation to play after all. He mounted the stage to heckles and chants of “out, out,” from multiple audience members waving large Palestinian flags.

“Let music be your flag,” he urged the audience as he proceeded with his 45-minute set, ending with a spine-tingling rendition of “Jerusalem,” a defiant anthem of Jewish survival and resilience: “3,000 years with no place to be / And they want me to give up my milk and honey,” he sang. “Don’t you see, it’s not about the land or the sea / Not the country but the dwelling of His majesty … Rebuild the Temple and the crown of glory / Years gone by, about sixty / Burn in the oven in this century / And the gas tried to choke, but it couldn’t choke me / I will not lie down, I will not fall asleep.… Afraid of the truth and our dark history / Why is everybody always chasing we?”

The incident was a nasty one, certainly, but its lesson is beautiful. Do not let bullies win, whether they attack you because of who you are or the ideas you carry. It is an issue we reflected on locally earlier this summer when outside forces attacked our community for hosting speakers from the New Israel Fund and it is an issue we face continually from the BDS movement, which, in the Matisyahu imbroglio, has shown its true colors.

Matisyahu also showed his. And it was a thing to see.

Adler’s action unseemly

The memory of the Holocaust is frequently misused and abused. Enemies of Israel exploit the memory and imagery of the Shoah, using it against Zionists to deliberately cause pain. Many people unintentionally diminish this history by nonchalantly throwing around terms associated with the Nazi era.

Earlier this year, Project Democracy, a group that aims to convince Canadians to vote for the candidate in their riding most likely to defeat the Conservative candidate, produced a meme with a picture of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the words: “Canadians fought fascism from 1939 to 1945. Why vote for it now?” This from an organization that has as the first line on its Facebook page: “Our objective … is to *raise* the bar of Canadian political discourse, not *lower* it.” Fail.

It may be especially bewildering to see those who, of all people, should know better, exploit tragic history. Recently, there was a tempest involving Ontario Conservative MP Mark Adler (again).

Adler was the MP who embarrassed himself, his party and the prime minister while on a trip to Israel last year. Harper was praying at the Western Wall when Adler, in perfect proximity to a media microphone, urged one of the PM’s handlers to let Adler get in the picture.

“This, it’s the reelection,” said Adler, whose riding has a significant concentration of Jewish voters. “This is the million-dollar shot.”

The incident undermined the Conservative party’s insistence that its support for Israel is principled, not political.

Last week, Adler was criticized for appearing to exploit his family’s own history when he advertised himself as a son of a Holocaust survivor.

This is not irrelevant information. Being Jewish and being a son of a Holocaust survivor almost certainly has an impact on the manner in which Adler’s worldview has been shaped. It was pointed out, in his defence, that other people have proudly declared their own unique heritage such as, in one instance, being the first Canadian of Asian heritage appointed to the Senate. Fair enough.

But Adler’s fault here is twofold. First, he proclaimed himself the first child of a Holocaust survivor elected to Parliament, which was quickly corrected by former Liberal MP Raymonde Folco. Folco, who represented a Montreal-area riding from 1997 to 2011, is not only a child of Holocaust survivors but a child survivor herself. She told Canadian Jewish News (see story on page 4) that it was “disgusting” for Adler “to use the Holocaust in this way, for personal ends.” She did not publicize her family’s experience before, she said, accusing Adler of “profiting” from his.

Ouch. But being incorrect on whether he was the first or second child of survivors pales when compared with the form of his use of this family history. On a large banner printed for the window of his campaign office – which has since been changed – there were four points he wanted voters to take away: “Son of a Holocaust survivor” topped the list. This was followed by “Raising my family in Bathurst Manor” (a heavily Jewish neighborhood), “Strong supporter of Israel” and “Keeping our community and the economy strong.” On another banner, the wording and order varied, but the messages were the same.

We get it. You like us. You’re one of us. But this is just unseemly.

Pledge reflects motives

In June, the Spanish government passed a law granting descendants of Sephardi Jews forced from that country in the 15th century the right to dual Spanish citizenship.

Only someone unfamiliar with the toing and froing of Jewish migrations and expulsions could be blind to the magnificence with which this move dovetails with history. For millennia, princes and fiefs, kings and counts expelled the Jews from their realms in one generation and then enticed them back in successive ones, when their perceived value rebounded or when the duchy or kingdom was in financial peril. Sometimes it took a generation, sometimes it took 600 years, as in the case of Spain, which, it should be noted, is now just a few notches above Greece on the financial solvency scale.

