BDS – Page 3

Academics reject boycott

Prof. Cary Nelson, an opponent of the academic boycott of Israel, teaches at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (photo from cjnews.com)

Opponents of an academic boycott of Israel scored back-to-back victories at a conference of the Modern Language Association (MLA) earlier this month, defeating a pro-boycott resolution while gaining sufficient votes to pass a resolution that calls on the organization to specifically refrain from endorsing a boycott.

The second of the resolutions at the Jan. 5-8 event, which passed by a 101-93 margin, stated that the Palestinian campaign for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel “contradicts the MLA’s purpose to promote teaching and research” and would curtail debates with Israeli academics, “thereby blocking possible dialogue and scholarly exchange.”

The first, pro-boycott resolution, which accused Israeli universities of perpetuating violations of international law while denying academic freedom and educational rights to Palestinians, was defeated by a vote of 113 to 79.

A third resolution, which refers to attacks on Palestinian scholars and students by Palestinian political organizations, was shelved after the first two successful votes, according to Prof. Cary Nelson, an opponent of the academic boycott of Israel.

“We got everything we asked for,” said Nelson, who teaches modern poetry and literary theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “We weren’t so confident going in.”

According to the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, about a dozen academic organizations have endorsed the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, including the African Literature Association, the American Studies Association, the Association for Humanist Sociology, the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Annual Conference, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.

The MLA was founded in 1883 to strengthen the study and teaching of languages and literatures.

Nelson, author of The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel, said he has been fighting boycott-related resolutions at the MLA for 10 years, and he expects similar motions attacking Israel will continue at the next delegate assembly in 2018.

Boycott advocacy at the MLA has been trending up among younger faculty members in the last three years, Nelson said, but opponents also have been recruiting support from younger academics. Most MLA members are agnostic about the issue and would rather the organization stick to matters that concern them, he added.

Nelson said opponents of the boycott resolution worked hard on the floor at the convention in Philadelphia to convince delegates to oppose a boycott. “We tried to convince members it’s none of the MLA’s business. It doesn’t need a foreign policy,” he said.

Opponents circulated a 10,000-word report on the issue, outlining the case against boycott and noting factual misrepresentations in the case being presented by its proponents.

Rebecca Comay, a professor of philosophy and comparative literature at the University of Toronto, was one of two co-sponsors of the pro-boycott resolution at the MLA conference.

“After five decades of a brutal military occupation, with the situation only deteriorating, it is time for the international community to act,” she said, explaining why she pushed the boycott resolution. “Given that there is no prospect of significant change happening from within (and as the Israeli leadership moves ever rightward), BDS is the most effective means – at this point the only means – of intervening on behalf of Palestinian human rights.

“Boycott is a non-violent, legal tactic that has historically proved effective in seemingly intractable situations. South Africa is a pertinent example,” she told the CJN via email. Comay said Palestinians have been “dispossessed, disenfranchised and stripped of the fundamental human rights that we take for granted. These rights include a basic right to education and academic freedom.”

Asked why Israel should be singled out, Comay responded, “Israel is susceptible to boycott in a way that other countries (Saudi Arabia, Syria, Russia, etc.) simply are not. As the so-called ‘only democracy in the Middle East,’ Israel is actually susceptible to global public opinion, as the panicked reaction to the BDS movement clearly demonstrates. Israel has in any case already been ‘singled out’: it receives an unprecedented amount of U.S. military and economic aid (to the tune of $38 billion over the next 10 years) – [former president Barack] Obama’s parting gift to Israel – that’s more than to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined.”

Nelson said the BDS movement is growing within the humanities and social sciences, but less so in the hard sciences. However, much of the propaganda it advances is inaccurate, he said, noting that Israel has doubled the number of Palestinian and Arab students in Israeli universities in just the last 10 years. The student body at some schools, like the Technion and the University of Haifa, where he’s an affiliated professor, is more than 25% Arab, he said.

Yael Halevi-Wise, an associate professor in the English department at McGill University, said a small but influential group of leftist academics – “the radical caucus” – has been pushing the boycott proposal for several years.

“If you look at the BDS strategy, it’s a form of bullying. Omar Barghouti takes credit for the BDS and he says he would like to help Israel euthanize itself,” she said.

Halevi-Wise said the boycott effort “is an attempt to isolate and demonize our fellow colleagues in Israel.” Most of those colleagues, she said, are pro-peace and support a two-state solution, and some of the professors who would be affected are Arabs, she said.

“We had to work very hard to get through, because Israel is being maligned so frequently,” she added.

The resolution urging the MLA to refrain from boycotts now goes to the group’s executive council, which will determine if there are legal or constitutional issues posed by its language. From there, it will be forwarded to the organization’s membership for ratification.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com

May defends new resolution

Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May. (photo from cjnews.com)

Federal Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May said she was able to support a revised policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it rejects the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, but still puts the onus on the Jewish state to move towards a two-state solution.

At a special general meeting held Dec. 3-4 in Calgary, 350 members voted to pass a policy titled “Measures to pressure the government of Israel to preserve the two-state solution: addendum to current

Middle East policy.” It replaced a policy titled “Palestinian self-determination and the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions” that passed in August at a Green party convention in Ottawa.

