United Nations

Definition of genocide

Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, coined the term “genocide” in 1944. (photo from Arthur Leipzig Estate, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery, via ushmm.org)

Anna-Mae Wiesenthal was in the United Kingdom recently and passed a table in Dublin that was accusing Israel of perpetrating genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. She engaged the people at the table in conversation.

It was a small act of dialogue between a few individuals, but it reflects what Wiesenthal views as a vital act in mutual understanding.

Encouraging conversations like these is one of the reasons the Vancouver educator recently led a course at Temple Sholom on the definition of genocide.

Wiesenthal holds a master’s degree in Holocaust and genocide studies and is about to defend her PhD dissertation in the same discipline. Both degrees are from Gratz College, in Pennsylvania. She retired last year as a teacher at Vancouver’s King David High School.

The three-class course at Temple Sholom addressing the emotionally and academically challenging topic of genocide comes at a time when

Israel is being accused of perpetrating crimes against humanity in Gaza. The topic has immediate resonance. Wiesenthal’s intention, however, was to take a more nuanced approach to the subject.

“My goal when I retired is to continue to be an educator in different capacities,” she said. After discussions with Temple Sholom’s Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, she put together the course, which ran on three consecutive Wednesdays, ending March 19.

The focus, she said, was an examination of the concept, introducing students to when and why the term “genocide” was coined, in 1944, by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer, and looking at its definition, examining the wording and identifying problematic components.

In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined “genocide” as: “Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions intended to destroy the group in whole or in part; imposing measures to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

“The word ‘intent’ in the definition is problematic,” Wiesenthal said, as an example of the exploration the class undertook. “How do you prove intent?”

The goal of the course, she said, was “to come out possibly with more questions or appreciation for the complexity of the definition.”

The small group of students analyzed the 10 Stages of Genocide, a framework developed and introduced in 1996 by Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, to help identify the warning signs of genocide and prevent it before it escalates.

These steps include classification (dividing people into “us” versus “them” based on ethnicity, race, religion or nationality); symbolization (assigning symbols or names to distinguish groups, such as the yellow Star of David for Jews in Nazi Germany); discrimination (dominant groups deny rights to a specific group, often through laws or policies); dehumanization (the targeted group is compared to animals, vermin, insects or diseases to strip them of their humanity); organization (genocidal acts are planned and coordinated, often by governments, militias or extremist groups); polarization (propaganda and hate speech are used to drive society further apart, making violence seem justified); preparation (authorities or groups begin making lists, planning logistics and even building camps or weapons for mass killing); persecution (victims are identified, isolated and deprived of rights, for example, forced deportation, concentration camps, starvation); extermination (the mass killing of the targeted group begins, often justified as “cleansing” or necessary for national security); and denial (perpetrators cover up evidence, deny crimes, blame victims or rewrite history to avoid accountability).

“It’s not always linear,” Wiesenthal said of the 10 stages. “Some of the stages can overlap, some of the stages may not necessarily be present, but it’s a way to identify and help you predict. If we see conditions of the stages unfolding then perhaps we can predict more accurately that there is groundwork being laid for genocidal actions.”

While Wiesenthal wanted to encourage depth of understanding on the topic, its immediacy – with Israel being accused of genocide by groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – led some students, and the Independent, to pressure her to comment on current events.

“What do we say when somebody says Israel is committing genocide?” Wiesenthal asked. “I could ask a question like: What is your understanding of genocide? What does that mean to you?”

If Israel wanted to commit genocide, Wiesenthal noted, they have the military capacity to have done so on the first day of the war. This is perhaps the most immediate, if not entirely nuanced, response.

“You can make all kinds of arguments about how there was or wasn’t enough humanitarian aid and food trucks entering Gaza,” she said. “The fact is there were food trucks entering.”

There could be legitimate discussions about what Hamas did with that aid once it entered Gaza. But, she said, the larger issue is that governments that plan on committing genocide do not provide victims with humanitarian aid, nor do they provide vaccines for children, as Israel has done.

Military experts, such as John Spencer, who specializes in urban warfare, has said that the civilian casualty ratio in Gaza is “historically low for modern warfare” and cites Israeli Defence Forces estimates that 50-60% of Gazans killed have been civilians, well below the 80-90% of civilian casualties typical in modern conflicts.

Spencer has praised the Israeli military’s efforts to minimize non-combatant harm, citing mass warnings to Gazan civilians, providing evacuation and relocation directives to reduce casualties, and the use of “roof knocking” techniques before airstrikes.

While Israel has been condemned for using 2,000-pound bombs in urban areas, Spencer has claimed that these are standard for penetrating fortified underground structures, like Hamas’s extensive tunnel networks, and contends that their use is not intended to cause unnecessary destruction but to legitimately and effectively serve military objectives.

Wiesenthal turns the genocide narrative around, noting that Hamas has explicitly dedicated itself to committing genocide against Israelis and Jews, both in writing and in its repeated expressed statements.

“It is part of Hamas’s charter and something they verbally repeated, that their goal is to get rid of Jews, and their readiness to commit Oct. 7 over and over again,” she said.

This goes to the challenging issue of intent on the part of both Israelis and Hamas, she added.

“If given the opportunity, Hamas [has said it] would kill every Jew in Israel and destroy Israel,” said Wiesenthal. “Israel is not targeting the Palestinian people or the Palestinian population in Gaza. Their campaign is solely directed at the terrorist organization Hamas, which is existentially threatening Israel. Israel is responding to a genocidal attack.”

Ageism is everywhere

Panelists Margaret Gillis, left, and Dr. Melanie Doucet were the experts featured at this year’s Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights, which focused on ageism.

