boycott – Page 2

UBC votes no to BDS

Votes were tallied late Friday, April 7, for the referendum on the University of British Columbia campus, wherein students were asked if they supported their union in a BDS campaign – and the answer was no. The “no” vote numbered 1,513 while 1,396 students voted “yes” to “boycotting products and divesting from companies that support Israeli war crimes, illegal occupation and the oppression of Palestinians.”

It was the second time in two years that a BDS referendum on campus was defeated and Rabbi Philip Bregman, executive director of Hillel BC, said he was thrilled. “In all honesty, this referendum is nothing more than a call for the elimination of the state of Israel,” he noted. “We had students from all over the university, Jewish and non-Jewish, join in the fight against this, and what’s important is that this was a clearly made statement.”

Bregman said the “yes” side had started out with 1,000 votes in their pocket because they had needed 1,000 signatures to make the referendum possible in the first place. “In the final analysis, they didn’t have enough votes, and they didn’t make quorum because only 5.5% of the students voted. In order for the referendum to pass, they needed votes from eight percent of the student body, over 4,300 votes in their favour, and they had to beat the ‘no’ side,” he explained. “They got neither.”

Stephen Gaerber, board chair of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, praised the work of Hillel BC, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and StandWithUs Canada. “Kol hakavod to the students and student leaders who worked so hard to make the truth evident to the student body and achieve this positive outcome,” he said in a press release issued April 9. “Their efforts were instrumental in helping maintain a welcoming and inclusive campus environment for everyone.”

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net. This article was originally published by CJN.

Anti-BDS legislation

Israel’s Knesset last week passed legislation against the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, representing just one of several setbacks this month for BDS around the world.

The Israeli bill, which passed its third and final reading with a 46-28 vote, grants the interior minister authority to deny entry visas to non-Israeli citizens who actively support boycotts of the Jewish state.

Conveying the rationale for the anti-BDS measure, Member of Knesset David Amsalem (Likud), chairman of the Knesset Interior Committee, said that, “if someone demeans me, I do not let them into my home.” Responding to critics of the legislation, Amsalem said the new law is not intended to stifle free speech, but was implemented to combat antisemitism and enemies of the Jewish state. These opponents of Israel, he said, “are not talking about boycotting only the settlements; they are talking about boycotting the state as a state, without any distinction. We are talking about antisemites here.”

One of the bill’s initiators, MK Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home), expressed similar sentiments, saying, “In recent years, a new antisemitic front has been initiated against Israel. Our enemies carry out a campaign to delegitimize and boycott Israel. Banning BDS supporters that come here to harm us from within is the minimum we can do against those Israel-haters.”

Left-wing Knesset members and several American Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, were highly critical of the new anti-BDS law. MK Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) said the law “is against freedom of expression” and “is meant to silence people.” The American Jewish lobby group J Street claimed the law “damages Israel’s democracy and helps the BDS movement.” The American Jewish Committee said it is “troubled” by the legislation.

Despite the controversy, Israel’s new law represents just one of several recent setbacks for the global BDS movement….

Importance of transparency

Stav Daron’s application to the Island School of Building Arts was initially rejected because he is Israeli. After public pressure, the school reversed its decision and apologized. (photo from facebook.com/stav.daron)

Now that the sawdust has settled on the controversy around the Gabriola Island-based Island School of Building Arts’ initial rejection of an Israeli applicant based on his nationality, we can assess the implications. According to various reports, the school’s manager had responded to a prospective Israeli applicant, telling him that they are “not accepting applications from Israel” owing to “the conflict and illegal settlement activity in the region.” After pressure from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and B’nai Brith Canada, the school reversed its decision and issued an apology on its website.

The rejection of the student was a move that not only likely contravened the B.C. Human Rights Code – which forbids service-providers to deny services to clients based on national origin, among many other things – but served to embarrass the school. But there are some deeper layers that deserve examination here.

First, we need to ask what the role of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel) is in all of this. Many would interpret the school’s move as an instance of BDS. In one sense, they would be right; in another, they would be wrong. BDS entails commercial, academic and cultural boycotts, in addition to calling for divestment from companies helping the occupation and, in the most unlikely scenario, getting other countries to institute sanctions against Israel. Importantly, the academic boycott aspect of BDS does not call for targeting individuals unless, like deans or university presidents, they are representing an Israeli academic institution in an official capacity.

While it’s not clear to me whether the Island School is an accredited academic institution or a private business, I will discuss it in the context of the academic boycott since that’s what probably comes to mind for most readers.

Though detailed BDS guidelines exist, not all would-be BDS activists are necessarily aware of them. And, even if they are aware of them, they might end up applying their own standards. There is anecdotal evidence that individual Israeli academics are indeed harmed or even directly targeted by BDS. My interview with a BDS activist at Syracuse University, for an article I published in Haaretz, pointed to this kind of slippage. All this is to say that BDS may have a spillover effect – and a chill factor – far beyond its intended boundaries.

On the other hand, while the decision was ill-conceived, this same spotlight enabled a light to be shone on problematic Israeli policies. This won’t persuade groups for whom Israel can do no wrong, but the school’s initial action – which the school’s representative said was intended to stay in line with the school’s “moral compass” – may have served its aim, as clunky as the action was.

We can also ask what the role of public shaming is in propelling international change. Scholars have noted that countries can be shamed into compliance – whether to adhere to international law, to ante up humanitarian aid in the wake of a disaster or to offer debt relief. These kinds of dynamics work best when it is governments being targeted. To focus political action on an individual outside the context of any national representation, which is what Island School did, is deeply problematic. Here, I would point to the controversy around the Egyptian judo athlete rejecting his Israeli opponent’s handshake at the 2016 Olympics as a grey area. The Olympics ideally take place outside of politics but athletes are, of course, representing their country and there may be political theatre playing out on some stages, however disappointing it may be. But this was not the case with the Israeli applicant to the Island School who was representing no one but himself.

Finally, the brazenness of the act enabled Jewish groups in Canada to take swift action. The school could have quietly rejected the applicant with little fanfare, but the manager’s honest and forthright emails left no doubt as to what motivated the decision. This meant that the full story circulated quickly on media and social media, and pressure from national Jewish groups succeeded in quickly getting the decision reversed. This means that, perhaps, as painful as it was, we can be glad when actions are taken in a transparent way, making strategies around pressure and counter-pressure much more straightforward. This is ultimately a good thing for buttressing an active civil society, even if we don’t all agree on the policies being protested.

Mira Sucharov is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for Canadian Jewish News and contributes to Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications.

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

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.

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.

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.