“It needs to be said very clearly that the BDS movement does not understand the issue properly and is in fact undermining the peace process itself,” May told the CJN the day after the addendum passed.

Immediately following the August convention, May firmly opposed the policy that supported the BDS movement.

“The reason I couldn’t accept our policy in August is because it looked very much as though we were adopting the BDS movement. And the BDS movement, although there are well-meaning people who support it, when you get down to it, their core goals do not include at all … the right of the state of Israel to exist,” May said.

At that time, May considered stepping down as leader as a result but, following a family vacation, she ultimately announced she would stay on as leader, partly because the party’s executive council agreed to call a special meeting to give members the opportunity to revisit the BDS resolution.

The amended policy states, among other things, that the “Palestinian people are among the indigenous people of the geographic region now designated as Israel and the OPT [occupied Palestinian territory],” and it supports “only non-violent responses to violence and oppression, including economic measures such as government sanctions, consumer boycotts, institutional divestment, economic sanctions and arms embargoes.”

It calls for a ban on products produced “wholly or partly within or by illegal Israeli settlements, or by Israeli businesses directly benefiting from the illegal occupation,” and it calls on the Canadian government to repeal the House of Commons resolution that condemned the BDS movement last February.

According to a statement by Thomas Woodley, president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, Green members voted 85% in favor of the revised policy.

Although the policy remains critical of Israel and still supports boycotts, divestment, sanctions and arms embargoes, its drafters were careful not to specifically endorse the international BDS movement. May insists the Green party is committed to a two-state solution.

“We condemn anyone who imagines that they don’t support, unequivocally, the right of the state of Israel to exist. That prefacing is critical to understanding the addendum,” she said.

“We’ve never been a party that was afraid to say out loud that we are critical of the decisions of the Israeli government from time to time. I think many Israelis are also critical of the decisions of the government from time to time.”

May said retired Israeli generals and intelligence officers who accuse Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of undermining the peace process and weakening security for Israelis “make the case better than we can as Canadian Greens that there needs to be a course correction on the occupation, expansion of illegal settlements and so on…. We’d rather be aligning ourselves with criticisms that come from within the state of Israel, than with a movement that doesn’t understand the critical necessity to defend the right of the state of Israel to exist.”

May said she understands that the policy won’t sit well with many members of the Jewish community, but added, “There are a limited number of mechanisms that governments and parties can use to signal to a foreign government that we think you’re making a mistake here, while at the same time, remaining allies.”

Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said in a statement that the group condemns the resolution, “which confirms the Green party has been co-opted by extreme activists who – in their obsessive campaign of prejudice against Israelis – threaten the party’s own credibility and relevance in Canadian politics.

“The new policy is rife with historical distortions and places the Green party at odds with the Canadian consensus that BDS is discriminatory and counter-productive to peace. The Ontario legislature just voted by a tenfold margin to reject the differential treatment of Israel, underscoring how out of touch the Green party has become.”

The statement also pointed to the policy’s assertion that Palestinians are Israel’s “indigenous people,” and the implication that Jews have no ancestral or indigenous roots in Israel.

“Elizabeth May and the party’s leadership have turned their backs on the mainstream Jewish community, including the many Jewish Greens who no longer feel welcome,” he said, adding that despite calling attention to the Green party that the vote would take place on Shabbat, excluding observant Jews from the vote, the vote was held on Dec. 3.

Although May rejected the idea of boycotting Israel, she made a distinction between “legal Israel” and “illegal Israel.”

“I’d go out of my way to buy a product that is labeled a product of Israel from within the legal boundaries of Israel. But, personally, I prefer not to buy products that come from an area that is in illegally occupied territories, which, again, even retired members of the Israeli Defence Forces are saying are making life less secure for legal Israel.”

B’nai Brith Canada chief executive officer Michael Mostyn said he was encouraged by the rejection of the BDS movement.

“No matter how the party came to this position, it is a positive thing for Canadians that, once again, the antisemitic BDS movement has been rejected. It is especially significant given the amount of energy, time and resources being poured into the promotion of the antisemitic BDS movement by certain factions within the Green party.”

That being said, Mostyn added there is still misinformation in the policy.

“For example, the very characterization of settlements as ‘illegal’ under Article 49 of the Geneva Convention is either a deliberate misreading of that document, or complete ignorance of international law,” he said.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com

Greens’ policy on Israel

On Saturday, Dec. 3, at a meeting in Calgary, the Green Party of Canada (GPC) passed a resolution updating the party’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict. It puts the entire onus for the conflict’s continuation on Israel, specifically on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

“The possibility of a two-state solution is diminishing directly due to the Netanyahu government’s support for illegal expansion and increasingly brutal military occupation,” reads the Dec. 4 statement on the Green party’s website. “Even over 200 former members of Israeli Defence Forces (‘Security First’ [plan for West Bank, Gaza]) have decried the worsening security situation for Israelis and Palestinians – and laid the blame directly on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s policies. The former Israeli military officers have raised the alarm of a ‘humanitarian crisis in Gaza’ and the diminishing chances for a two-state solution.

“Clearly,” continues the statement, “Canada needs to do more to register with the Israeli government that flouting international law and threatening the security of its own people while violating the human rights of Palestinians is not acceptable. In doing so, Canada must continue to condemn violence from the militant elements of Palestinian society.”

