In a wide-ranging interview with the Independent<\/i>, Robinson maintains the premier prevented her from doing precisely the work he called on her to do \u2013 another point that Eby contradicts. He thought her acts of contrition were proceeding just fine and suggests he was blindsided by her resignation from caucus.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the prickliest aspects of the entire controversy are the motivations of the individuals involved. Robinson, opposition officials and many in the Jewish community see antisemitism at play. Government officials \u2013 including the cabinet minister Robinson says the premier \u201ctrotted out as the new Jew\u201d \u2013 say that the evidence doesn\u2019t amount to racial bias.<\/p>\n
The bones of the story are familiar by now \u2013 but Robinson shared with the Independent personal reflections and sharp critiques of former colleagues, including Eby, fellow New Democrats who she accuses of profound insensitivity in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, a death threat that is now in the hands of international policing authorities, and how everything might have been different if John Horgan were still premier.<\/p>\n
Poor choice of words<\/b><\/p>\n
The drama began with words Robinson spoke in a Jan. 30 webinar organized by B\u2019nai Brith Canada featuring Jewish elected officials from across Canada \u2013 or, at least, that is how most media coverage frames the controversy. Robinson said she has had a target on her back since much earlier, as a Jewish woman with emotional, spiritual and familial connections to Israel. That targeting came from within her own party, she claims, and she went into some depth about her fights with fellow New Democrats in recent months and years over the issue.<\/p>\n
During the January webinar, Robinson said that the area designated for a Jewish state under the 1947 United Nations Partition Resolution was \u201ca crappy piece of land with nothing on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She immediately clarified in the webinar that there were people living there and she was referring to the arability of the land and the limited economic development in the region. But the genie was out of the bottle. Robinson told the Independent <\/i>that what happened in the succeeding weeks \u2013 and continues roiling \u2013 is not so much a result of what she said, but of who she is.<\/p>\n
Marvin Rotrand, the outgoing national director of B\u2019nai Brith\u2019s League for Human Rights, was host of the now-notorious webinar. In a statement afterward, he said that a small part of Robinson\u2019s speech was distorted and taken out of context, leading to a campaign against her by groups and individuals \u201ctoo well known for their hate of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within days, thousands had signed a petition calling for Robinson\u2019s firing. Leaders of more than a dozen mosques and Islamic associations sent a letter to Eby warning that NDP representatives would not be welcome in their sacred spaces as long as Robinson remained in cabinet. Days later, her constituency office was vandalized \u2013 including with the words \u201cZionism is Nazism\u201d \u2013 and she received a death threat that international police organizations deem credible.<\/p>\n While pressure was building, Robinson and Eby both appeared to be feeling their way through uncharted territory. Robinson apologized \u2013 twice. She also offered to take anti-Islamophobia training.<\/p>\n \u201cMy words were inappropriate, wrong, and I now understand how they have contributed to Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Parallels Robinson drew between Indigenous peoples in British Columbia and Jewish indigeneity in Israel also brought condemnations, and she specifically apologized for those remarks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe experiences of First Nations people are not mine to manipulate,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was wrong and I am deeply sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHer comments increase divisions in our province,\u201d Eby told media. \u201cThey increase the feelings of alienation of groups of people, especially people of Palestinian descent and people who are concerned about the death and the destruction in Palestine that is happening right now.<\/p>\n \u201cShe has apologized unequivocally, as she should. And she\u2019s got some more work to do,\u201d Eby said. Robinson, the premier told media, was in the process of reaching out to community leaders to repair the damage her remarks caused.<\/p>\n What happened in those hours sowed the seeds for further conflict within the party, including, Robinson now says, the premier\u2019s refusal to allow her to do what she could do \u2013 and wanted to do \u2013 to\u00a0<\/span>repair the damage she caused.<\/p>\n Was she wrong?<\/b><\/p>\n Some commentators have defended Robinson, saying that pre-state Israel was indeed a crappy piece of land in terms of arability. Robinson reflected on what she said and the reaction to it.<\/p>\n \u201cI said things that I did not intend to hurt anybody,\u201d she said. \u201cI did not intend to make Arab, Muslim or Palestinian people feel like they are \u2018less than.\u2019 I understand that just the way I described Israel made them feel like they were poor land stewards, that they somehow were to blame for the conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, she said, she did not invent a narrative that Mandatory Palestine was a poor piece of land, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cOther people have characterized [pre-state] Israel in that way,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t create that narrative. I was repeating a narrative that others had stated, from Mark Twain to land economists.