But Jews who consider taking up Spain’s generous offer will be taking a sober second look after recent events. OK, the events were a relatively small-scale tempest – a reggae festival in Valencia – but the lessons are wide-ranging and deeply telling.

Matisyahu, the once Chassidic, now just Jewish, reggae rapper, was disinvited from the Rototom Sunsplash Festival after he refused to sign a pledge in support of a Palestinian state. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement had convinced the festival organizers that participants should be forced to commit to the Palestinian cause.

The quality of the performers or the wishes of the audience were secondary to the political positions of the musicians, apparently. Why this obscure music festival should become a flashpoint for a kerfuffle over the Middle East may seem baffling, but the strategy of the movement has been to demand loyalty oaths from anyone at any time in any place. Canadian film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, have been roiled over the topic in the past. These efforts at a “cultural boycott” are atrocious enough, but the worst tactics of the movement promote an academic boycott, which is as close as we can come to literal book-burning.

Is it additionally appalling that Matisyahu is not Israeli, but American? Sort of. The boycotters have attacked Israelis for the most part, but now they are turning their cannons on anyone who might think that Israel has a right to exist alongside a Palestinian state. (Note that the oath did not address a two-state solution. Coexistence is not top of the agenda for BDSers.)

Not all Jews are Zionists and, indeed, some Jews support the BDS movement. However, if you believe in the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people, but not for the Jewish people, then you are at the least a hypocrite.

The BDS movement, while a relatively new phenomenon, has its historical antecedents in the people who would paint Stars of David on Jewish shop windows. It is a mob of bullies for the most part, which calls itself pro-Palestinian, but exhibits nothing positive, only hatred and vilification of Israel.

Although a reggae festival might seem an odd place to start, the BDSers and the larger “pro-Palestinian” contingent could buy themselves some legitimacy by taking an oath themselves: to work together with all people to find a peaceful resolution so that two peoples can live in coexistence in Jewish and Palestinian states. It’s a pledge the Jewish people accepted in 1947-48 and have reiterated throughout the ensuing seven decades. The Matisyahu brouhaha is an example of the answer the Jewish people have received to that olive branch.

Another option?

When the Iranian nuclear agreement was revealed recently, a former Swedish prime minister tweeted: “I think the work of the Nobel committee of the Norwegian Parliament this year just got much easier.”

The work of the Nobel committee has not been flawless overall. They bestowed the honor on Yasser Arafat before the world discovered that the old terrorist had not changed his spots. And, in 2009, they awarded it to a newly elected U.S. President Barack Obama, apparently as an aspirational move intended to recognize things the committee hoped he would do, rather than anything he had already done.

If the parties involved in the Iranian deal receive the Nobel, it will be no less aspirational, although we all hope for the best.

The amount of ink (or its digital equivalent) spilled on the subject of the Iranian nuclear deal possibly surpasses that associated with any diplomatic arrangement in history. The Treaty of Versailles, the Munich Agreement (“Peace in our time!”) and the Potsdam Agreement took place in times when not everyone had a squawking lectern, as we all now do in the digital world. The volume of opinions – in both the auditory and magnitudinal senses of the term – have been vast.

This is one of the reasons, as acknowledged in last week’s issue, that we have not devoted enormous space to the topic. One would need to be a hermit to have avoided the agitated attitudes on one side of the topic or the other.

Yet there has been very little nuance in this discussion. Either the agreement, as the American politician and cable news mouthpiece Mike Huckabee says, leads Israelis “to the door of the oven,” or it guarantees Iran, as the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organization J Street posited in a big spread in the New York Times, “Zero pathways to the bomb.”

There is, frankly, no way to tell at this point whether the agreement augurs peace or disaster. Everything you hear about it is opinion, conjecture. It will take 20, 50, 100 years or more to know whether this was a good deal or a catastrophic one.

By this very statement, we acknowledge the significance of the issue. Whatever one thinks about the agreement, this is nothing less than an existential matter. Extreme comments may well be excused because the stakes are literally as high as they could possibly be for the Jewish people. The Western powers have made a deal with a theocracy that has sworn repeatedly, emphatically and unequivocally to eradicate Israel from the planet.