“Ageism is anytime we make an assumption, a judgment, a stereotype, or discriminate based on age. And this can go in any direction. You’ve often heard people say, ‘too young to understand,’ ‘too old to understand.’ It can be directed toward oneself. It manifests in our interrelationships with others. And it is evident in our institutions and organizations. In fact, it is everywhere,” said Zena Simces in her remarks at the sixth annual Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights, which took place over Zoom on Oct. 28.

Ageism impacts many aspects of life, said Dr. Simon Rabkin. “It affects our health, both physical and mental,” he said. “Studies have shown that psychosocial impacts of ageism include low self-esteem, self-exclusion, lack of self-confidence and loss of autonomy, both for older and younger people. The data indicate that workplace ageism is associated with increased depression and long-term illness. Importantly, studies have found that older persons with more negative self-perceptions of aging have significantly reduced longevity.”

Simces and Rabkin set the stage for the dialogue, which was called Too Old, Too Young: A Conversation on Ageism and Human Rights. It featured Margaret Gillis, founding president of the International Longevity Centre Canada (ILCC) and co-president of the International Longevity Centre Global Alliance, and Dr. Melanie Doucet, an associate with the Centre for Research on Children and Families at McGill University, who is a former youth in care. The discussion was moderated by Andrea Reimer, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, who herself survived as a street-involved youth.

Gillis focused on the impact of ageism on older persons. She gave examples of human rights violations taking place in Canada, including that Canada’s long-term care homes have been under strain and in need of reform for at least two decades. She said an estimated one in 10 older Canadians experiences some form of elder abuse, adding that such abuse is underreported. She spoke about ageist employment practices and negative media representations of older persons.

“Ageism is toxic to the global economy and to health,” she said. “For instance, a US study showed a massive $63 billion per year impact on the economy as a result of ageism in health care. Perhaps one of the most distressing aspects of ageism is its prevalence, the World Health Organization finding one in every two persons is ageist.”

Nonetheless, not much is being done about it, said Gillis.

“I should note that there are protections against ageism in the Canadian Human Rights Code and the provincial human rights codes. But, the problem is, this takes time, money and know-how and our legislation and court process are not well-equipped to remedy complex situations like ageism easily and cost-effectively.”

Gillis encouraged people to join the Canadian Coalition Against Ageism, which she established. It comprises organizations and individuals who are working to confront ageism and bring about changes, based on the WHO global report on ageism.

She advocates for the adoption of a United Nations Convention on the Rights of Older Persons.

“In general, a convention is a method to achieve positive change by combating ageism, guiding policy-making and improving the accountability of governments at all levels, which we most certainly need,” said Gillis. “A convention would also educate and empower, and we’d see older people as rights holders with binding protections under international law.”

Doucet spoke about the human rights of younger persons, specifically youth who age out of the care system. She explained that youth age out of care at the age of majority and that, in British Columbia, about 1,000 youth age out annually.

A video Doucet made as part of her doctoral research included data on the difficulties most young people exiting care experience: 200 times the risk of homelessness, post-traumatic stress disorder rates on par with war veterans, and fewer than 50% finish high school.

Statistics Canada Census data from 2016 indicated that nearly 63% of youth ages 20 to 24 were still living with their parents, with almost 50% staying home until the age of 30. “And I’m sure those statistics have even increased since the pandemic,” said Doucet.

“Youth in care don’t have that luxury. They’re legislated to leave the system at age of majority. So, they’re deemed too old to remain in the child-welfare system after they reach age 18 or 19, depending on where they live in Canada, but, yet, too young to be sitting at the table when policy decisions are being made that impact them, sometimes even at their own intervention planning meetings with social workers.”

Additionally, in the last 20 years or so, a new developmental phase – “emerging adulthood,” which occurs between the ages of 19 and 29 – has been acknowledged in the academic literature, said Doucet. “It’s a phase that encompasses young people who are not necessarily children anymore but they’re not quite adults, and it provides room for identity exploration, trial and error, obtaining post-secondary education, and just figuring out one’s own place in the world. Youth in care aren’t able to experience this crucial developmental phase because of the legislated age cutoffs.”

There are studies that measure the benefits to both the youth affected and society at large of extending the age cutoff: “a return of $1.36 for every $1 spent on extending care up to age 25,” Doucet said.

Meanwhile, the cost of not extending care is high. For example, youth in care lose their lives up to five times the rate of their peers in the general population, she said. Poverty is more prevalent, as is homelessness, as previously noted.

“Out of the 36 countries in the global north, Canada is one of the six that does not have federal legislation to protect the rights of youth in care,” said Doucet. “While Canada has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child [CRC], it only provides human rights protections for children and youth until the age of 18. So, youth in care who are transitioning into adulthood actually don’t fit within the UN CRC because they’re deemed too old, even though they are a vulnerable population that experiences multiple human rights violations. This highlights that age-based discrimination is very much entrenched into the mainstream child welfare system in Canada.”

In the question-and-answer period, Gillis outlined three recommendations in the UN’s report on ageism: education/awareness campaigns; changes to laws, programs and policies, starting with long-term care and other basic human rights; and intergenerational work. We need to look at what other countries are doing, the evidence, best practices, she said, and pensions and other financial programs must keep up with cost-of-living.

Doucet spoke about initiatives she and her colleagues have undertaken.

“We developed what we’re calling the equitable standards for transitions to adulthood for youth in care. We released those in 2021, myself and the National Council of Youth in Care Advocates, which is comprised of people with lived experience from across the country, youth-in-care networks, and a couple of ally organizations, like Away Home Canada and Child Welfare League of Canada. This was our way to provide a step-by-step rights-based approach that centred on lived expertise, research and best practices, to guide how youth in care need to be supported as they transition to adulthood.”

There are eight pillars: financial, educational and professional development, housing, relationships, culture and spirituality, health and well-being, advocacy and rights, emerging adulthood development. And each pillar has an equitable standards evaluation model. For example, about housing: “Every young person should have a place they can call home, without strict rules and conditions to abide by.”

