Tag: democracy

When is never again?

Monday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Scrolling through social media, it was jarring to see the juxtaposition of images and ideas reflecting on that terrible history intermingled with the mundane and fantastical miscellany of everyday 21st-century life. This is the reality of our world: the grave realities of yesterday and today poking through the onslaught of witty memes, outrage over a vast range of real and imagined evils, cute kittens and the panorama of detritus and riches available to, and bombarding us, at every moment.

This is how it is. Even as we recommit ourselves to the promise of “never again,” still we carry on with our daily lives. Yet these realities are not, and should not be, disconnected from one another. The memory of the Holocaust and its victims, and the importance of listening to and learning from its survivors and its messages, are sacred obligations. But their lessons and meanings can and should be applied to the more commonplace events we experience. History is a prism through which we should view the present and the future.

Like the jarring extremes that can be found scrolling social media on Holocaust Remembrance Day, this collision of gravity and triviality is problematic. We recoil from inappropriate comparisons. Yet, in a world where legitimate causes struggle to be heard above the competing din, we often fall back on the most incendiary formulations, so every injustice becomes “fascism,” every leader we dislike a “Nazi.” This dilutes the seriousness of the history it invokes – and it also makes it more difficult to identify and draw attention to genuinely grave dangers, including literal fascism or fascist-adjacent ideas and actions emerging in Europe and closer to home.

The number of lessons to be drawn from the Holocaust are as innumerable as there are human behaviours. A relevant one for our time is the fragility of democracy and civil order. The actions of Raoul Wallenberg and Chiune Sugihara (click here to read story) are examples of a dystopic situation where good people are driven to break laws and norms promulgated by evil forces. In situations where democracy and social order are upended, goodness is criminalized and malevolence is institutionalized.

Democracy is under threat in much of the world right now. Human nature is such that we take for granted once-unimaginable wonders – gadgets in our pockets containing the breadth of human knowledge, the perceived right of every individual to live free from fear of tyranny – almost as soon as we access them. We forget that democracy is barely two centuries old and that it is not only imperfect but tenuous. With extraordinary ease, individuals of various stripes have managed to smother or at least severely disfigure nascent democracies in Russia, Poland, Hungary and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. A more established democracy in Turkey has been twisted away from its secularist, pluralist roots. The world’s largest democracy, India, is engaged in serious religious-based oppression.

In Israel, there are social forces and political parties pushing the extremes, as well. The Kahanist party, Otzma Yehudit, is aiming to again contest the March elections and has been rooting around the emerging electoral alliances for a slot. To his credit, Naftali Bennett, head of the New Right bloc and no raging moderate himself, rejects being in a tent with Otzma Yehudit and rightly warns other parties to steer clear.

And, in ways whose significance we may not yet be able to judge, the fabric of American democracy – checks and balances between branches of government – is being threatened. The president, indicted for attempting to extort our ally Ukraine to participate in political dirty tricks in exchange for desperately needed military funding to defend itself against the encroaching Russian military, seems destined to be exonerated by a Senate more concerned with party discipline than the rule of law, the constitution or human decency. If the probable outcome is realized, it will represent a blow to the grand ideals of the world’s oldest contemporary democracy.

Is raising this example itself a symptom of the problem we are discussing? Is it relevant and proper to discuss the American or Israeli situation in the same context as Russia, Poland or Hungary? Do we diminish the memory of the Holocaust by raising this topic in this perspective? Is it equally specious to assert that we won’t know, perhaps until it is too late, whether we should have been more or less vigilant when a man with little or no respect for norms of nicety or constitutionality ascended to the highest office in the democratic world?

This is the line we walk when we say “never again.” The magnitude of the history underpinning this promise is so enormous that we risk lessening it through invocation. Yet, if we isolate that history and its lessons, like good china saved only for the most special occasions, are we not conversely risking the very promise we undertake?

Let’s be more Jewish

It’s an inflammatory question. When attacks against Jews occur, as they are in increasing and alarming numbers in North America – including an incident of hateful graffiti at Camp Miriam on Gabriola Island recently – people ask why. Why Jews?

The problem with the formulation is that it suggests there is a justifiable answer to that question. It would be akin to asking, upon seeing statistics of domestic violence, why women?

Throughout the ages, scholars, pundits and philosophers have listed factors in Jewish theology and culture that confound, scare or irk others and contribute to antisemitic ideas and acts. The steadfast refusal to accept more dominant “successor” religions invites theological reactions. Adherence to cultural practices make Jews outsiders, to varying degrees, in every society. Jewish success in a range of fields invites envy.

But these explanations are all largely nonsense when it comes to the sorts of antisemitic acts we are seeing today. The primary explanation why, for so many people, it is all about Jews is counterintuitive – it is not about Jews at all.