While rejecting the boycott, divestment and sanction movement – as its goals “do not include supporting the right of the state of Israel to exist” and are “incompatible with Green party policy”– the addendum to the party’s policy “is based on clear differentiation between ‘legal’ Israel, as within the 1967 borders, a democracy respecting the rights of citizens of all ethnicities within its borders, and ‘illegal’ Israel – the occupied territories beyond Israel’s legal borders. The Palestinian civilians within the occupied territories are subjected to virtual continual abuses of their human rights. The occupied territories are maintained under a brutal military occupation. Products from illegal Israel should not be granted the preferred trading status of products of legal Israel.”

With this in mind, the Green party would like to see the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement renegotiated, the “termination and indefinite suspension of all military and surveillance trade and cooperation” between Canada and Israel, and the repeal of “the House of Commons resolution condemning the BDS movement.”

According to the Dec. 3 article “Greens vote for new Israel policy without BDS” by James Munson on ipolitics.ca, “Approximately [350] members voted on the ‘compromise’ resolution that purged the party’s policies of any reference to the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which pressures companies, governments and institutions with ties to Israel.”

The article cites Green party president Ken Melamed as saying, “The party wanted to be careful not to align with a particular organization or movement. The essence of it, I think, is that the party feels that diplomatic approaches to achieving peace and justice in the Middle East have been ineffective and it’s time to move to economic actions.”

The article said that, according to Melamed, about 85% of those who voted at the meeting supported the resolution – others opposed or abstained – but that it still had to be voted on electronically by all 20,000 party members before it became official policy.

Shimon Koffler Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), condemned the resolution. In a Dec. 3 statement, he noted, “The new policy is rife with historical distortions and places the Green party at odds with the Canadian consensus that BDS is discriminatory and counter-productive to peace. The Ontario legislature just voted by a tenfold margin to reject the differential treatment of Israel, underscoring how out of touch the Green party has become.

“Elizabeth May and the party’s leadership have turned their backs on the mainstream Jewish community, including the many Jewish Greens who no longer feel welcome. Despite repeatedly flagging that the anti-Israel vote was scheduled to take place on the Jewish sabbath, senior Green party officials insisted on holding the vote today, thereby excluding many Jewish Green party members from voting. This is an alarming development and a stunning failure of leadership.”

The December resolution replaces a resolution that was passed at the Green party convention in August.

In the backgrounder to Fogel’s statement, CIJA notes, “The party’s decision to endorse economic penalties against Israel is incompatible with the wishes of the party’s grassroots. A survey of Green members conducted by the party after their convention revealed that, of 2,800 respondents, 28% agreed with the decision to support BDS, 44% wanted it repealed and 28% thought it should be amended to remove any reference to a specific movement or country.”

The backgrounder further explains, “The text’s exclusive recognition of Palestinians as ‘the indigenous people’ of the region implies that Jewish people have no ancestral or indigenous roots in Israel. This misleading suggestion contradicts millennia of archeological and documentary evidence.”

And, CIJA warns, “The one-sided nature of the resolution and its call for extreme measures against Israel puts the Green party outside the international consensus for achieving peace, which emphasizes the need for both parties to compromise and negotiate.”

Note: This article has been edited to reflect later reports that about 350 party members voted on the resolution, versus the number cited on ipolitics.ca, which was approximately 275.

Ontario rejects BDS

On Dec. 1, the Ontario legislature voted 49-5 to pass Motion 36, which rejects the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement aimed at Israel. The motion was backed both by the Liberals, who form the government, and the opposition Progressive Conservatives.

Tory MPP Gila Martow (Thornhill), who introduced the motion, noted in the legislature prior to the vote that: “BDS is boycotting not just Israel, but all Jews and other supporters of Israel.”

She explained that the BDS movement and its proponents have created a hostile environment at universities.

“We’re trying to make a statement about attitudes in society. I genuinely feel this is the first step in helping our students feel comfortable on campus. They’re choosing what program to study based on what campus they feel comfortable at,” she told the Independent.

“This is not just about BDS – we already went through this with Israel Apartheid Week. I think we need to make it clear from the government on down, we will not allow any type of antisemitism to masquerade as free speech.”

She hopes this message reverberates with school administrators.

“They’ve had tools at their disposal they haven’t bothered to use [to fight campus antisemitism] and I would suggest they might make a bigger effort than they did in the past,” she said.

Martow tipped her hat to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) for their community advocacy on the motion, while Joel Reitman, Greater Toronto Area co-chair of CIJA, noted: “[J]ust as Ontarians rightly oppose all forms of discrimination, our province rejects BDS and other bigoted campaigns against Israelis.”

In a statement, Sara Lefton, CIJA’s vice-president, Greater Toronto Area, added: “It also demonstrates that elected officials across party lines recognize that BDS is tainted by antisemitism. Just as we are grateful that the legislature has taken this stand, we are proud that – in just a few short days – thousands of Ontarians took unified action to urge MPPs to support this motion.”

Adam Minsky, president and chief executive officer of United Jewish Appeal, said: “From students to seniors, from rabbis to grassroots activists, from left to right, our community came together to take tangible action to support Israelis and defeat BDS. The result speaks for itself – and testifies to the power of Israel advocacy to unite and strengthen our community.”