“The ultimate goal [of] this project for us is, eventually, we are living in a society where the term ‘aging out’ no longer exists for youth in care, that they transition to adulthood based on readiness and developmental capacity instead of an arbitrary age,” said Doucet.

The Simces & Rabkin Family Dialogue on Human Rights was introduced by Angeliki Bogiatji of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which is a partner of the annual event. Juanita Gonzalez of Equitas – International Centre for Human Rights Education, also a program partner, closed out the proceedings.

UNRWA faces deadline

Last week, the Israeli government announced that it would ban the operation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency from operating in Israel, including in East Jerusalem.

For Arab citizens in East Jerusalem, this would mean an end to civic services like garbage pickup, three UNRWA-operated schools, and some health care and social services.

The laws passed by the Knesset would not preclude UNRWA from operating in Palestinian territories, but they would impede their work substantially. And they would eliminate any privileges or assistance UNRWA staff receive from the Israeli government, including easy passage across borders and through checkpoints.

UNRWA is a problematic organization. Begun in 1949, it has been criticized for perpetuating the Palestinian refugee crisis it was ostensibly created to resolve. By preventing Palestinian refugees from being resettled in host countries, UNRWA ensures that the refugees stand as living testament to the presumed injustice of Israel’s founding – the original sin in the anti-Israel narrative.

Through permissions granted by a bloc of Arab, Muslim and nonaligned states at the United Nations, UNRWA has expanded seemingly beyond the control of its larger parent body.

In the most illuminating example of UNRWA exceptionalism, the organization changed the definition of “refugee,” so it applies to Palestinians in ways it applies to no other people on earth. Palestinian refugee status is a heritable right, meaning descendants of the original refugees – now down to the third and fourth generations – are designated refugees when they may never have set foot in their ancestral homeland and may be second- or third-generation, for example, Jordanian- or Lebanese-born non-citizen residents. The objective of this strategy is clear: make the problem grow. The approximately 700,000 refugees of the 1948 war have grown exponentially, to 5.9 million people.

Operating in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, UNRWA operates more than 700 schools, teaching about 500,000 Palestinian students. UNRWA clinics provide primary health care, mental health support and referrals to specialized medical services. The agency provides food assistance, welfare and other forms of support. During times of war and other crises, UNRWA provides emergency food, shelter and medical services to affected populations. They respond to needs created by violence, displacement and natural disasters. UNRWA is responsible for the most fundamental services in the refugee camps where generations of Palestinians live, including sanitation, water supply and housing.

So why is Israel banning this agency that is so clearly a lifeline to the Palestinian people – especially in a time of catastrophic war?

Israel has provided to the United Nations evidence that some of UNRWA’s 30,000 employees were involved in the Oct. 7 terror attacks and have collaborated with the terrorists before and after that dark day.

There are also older, systemic complaints. For decades, Israelis and others, including the European Union, have complained that the UNRWA-operated Palestinian education system is as much about inculcating antisemitism and a radical political agenda as it is inculcating the three Rs.

As a politicized arm of the United Nations, UNRWA is both a weapon in the decades-long global campaign against Israel and an agency that provides desperately needed services to Palestinian civilians, never more than in a war that is wreaking destruction and death on the people of Gaza.

Israel’s move looks punitive and vindictive in a moment when the world sees the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza. This is a bad PR move on the part of a country with a bad PR history. But PR should be among the last concerns in situations where thousands are dying. Banning UNRWA could have disastrous consequences on some of the most vulnerable people.

The Knesset’s vote to ban the organization is set to take place in 90 days. That is not a long time, certainly, but it is a window during which UNRWA and the larger UN apparatus has an opportunity

to demonstrate goodwill. To date, they have effectively ignored Israel’s decades-long protestations that UNRWA is, for whatever necessary social services it provides, also a provocative source of incitement that promotes dependency rather than initiative and fosters antisemitic and anti-Israel activism and even terrorism.

After years of Israeli complaints and warnings, the Knesset finally put a time-limited threat to their concerns. The UN, NGOs, commentators and much of the world are up in arms over the announcement. Instead, they could be diverting those substantial energies into cleaning up the mess at UNRWA.

Perhaps the Knesset vote is an empty threat. Or rather, it could be an empty threat, if it’s primarily intended to make the larger UN body and the world take seriously the systemic problems UNRWA has exhibited through its long and troubled history.

If UNRWA demonstrates it is willing to take seriously the rot at the heart of its operation, we hope that Israel will not enact the ban. No one can clean up the panoramic mess in three months, but we hope that evidence of goodwill would be met with flexibility on Israel’s side.

If, in the worst case scenario, the UN does not do what it should have done long ago, Israel has an obligation – humanitarian, moral and legal – to ensure that the necessities of life are provided to the people in territories it occupies. In the absence of the UN behaving responsibly, Israel must. And Israel should absolutely be able to call upon a community of humanitarian nations to assist in that process. The world’s leaders have had a great deal to say about the well-being of Palestinian civilians in the past year. This would be a moment for them to put their money where their mouths are.

Go on offensive: Levy

Pro-Israel activist Eylon Levy speaks with an audience member before his Oct. 30 talk at Schara Tzedeck, which was presented by StandWithUs Canada. (photo by Pat Johnson)

The terrorists who perpetrated the Oct. 7 attacks were products of schools paid for in part by the Canadian government, according to Eylon Levy, a former Israeli government spokesperson who addressed an audience at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue last week.

“The Oct. 7 terrorists all went to Canadian-funded schools,” he said. “That is outrageous. It’s disgusting. You need to hold [the Canadian government] accountable and say there are consequences.”

Most schools in Gaza are run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is funded by UN member-states, including Canada.

Levy spoke here Oct. 30 as part of a cross-Canada tour sponsored by StandWithUs Canada, a pro-Israel educational organization focused on campuses.