For the most part, probably, the core motivation for engaging in racist and antisemitic acts has less to do with the victims than it does with the perpetrators. The definition of scapegoating is the assignment of sin or guilt onto an empty vessel that is then sacrificed. The hate and violence we are witnessing are almost certainly acts of scapegoating that reflect something amiss in the worldview of the perpetrators. These are people who identify problems in their lives or their world and seek an external entity to blame. Jews are history’s greatest scapegoat, regardless of our actual presence in any particular place. Notably, studies indicate that antisemitism is greatest in places where there are no Jews and it has perhaps always been thus. Shakespeare created the character Shylock hundreds of years after Jews were expelled from England, for example.

This is not comforting. If there were something more discrete motivating these incidents, perhaps they could be rationally contested. That the motivations are based on irrational projections makes them difficult to fight.

It is routinely said that Jews are the canaries in the coal mine of a society. The dehumanizing imagery this employs aside, it is undeniable that Western society today is experiencing some deeply troubling trends, from the emergence of “illiberal democracy” in the erstwhile democracies of Eastern Europe and Turkey to the stark chasms between partisans in still-healthy democracies. Rapid economic changes spark social and political reactions. The greatest migration of people on the planet in generations causes real or perceived threats to the status quo in the countries where these migrants are headed. And this is to leave aside the geopolitical dangers we face in relations with Iran, North Korea and many other flashpoints, as well as from decentralized terror groups that defy international boundaries. We are perhaps more surprised than we should be that, in the face of these developments and uncertainties, a number of people seek out that scapegoat of first resort: Jews.

As a result, stories are emerging of Jews going “undercover,” of being less inclined to be identified as Jewish in places like New York. There are other stories of Jews increasingly learning self-defence skills. Self-protection is primary in any situation and no one should be condemned for taking short-term measures in the midst of danger.

In the longer-term, though, there is an alternative to being (or appearing) “less Jewish.” If the root of this problem is not Jews, but disordered responses to a troubled world, then the answer, while not easy and most certainly idealistic, would be to be more Jewish, to embrace even more energetically a Jewish way of being and doing. We may not be able to change the distorted perspective of an antisemitic individual. But if, through our agency, we can promote fairness, tzedek (justice) and chesed (lovingkindness), we will advance a world in which people will not need to seek scapegoats.

Is it a fair burden that this labour should fall to Jews? Perhaps not. But maybe this is what we have been chosen to do in this moment in history.

Extremes and elections

Drawing parallels between political events in disparate countries may be folly, but it’s the season for frivolity, so why not. As British Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson was piling up an historically massive majority government, Canada’s Conservative leader Andrew Scheer was giving in to an apparently inevitable whimpering end to his leadership.

For most British Jews and many other observers, Johnson’s victory elicited something between relief and elation. While the Labour party has been the traditional home for many or most of that kingdom’s Jewish voters for generations, it is estimated that just six percent of British Jews voted to elect Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn prime minister this year. Corbyn has alienated Jewish voters and aligned with the most extreme elements in British society; his party is demonstrably rife with antisemitic people and ideas, as evidenced in a years-long probe first by the party and now by the country’s human rights watchdog. Under Corbyn, it seemed, there were two things the party would not tolerate: racism and Jews.

Of course, the election was not a litmus test on Corbyn’s antisemitism. Few non-Jewish voters probably made their decision based on that concern. Rather, his position on the ballot question – Brexit – was confused and inarticulate. Still, it was with a sense of justice, if not schadenfreude, that many Jewish observers watched Corbyn’s career collapse last week. Even so, the horse they bet on isn’t without serious flaws: Johnson is well known for his racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia, and his hard-right agenda is antithetical in other ways to many Jewish voters who may have found themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Hours earlier, Canada’s Scheer dropped the bomb that he would resign as party leader. The wagons had been circling since his defeat in the federal election in October. His Achilles heel, it is widely accepted, was his ambiguity around socially conservative policy issues.

During the campaign, opponents suggested that Scheer had concealed plans to threaten marriage equality and reproductive rights. However, the law permitting gay marriage and the absence of a law around abortion are both consequences of Supreme Court decisions, not of Parliament acting of its own volition. Barring a revolutionary shift at the Supreme Court, the status quo constitutionally could not be undone. More practically, there is very little political will to alter the status quo on these and a host of other litmus test issues. Not only are Canadians at large mostly in agreement with the way things stand, the critical mass of voters who swing elections are overwhelmingly centrist.