\u201d<\/p>\n For the purposes of historical accuracy, she said, she blames the Ottomans, whose empire had controlled the land for 400 years, for a lack of economic vibrancy in the region. That long-ago history, though, does not mean her words did not affect contemporary audiences, she acknowledged.<\/p>\n \u201cThose words impacted them,\u201d she said of people who expressed disappointment and other emotions at her remarks.<\/p>\n Criticism she rejects, though, are assertions that she espoused hate.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t espouse hate,\u201d she said, slowly, quietly and firmly. \u201cI said words that hurt people. There was no hate in those words.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These nuances, for what they may be worth, made no difference when it came to Robinson\u2019s continuation as a cabinet minister.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Jumped or pushed?<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cThe depth of the work that Minister Robinson needs to do, in order to address the harms that she\u2019s caused, is significant,\u201d the premier told media Feb. 5. \u201c[S]he screwed up, she made a really significant error and so we need to address the harm that was caused by that.\u201d<\/p>\n At a news conference, Eby said a \u201cjoint decision\u201d was made that Robinson would leave cabinet.<\/p>\n While she agreed to that wording, Robinson told the Independent<\/i>, that is not a correct assessment of what happened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t think that I needed to leave cabinet,\u201d she said. \u201cThat was not my choice. The premier was insistent that I had to.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson says Eby seized on something she said during discussions around her future.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018If you are asking me to step down from cabinet, if that\u2019s what you want, I will,\u2019\u201d Robinson recalled. \u201cIt\u2019s not what I want. And he said, \u2018I can\u2019t see a path forward for you in cabinet.\u2019 So I said, \u2018So you\u2019re asking me to resign.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson said she insisted the announcement from the premier\u2019s office say that the premier asked her to resign.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd they said, no, you offered your resignation,\u201d Robinson continued. \u201cAnd I said \u2026 the most you\u2019ll get from me is that it was a joint decision and that\u2019s what the press release [said], a \u2018joint decision.\u2019 But \u2026 let\u2019s be really clear, as I said in my letter [resigning from caucus], I was told that there was no path back.\u201d<\/p>\n Eby denies this.<\/p>\n \u201cI did not remove her,\u201d the premier told the Independent<\/i>. \u201cI can certainly believe that she didn\u2019t want to do that, but I did accept her resignation.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Leaving caucus<\/b><\/p>\n Robinson\u2019s successive apologies and commitment to undergo anti-Islamophobia training didn\u2019t save her cabinet job. But, she said, she was committed to making amends.<\/p>\n \u201cThe concept of teshuvah<\/i> [repentance], for us as Jews, I take it seriously,\u201d Robinson said, \u201cIt\u2019s not enough to say you\u2019re sorry, what are the deeds that go with it?\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson came up with an idea she terms \u201cThe Project.\u201d<\/p>\n In the aftermath of her firing, followed by the vandalizing of her constituency office and a death threat, Robinson and her family took off for a week in Mexico to recuperate.<\/p>\n \u201cI called the premier from Mexico and said I have an idea, what do you think?\u201d she recalled. \u201cIt was around outreach, working with the [Jewish and Muslim] communities, bringing them together \u2026 what did he think?<\/p>\n \u201cAnd he said that\u2019s a really interesting idea, let\u2019s think about it,\u201d Robinson said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When she returned from Mexico, she talked to the premier\u2019s chief of staff, Matt Smith. She fleshed the idea out some more, proposing that she and perhaps someone from the civil service \u2013 a Jewish person and a Muslim person \u2013 \u201cwould work with these communities and try to find ways to do dialogue and engagement and break bread and do the things that bring about peace and what could that look like,\u201d said Robinson. She discussed the concept with Deborah Lyons, Canada\u2019s special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, who was supportive and offered to do anything she could to support the effort, Robinson said.<\/p>\n After contemplating the idea, Smith came back with his decision: \u201cToo political,\u201d Smith said, according to Robinson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The premier told the Independent<\/i> that the idea that a civil servant would work on the project with an elected official is what was \u201ctoo political.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson doesn\u2019t believe that. \u201cIt was more, we\u2019d prefer to be silent on the whole thing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Silence, she contends, is a root of the entire problem \u2013 not just with her firing but around the government\u2019s approach to antisemitism. The premier and the government, she contends, are more concerned with success in this fall\u2019s election than with doing the right thing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are in election mode,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd, frankly, we\u2019ve been in election mode since [Eby] became the premier [in November 2022]. I get it. I\u2019m a politician. I understand the gig, I know how these things work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHowever,\u201d she said, \u201cwe are also government. We are a party trying to get reelected and we are government, and you have to be able to do both at the same time. It\u2019s hard. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s easy. But you can\u2019t give up the governing part and just do campaign mode. You campaign and you govern simultaneously and I think what\u2019s happened is they stopped governing. A government says, we have a problem, what are we going to put in place to help this community that is being terrorized? And it\u2019s controversial, because there are others who think it\u2019s appropriate to terrorize this community. I think what governments are supposed to do is bring people together. Right now, the actions are ripping people apart.\u201d<\/p>\n The fact that the premier\u2019s office would not allow her to engage her colleagues in a broader discussion about both antisemitism and Islamophobia led her to believe there was nothing she could do that would satisfy the government.<\/p>\n \u201cI committed to a number of deeds and have acted on them and that still wasn\u2019t good enough,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While the government seemed unsatisfied with her efforts, many Muslim people have been more forgiving, she said. Many have expressed forgiveness for her words and accepted her apologies \u2013 she has accepted Iftar invitations and extended seder invitations to Muslim friends and acquaintances, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are Arab and Muslim leaders that I have had wonderful conversations with, heartfelt conversations,\u201d she said. \u201cI could hear the agony in their voice and they could hear the agony in mine.\u201d<\/p>\n That kind of amity, though, was not something she found among her NDP colleagues. On March 6, her 60th birthday, Robinson released a statement resigning from the NDP caucus.<\/p>\n Harsh words for Heyman<\/b><\/p>\n The day after Robinson\u2019s resignation, the premier\u2019s office organized a news conference at the Legislature. George Heyman, BC minister of environment and climate change strategy, told the media that he took exception to the assertion that Robinson\u2019s resignation represented \u201cour government [having] lost the only Jewish voice in our caucus or cabinet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey should know,\u201d said Heyman, \u201cthat I\u2019m also Jewish. I grew up as a Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n His experience in the NDP, Heyman said, does not comport with Robinson\u2019s perceptions.<\/p>\n \u201cMy experience is that our caucus and our cabinet are deeply committed to fighting antisemitism, to opposing hatred and I have found them to be personally supportive of me on an ongoing basis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was trotted out as the new Jew, which was a shonda<\/i> [shame], as they say, on so many different levels,\u201d claims Robinson. \u201cI believe George was put up to it. I know how things work. They didn\u2019t want me to be the only Jewish voice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut George doesn\u2019t identify as a Jew,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s told that to so many people. He\u2019s not connected to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson thinks Heyman allowed himself to be used.<\/p>\n \u201cYou thought it was OK? So, the premier asks you, you could have said I\u2019m not going to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Heyman takes exception to Robinson\u2019s comments about his identity and especially about the idea that he was put up to anything.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who know me know that I don\u2019t do things that I don\u2019t want to do,\u201d he told the Independent<\/i>. Heyman said he was moved to address the issue as soon as he heard opposition MLAs claim the government had lost its only Jewish voice.<\/p>\n On the larger issue of his identity, Heyman said it is up to individuals to self-define.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s actually my and every Jew\u2019s right and responsibility to determine in what ways they identify and connect with their own heritage, which is not the same as practising a particular religion,\u201d he said. \u201cMy position as a child of Holocaust refugees and as a grandchild of Holocaust victims is, I think, fairly well known. I certainly haven\u2019t hidden it. I may not be a member of the Jewish community in the same way that Selina is. I am not a practising Jew, but to say that I don\u2019t identify as a Jew I think is simply inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n Is it antisemitism?<\/b><\/p>\n Robinson said media have tended to misrepresent her comments about antisemitism in the NDP. She did not say the party was rife with antisemites. Her letter of resignation from caucus included several incidents \u2013 and most of these were matters of record. She herself has experienced antisemitism directly only from two colleagues, she said.<\/p>\n Immediately after the Oct. 7 terror attacks, Robinson said, she sent a message to her colleagues noting that the Jewish community in British Columbia was experiencing trauma as a result of what was happening, including the murder of a young Vancouver man, Ben Mizrachi, and expressions of solidarity and condolences were in order.<\/p>\n Days later, she said, two of her colleagues \u2013 Aman Singh, MLA for Richmond-Queensborough and parliamentary secretary for the environment, and Katrina Chen, MLA for Burnaby-Lougheed \u2013 responded to her message by stating that the government should express solidarity with Palestinians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThree days after, maybe four days after the massacre, [they] felt that it was appropriate to put out a statement about how Palestinians were treated,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cBen Mizrachi hadn\u2019t been buried yet. The [Israeli military] hadn\u2019t responded.