The text of Motion 36 reads: “That, in the opinion of this House, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario should:

“Stand firmly against any position or movement that promotes or encourages any form of hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism and intolerance in any way;

“Recognize the longstanding, vibrant and mutually beneficial political, economic and cultural ties between Ontario and Israel, built on a foundation of shared liberal democratic values;

“Endorse the Ottawa Protocol on Combating Antisemitism;

“And reject the differential treatment of Israel, including the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.”

The motion was a retry, of sorts, of May 19’s Bill 202, “The Standing Up Against Antisemitism in Ontario Act,” defeated by a vote of 39-18.

That particular bill recognized the BDS movement as “one of the main vehicles for spreading antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel globally and [one that] is increasingly promoted on university campuses in Ontario.”

At the time, Martow said that a bill like 202 “has teeth,” and could have financial consequences, versus a motion or a resolution. The failed bill would have compelled the province and its post-secondary institutions to withdraw business interactions with companies supporting BDS. As well, a bill would require passing three readings and unanimous consent, Martow told the Independent – something she wasn’t sure would be possible, so a motion was chosen this time around instead.

For the May bill, the Progressive Conservatives voted in favor, in addition to a single Liberal, Mike Colle, while the NDP as a whole rejected the bill, as they did the recent motion.

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than a hundred publications around the world.

BDS puts Green party in turmoil

In early August, the Green Party of Canada voted at its national convention to endorse boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS) measures against segments of Israel’s economy and society. BDS advocates were quick to claim victory, citing that the Greens are now the first Canadian political party of any significance to support BDS.

But not so fast.

In the wake of the vote, party leader Elizabeth May immediately declared she was “devastated” by the decision and “disappointed that the membership has adopted a policy in favor of a movement that I believe to be polarizing, ineffective and unhelpful in the quest for peace and security for the peoples of the Middle East.” May added that, “as is the right of any member, I will continue to express personal opposition to BDS” – a breath-taking statement to hear from a party leader, particularly when the leader is the party’s sole voice in Parliament.

In the weeks that followed, May openly mused to the media about how this entire episode was causing her to rethink her future in the Green party. In an interview with CBC Radio, May talked about the possibility of walking away from the party: “I would say as of this minute I think I’d have real difficulties going not just to an election but through the next month. There are a lot of issues I want to be talking about with Canadians, and this isn’t one of them.”

And May wasn’t alone. The leader of the Green Party of British Columbia, Andrew Weaver, issued a scathing statement disavowing the federal party’s decision. “This is not a policy that I nor the B.C. Green party support,” said Weaver. “I think the Green Party of Canada needs to take a careful look at their policy process and ask themselves how a policy that goes against Green party values could have been allowed on the floor of a convention.”

Various Green candidates likewise condemned the decision. One from Ottawa said, “I’m in a state of disbelief.… I don’t agree with it, I don’t like having that over me going into [the next] election.” Another, from Halifax, said the policy is “destructive for the party.… Every country has its issues. When we specifically single out Israelis, I worry about the buzzwords and subtext and code language, which is antisemitic.”

A party torn apart. A leader willing to quit. Controversial headlines eclipsing anything else the party intended to highlight coming out of convention. Is this what a BDS victory looks like?

The fight against BDS revolves around psychology much more than economics. Israel’s economy is strong, with trade and ties growing despite calls for BDS. But, on the psychological level, BDS activities have the potential to poison attitudes toward Israel among civil society organizations and demoralize the Jewish community. On both levels, BDS proponents failed when it comes to the Green party.

While May has since declared she will stay on as leader, every Green voter should be outraged that BDS activists – in using the party to promote their own marginal agenda – nearly pushed the Greens’ only voice in Parliament out of the party. If anything, this initiative has exposed the toxic nature of BDS to those it intended to seduce. As CIJA Chair David Cape recently wrote: “Once again, BDS has proven bitterly and publicly divisive for political parties that contemplate endorsing it. In this case, BDS has sown resentment among Greens and come at a great cost for anti-Israel activists.”

And when it comes to the morale of the Jewish community, this issue has mobilized thousands of Jewish Canadians across the political spectrum (including former Green party members) to speak out and condemn the party’s hostility toward Israel. In a matter of weeks, CIJA galvanized some 7,500 Canadians to email the Green party’s leadership to express their opposition to this initiative. Without question, our united efforts had an impact, with May openly admitting BDS is “very clearly a polarizing movement that leaves most of the Jewish community in Canada feeling that it is antisemitic.”

Hopefully, this will spur May and other Greens to take the steps needed to annul the BDS policy and regain control of the party’s direction from those behind this hateful agenda.

Steve McDonald is deputy director, communications and public affairs, at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

Tempest in coffee pot

The BDS movement – which seeks to boycott, divest from and sanction the state of Israel – is having an impact. Though maybe not exactly as they’d hoped.

There was a tempest in a coffee pot recently when an East Vancouver café waded into the topic, angering some customers and, we surmise, perhaps some of the establishment’s own employees and investors.