On the face of it, Scheer’s argument – that he has specific personal views that he would not manifest into legislation or policy; indeed, Justin Trudeau effectively and successfully made the same case four years earlier – is a morally valid one. Scheer’s problems on this front were twofold. He expressed his position poorly, failing to articulate either his deeply held values or his endorsement of the people’s consensus in a way that resonated with voters, and he misread the depth of investment many or most Canadians now have on these topics. He bet that Canadians might be satisfied with and respect the idea that he believes particular things but would not legislate on the basis of these faith-based positions. While this left many of his core supporters unenthused, it also misread the enthusiasm of the very voters he was trying to capture. Scheer’s refusal to participate in Pride parades became symbolic. A proportion of Canadians – the proportion that could swing elections – no longer wants a leader who will merely not interfere with an individual’s right to marry or to control their reproductive system, they want leaders who will unambiguously champion these rights.

There was plenty else wrong with the Conservative party’s campaign but, as Scheer tried to remind rogue members of his own party in the weeks following the results, they kept the Trudeau Liberals to a minority and, indeed, created a genuine threat of defeating them at points in the campaign, something few Conservatives thought was a reasonable possibility when Scheer was first elected party leader two years ago. Alas for him, the party smells blood and seems to want someone who can go in for the kill when this minority Parliament dissolves.

Even with the Conservative party in transition, Canadians might have to head to the ballot box before Trudeau’s four years are up. For the British, this month’s election was their third in less than five years. Meanwhile, Israel is gearing up for its third election in a year and the United States, too, is tumbling towards a fraught election.

We are in the midst, it seems, of a continuing test as to how well democracy can negotiate political extremism. At least for now, in Canada, the socially conservative “private” views of Scheer are political losers, but election results in other democracies prove that complacency can’t be an option.

Canada is not immune

Maxime Bernier’s performance at the federal leaders debate Monday night may have been unimpressive, and at times badgering, but no doubt some ears pricked up at his assertion that he is the only party leader whose position on immigration stands apart. True enough. He calls for about 150,000 immigrants annually, half the number now admitted.

The People’s Party leader was challenged at the get-go by a debate moderator who raised Bernier’s past comments about “extreme multiculturalism” and his use of the words “ghettos” and “tribes” to describe new Canadians.

Bernier will be lucky to win his own seat in Quebec and his actions in the debate probably didn’t win him a groundswell of supporters anywhere else. But the emphasis on immigration was notable. Slashing immigration in half, which could have detrimental impacts on the economy and growth of the country, would represent a huge number of people refused entry to Canada. But it’s not really about the numbers. It was the underlying message. Bernier was signaling to potential supporters that immigration is generally undesirable, with all the attendant impulses that message is intended to convey.

Hours before the debate, an Angus Reid Institute poll indicated that Canadians are split on the issue – and leaning in the direction of less immigration and tougher treatment for asylum-seekers. Forty percent of respondents said Canada takes in too many refugees, while 13% said we accept too few.

Bernier may not be the best messenger for the anti-immigration idea, but it is clear that there is a constituency in Canada for a politics that is exclusionary and plays on discriminatory tropes. All the main political parties are admirably standing firm against this impulse, for now. But it is worth keeping a close eye on this trend and reminding ourselves regularly that Canada is not immune from xenophobia.

Self-image to be tested

It was all decorum and politeness at an election forum Sunday sponsored by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and SUCCESS, the United Chinese Community Enrichment Services Society.

The comparative decorousness of the event – although interrupted at one point by an impassioned outburst related to the mistreatment of indigenous peoples – will likely be an anomaly as the neck-and-neck campaign proceeds. Desperate measures will likely be employed as Liberals and Conservatives battle for a majority – and as New Democrats and Greens spar in what seems destined to be a down-ticket race of its own.

And all of this is playing out against the potentially upending news that the People’s Party of Canada’s Maxime Bernier has been admitted to the national debates on Oct. 7 and 10 organized by the official Leaders’ Debate Commission.

The new party – started by the breakaway former Conservative from Quebec – has attracted a range of malcontents, including extremists of various sorts being involved in or peripheral to his party. While the four “mainstream” parties have all tread relatively lightly around super-charged racial issues, Bernier – and perhaps less predictably, his fellow 337 candidates across the country – seems prone to exploit and exacerbate racial divisions.

On this and many other issues that will form the meat and potatoes of the rest of the campaign, Canadians will now hear the perspective of Canada’s answer to the populism that has taken root in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. The degree to which these ideas and Bernier’s rhetoric catches on will tell us much about our country and ourselves. Canadians have liked to imagine that we are immune to the phenomenon of xenophobia that seems to be gaining ground globally. But, then, we haven’t had, in recent history, a chance to vote for a party that represents such ideas.