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson was outraged.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t about that,\u201d she said of responding to expressions of Jewish suffering with demands for solidarity with Palestinians. \u201cCould you not take a moment \u2013 a moment \u2013 to reflect on how horrible it is that a terrorist group came in and slaughtered 1,200 people? Just acknowledge it. Just acknowledge that that was wrong and we need to fight against terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson does not understand how people cannot see antisemitism in the erasure of Jewish suffering.<\/p>\n \u201cJewish suffering is discounted,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s [perceived as] not real, it\u2019s fake. It has no value and diminishes another group of people who are suffering.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t a competition of who is suffering more,\u201d Robinson said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n She called the premier immediately upon seeing the messages from Singh and Chen.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, I can\u2019t deal with this. I can\u2019t deal with those two. I just can\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd he said, let me deal with it. I was grateful. It felt like he had my back.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson never heard from Chen, whose social media feed frequently shares Palestinian memes and messages. On the day Robinson released her resignation letter this month, Chen tweeted: \u201cNot wanting to see more kids and people die in Gaza is not antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n An hour after she took it up with the premier, Robinson said, she heard from Singh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Neither Singh nor Chen responded to the Independent<\/i>\u2019s request for comment or clarification on Robinson\u2019s version of events. However, the Independent<\/i> has seen the text Robinson referenced and, in it, Singh called the Oct. 7 attacks \u201cabsolutely horrific\u201d and said Hamas \u201cshould be brought down.\u201d He also expressed empathy with Robinson and her family in Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted us as a caucus just to recognize the pain in Gaza as well,\u201d he wrote, adding that he was not calling on the government to make a statement in that regard, \u201c[b]ut internally I felt that needed to be said.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, the original email Singh sent was on Oct. 12 and, therefore, after the beginning of Israel\u2019s military actions, not before, as Robinson had claimed.<\/p>\n While Chen and Singh did not comment to the Independent<\/i>, Heyman defended them, also noting that the emails Robinson cited were \u201cprivate communications within caucus.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was disturbing to me that her interpretation of actions of a number of my colleagues were that they were antisemitic,\u201d Heyman said. \u201cThese are colleagues I respect. I\u2019ve had many conversations with them and I know how deeply committed they are to fighting antisemitism and to fighting all forms of hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson, in any event, did not consider Singh\u2019s text an apology and did not respond. Nor has she spoken to Singh since.<\/p>\n \u201cIf he had come up to me and said, \u2018Selina, you never acknowledged my apology, can we talk about it?\u2019 I would have,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I really felt like he did not get it.\u201d<\/p>\n Not getting it is, Robinson thinks, the problem. It is not that her colleagues are overt Jew-haters, but that they do not know what antisemitism looks like and refuse to take the time to find out.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I tell them is you don\u2019t know enough about antisemitism in its newest form,\u201d she said. \u201cI think for them it\u2019s name-calling, swastikas \u2013 I think that for them is really clear. The new form of antisemitism that we are seeing \u2026 [includes] the delegitimization of Israel, [the idea] that Jews are responsible for Israel\u2019s political decisions or military decisions, Israel as colonizer, Jews as white people, therefore, the oppressor \u2013 I don\u2019t think they have a frame for how to make sense of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic, she said. Denying Israel\u2019s right to exist, which is the position of many of the people who wanted her out of office, is.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat you\u2019re saying is Jews shouldn\u2019t have a homeland, that their history of continually being pushed out of those lands over time, over millennia, you want that to continue,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a nation-state, then that contributes to Jew-hatred.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Taking the North American settler-colonialism model and applying that lens to Israel and Palestine is simply wrong, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is inaccurate, it is a false narrative, it is patently not true. And, as a result, they are engaging in antisemitism,\u201d said Robinson, whose own comparison of North American indigeneity to the Middle Eastern model drew condemnation. \u201cI don\u2019t think that they want to be antisemitic but they are, because they don\u2019t understand and they\u2019re not taking the time to learn how that history is different from this history here in North America. I think that\u2019s where those folks are going wrong. What\u2019s the solution? Education. Learn the history. And you\u2019re not going to get it from TikTok and you not going to get it from Twitter, so you need to do some \u2013 I\u2019ll use the premier\u2019s words \u2013 you need to do some deep learning.