As we addressed in this space last week, Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party of Canada, was dismayed by the vote by her party in convention to support the BDS movement. She pondered resigning her position but this week announced that she would remain at the helm and seek to revisit the issue with her party.

A social media feed for Bows & Arrows Coffee, on Fraser Street, declared that May’s lack of support for BDS meant that she “got cowardly” on the issue and “caved.” One online commentator responded that the café’s coffee “tastes a little too antisemitic for my liking.”

After some social media back and forth, the co-owner of the café, which is headquartered in Victoria and only recently opened the Fraser Street location, published a statement acknowledging that he had “tweeted without consultation with staff and business partners.” Seemingly surprised that a simplistic #BDS hashtag and name-calling would elicit strong and equally simplistic reactions, he says that he blocked other posters and deleted tweets. He did these things, he claims, because he “wanted to address real arguments, not stand in a storm of accusers that would not engage or address my criticism of a state.”

Hopefully, he has learned that Twitter is not designed for intelligent and in-depth debate or discussion. More hopefully, perhaps he will now consider the possibility that BDS is not necessarily about “solidarity with oppressed peoples everywhere.”

While BDS supporters, including the one involved in this instance, reject the idea that the movement has any antisemitic elements and insist it targets “Netanyahu’s administration and policies of expansion in the territories,” plenty of evidence exists to suggest that BDS aims to end the existence of a Jewish state and, some would argue, this is perforce antisemitic.

Nonetheless, at least one member of the Jewish community went beyond Twitter and invited the B&A co-owner to discuss the issues surrounding BDS. In his email, the community member included a link to an article by Alan Dershowitz that was published by Haaretz, called “Ten reasons why BDS is immoral and hinders peace.” It can be found on the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ website.

While the brewmaster may contend, as he implies in his statement, that he was a victim of “[t]he silencing that occurs daily via the repetition of the dominant narrative,” what he really experienced was disagreement with his beliefs and a resulting effect on his business. He was not silenced. He voluntarily chose to exit a discussion he started.

In Canada, thankfully, the freedom to speak one’s mind comes with the freedom of others to criticize the views that come from that mind. Such discussions are healthy and can even be enjoyable – especially over a nice cup of coffee.

BDS infiltrates Greens

In a turn of events that party regulars and, really, no Canadians anticipated, Elizabeth May is spending her vacation this week considering whether to resign as leader of the Green Party of Canada.

The impetus, apparently, is her party’s decision at its recent convention to adopt a resolution that attacks Israel and calls for boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning the Jewish state. It’s all part of a movement (shorthanded BDS) that hides behind the language of human rights to separate Israel from the community of nations, while ignoring not just the atrocities perpetrated by the Palestinian governments of Hamas and Fatah but also the most serious human rights abuses in the world.

May made it clear before the convention that she opposed the resolution, though most delegates probably did not realize it was a stay-or-quit litmus for the leader. After the vote, May complained that the issue was not subjected to a fulsome debate at the convention and that she did not have the opportunity to explain why she opposed the policy and why delegates should join her in rejecting BDS. Still, most delegates would surely have known how their leader – who earlier this year was endorsed in a leadership review with a whopping 93% – stood on the issue, given extensive media coverage.

There was something odd even in some of the remarks by opponents of the BDS policy, which emphasized the electoral albatross BDS would hang around the party’s neck, rather than the inherent immorality and hypocrisy of BDS. Critics seemed to assume BDS is a vote-loser, but is this assumption based on the fact that informed Canadians would oppose the movement? Or on the stereotype-founded idea that messing with the “Zionist lobby” is a no-win proposition? This may be unfair criticism if we assume rational people equate immoral, hypocritical policies with electoral failure.

May has spent a decade attempting to put the Green Party of Canada on the political map and succeeded, in 2011, in becoming the first Green MP elected to Canada’s House of Commons. She was reelected in 2015. She is almost certainly the only Green party public figure most Canadians can identify. Without her at the helm, the party would lose its sole recognizable face.

After the convention vote, May said there were plenty of issues she was happy to defend going into the next federal election, but BDS is not one of them. The anti-Israel movement has put her in this spot and it is an object lesson for Canadian politics more broadly.

BDS is a parasitic movement, attempting to infiltrate vulnerable hosts like the Green party and other well-intentioned trade unions, academic groups and social justice movements with an ideology that is not progressive at all, but anti-democratic and anti-intellectual.

BDS, and the anti-Israel movement more broadly, has attempted and in many cases succeeded in convincing progressive Canadians that they share values and ideals. Had the Green party engaged in the fulsome debate May says she wishes had happened, there would have been an opportunity to point out that BDS presents a one-sided, unbalanced interpretation of events that does not advance peace, that demonizes Israel and that makes common cause with the world’s most misogynist, homophobic and illiberal forces.

It was when the New Democratic Party of Canada was at its lowest ebb, in the 1990s and early 2000s, that the party’s policy was co-opted by extremists who used the language of human rights to advance an anti-Israel agenda that was anything but rights-oriented. Since then, the anti-Israel movement (because, as we have reiterated here, “pro-Palestinian” does not do justice to the injustices the movement excuses) has tried to graft itself onto any emerging cause.