One of the things that has been notable during the aftermath of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recently revealed repeated donning of deeply problematic costumes, including blackface/brownface, is what seems like a divergence between the official voices and the unofficial voices.

Elected officials utter pieties about respect for diversity. Representatives of multicultural and anti-racism organizations speak of challenges and opportunities. Yet, in radio call-in programs and online comments – those voices of “ordinary” people – the responses seem quite different. Many complain that the blackface controversy is all a sideshow that diminishes focus on issues like the economy and the environment. Others suggest a tempest in a teapot or political correctness run amok.

In a few days, Canadians will get our first look at all the party leaders side by side, including Andrew Scheer and Jagmeet Singh, who remain somewhat unknown quantities, and Bernier, who will bring some genuinely outside-the-establishment perspectives to the debate. How far Bernier pushes the envelope – and how Canadians respond to his ideas – will tell us just how accurate our self-perception as an open, tolerant society really is.

Election date remains

Conservative candidate Chani Aryeh-Bain, left, and activist Ira Walfish at Federal Court in Toronto on July 16. (photo by Ron Csillag/CJN)

Last month, Elections Canada announced that it will not recommend that the date of the next federal election be changed, despite pressure to do so because it clashes with the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret.

Moving the date “is not in the public interest,” Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault said in a statement on July 29. Only a few days earlier, the Federal Court of Canada ordered Perrault to reconsider his earlier refusal to move the date of the election – Oct. 21 – after it heard from observant Jews who pointed out that they cannot drive, campaign or vote on a holy day.

Lawyers for Chani Aryeh-Bain, the Conservative candidate in the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence, and Ira Walfish, an activist and voter who lives in the York Centre riding, had argued before the court that Perrault’s refusal to move the date to Oct. 28 was unreasonable and that they, along with 75,000 other Orthodox Jews in Canada, faced discrimination under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court gave Perrault a deadline of Aug. 1 to strike a balance between election laws and the rights of Orthodox Jews to vote and campaign. He was not empowered to move the date himself, but could recommend that cabinet do so.

However, “after having carefully considered the impact of holding the election on Oct. 21 on the ability of observant Jews to participate in the electoral process, and having balanced that with my mandate to ensure accessible voting opportunities for all Canadians, I conclude that it would not be advisable to change the date of the election at this late stage,” Perrault stated. It was “not a decision that I make lightly, but with a view to providing the broadest possible range of accessible voting services to the population at large.”

In a written statement to the CJN, Aryeh-Bain, who had argued that, as an observant candidate she was prevented from getting out the vote on election day, said she was “extremely disappointed” with Perrault’s decision.

“We do not believe he balanced the democratic and religious rights of Jewish voters and candidates,” she said. “He has 85 days to prepare for this election – almost triple the amount of time than he has to prepare for a snap election. Why Perrault has dug his heels in is mystifying to me.”

Perrault acknowledged that, in the case of Aryeh-Bain, the effect of not moving the election date “is very significant.” He conceded that “no arrangement can be made that would truly allow her to meet her religious obligations and compete on equal terms with non-observant candidates.”

At a press conference at B’nai Brith Canada’s offices on the day of the decision, Walfish said, “We are obviously very disappointed. We do not agree that the [chief electoral officer] balanced the relevant interests in his further decision to not move the election.”

Walfish said that Orthodox Jewish-Canadians “will not participate in this election on an equal footing with other Canadians, not by design or choice, but because their conscience prevents them from doing so.”

Aryeh-Bain and David Tordjman, an observant Conservative candidate in Montreal, “are both seriously disadvantaged with an election on Oct. 21,” said Walfish.

In an 11-page statement, Perrault referenced a detailed “action plan for observant Jewish community voting,” which was launched in April. The statement noted that the Orthodox Jewish population is primarily located in urban areas in 36 of the 338 federal ridings. It said that those ridings range from one to 13.4% Jewish, according to the 2016 census, “which makes it possible to design local solutions … to ensure that Elections Canada’s services are targeted and responsive to local needs.”

Perrault took note of the argument presented in court that the four days of advance polls, from Oct. 12-15, reduce the ability of religiously observant Jews to cast ballots because they coincide with Shabbat and Sukkot. However, Perrault pointed out that there are many days during the election period in which observant Jews can vote, including by mail-in ballot, at an Elections Canada kiosk, or at one of roughly 115 post-secondary campuses from Oct. 5-9.

Moving the election date “will not remove all of the barriers that Jewish electors face in voting this election cycle,” Perrault stated. And if the date were moved, “the new dates for the advanced polls will also overlap with Jewish holidays,” he said. “There is no such thing as a perfect election day, especially in a country as diverse as Canada.”