Levy said Israel’s recent announcement that it was banning UNRWA from operating in Israel was the right move because the agency exists to perpetuate the Palestinian refugee problem, not resolve it, to keep the Israeli-Arab conflict alive, to indoctrinate Palestinian children and to provide the financial safety net terrorists need to engage in violent attacks like Oct. 7.

Israel has been widely condemned for the imminent ban, which came after Israel repeatedly informed the UN that UNRWA’s staff includes known terrorists, some of whose names were provided to the UN by Israel.

“They just don’t care,” Levy said of the UN’s response that terrorists are on their payroll. “Now they claim UNRWA is irreplaceable. Well, you should have thought about that when Israel gave you the evidence that it is riddled with terrorism and you chose to deny that it was a problem.”

According to Israeli authorities, 12 UNRWA staff members actively participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, with allegations that more than 30 additional UNRWA workers were involved in activities such as facilitating hostage-taking and looting. Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has alleged that, of the 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza, at least 12% are affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror groups.

In conversation with Michael Sachs, Western regional director for Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, Levy said many people are inverting right and wrong when it comes to the Israel-Hamas war and they are trying to sway young people especially.

“The world is trying to tell them that the cause of their generation, the great cause of this century, is the fight for Palestine, which means the destruction of the state of Israel,” Levy said.

Contesting these messages is tough, he said, especially when the agencies that represent the moral high-ground are on the wrong side.

Levy recalled a debate he had against broadcaster Mehdi Hasan.

“I knew he was going to come on the stage and say, ‘Well, the UN agrees with me, Oxfam agrees with me, Save the Children agrees with me, Red Cross agrees with me. How is it possible the whole world is wrong and you are right?’” Levy said. “That’s Jewish history: the courage to look around and say, ‘You’re all crazy. This isn’t right.’”

Levy noted that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement on social media mourning the death of Muhammad Abu Atawi, who was killed by the Israel Defence Forces.

Atawi was an employee of UNRWA but, according to Israel, he was also a Hamas terrorist who led the attack on the bomb shelter near the Nova music festival, in which Hersh Goldberg-Polin and others were sheltering.

“This is a leader I’m supposed to take seriously?” Levy asked. “The Red Cross that hasn’t lifted a finger to try to save the hostages is an organization that I am meant to take seriously? The NGOs that wouldn’t even shed crocodile tears on Oct. 7, that never tried to do any sort of campaign for the hostages, they are the ones I am meant to take seriously?”

Young people and other activists in the West who insist they are anti-Zionist and not antisemitic are deluding themselves, Levy suggested.

“You are expressing a hatred and a prejudice against the same people,” he said. “The fact that they believe that they hate the same people that their grandparents hated but it’s a complete coincidence shows a tragic lack of self-awareness.”

Getting the pro-Israel message out is especially challenging on social media, said Levy, but Jews and their allies can’t give up the battle.

Social media is problematic at the best of times – even when it is not a platform controlled by the Chinese regime, as TikTok is – because it maximizes engagement by provoking outrage and amplifies the most extreme viewpoints.

“We’re not going to win the social media battle,” he said. “But we can’t afford not to fight it.”

If the only thing that people see on social media are anti-Israel messages, what conclusion will people come to? he asked.

“But what if their friend, the person they know is a good, decent person, stands up and presents a contrary view?” said Levy. “Then at least you’ve made that person think this is complicated and there’s a case to be made on the other side. So, it requires all of us to be there, to fight the fight, to be as loud and vocal and produce as much stuff as possible.”

That battle of ideas also needs to be taken offline, he said.

It is further complicated, he added, because the Israeli government has effectively given up communicating to the world.

Levy, who was born in England to Israeli parents and made aliyah as a lone soldier, was effectively conscripted to serve as an English-language spokesperson at the beginning of the war. He was fired after a social media spat with Britain’s then-foreign secretary David Cameron. Levy cofounded the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office, which tries to fill the information gap he said the Israeli government has left.

Pro-Israel voices in the West need to change tack, according to Levy. Rather than being on the defensive and explaining Israel’s actions, Canadians and others should be calling out governments and NGOs.

“Other people owe us answers,” he said. “UNRWA owes us answers. The Red Cross owes us answers. The UN owes us answers. I think we have to go on the offensive and demand those answers from other people instead of constantly trying to defend ourselves and say, ‘I can explain.’”

Levy dismisses calls for a ceasefire. The war needs to end in the defeat of Hamas – and it’s all over but the surrender, he argued.

“Hamas has lost,” he said. “It’s game over.”

But Hamas needs the world to help it understand that fact.

“The problem is, when international actors step in to demand a ceasefire, as opposed to Hamas’s surrender, they tell Hamas to keep fighting,” he said. With Hamas on its knees, “It’s outrageous that some countries are trying to get it back up on its feet.”

Hezbollah has also been largely eliminated, according to Levy.

“All of its top leadership are dead,” he said. “The infrastructure along the border has been destroyed.”

Iran, of course, remains unbowed, even in the face of the damage Israel has inflicted on its proxies.

Levy said one outcome from the current crisis is that Jewish communities have come together. In Israel, individuals instantly mobilized on Oct. 7 to do whatever they could and, in the diaspora, Jews have united as they rarely have before.

“That sense of responsibility, that sense of solidarity, being there for each other and having each other’s backs, I find incredibly inspiring,” he said. “That awakening of responsibility and self-reliance and leadership in Jewish communities around the world has been an inspiration to people in Israel.”

Jesse Primerano, executive director of StandWithUs Canada, which brought Levy to Vancouver, said his group has 106 interns and fellows on campuses across Canada this year – an increase over past years and a happy surprise for Primerano. He was afraid for the organization’s programs this year, he said, concerned that they wouldn’t be able to recruit students to stand for Israel on campuses. The opposite happened.