It began, most visibly, with the eccentric Queers Against Israeli Apartheid – who privilege official Palestinian oppression of LGBTQ people over the reality that Israel is (at the very least) an oasis of freedom for gay people in a desert of sexual repression – and has spread to other movements, including Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter, a desperately necessary effort to confront police violence and systemic discrimination against African-Americans, recently adopted a manifesto rife with boilerplate loathing of Israel and attestations of support for the national cause of Palestinians. Black Lives Matter has no foreign policy, except inasmuch as smearing Israel constitutes a worldview.

Why? Because the anti-Israel movement is adept at playing on the guilt of progressive people and movements to advance an agenda that is, at root, backward, violence-justifying and ignorant of history.

The BDS movement succeeded in co-opting the Green party into adopting its regressive position and now, depending on May’s decision on her future, may have done irreparable harm to the party, as BDS continues to harm the prospect of peace in the Middle East and a better life for Palestinians, the ostensible beneficiaries of the movement.

Fogel on health, Trudeau, BDS

Shimon Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (photo from CIJA)

Shimon Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), was in Vancouver June 20 to speak at the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s annual general meeting. He spoke with the Jewish Independent prior to the gathering.

“CIJA does not regard itself as an independent organization with an independent ego,” he said. “We very much see ourselves as an internal mechanism of the community. We regard making a presentation at the AGM as addressing our stakeholders and providing an assessment of what value we add to the Federation program, and giving an opportunity to receive feedback.

“This takes us back to what the rationale was in consolidating different Jewish organizations together and the value of integrating all of the different silos that emerged in the Jewish community, for good reasons in their time,” he said, referring to the merging of Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canada-Israel Committee to form CIJA in 2011. “Integrating everything ensures that there is an holistic approach. It also provides us with an opportunity to show Canadians that we are not unidimensional. If I were just working within the Canada-Israel Committee, you would think that there were no issues of importance to me other than Israel, but the truth is that I am as seized with the issue of the protection of transgender rights as I am with immigration issues and having a meaningful response to the international refugee crisis.”

The dissolution of CJC and the CIC was controversial at the time, however, and there are community members who still feel their absence.

“We were never sanguine about people’s attachment to the CJC,” said Fogel. “It had a long and storied history. There were points during that history when the CJC shined as an example not just in Canada, but internationally. There was never an intent to diminish that or marginalize the importance that they had. The reality was that the political landscape changed, pressures within the community in terms of limited resources came to bear, and there was a need to eliminate the kind of competition that was emerging between one agenda and another…. Confusion was beginning about this alphabet of acronyms and who does what, and this made it obvious that there was real benefit in consolidation.”

The issues with which CJC dealt remain on CIJA’s agenda, said Fogel. “On balance, at any given time, we’re spending way more than 50% of our time and resources both staff and programming on things other than Israel,” he said.

As an example, the week prior to when Fogel spoke with the Independent, an interfaith coalition called on elected officials “to support a robust, well-resourced, national palliative care strategy.” CIJA was involved in this initiative.

“The recent discussion about physician-assisted dying (PAD) [prompted by Bill C-14] begs a larger question, one that we have been concerned about for a long time, but didn’t lend itself to the kind of focused attention that we were able to secure in the last few weeks,” explained Fogel. “All evidence, if we look at the countries that have adopted some kind of protocol with regard to PAD, points to the conclusion that almost no one in a given society accesses that option to manage their end-of-life situation.

“If we were to translate it to Canadian terms, I don’t know that we would have two dozen a year who would be availing themselves of that option. What that means is a need to ensure that resources are in place to provide support for the individual who is suffering the illness and, no less importantly, for their family members, the front-line caregivers, who are assisting and supporting the individual as they approach end of life. Because there was such a focus on PAD, we felt that it should not be lost in the course of the public policy debate that what’s really important for Canadians to appreciate is that as we are confronted by an aging population and we need to look at improving palliative care options. We had to wrap our heads around a national strategy that was going to ensure the same set of standards that are applied to other dimensions of the health-care system. A discussion now about palliative care is an important and therapeutic complement to the narrow-band discussion about PAD.”

Palliative care covers a much broader range of issues and affects a much larger group of people than PAD. With the aging population, said Fogel, “we have adult children who have become caregivers, who are being torn in multiple directions, between home responsibilities and work, between attending to their parents and attending to their children; it is costing them physically, emotionally and financially.

Accommodation in the workplace is not what it should be, and the provision of relief support is not there in an adequate way and, sometimes, not there at all; for example, in communities outside of the largest urban centres.

“We want governments to direct their attention to this. We are coming up to a new national-provincial agreement on the provision of health care in the next year or so. This is a health-care issue, not a social or political issue. It has to be seen as part and parcel of the package of health-care services that are provided, or there is no hope of getting it addressed in any kind of meaningful way.

“There are things that are unique to the Jewish community but most things are generic and we have to constantly reinforce that the experience of the Jewish community is simply a reflection of the broader experience within Canadian society,” he added. “Because we are a little more sophisticated in our infrastructure and the importance that we attach to communal organization, we are often at the leading edge of issues, so reaching out and partnering with others is both important to advance the issue and provides us with an opportunity to develop relationships that are important both for Canada as a society and for us.”

One of those to whom CIJA reached out was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – well before he and the Liberal party were elected last fall.