Michael Mostyn, B’nai Brith’s chief executive officer, said Perrault’s decision was “just as wrong” as his initial refusal to move the date. He said Perrault’s admission that observant candidates cannot compete equally with non-observant ones is “a red line” for B’nai Brith. But Elections Canada has “run out the clock” because of the Aug. 1 deadline for setting an election date, he noted.

Mostyn called on “every Canadian Jew who is capable of doing so [to] cast a ballot via advanced polls or special ballots” and on Jewish voters to ask candidates whether they support changes to elections laws, to ensure that voting does not fall on a Jewish holiday again.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), on the other hand, said it “respects” Perrault’s decision.

“While mindful of the inconvenience that some will experience and the clear disadvantages faced by a religiously observant candidate, we trust that those challenges can and will be mitigated by the measures put into place by Elections Canada,” said CIJA chief executive officer Shimon Koffler Fogel in a statement.

CIJA said it, too, will focus on changing election dates, which have been fixed since 2007, so they no longer clash with Jewish holidays.

Perrault said he is “committed to continuing to work with the Jewish community to maximize voting options within the existing calendar in ways that are convenient and consistent with their religious beliefs.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com

Historic next election

For the first time in its history, Israel will go to the polls because the Knesset Israelis elected in April could not form a government.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu crowed after the election results came in that his Likud had defied critics and won a comparatively easy reelection. The number of small right-wing parties in the Knesset made it impossible for the opposition Blue and White bloc to assemble the 61 seats needed for a bare minimum majority coalition, leaving Netanyahu a free hand to form another government. Or so it seemed to everyone.

But there’s right-wing and then there’s right-wing. As in any country, a range of issues and interests combine to make up political parties and movements. While they may be in sync on a whole range of economic, social, internal and foreign policy issues, the one thing that unified Likud and its ostensible allies among the smaller right-wing parties was animosity toward the left, which Netanyahu demonized during the campaign – even accusing the veteran military figures who lead Blue and White of being too far left. The leftist bogeyman Netanyahu was conjuring is, at this point in Israeli history, largely fictitious. The Labour party, once the dominant force in the country, suffered its worst showing ever, finishing with less than 5% of the vote.

What divides the right-wing parties are a few issues of core principle. The ultra-Orthodox parties are right-wing and prefer Netanyahu as prime minister. But they want special considerations for religious institutions maintained and strengthened. Nationalist parties, like Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, are right-wing, but secular, and Lieberman would not budge on his assertion that there should be no compromise on a new law – promulgated under his watch as Netanyahu’s minister of defence – that yeshivah men not be automatically excused from conscription. The five seats Lieberman’s party won in April were the lynchpin for a fifth Netanyahu government – and the notoriously combustible Lieberman ultimately kiboshed the government and the 21st Knesset.

Some commentators suggest principle was less a factor in Lieberman’s choice than personal pique. The two men were once the closest of allies – and nothing is more bitter than a family fight. A number of policy issues have frayed the relationship. For example, as defence minister, Lieberman publicly excoriated his boss for what he characterized as letting Hamas off the hook too easily in the most recent flare-up of cross-border violence from Gaza. Lieberman, it appears, would have preferred a far more punishing response, though he has a history of making dire threats on which he does not follow up. He once brazenly gave Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh 48 hours to live if he did not return an Israeli hostage and the bodies of dead Israeli soldiers. The gambit failed. The millionaire Haniyah remains very much alive, luxuriating in a waterfront palace he built with a 20% tax on all goods traveling through the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. Lieberman meanwhile continues with similar bellicosity to stoke his base, primarily older Israelis with roots in the Soviet Union.

Whether Lieberman’s dashing of Netanyahu’s plans was an ego issue or a strategy to improve his party’s weak showing in April, or whether it was, in fact, a matter of principle, doesn’t matter much now that new elections have been slated for September.

Most of Israel’s 2019 will have been eaten up by election campaigns and, unless the electorate has a swift change of heart – or the criminal charges hanging over Netanyahu’s head shift the discourse – the results in September may be very similar to those of April. Then what?

Ehud Barak, a former prime minister who has been both ally and opponent to Netanyahu, posited last week that, whatever the outcome in September, Netanyahu is finished. While there are anonymous sources inside Likud suggesting the leader may be ousted after the next election, the fact is that Netanyahu’s career has been declared dead several times before, but he has defied prognosticators and triumphed. Not for nothing is his nickname “the Magician.”

קנדה נאבקת בענקיות התקשורת

השרה קרינה גולד. (Twitter)

ממשלת קנדה מתכוננת במלוא המרץ לבחירות הכלליות שייערכו בחודש אוקטובר הקרוב. הממשלה מעוניינת למנוע מעורבות חיצונית כפי שקרתה במערכת הבחירות האחרונות בארה”ב. הממשלה בוחנת את האפשרויות שונות בהן: חקיקה חדשה שתחזק את הפיקוח על הרשתות החברתיות המובילות.