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to her former colleagues, Robinson believes their culpability comes from a combination of fear of failure and refusal to learn.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t recognize this form of antisemitism and so they are silent because they\u2019re afraid of saying the wrong thing one way or the other,\u201d she said. \u201cBut their silence is deafening and no one is saying, I want to learn more about this.\u201d<\/p>\n Though that\u2019s not quite accurate. One colleague, after she left cabinet, and another after she left caucus, reached out to Robinson and said they have been looking to learn more about antisemitism.<\/p>\n One asked her why they, as elected officials, are not trained in this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWell, you\u2019d better ask the premier,\u201d she responded.<\/p>\n Battling Zionists<\/b><\/p>\n In her letter of resignation from caucus, Robinson mentioned several colleagues by name, among them Mable Elmore, MLA for Vancouver-Kensington. Elmore\u2019s example is one that has come up repeatedly among Robinson\u2019s defenders in recent weeks as an example of someone who has gotten away with comments that are arguably worse than anything Robinson expressed.<\/p>\n In November, Mable Elmore rose in the house to make a routine statement. Instead, Robinson said, she went off script and delivered a two-minute talk about people dying in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cBut she never made reference to the massacre on Oct. 7,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cShe never tied this as a response to terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n Elmore is parliamentary secretary responsible for antiracism initiatives under the attorney general.<\/p>\n Leaders in the Jewish community, Robinson said, have long been wary of Elmore. At the start of her political career, Elmore got in hot water for voicing a conspiracy about \u201cvocal Zionists\u201d in her workplace that she and other union activists had to \u201cbattle.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey were always anxious about Mable, given her history,\u201d said Robinson of leaders in the mainstream Jewish community. \u201cWhen she was made parliamentary secretary for antiracism, [Jewish communal leaders] expressed concerns to me but they said … we believe people can change [and] learn, and so they went along with it.<\/p>\n \u201cThen, when Mable did her two-minute statement in November that sort of disconnected what\u2019s happening in Gaza right now from the attack on Oct. 7 and left out a big chunk of the story, [Jewish community leaders] were outraged,\u201d said Robinson. \u201cThey were absolutely outraged. I went to the premier\u2019s office with my own outrage and then, of course, communicated the community\u2019s outrage.\u201d<\/p>\n Jewish leaders, according to Robinson, were asking for Elmore to be taken off the antiracism file completely. Instead, she said, the premier left Elmore in charge of antiracism initiatives but removed her responsibility for liaising with the Jewish community on issues involving racism. Dealing with the Jews on antisemitism and broader antiracism approaches would be handed over to Attorney General Niki Sharma.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is where the story gets really interesting,\u201d Robinson said. Eight weeks after the premier removed antisemitism and liaising with Jews from the government\u2019s point person on antiracism and handed those responsibilities over to the more senior attorney general, Robinson reached out to Sharma after the Vancouver Police Department released a report that anti-Jewish hate crimes in the city had spiked 62% in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been eight weeks now since [Sharma] has been responsible for the file. The Jewish community is reeling, numbers are through the roof,\u201d said Robinson, who said she asked Sharma what the government was doing. \u201cShe had done nothing from November on. She hadn\u2019t met with the [Jewish] community. She had no plan.\u201d<\/p>\n Sharma promised to get Robinson a brief on how her department and the government intended to address the increase in hate-motivated crimes against Jewish individuals and institutions. Robinson never received it.<\/p>\n Disputed events<\/b><\/p>\n In the hours after Robinson released her letter to caucus, Premier David Eby addressed the controversy repeatedly with media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI wish she had brought her concerns to me directly so we could have worked through them together,\u201d he said at one point. Later, he said, \u201cShe didn\u2019t feel safe with me to bring forward her concerns and she felt she had to resign. So, I\u2019ll examine that.\u201d<\/p>\n Eby\u2019s comments infuriate Robinson. \u201cWhen the premier says that I never came to him \u2013 this is the part that really makes me crazy \u2013 I did,\u201d she told the Independent<\/i>. \u201cI was even coming with solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n Those solutions did not seem to move the dial in terms of any redemption Robinson might have expected for what she sees as good-faith efforts to make amends and her proposals to help address antisemitism and Islamophobia in government.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Target on her back<\/b><\/p>\n Robinson felt she had a target on her back \u2013 and not only since the \u201ccrappy piece of land\u201d incident.