“Numbers skyrocketed,” he said. “The truth is that they are not scared. They are empowered. They are emboldened … and they are so brave and ready to stand up.”

SWU has also hired more staff across Canada, including a full-time position in Vancouver funded by the Diamond Foundation.

Three students from Vancouver-area campuses who are part of the SWU Emerson Fellowship program spoke to the audience, drawing ovations.

World political theatre

Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited Washington this week, coincidentally in the aftermath of US President Joe Biden’s decision to not seek reelection. There is certainly no shortage of topics on their minds – and there are doubtlessly some unspoken subtexts. Given that one man is now officially in the final months of office and the other seems likewise approaching an end, the significance to each man’s country of a tête-à-tête is inevitably minimized.

This was hardly the only theatre happening in recent days. The Bibi-Biden meeting took place days after the International Court of Justice declared that Israel has perpetrated a “de facto annexation” and is preventing Palestinians from exercising their right to self-determination.

The decision by the World Court, as it is known, is “advisory,” rather than “binding,” which is effectively neither here nor there, since Israel will probably do whatever it chooses anyway. And so it should.

This is not to say the court’s decision is meaningless. But its impacts are not at all what the court or those trumpeting this decision think they are.

To be clear: the court is not wrong. Palestinians are experiencing human rights violations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are being prevented from fulfilling their right to self-determination – for reasons well beyond Israel’s control, though Jewish settlements and other Israeli government decisions make a prospective Palestinian state more difficult to realize.

Two things, though, can be true at the same time. Palestinians are experiencing these violations. But, Israel will, and should, ignore the court’s ruling. The ICJ opinion was a political, rather than a judicial, expression, the culmination of a concerted campaign by some of the most despotic regimes in the world. Israel did not participate in the hearing, choosing not to legitimize the process. The decision deserves to be dismissed.

Likewise, the world should largely ignore a related provocation by Israel’s parliament.

The Knesset last week, for the first time, effectively voted against a two-state solution. The vote, which called the idea of a Palestinian state an “existential danger” to Israel, was every bit as much a political act as the ICJ decision. In fact, they are basically two sides of the same coin. The Knesset vote was a slap (along right-left party lines) against those who would presuppose an independent Palestine in the absence of what would be inevitably long and complex negotiations.

The entire situation is a tragedy. The tragedy of the ICJ decision is, first and foremost, for the United Nations broadly, the World Court specifically and the millions, if not billions, of people worldwide whose legitimate need for human rights and a global voice for justice is diminished by the politicization of the ICJ. It is another nail in the coffin of the United Nations’ legitimacy.

Nawaf Salam, the chief judge who released the decision, is a two-time candidate for prime minister of Lebanon, having run with the imprimatur of the anti-Zionist and antisemitic terror group Hezbollah. His presence in this role is a mere illustration of a toxicity that has permeated some branches of the UN, not least the evidence that employees and leaders of UNWRA, the UN branch responsible for Palestinian refugees, were involved in the atrocities of Oct. 7. All of this is inevitable when a global parliament operating on democratic principles is made up primarily of autocratic member-states.

We must step back, though, and make a defence of the world body. Danny Danon, Israel’s former UN ambassador, who has undeniable Likud bona fides, is both a critic of the UN’s failures and a staunch defender of the necessity of its existence. He knows better than almost any other pro-Israel voice of the good work the UN does on too many fronts to abandon it. The idea of the UN is too important to terminate just because it is, in practice, falling woefully short.

Perhaps the best way to think of all these developments is as theatre. Like Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, the Knesset vote against a Palestinian state, the ICJ decision and all the hoopla around these events are just performances and, as Shakespeare said, all the people merely players. Only when all parties commit to laying the foundations for whatever form peace and coexistence might take, rather than simply making dramatic pronouncements, can substantive, positive change become reality.

Action must be taken

Richard Heideman, left, and Warren Kinsella participated in a B’nai Brith Canada virtual fireside chat on May 30. (photo from B’nai Brith Canada)

The League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada hosted a virtual fireside chat with Canadian lawyer and author Warren Kinsella and American attorney Richard Heideman on May 30. The conversation largely focused on growing antisemitism and political passivity in North America in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

Kinsella began by talking about his experiences over the past three decades, writing about neo-Nazism and antisemitism and how they never fully disappear, no matter what region of Canada one observes. However, he said, the present state of anti-Jewish feeling in the country is the worst he has witnessed.

“I never dreamed in my worst nightmare that we would actually have in a single week two schools in separate provinces shot at because they teach Jews. I never thought I would see the attacks on Jewish businesses, individuals and community centres,” he said.

Kinsella castigated elected representatives in Canada for their inaction and lack of leadership in the face of hate speech directed at Jews and the rising numbers of attacks, citing an abundance of laws to handle the problem effectively.

In the international arena, Heideman added, the silence from prime ministers, presidents and ambassadors after the Hamas attacks last fall has been “deafening.” No Western democracy, he said, would tolerate the atrocities committed during the Oct. 7 attacks on their own soil.

“The United Nations and its world courts must be held accountable for singling out Israel for multiple decades and playing into the biased hands of countries like Iran, which only months ago directed hundreds of drones and rockets at the sovereign state of Israel,” said Heideman.

Both men praised Israel for its commitment to human rights and agreed that the present demonization of the strongest democracy in the Middle East, and the concurrent calls for economic and academic boycotts, must come to an end.

Heideman argued that the lessons of recent history, namely the banning of Jews from all facets of everyday life in Nazi Germany in the 1930s – which was followed by the Holocaust – have not been learned. What’s more, he said, there is presently a blame-the-victim mentality at the international diplomatic level which faults Israel for the present situation.