הממשלה הקנדית צופה שקרוב לוודאי יהיה ניסיון של התערבות חיצונית בבחירות הפדרליות שייערכו באוקטובר. ולכן היא שוקלת להגביר את הרגולציה כדי לפקח משמעותית על חברות הרשתות החברתיות. זאת כדי להבטיח חסימה עד כמה שאפשר של התערבות גורמים זרים שמחוץ למדינה, בהליך הצבעה. כך מסרה לאחרונה השרה אחראית על טוהר הבחירות של קנדה, קרינה גולד.

השרה גולד אמרה את הדברים לאחר פרסום דוח מיוחד של סוכנויות ביטחון הקנדיות השונות על פעילות של מדינות אחרות, ברשתות אינטרנט, כדי להתערב בהליך הבחירות במדינה. “להערכתנו יש סיכוי גבוה שהמצביע הקנדי ייתקל במעורבות של גורמים זרים שונים ברשתות האינטרנט, בהקשר של הבחירות הפדרליות באוקטובר השנה”, כך נכתב בדוח של סוכנויות הביטחון. “עם זאת המעורבות בבחירות כאן צפויה להיות בהיקף קטן יותר, לעומת המעורבות הרוסית בבחירות לנשיאות בארצות הברית לפני כשנתיים וחצי”. אגב הדוח לא ציין מי הן המדינות שעשויות לנסות ולהתערב בבחירות של קנדה.

השרה גולד ציינה במסיבת עיתונאים שקיימה באוטווה הבירה: “הבחירות בקנדה הן מטרה לאלו שמעוניינים לערער את יסודות הדמוקרטיה שלנו”. גולד יצאה בדברי ביקורת ישירים נגד ענקי התקשורת השולטים במדיה החברתית: גוגל, טוויטר ופייסבוק. וזאת על כך שהם לא מספקים מידע לממשלת קנדה, כפי שהם סיפקו לממשלות אירופה השונות בחודשים הארונים, על מאמציהם לעצור התערבות זרה בבחירות. “אין לנו שום התקדמות עם גוגל, טוויטר ופייסבוק בנושא זה. החברות מסרבות לעדכן באופן סדיר את הרגולטורים בקנדה, על הפעילות שלהן למניעת התערבות זרה בבחירות הקרובות. שיהיה ברור: החברות צריכות לקחת את הנושא ביותר רצינות”, הוסיפה עוד השרה גולד.

ראש מחלקת המדיניות הציבורית של פייסבוק בקנדה, קווין צ’אם, אמר לאמצעי תקשורת המקומית את הדברים הבאים: “פייסבוק מתכננת להציג חוקים חדשים עבור פרסומות פוליטיות בתשלום”. הוא הדגיש כי פייסבוק עושה כל מאמץ לחסום התערבות זרה בבחירות הקרובות בקנדה. ראש מחלקת המדיניות הממשלתית של גוגל בקנדה, קולין מקיי, אמר את הדברים הבאים: “נציגי גוגל מיוזמתם נפגשו כבר מספר פעמים עם מספר רשויות ממשלתיות כדי לדון בשקיפות, אבטחת מידע וכן אבטחת סייבר”.

השרה גולד מסרה עוד כי ממשלת קנדה בוחנת כיום את שלל החוקים שלה כדי לראות כיצד ניתן להשתמש בהם, כדי לנקוט בכל האמצעים נגד חברות הרשתות החברתיות, כדי למנוע התערבות זרה בבחירות כאן. הממשלה שוקלת אף להתקין חקיקה חדשה בנושא. בנוסף קנדה בוחנת את הצעדים שנוקטות מדינות אחרות בעולם כלפי הרשתות החברתיות. למשל בריטניה שהכריזה על הקמת גוף רגולטורי טשר מפקח על הרשתות החברתיות. ואילו אוסטרליה עומת זאת שינתה את החוקים במדינה כך שבין היתר, מנהלים של רשתות חברתיות עשויים להישלח לכלא, אם הם לא יסירו תוכן אלים מהרשתות החברתיות עליהם הם אחראים.

לסיכום הנושא אמרה השרה הקנדית גולד: “הרשתות החברתיות הצליחו עד כה להימנע מלשאת באחריות לגבי מה שמתרחש בפלטפורמות שלהם. זאת כידוע כבר זמן רב מדי. הממשלה הליברלית הקנדית החליטה כעת לשנות את הגישה כלפי חברות הרשתות החברתיות. בעבר חזרנו אחריהן ומשכנו אותן לכאן כדי לפתוח מרכזי הנדסה ומסחר, ובייחוד בתחום הבינה המלאכותית”.