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were targets even during convention,\u201d she said. Before the BC NDP convention last November, Robinson warned the premier\u2019s office that several delegates and groups were going to bring forward emergency resolutions about the war in Gaza.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI kept saying, we are a subnational government, we don\u2019t do international relations,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cI don\u2019t even know why we would entertain international commentary.\u201d<\/p>\n Convention organizers apparently felt there was a need to allow some delegates to blow off steam. Robinson said she and others then strove to create a relatively balanced resolution, \u201cand that work happened behind the scenes.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBut there were people calling for my head back then, back in November,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In her capacity as minister responsible for BC postsecondary institutions, Robinson gained the wrath in February of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC and the Canadian Association of University Teachers, who called on Eby to oust Robinson. The latter group accused Robinson of undermining \u201cthe democratic principles of freedom of expression, academic freedom, and a college and university system free of direct manipulation by the provincial government\u201d because Robinson had retweeted a call for Langara College to fire Dr. Natalie Knight, an\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n English instructor who referred to the mass murders of Oct. 7 as \u201camazing\u201d and \u201cbrilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result of Robinson\u2019s vocal and visible presence on these issues, she said, there were people \u201cpaying very close attention to what I said, how I said it, when I said it. So, I was a target \u2013 I still am a target, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n Warning signs?<\/b><\/p>\n While Robinson has felt a target on her back, including from some in her own party, there is a larger trend that has nothing directly to do with her, arguably going back to 1967 or before, when the Canadian left\u2019s approach to Israel and Palestine began transitioning from a largely pro-Zionist position. With a few notable exceptions, NDP elected officials and rank-and-file members for several decades now have aligned more with the Palestinian cause than the Israeli one. While criticism of Israel may or may not be fair, depending on context, some people, including some longtime party members, have written the party off as poisoned by antisemitism.<\/p>\n Bernie Simpson is one of only a handful of Jewish British Columbians ever elected to the provincial Legislature. He was the New Democratic MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview from 1991 to 1996, but his roots in the party go back decades earlier. He was mentored by Dave Barrett, the first and still only Jewish premier of the province, and Simpson was at the upper echelons of the NDP from the 1960s.<\/p>\n Throughout that time, he told the Independent<\/i>, he struggled against far-left \u201cideologues.\u201d He eventually left the party about 25 years ago, in large part because of the prominence of anti-Israel voices like Svend Robinson and Libby Davies.<\/p>\n \u201cI always felt, in the years that I was involved with the NDP, that there was underlying antisemitism,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize the extent of antisemitism in the NDP until Selina brought it to the world\u2019s attention, and good for her.\u201d<\/p>\n Simpson believes Eby is beholden to certain segments of his caucus.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has to appease the left-wing ideologues or else he\u2019d have a revolt and probably they could undermine his leadership,\u201d Simpson said. \u201cThey are quite capable of doing that, the left wing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCan a party be antisemitic?\u201d Robinson asked. \u201cWell, people make up a party. So, it depends who is there.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2021, she called on the resolutions committee of the federal NDP convention to get some perspective on foreign affairs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they had their convention, they had the top 25 resolutions [and] 16 of them [or] 15 of them, were anti-Israel,\u201d she said. \u201cReally, people? Do you not care what\u2019s happening in Chad, or the Congo, or to the Uyghurs? What is your obsession? I reached out to them and I called the people in charge of the resolutions committee and the response was, and I quote, \u2018It has been ever thus.\u2019 I was stunned.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you not reflect on your obsession and where that\u2019s coming from?\u201d she asked. \u201cI get it if you have one or two [resolutions about Israel]. I don\u2019t like Israeli government decisions, what they\u2019re doing. For sure, challenge this [Israeli] government in terms of the decisions that they are making. You only have so much time to debate your resolutions, but you want to spend three days debating Israel? Then you\u2019re not a party I can take seriously to represent us as Canadians. Not on China, not on Iran, not on these really big, despotic nations. Nope. It\u2019s just the Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n Under the late Jack Layton, who was leader of the federal NDP from 2003 to 2011, Robinson said, things were not as bad as they are now.<\/p>\n![\"image](\"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mar-22-cov.22.Robinson_Eby-announcing-stepping-down-Feb-5-2024.png\")
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