The agreement is intended to prevent that genocidally obsessed regime from obtaining nuclear weapons. If it succeeds, it will remove an unparalleled threat to the Jewish people. If it fails, the outcome is unthinkable. The problem we face as people living in the present is that we cannot foresee which outcome the agreement portends. But the question is, what’s the alternative?

There is a campaign afoot to convince members of the U.S. Congress to reject the deal, which would scupper it. (Iran’s “parliament” has also scheduled a vote – after the American vote, presumably so they don’t look like dupes should the legislators of the Great Satan reject it after they have endorsed it.)

But the alternative to an imperfect deal has been the issue from the start. According to experts, the Iranian nuclear infrastructure has been built specifically to protect it from most external military threats, developed in missile-proof bunkers and diverse locations that make military intervention exceedingly difficult.

In an ideal and less dangerous world, of course, the mass of Iranian people – whose grandparents and even parents recall life as part of the pre-revolution world – would rise up against their oppressors and demand a democratic society determined to live in peace with their neighbors and the world.

In the meantime, we are faced with this: a terrible, hateful Iranian regime that has made at least a kabuki of a diplomatic overture, which evokes the words of Moshe Dayan. “If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”

Our right to discussion

Pamela Geller is a bully of global standing. And recently she turned her sights on our community.

Geller is an American writer, blogger, activist and president of the American Freedom Defence Initiative, which the respected Southern Poverty Law Centre calls an anti-Muslim hate group. Her provocations came to greatest public attention when she opposed construction of an Islamic community centre in New York City that was criticized for being somewhat adjacent to the World Trade Centre site.

Somehow, earlier this month, a local Shabbat dinner discussion that was to be facilitated by a New Israel Fund of Canada representative drew her attention.

On July 8, Geller posted on her blog an article titled “United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism supports boycott against Israel.” Like almost everything else on her website, the short piece is deceptive, manipulative, unfair and false. In it, she accuses Congregation Har El in West Vancouver, which was set to host the event targeted to the under-40 crowd, of supporting “the boycott against Israel” and writes that “the traitors of New Israel Fund give information to the United Nations to harm Israel’s soldiers.…”

The New Israel Fund describes itself as the “nation’s leading organization committed to democracy and equality among all Israelis.” It supports human rights organizations in Israel, among which people of almost any political persuasion could probably find something objectionable. But NIF unequivocally does not support the boycotting of Israel. Whatever one might think of its political orientation or those of the frontline groups it funds, it is a legitimate nonprofit agency functioning under the laws of Israel. If it weren’t, the Israeli government would have shut it down.

But the legitimacy of the New Israel Fund is, at best, secondary to the larger issues here. Never mind that Geller extrapolates one event at a single synagogue to represent the views of the entire global Conservative movement – that is silliness that doesn’t warrant refutation – the fact is that Geller was able to kibosh an event in our community. Given the power of bullying in general, and the power of this bully in particular, we cannot blame the organization involved for shying away from the event, though we regret that it happened.

Two other New Israel Fund of Canada events are scheduled to take place in Vancouver in the fall. On Sept. 9, a symposium featuring Ronit Heyd, executive director of Shatil, and Jonathan Kay, editor-in-chief of The Walrus magazine, will engage with the audience on the topic The Backstory: Behind What You Know About Israel. On Nov. 16-17, Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Centre, will tackle the topic From the Back of the Bus to the Top of the Agenda.

Any external threats to these events proceeding should be met by our community with a united voice – regardless of our political views. It is our community’s right to discuss whatever issues we deem important – and to determine where the limits, if any, of that discussion lay.

Report offers mixed bag

On the one hand, good news. On the other, bad. The Jewish People Policy Institute delivered its annual assessment to the Israeli cabinet a few weeks ago and it’s a mixed bag.

The annual assessment purports to be the sole “annual stocktaking of the Jewish world,” taking into account the state of affairs in Israel and the Diaspora. The Jewish People Policy Institute, which was created by the Jewish Agency, has been producing this report for 11 years now. It was presented to the cabinet by Stuart Eizenstat, a former U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Dennis Ross, another high-level American diplomat, who served as the presidential envoy for the Middle East.

Nearly absent in the report, oddly, is any deep introspection on the crucial U.S.-Israel relationship. Among the least specific recommendations is a call for a comprehensive governmental discussion on the “complex fabric of the U.S.-Israel relationship.” It almost appears that the topic, so electric at times in the past year, is too much for the report to embrace.