Strongmen bromance

Binyamin Netanyahu appears comfortably ensconced in the Israeli prime minister’s office after last week’s elections. While his Likud bloc effectively tied for seats with the upstart Blue and White party, the smattering of smaller parties are mostly of the nationalist, religious and right-wing bent, meaning Netanyahu will have a fifth term as leader. If he hangs on until July, he will surpass David Ben-Gurion as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.

The likelihood that he will reach that mark seems good. He faces probable criminal charges but that does not necessarily mean the end of his career. Rumours are rife that he is considering a legal escape hatch that would permit him to remain in office even if indicted or, more likely, make it illegal to indict a sitting prime minister. In most democracies, at most times in recent history, such a move would be seen as intolerably corrupt. Times change.

The leaders of democracies today are blazing new trails. The words and actions of the U.S. president confound our capacity for incredulity. Jaw-dropping statements of contempt, bigotry, juvenile pique and lies emanate from his mouth (and Twitter fingers) faster than the outrage can follow. Across Europe, far-right extremist parties are rising, as they did in elections in Finland on the weekend. In Britain, which is convulsing from self-induced Brexit trauma, the leftist Labour party is engulfed in an antisemitism crisis. Positions and statements that would have been unthinkable in the civil discourse of recent decades are suddenly at the centre of public discourse in democracies everywhere.

Israel is no exception. During the recent election campaign, candidates expressed erstwhile unspeakable ideas, including a scheme to ethnically cleanse the West Bank of Arabs and annex the land to Israel. The advocate of that idea was soundly defeated – the Knesset democratically cleansed of his ideology when the party failed to reach the 3.25% minimum vote to enter parliament.

But Netanyahu himself floated some astonishing trial balloons during the campaign. He mooted annexing West Bank settlement blocs into Israel – a concept that is not ludicrously beyond the pale since, if a negotiated settlement ever emerges, it will likely include such a move in exchange for traded land. But he also suggested annexing settlements that are not adjacent to or contiguous with Israel’s recognized boundaries. Such an idea would create a patchwork in the West Bank along the lines that would make an independent Palestine unworkable. The fact that the incumbent prime minister opened this political Pandora’s box is evidence of a new willingness to play with potential fire.

That foot play with extremists is not limited to domestic affairs. If an Israeli Rip Van Winkle fell asleep a couple of decades ago and woke up to Israel’s current diplomatic situation, he would be confused and possibly delighted. If that Van Winkle shared our worldview – an apparently old-fashioned belief in pluralistic, inclusive, universal humanitarian values – he would quickly conclude that the prima facie bonanza of goodwill has a rotting core.

As former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor said Sunday night (see cover story), Israel has open lines of communication with countries that for decades steadfastly rejected its very existence. Likewise, Israel has excellent relations with some of the most populous and powerful countries in the world – India, China, Russia, Brazil and, in different but important ways, a refreshed, familial relationship with the current U.S. administration.

Israel has superb relations with these countries, and with the Philippines, as well as with Hungary and other eastern European states that have traditionally been problematic for the Jewish state. That seemingly good news is tempered by the fact that these good relations are not based on conventional diplomatic alliances. To a large extent – especially in the cases of Hungary, the Philippines, Brazil, Russia and the reinvigorated bonhomie between the leaders of Israel and the United States – these close relations are based on a shared strain of politics that fill us with more nervousness than naches.

These relationships are less between Israel and Brazil or the Philippines or Hungary or Russia than a bromance between Netanyahu and Jair Bolsonaro, Rodrigo Duterte, Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, to say nothing of the continuing lovefest between Bibi and Donald Trump. Each of these figures is a strongman who is, to varying degrees, pushing the limits of their democracies to see how far they can stretch rule of law and diminish respect for human rights. With this in mind, the diplomatic warmth seems less about traditional bilateral relations than about a fraternity of nationalist, populist and authoritarian men leading the world down a path unimagined a decade ago.

With that background, Israel’s unprecedentedly improved relations with so many countries seems less positive a development. Our proverbial sleeper might pull the covers back over his head and hope for better in the decades to come.

The dangers of drones

An image of drones filling the sky from Reva Stone’s Falling. (photo from Reva Stone)

Multi-awarding-winning Winnipeg artist Reva Stone researched drones for three years and then began creating art to share some of what she had learned about how the technology affects our lives. The exhibit erasure, which comes from that research, features three works – Falling, Atomic Bomb and Erase. It is on display at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art Gallery until April 26.