On the bright side, Kinsella noted that polling after Oct. 7 would suggest that the vast majority of North Americans are on Israel’s side and believe it has a right to defend itself. They also welcome Jewish people into their communities. The problem, according to Kinsella, is with the younger segment of the population, the group which has taken to the streets, created encampments, and said and done terrible things to Jews.

“Eighteen-to-40-year-olds in Canada, the United States and Europe are presently a lost generation. You will find no constituency or demographic that believes more in Holocaust denial, that thinks Hamas was right and that Israel should be wiped off the map,” Kinsella said.

“When we have millions of young people who have embraced hatred, division and terrorism, we have a big, big problem,” he continued. “I think we are looking at something that is going to take a decade or more to fix because it’s taken us more than a decade to get us to this dark place.”

To Kinsella, the internet – the primary medium through which people, particularly the young, obtain information – is largely at fault. Despite improving the world in many respects, he said, the World Wide Web has enabled those intent on propagating hate to do so immediately and at no expense. Further, both Kinsella and Heideman said bad state actors are determined to exploit the internet to spread misinformation and hate speech.

Heideman said there was no place for timidity in the present environment and advocated examining each situation and acting accordingly – in other words, not remaining silent.

“Being quiet does not do us any good,” he said. “Being quiet leads to Holocaust denial, distortion and people not caring. We have to take action in a way that is targeted, strategic and powerful – that means in federal courts, state courts and international courts.”

Kinsella is president of the Daisy Group and a former special assistant to former prime minister Jean Chrétien. He has advised numerous political campaigns and is the author of several books, in addition to being a newspaper columnist.

Heideman, senior counsel at Heideman, Nudelman and Kalik PC, and chair of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Lawyers Committee, is a specialist in American and international litigation.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

MP talks to community

MP Anthony Housefather was in Vancouver last week. (photo from Government of Canada)

Anthony Housefather, the Liberal MP who openly considered joining the Conservatives, made an urgent plea during a presentation in Vancouver last week for Jews and pro-Israel voters to keep a foot on both sides of the political divide.

Housefather, member of Parliament for the Montreal riding of Mount Royal, was on the West Coast for a series of meet-and-greets with Jewish organizations and individuals. At Temple Sholom just before Shabbat on May 17, Housefather was open about the disappointments some Jewish Canadians – including himself – have felt with the current Liberal government.

“We’ve seen a government that has had an excellent record on Israel for the past eight years turn away from that excellent record that we all cherish so much,” he said before going into examples he said show his party has been a voice for Jews and Israel.

Since Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party came to power in 2015, Housefather said, Canada has had a better voting record at the United Nations than the previous Conservative government had.

“We voted against 87% of the anti-Israel resolutions at the UN, comparable only to the United States, at about 90%,” he said. “Most European countries were between zero and 10%.”

On antisemitism, Housefather said it was his party that appointed a special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and antisemitism – first Irwin Cotler and now Deborah Lyons – and adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism. The federal government apologized for this country slamming the doors on Jewish refugees before and during the Holocaust, initiated Jewish Heritage Month, and made antisemitism one of four pillars of the federal antiracism strategy, he said.

“I’ve been proud of the record of my party while we have been in government on these issues,” he said.

“Since Oct. 7, I think the Jewish community across the country has felt somewhat abandoned,” he said. In January, the government was “not able to articulate that Israel was not committing genocide,” he said. The decision to restore funding to UNRWA – the UN’s Palestinian relief agency some of whose employees, evidence shows, were involved in the Oct. 7 terrorism – was a blow to many Jewish Canadians. The turning point for Housefather was the New Democratic Party motion that was widely seen as condemning Israel, including calling for an end to military trade with the country.

“Unfortunately, the decision was made to amend [the motion], which made the resolution better, but it was still bad,” Housefather said. In the end, only he and two other Liberals voted against the motion. What really hurt, said Housefather, was when the NDP member who moved the motion was given a standing ovation, including by Liberal MPs.

This combination of events led Housefather to question his place in the party and to publicly acknowledge he was considering crossing the floor. He decided to stay with the Liberals, in part because the prime minister tasked him with new responsibilities to address antisemitism, but also, he said, because he realized that his voice – and those of other Jewish and pro-Israel Canadians – is needed in the governing party.

“I need to be there to make our voices heard in the party,” he said. “Once you place all your eggs in one basket and you have no allies in the other party when it comes to power, then you’re screwed.”

Housefather has a list of actions he wants from the government and others. He is urging Criminal Code amendments to add “bubble legislation,” which would prevent protests within a certain distance from synagogues, Jewish schools and community centres, after protesters laid siege to a Jewish community building in Montreal and people inside were prevented from leaving for hours.

Police need to be told that they must enforce the law around harassment and hate speech, and university administrations need to act to keep students safe, he said.

Housefather pushed for parliamentary hearings on campus antisemitism, which have now begun.

He urged Jewish Canadians to develop relationships with their elected officials, and he passionately urged them to leave their hatred aside.

Housefather said he gets barraged by hate messages from antisemites and anti-Zionists – including death threats – but it’s the hate from Jews that really upsets him. No matter how much some voters agree with him on issues that are important to the Jewish community, he said, they nevertheless condemn him in extreme terms – “traitor,” “quisling” – for being part of the Liberal party.

“If our community wants MPs to support our community, you have to deal with them in a way that doesn’t send them hate, that doesn’t treat them like dirt.”

Above all, Housefather said, Israel and Jewish issues shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

“We should all fight for them and we shouldn’t be trying to create wedge issues that divide the Jewish community,” he said.

Vigils spotlight women, children

Weekly vigils calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza continue weekly at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

On Nov. 26, the vigil spotlighted female victims of the atrocities and emphasized the hypocrisy of many groups, including UN Women, an entity ostensibly dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, which took 50 days to express any concern about Israeli women.

The vigil took place a day after the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Rebeka Breder, a lawyer in Vancouver who specializes in animal law, addressed the assembled crowd. She reflected on how, as a child, she looked up to the United Nations as a humanitarian organization.