The report does include, however, a specific appendix on dealing with the potential aliya of 120,000 French Jews. Yet it is nearly silent on European antisemitism, except in the context of its potential for increasing migration to Israel. Antisemitism on American college campuses receives exponentially more attention than antisemitism in Europe. It is almost as though the authors have given up on the sinking ship of European Jewry and are instead devoting their resources to bailing water from the boat of American campus activism.

The strength of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has clearly, and rightly, raised alarms at the highest levels. The authors say that Israel and its allies must take an offensive, not just a defensive, approach to the movement – and it states bluntly what plenty of Israel’s overseas allies and enemies have been suggesting for years. While unmasking BDS for what it is – “a movement that rejects a two-state outcome and coexistence” – Israel must also show its commitment to coexistence, Ross bluntly told the cabinet, by “aligning its settlement policy with its support for a two-state outcome. Meaning it needs to stop building outside the blocs.”

The report’s litany of troubles on the geopolitical front is long – Iran on the threshold of nuclear power, worsening security conditions on Israel’s northern and southern borders, the erosion of Israel’s international standing – but the authors see positive developments as well.

Israel is not facing a military threat from a conventional state army. Hezbollah is busy in Syria. Egypt is acting to stop arms smuggling into Gaza. Israeli relations with moderate Sunni Muslim countries are improving as they share common cause in opposition to Iran and jihadism.

As close as the report comes to unequivocal good news is in the demographic realm. Depending on the arithmetic used, the Jewish population in the world is approaching the level it was at before the Holocaust. There are 14.2 million people who identify as Jewish, in addition to one million people in the Diaspora who identify as partially Jewish and about 350,000 immigrants to Israel who are not halachically Jewish but qualify under the Law of Return. That brings the number of Jews close to the 16.5 million who were alive in 1939.

Eizenstat said, “This is a great affirmation of the Jewish people’s commitment to life and continuity but also requires new policy responses and outreach for those who have only marginal connections to Judaism and Israel.”

There are some interesting developments in the Diaspora – meaning, in this case, the United States. For the first time ever, a majority of offspring of mixed marriages in the United States are self-identifying as Jewish. The authors urge Jewish leaders and institutions to encourage the involvement of these individuals in the community.

There is also a huge swath of Americans who define themselves as “Jews of no religion” or “partially Jewish” and the report urges the development of Jewish social networks to engage these people, as well.

The face of American Jewry is changing in other ways. The “historical middle,” Jews who have strong connections to Israel and their Jewish identity but are integrated into secular society, is declining, while Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities in the United States are growing rapidly. It also notes that young American Jews are “becoming more, not less, pro-Israel and that growth is happening almost entirely within the politically conservative Orthodox community.”

Canadian Jewish life is experiencing many of the same forces reshaping that of the United States, no doubt. All tolled, in a world in uproar, life remains overwhelmingly comfortable for Canadians, Jewish and not – something we should never take for granted, as forces of animosity and vilification exist here, too, and Israel faces real threats. But there are other issues facing the Jewish community – internal ones. The JPPI data hint at an increasingly polarized Diaspora community, religiously and politically, but don’t offer any analysis. A job beyond its scope, perhaps, but an issue about which we should all be thinking.

Dire new poll results?

A new report suggests potentially alarming trends in support for Israel among Americans.

Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant produced a poll, sponsored by the Jewish National Fund, of the country’s “opinion elites” – highly educated, very active political operatives – and found sharply divergent views between advocates for each party.

“Israel can no longer claim to have bipartisan support of America,” Luntz asserted.

Among the Democrats Luntz polled, 76% of those responding said that Israel has “too much influence” on U.S. foreign policy. Among Republicans, the number who affirmed that position was 20%.

Asked if Israel is a racist country, 40% of Democrats said it is, while 13% of Republicans agreed.

As to whether Israel wants peace with its neighbors, 88% of Republicans contended that it does, while just 48% of Democrats said so.

Questioned whether they would be more likely to vote for a politician who supports Israel and its right to defend itself, 76% of Republicans said yes, but only 18% of Democrats concurred. Seven percent of Republicans said this would make them less likely to support the candidate, while 32% of Democrats said so.

Asked whether a politician who criticizes Israeli occupation and “mistreatment of Palestinians” would get their vote, 45% of Democrats said yes, while six percent of Republicans agreed.