“I’m very much an observer of what’s going on with new technologies, so when I saw the impact that UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were starting to have – especially with war and changing the nature of war – I applied for and got a Canada Council [for the Arts] grant to do a lot of research and reading about what actually is happening,” Stone told the Independent.

She went so far as to get two quadcopters, to understand what they really sounded like, and hoping to use them in her art, which she has.

“I was working on this, and then I started thinking about our skies filling up with these commercial and militarized drones and how they were basically machines … that could fall out of the sky … that could crash into each other, that could bring down an aircraft. We were filling up our skies,” she said. “And then, about two years ago, I was reading and realized that we were now targeting not other countries, but targeting humans.”

photo - Artist Reva Stone’s exhibit erasure warns about the use of drones in our society
Artist Reva Stone’s exhibit erasure warns about the use of drones in our society. (photo from Reva Stone)

Stone ended up making five or six individual pieces that deal with different aspects of the use of drones, but relate to one another. Depending on the exhibition venue, she decides which ones will work best together in a particular space.

Originally, drones were developed for spying purposes for the military. Later versions were outfitted with weapons for protection and assault. More recently, commercial drones have been developed. Now, anyone can buy a drone for as little as $20. This easy accessibility is challenging our society, contends Stone, causing hazards to planes in airports, affecting people at parks and disrupting the peace.

“Drones are becoming these things that fly in the air that have no human controllers … that are almost autonomous,” she said.

Stone often uses computers, movies, motors and speakers to help fully immerse visitors in her art pieces.

The work Falling, she said, “is an animated video that I made that has to do with what I see as a very new future, wherein UAVs are ubiquitous, because of civilian, military, commercial and private use.

“It’s almost slow motion or balletic on a massive screen,” she said. “There’s constant falling out of the skies, sometimes flipping as they fall. Sometimes, there’s a drone that has exploded in the sky … sometimes, small and far away and, sometimes, they’re so big when they fall through the sky that they look almost life-size and you’ll have to back away from the screen … that will be the feeling you get. Then, sometimes, there are these little windows that open up and you look through, into another world, and that world is more about what we’re fighting about – the fact that we are actually using these to make war. Other than that, some of them are commercial, some are cute, some are scary looking … and it’s like a continuous rain coming down.”

Atomic Bomb is also a film.

“I started with an early atomic bomb explosion,” said Stone. “It was a 30-second film and I made it into an almost 20-minute video. I really slowed it down and altered the time to give the impression that the person in the exhibition space is looking at a still image caught in time. I show this video together with texts that I found speak to the history of the use of radio-controlled airplanes and UAVs, and to longheld ideas about collateral damage – the relationship between … the use of atomic bombs and the use of drones and collateral damage, which, to me, is a huge issue with the use of drones as military.”

photo - A single frame from Reva Stone’s Atomic Bomb video piece
A single frame from Reva Stone’s Atomic Bomb video piece. (photo from Reva Stone)

The first text is from Harry Truman, the American president who made the decision in the Second World War to use the bomb, and it reads: “The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished, in this first attack, to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians.”

The next one is from John Brennan, Central Intelligence Agency director from 2013 to 2017: “There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop.”

According to Stone, “This is just bullshit. But this is part of the cleaning up of the media presentation of all these ideas and all these things I’ve been researching, that I’ve been noticing going on over time. And, it has actually made me change the name of the work. I was going to call all three of them a totally different name. Recently, maybe a month ago, I changed it to erasure because of the erasure of people, the erasure of a lot of critical dialogue that’s been happening since I started researching in 2015 … how we are mediated, what we are presented with as a culture. The info is so mediated by how it’s reported, and if it’s reported.”

Stone wants “her audience to consider how the capabilities of such technology may be turned against citizens and how governments might, and do, get away with employing them in the name of patriotism in ways that ultimately test the ethical and moral values of its citizenry,” notes the exhibit description. “With news cycles moving so rapidly, the reports of deadly events quickly fall from memory, seemingly erased from public consciousness.”

The third piece, Erase, is interactive. Stone said it is based on what, in her view, the Obama administration practised – the targeting of individuals based on algorithms, mostly guilt by association.

“With this one, I’m actually replicating the procedure,” she said. “I have my two quadcopters that are doing the surveillance and capturing people in the exhibition space, unbeknownst to them. Then, they get captured and saved.

“Then, it’s a process that goes on, that they get played back. And you begin to realize that you’re under surveillance, the people in the space. And, every so often, a target comes up over one of them, one of the captured images. It’s really intense and an explosion occurs, and that person actually comes out of my captured list. That person will never show again. They’ve been erased.”

The exhibit erasure opened Feb. 7. For more information about Stone and her work, visit revastone.ca.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.