“There were some challenging times a number of years ago and, in that period, the Conservative party asserted themselves as a party that was remarkably sensitive and responsive to the needs of the Jewish community, not just with regards to Israel but on issues of antisemitism and inclusion,” Fogel said. “That skewed things perceptually more than they might have been otherwise, but we’ve never stopped investing in the Liberal party.

“People like Justin Trudeau were individuals who we reached out to and brought to Israel long before he was a candidate. He went with his wife and then facilitated all of his advisers to participate in trips to Israel, so we greeted the new government knowing all of the principals and having developed a very, very close and positive relationship.

“That it’s a very different government is beyond question and that’s really genetic to their whole approach to things,” Fogel acknowledged. “They attach a great deal of importance to multilateralism and that’s distinct from the approach of the previous government, which was fond of saying that it was driven by principle and principle alone. The Trudeau government sees inherent value in partnering with other countries. That brings its own challenges because, when you are just responsible for your own opinion, you can articulate whatever opinion you want; when you want to join with others, it means accommodating different views, whether they are substantially different or it’s just nuance.

“That having been said, I think that the record over the last eight months has been remarkably strong. I’m fond of pointing to what many saw as a low point as proof that things really are quite good. You will recall back on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, some were quite upset that in the initial comment from the PMO [Prime Minister’s Office] there was no explicit reference to Jews. Now, I know how that happened. January is still very early days in the new government, they were still staffing up. This was a whole new government and really a whole new generation – 10 years is a long time in politics. Not everything was in place [for the Liberal government], and this was an absolutely honest oversight.

“The real test,” said Fogel, “wasn’t that a comment was released that didn’t include the word ‘Jewish’ – the test was that, within half an hour after we had flagged for them that this wasn’t being well received, a new statement was issued which was quite explicit. The degree of responsiveness that the government demonstrates for a concern expressed by the Jewish community is the real test for the quality of the relationship.”

CIJA does not take its relationship with the government for granted.

“We’re grateful for it,” said Fogel. “Even in terms of things that are Israel-related. We think the French-led initiative on an Israeli-Palestinian peace process is not just unhelpful, it has the potential to push back a peace process rather than serving as a catalyst for it. Now, because of Canada’s desire to be part of the international effort on anything, doesn’t matter what, Canada wanted to participate in a conference on that a few weeks back, which we accept because that’s the orientation of this government.

“What we had asked for was for Canada to advocate for a particular direction, and they were very responsive. They made the point about nothing replacing direct negotiations and that established resolutions like [the 1967 United Nations Security Council Resolution] 242 had to be seen as the foundation for anything going forward. For good measure, they threw in that Israel was their strong ally, language which does not go way back in Canadian descriptions of the relationship with Israel.

“I don’t think it’s going to remain so consistently good on each issue that comes up,” he cautioned. “I think there will be times we differ from the government. People find it a little hard to believe, but we differed from the last government too and the relationship was sustained notwithstanding.”

One issue on which the current and previous federal governments have agreed is their condemnation of the boycott, divestment and sanction movement against Israel. The issue is high on CIJA’s agenda, of course.

“I see the BDS movement as inherently toxic,” said Fogel. “I see it as antisemitic and I see it as a base, cynical strategy. What it does is exploit the natural and rightful resonance that human rights language has. The language of human rights has become almost a secular religion and it resonates with people so, when that is the language used in order to promote and advocate for something, the default inclination of most people of goodwill would be if not to embrace it, at least to refrain from criticizing it. Yet, we know that the genesis of the BDS movement is in anything but human rights, and core promoters don’t hide their core agenda to delegitimize, isolate and dismantle the Jewish state. What I’m gratified at is that the progressive majority have come to recognize that BDS is not about critiquing a particular Israeli government or position, it’s about denying the right to self-determination of the Jewish people in a way that differentiates from the way you would treat any other group. The way that it iterates antisemitic tropes has prompted many to push away from association with BDS, so I do take some encouragement from people finally starting to apply critical thinking to and connecting the dots and saying, no, this isn’t what it appears to be.”

When asked what are the most effective strategies for the Canadian Jewish community to fight against the negative aspects of the BDS campaign, Fogel said, “I don’t think it is limited to BDS – I think the best strategies to advance understanding boil down to three things.

“We have to be intellectually honest about who we are. The Jewish community offers something valuable to the larger society, and we should be eager to share that and to use that as a way to achieve the second thing, which is to partner with others. We have much more in common with others than that which separates us. We have a rich legacy to share. We have experiences that are instructive and helpful to others in terms of challenges that they face and, very often, we find ourselves in the position of providing advice and direction.

“The third is recognizing that we have to reach out to others on the basis of what is meaningful to them. I can feel whatever I feel about anything but I will never be able to present a persuasive argument if they can’t relate to the terms of reference. This has been, I think, both our greatest source of success and the greatest source of criticism from some sectors of the Jewish community. We can’t indulge in those emotionally satisfying but superficial arguments where we pound our fist on the table and say that we’re right because we have justice on our side; because, for most, that has no meaning and we’re simply relegated to the same place as our adversaries by those who can relate to neither. We have to communicate on the basis of shared values.”