One-third of Democrats and 22% of Republicans said that they were upset that “Israel gets billions and billions of dollars in funding from the U.S. government that should be going to the American people”

On the choice of whether the United States should support Israel or the Palestinians, 90% of Republicans said Israel and two percent said Palestinians. Among Democrats, 51% said Israel and 18% said Palestinians. Asked to self-identify, 88% of Republicans and 46% of Democrats called themselves “pro-Israeli,” while 27% of Democrats and four percent of Republicans said they were “pro-Palestinian.”

Half of Democrats and 18% of Republicans said that “Jewish people are too hypersensitive and too often labeled legitimate criticisms of Israel as an antisemitic attack.”

The numbers look bad at first glance. But first glance is about all Luntz has given us. As other commentators have noted, the entirety of the poll’s methodology and results have not been made public, and the term “elites” suggests the interviewees may have been more “activist” than the average voters – read: “more liberal” in the case of Dems and “more conservative” in the case of Republicans.

As well, we would like to point out that asking someone if they support Palestinians or Israelis is a “false choice,” almost akin to asking which of their children they support. Such simplistic dichotomies are yet another example of the weakness of polling.

However, regardless of the specifics of the poll and its merits, Luntz had some common sense suggestions about pro-Israel messaging to which Americans, especially Democrats, respond well: messages of encouraging more communication and cooperation, and more diplomacy and discussion, not less, for example. The boycott, divestment and sanction movement, for instance, is opposed to these things and that is an Achilles’ heel for them.

Emphasizing the equality of women and freedom of religion, he found, were effective at increasing sympathy for Israel, while less successful were messages emphasizing the need for Jewish sovereignty after the Holocaust, claims to the Holy Land and depicting Israel as a “startup nation,” said Luntz.

Though the extent of the “crisis” may not be as severe as Luntz implies – Democratic nominee-apparent Hillary Clinton is striking an unambiguously pro-Israel tone in her campaign, for example – no one doubts that there are frictions in the Israel-U.S. relationship that are stronger on the Democratic side.

Certainly the petulant relationship between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has not made things better.

There is also the fact of 15 years and counting of concerted anti-Israel mobilization on the left, especially on American university campuses, and in the burgeoning online media world.

Some of the unfriendliness may reflect simple political differences between a Democratic administration in the United States and a Likud government in Israel.

Despite the right-wing government in Israel, though, it remains ideologically consistent for people on the left and centre-left to remain committed to Israel because of its inherent liberal values. That is a message that needs to be more emphatically expressed by Israel activists on this side of the ocean. It won’t solve every problem, but it will be a start.

Canada, in this as in other things, differs. In Canada, the trajectory may well be the opposite, with the federal government’s pro-Israel position dragging the opposition parties and some of the public closer to Israel.

In both Canada and the United States, pro-Israel activists should be careful to tend all sides of our gardens. We need to ensure that people of all political persuasions understand that the existence, security and thriving of Israel is not a partisan matter, but one that, in addition to all the other reasons, makes the world a better place.

Nonsense is Trudeau’s

The Islamist group ISIS is the most technologically and media-savvy terror group ever. Their propaganda employs the highest calibre of videography and documentation. The images they capture – and successfully disseminate to the world – are among the most gruesome imaginable.

Just last week, well-produced films showed the group drowning five men in a cage and included footage of the men’s deaths captured by underwater cameras. The same video showed men being bound together at the neck by a fuse connected to explosives, like a chain of firecrackers.

On the very day that these horrendous images were leading every newscast, federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau appeared on the CBC in an interview with veteran reporter Terry Milewski. Trudeau, who voted a few weeks ago against extending the Canadian military’s contributions to fighting ISIS, insisted that, were he to win the election this October, the Canadian military’s efforts against ISIS would end.

“If you don’t want to bomb a group as ghastly as ISIS, when would you ever support real military action?” asked Milewski.

The would-be prime minister’s reply to this legitimate and, indeed, crucial question: “Terry, that’s a nonsensical question.”

The nonsense is Trudeau’s.

It is true that Western powers cannot cure the world of every despot and dictatorship. The United States military has worn itself out and tested the dedication of military families trying. Yet there are times when action cannot be avoided.

Milewski gave Trudeau the opportunity to clarify what he was saying, to ensure that this was not another of the Liberal leader’s rookie mistakes. But, no, this was what Trudeau had come on television to say.