“Laughable, I know,” she said. “As I have come to learn, and as many of the people standing here have come to learn … the UN is a humanitarian organization – but not for Jewish people.”

The world seemingly cares about women’s rights, she said, except for Jewish women.

“Since Oct. 7, UN Women issued 26 statements about Palestinian women and children versus only three statements about Palestinian and Israelis together,” said Breder. “There is not one statement by UN Women that specifically condemns the brutal rape and mutilation of women’s bodies that was committed by Hamas. Not one. When we look at the photos that are posted by UN Women, most if not all of the pictures are about Palestinian women and children. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care. We should care about all life. But when you see UN Women that is an agency, that is supposed to be standing up and essentially representing women around the world, not post even one — not even one — picture of Oct. 7’s brutal attacks on women and [what] other Jewish people have gone through, it speaks volumes.”

Women’s rights groups and officials in Israel have been working to compile information and evidence about the brutality, rapes, mutilation and other atrocities committed by Hamas, Breder said.

“My understanding is that they have tried a number of times to send this information to UN Women so they can review it and, up until yesterday, there was silence, there was absolutely nothing coming from them,” she said.

Temple Sholom member Shirley Hyman, a board member of ARZA Canada, the voice of Reform Zionism in Canada, paid tribute to Vivian Silver, the Canadian-Israeli woman who was murdered Oct. 7 but who was not confirmed dead until Nov. 14.

“Vivian Silver was a proud Zionist,” said Hyman. “Vivian Silver spent the last four decades working to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while advocating for coexistence and harmony between both peoples. She was born in Winnipeg and, after a stint at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in 1974, she moved to Israel and so began her life as an activist.”

Silver was a founder of Kibbutz Be’eri and oversaw construction projects, while shuttling back and forth to Gaza advancing coexistence.

“When Hamas took over the control of Gaza in 2007, everything changed,” Hyman said. “The closest she got to Gaza was the border, where she picked up sick Palestinians in order to take them to hospitals in Jerusalem.”

Disenchanted with the political left’s inability to end the conflict, Hyman said, Silver “turned to woman power.” She helped found the organization Women Wage Peace (Nashim Osot Shalom, in Hebrew).

“It has today grown to be the largest grassroots organization in Israel composed of both Israelis and Palestinians, numbering over 45,000 and located in 95 different areas,” Hyman said. “Every Monday, they protest at the Knesset, wearing white and turquoise so government officials can identify them. They host peace-building webinars, protests and marches around the country and conduct peace-building activities.”

On Oct. 4, days before she was murdered, Silver was with a group in Bethlehem, protesting at the security barrier in Bethlehem, many wearing T-shirts declaring “Peace is possible.”

Toby Rubin, president of CHW Vancouver, the local branch of the national organization founded as Canadian Hadassah-WIZO, stated, “Violence against women is never resistance.”

“It’s our duty to continue to speak for those who cannot,” she said. “But the silence has been deafening from the international women’s groups. Jewish women, Israeli women, our sisters, deserve the same respect, the same rights, and the same voice as women everywhere. Shame on the global community for deliberately ignoring them. Even if the UN came out yesterday, that was 50 days too late.”

The Canadian branch of the worldwide women’s Zionist organization has raised $2.5 million in emergency relief since Oct. 7, she said.

Rubin paid tribute to Daphna Kedem and others who have organized the weekly vigils since the terror attacks. Kedem read the names of all the child hostages. “Your dedication and your Zionism in helping this community never forget the faces,” she said. “We must never forget and we must continue to fight [until] every single one of the hostages is back.”

The previous week’s vigil, on Nov. 19, occurred a day before UN World Children’s Day. Volunteers stood on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery holding posters featuring the children murdered or being held hostage by Hamas.

Noemi Gal-Or, professor emerita of politics and international relations, said international law declares that a child should not be separated from their parents against their will. She called on Canada to redouble efforts to press Hamas to release all hostages.

Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu of the Ohel Ya’akov Community Kollel said the world should not accept that 40 children – including an infant born in captivity – are being held hostage.

“And the world is silent,” he said. “This is not acceptable. This is not the world that we envisioned. This is not a world that should be. We’ll do anything within their power to bring them home.”

Into belly of the beast

Danny Danon, former Israeli envoy to the United Nations. (photo from IGPO / Chaim Tzach)

“Jerusalem is an inseparable part of Israel and her eternal capital,” said an Israeli prime minister. “No United Nations vote can alter that historic fact.” This quote, which could have come from any of the country’s leaders, was in fact spoken by the first, David Ben-Gurion, in 1949, just days after the UN voted for the internationalization of the city. Israel’s issues with the agency, in other words, have existed for some time.

One wouldn’t expect a right-wing Likud party stalwart, well-known hothead and self-acknowledged non-diplomat to be one of Israel’s foremost voices to present an unambiguous defence of the UN. But, in his new book, Danny Danon does exactly that.

Danon’s book, In the Lion’s Den: Israel and the World, focuses on his term as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, from 2015 to 2020. Before that, he was a Likud member of the Knesset and a minister in Binyamin Netanyahu’s government.

He acknowledges that, when he was appointed to the diplomatic post, commentators in Israel and elsewhere suggested that Netanyahu was deliberately poking a stick in the belly of the beast.

“There was an expectation that, because of my background and strong ideological beliefs, I would not fit into the world of diplomacy, that I was too much of a hawk and a ‘hardliner,’ which would make it difficult for me to build relationships and achieve anything of substance,” he writes.

Well, yes and no. He does not fit into the world of diplomacy. But he does claim a litany of successes. Danon devotes nearly 200 pages to justifying Israel’s engagement with the international body. Despite the routine censures of Israel and seeming obsession the General Assembly and several of the UN’s agencies have with Israel, Danon argues convincingly that taking on the haters in that forum is a worthy enterprise.