Matthew Gindin is a Vancouver freelance writer and journalist. He blogs on spirituality and social justice at seeking her voice (hashkata.com) and has been published in the Forward, Tikkun, Elephant Journal and elsewhere.

Greens’ true colors?

Voters in the United Kingdom – well, in England and Wales, at least – have decided to quit the European Union. The referendum last week turned British politics, and world economic markets, upside down.

The potential for a Scottish withdrawal from the United Kingdom is again front and centre. More than this, politicians and commentators worldwide are extrapolating the vote’s meaning across Europe and North America to try to comprehend the potential impacts of a coalescence of disgruntled, anti-elitist, populist, nativist and xenophobic tendencies. Already, the result seems to have given licence to some people to act out on xenophobic hatred, with numerous incidents of verbal and physical assaults against visible minorities reported across Britain in just the couple of days following the referendum.

Among those who supported the losing “Remain” campaign are some who threaten to move to Canada. This is a default for Americans and now, apparently, Brits who dislike the democratic outcomes in their own countries. The Canada strategy is much talked about but rarely executed. Ironically, people from countries that move toward exclusionary practices and tightened immigration policies assume that Canada is an uncategorically welcoming place that would greet them with open arms. On Canada Day, of all times, we should take it as a compliment that our reputation is one of haven and acceptance.

And yet … while Europe may be aflame with xenophobia and demagoguery, Canada is not immune to strains of something nasty. The current example comes from none other than Canada’s Green party.

For a movement that ostensibly subscribes to the precept of thinking globally and acting locally, the policy resolutions for the party’s August convention are starkly parochial. Only two items proposed for consideration approach foreign affairs issues – and both attack Israel.

One resolution calls for the party to join the BDS movement to boycott, divest from and sanction the Jewish state. More hypocritically still, the Green party is seeking to have the Jewish National Fund of Canada’s charitable status revoked. That a Green party would target one of the world’s oldest and most successful environmental organizations is symptomatic of something irrational in the mindset of those who promulgated the resolution. Whether it advances to the convention floor – and what happens then – will tell us a great deal about the kind of people who make up the Green Party of Canada.

In a world where human-made and natural catastrophes seem unlimited, from the entire population of Green party members across Canada, only two statements of international concern bubble to the surface – and both are broadsides against the Jewish people.

Elizabeth May, the party’s leader and sole MP, said she opposes both resolutions but, since the determination of policy is made on the basis of one member one vote, there is a limited amount she can do. She met last week with Rafael Barak, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, and said the Green party’s support for Israel’s right to exist is “immovable.”

We’ll see.

It’s OK to boycott BDS

The Anti-Defamation League, one of North America’s most prominent Jewish advocacy agencies, has taken a stand that is at odds with the consensus position of almost all other local, national and international Jewish and Zionist organizations.

Responding to the BDS movement, which strives to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, and which is condemned by some as being founded on antisemitic premises, most Jewish organizations have stood emphatically in opposition to the movement.

Governments have also come out against BDS. The government of Canada passed a motion in Parliament in February, condemning “any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.” Just in the last year, nine U.S. states have enacted anti-BDS laws, which generally prevent state government departments and agencies from doing business with organizations that support BDS. Similar legislation may come to the U.S. Congress.

The ADL’s position, which has been slammed by the Zionist Organization of America, is that the issue comes down to free speech.

“A decision by a private body to boycott Israel, as despicable as it may be, is protected by our Constitution,” wrote Abraham Foxman last year, when he was the national director of the ADL. “Perhaps in Europe, where hate speech laws exist and are acceptable within their own legal frameworks, such bills could be sustained. But not here in America.”

There is no question that the American political tradition falls very heavily on individual rights and free expression. Canadian and European approaches tend to balance individual and group rights. Free speech, sacrosanct in American constitutionalism, is limited by law in some cases in Canada and other democracies if it is seen to possibly incite hatred against individuals or groups.

The United States has its unique constitutional history and relationship with free expression and the Jewish organizations in that country can be left to argue these issues among themselves. As Canadians, we would contend that, in fact, countering the BDS boycotters by boycotting them is not an infringement on free expression, but rather an entirely logical extension of it.

When the House of Commons passed the anti-BDS motion last winter, it was an expression by members of the House that the movement was founded on ideas that are selective, misguided and potentially discriminatory. The motion did nothing whatsoever to legally forbid those ideas and their promulgation. They merely condemned them.

The idea that state or other governments would forbid their departments and agencies from investing in or doing business with organizations that promote BDS may seem heavy-handed. A government is not the same thing as a business or a church. People can quit a church or disagree with the policies of the business by voting with their dollars. A government represents all of its people. But governments also, by definition, must take stands on the issues of the day. By rejecting the BDS movement, governments are doing precisely that. Voters will have the opportunity to endorse or repudiate those positions at the time of the next election.

Boycotting the boycotters, which is effectively what nine U.S. states have chosen to do, is fair game. We have made the case before in this space that one person’s free speech does not erase that of another person. When an individual or group expresses an ugly idea, in a democracy, it does not abrogate their rights if another individual or group speaks up to condemn the ugly idea.

Whether legislation against BDS is the most effective means of combating BDS is open to debate.

Foxman argued that education, lobbying or persuasion may be the more effective long-term strategy. In our view, legislation and education need not be mutually exclusive.