Whether one adheres to ethical pacifism or not, it is a coherent ideology. But this is not what Trudeau is proposing. He is not suggesting that Canada abandon its military or become a neutral state. He is saying that Canadian forces should not be deployed against ISIS. OK, then. If our admittedly limited military force is not mobilized against ISIS, what cause would we mobilize against? In what circumstances does “Never again” come into play, if not against the actions of a group such as ISIS?

It must be noted, of course, that Trudeau’s position mirrors that of New Democratic party leader Thomas Mulcair. The New Democrats also voted against extending the mission against ISIS and this position is equally flawed. But it is at least consistent with the worldview of a party that has never been burdened with the mantle of government. NDP governments at the provincial level have often risen to the occasion and discovered pragmatism when power has been thrust upon them. Should some current polls bear out and Mulcair were to become prime minister, the confluence of common sense, the magnitude of power and the need to reach out to experienced hands would almost certainly adjust their foreign policy. Perhaps we are being too generous, but Mulcair has taken a party whose foreign policy (especially vis-a-vis Israel) had become a fringe circus and brought it more in line with European parties of the left (for whatever that is worth).

Unfortunately, the Liberal case is quite different. Say what one will about the value of the Senate these days, those who served as Liberals in the upper chamber represented a cache of experience at governing that Trudeau desperately lacks. Last year, Trudeau threw them out of his caucus in a showy spectacle meant to demonstrate leadership. He is left with a caucus of 36 MPs, most of whom, in the immortal words of a former prime minister who happens to have been the current Liberal leader’s father, are “nobodies 50 feet off Parliament Hill.” It is not clear that he is seeking out or receiving rational foreign policy advice from anyone.

What makes Trudeau’s position most atrocious is that it seems to have been taken for the worst reasons. The Liberals, as is a perennial problem for opposition parties, must oppose. But foreign policy is a tricky area in which to plant a political flag. Foreign affairs should not be off limits, by any means, to criticism and differences of opinion. Yet neither should the serious issues of foreign policy be subject to knee-jerk political considerations. But this seems to be part of the explanation for Trudeau’s position.

Another likely motivating factor is that the NDP has been peeling anti-Harper votes away from the Liberals. There is a very real possibility that, if polling trajectories continue, the majority of Canadians who seek to end the Conservative government’s tenure will move en masse to the party that polls suggest is most fit to achieve that end. To stanch the flow to the NDP, Trudeau seems ready to abandon the victims of ISIS.

The irony of this entire balagan is that Trudeau’s actions will probably have precisely the opposite effect on potential Liberal voters.

The JI wins two Rockowers

Earlier this month, the American Jewish Press Association announced the winners of this year’s Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism, which honor achievements in Jewish media published in 2014. In its division (newspapers with 14,999 circulation and under), the Jewish Independent garnered two first places.

Publisher and editor Cynthia Ramsay won the first place award for excellence in writing about Jewish heritage and Jewish peoplehood in Europe for her article “World Musician at Rothstein” (Nov. 21, 2014), about the work of Lenka Lichtenberg. The group Art Without Borders was bringing Lichtenberg to Vancouver from her home base of Toronto for a solo performance at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre. The article includes reviews of Lichtenberg’s three most recent CDs and how, in all of her music, “the memory and traditions of those who have lived before can be heard – they are celebrated, and merge with the memories, traditions and passions of Lichtenberg and the artists with whom she collaborates.”

The JI editorial board – Pat Johnson, Basya Laye and Ramsay – won the paper’s other award: first place for excellence in editorial writing. The three editorials that comprised the winning entry were “The message is universal” (March 7, 2014), about plans for the Canadian National Holocaust Monument to be constructed in Ottawa; “The spirit of Limmud” (Feb. 14, 2014), about how the vision and passion of one woman, Ruth Hess-Dolgin z”l, significantly enriched our community by initiating the movement to bring Limmud here; and “Uniquely set apart for exclusion” (May 9, 2014), about the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations decision to exclude J Street from the group.

The Rockower awards will be presented at AJPA’s annual conference, which, for the second year in a row, is scheduled around the Jewish Federation General Assembly being held in Washington D.C. Nov. 8-10. AJPA sessions will be held Nov. 9-11. The entire list of Rockower winners can be found at ajpa.org/?page=2015Rockower.