“What many people don’t understand is that there is a public UN and a private UN,” he writes. “The public face of the UN – at least when it comes to Israel – is aggressive and bullying. But, privately, you can build bridges, forge friendships and create a space for understanding, particularly if you are transparent.”

His own approach – far more bull in a china shop than circumspect diplomat – has its merits, he contends. His calling out of critics by name, apparently nearly unheard of in the hallowed halls of the UN’s Manhattan headquarters, may have drawn gasps, but it also seems to have made some think twice before talking.

“After a few times calling out the French ambassador in the media, not only did he reiterate that he did not appreciate it, which had no effect on me, but, more importantly, it made him much more careful in the words he used and actions he took going forward.” Danon said.

In one segment, the former ambassador goes into extensive detail about the efforts he made to derail two particularly troublesome resolutions. “Both resolutions were pointless,” he acknowledged, which might describe most of the General Assembly resolutions against Israel, but this comment, in turn, raises the legitimate question about why such energy and resources are devoted to fighting them. Danon’s argument is that it is in Israel’s interest not to ignore them and to take up the fight whenever and wherever possible.

If his own account of his time there is to be believed, Danon achieved many victories.

He caused the UN to officially recognize Jewish holidays so that, for example, no major meetings occur on Yom Kippur. He managed to get a small amount of kosher food onto the menu at the UN staff cafeteria – and it was promptly snapped up by non-Jews who view a hechsher as proof of healthy, quality food.

More substantively, he hosted more than 100 ambassadors on delegations or missions to Israel.

Partly as a result of a conference that Danon organized for fellow ambassadors on the subject of antisemitism, the UN issued its first-ever thorough report dedicated entirely to anti-Jewish racism.

After successfully pressuring for a UN bureaucrat who is Israeli to be promoted (apparently a challenge), he took on a more entrenched problem. The UN unofficially boycotts Israel, he writes, passing over Israeli options in the agency’s not-insubstantial procurement process. He set out what he called the three T’s.

“We would sell our relevant technology, offer training and provide troops,” he said. The first two he succeeded in.

“I believe the last T, providing troops to UN peacekeeping missions, will come in time,” he writes. “Sending troops is still an ongoing effort on our part. We have one of the best trained militaries in the world, and it knows how to deal with many difficult conflicts. We have so many security challenges that require us to engage in prevention, deflection and defence that it puts us in a unique position of having both the know-how and the experience on the ground. This gives us an advantage in comparison to others. We have the expertise to train UN forces, such as search and rescue, medical treatment in the field, and addressing acute emergency situations…. It has not happened yet, but I am hopeful. It remains a goal for the future.”

For all its flaws, Danon argues, the UN is a unique environment where an Israeli ambassador can shmooze with people he would never get to meet otherwise.

“Think of this: anytime a special envoy from Israel travels to an Arab country, it has to be done with the utmost discretion. If such visits were to be discussed publicly, they could become an issue that could result in political backlash or even violence from extremists and terrorists. At the UN in New York, you can meet anyone, anytime, in a legitimate and open forum, free from the anxiety of those who are determined to see you fail. Indeed, such exchanges between adversaries and friends are expected, which is why the UN is a useful tool despite criticisms about its effectiveness in the 21st century.”

UN ambassadors aren’t nobodies, either, and the connections an Israeli envoy can make there can bear fruit later.

“Once a term at the UN is over, you can be assured that many ambassadors turn their attention to political positions in their home countries, some going on to become heads of state or ministers of foreign affairs,” he said. “It is useful to have existing relationships with such people.”

The Israeli delegation at the United Nations has managed to peel away a few European countries from the European Union’s consensus position against Israel.

“As the Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria grow more confident and economically strong, one of the ways they have and will continue to show their independence and sovereignty is the approach they have taken toward Israel. We have a great opportunity to continue to strengthen our bond with the people and governments; as young countries striving to grow, they understand and relate to Israel’s challenges. I believe they will continue to reject Western Europe’s automatic pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli sentiment.”

More remarkably, Danon also managed to peel away members from the Arab bloc. In a secret ballot, Danon became the first Israeli ever elected chair of one of the UN’s six standing committees. There were far fewer votes against his candidacy than there are Arab countries at the General Assembly, he notes.

“I had the courage and vision – and the will,” he writes of the chutzpah he showed in his role. “I was often told, great idea, let’s do it next year. I always said, let’s do it now, we can get it done in two months.” (Memoirs are rarely testaments to humility.)

Though Danon argues that he made headway in his term at the UN, predictably, he didn’t make many friends. But he certainly made one. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador appointed by Donald Trump, became fast pals with Danon, apparently joyfully collaborating to stick it to the enemies. (Haley wrote the foreword to the book.)

This alliance and the many other overt and covert bridges he built during his term were overwhelmingly with representatives of governments that are on the right of the political spectrum – sometimes on the far-right, like Brazil’s and Hungary’s.

Though he doesn’t address this fact, he would no doubt make the case that Israel must take its friends where it can find them. In the bigger picture of Danon’s time in the belly of the beast, perhaps the words of the late Yitzhak Rabin prove true: “You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavoury enemies.”

Israel’s best revenge

In an email briefing this week, the English-language news platform Times of Israel declared: “UN releases 2nd damning report on Israel; real estate soars.”

These were two unrelated stories. The United Nations had unveiled another in its persistent condemnations of the Jewish state and, on a completely different issue, it reported that Israeli housing prices have spiked 19% this year over last – the largest jump in recorded history.

As curious as this combination of stories was, it could hardly compete with an adjacent mashup about two of Israel’s leading far-right politicians, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the latter of whom, in an apparent effort at humanizing himself, appeared on a cooking program: “Ben-Gvir stuffs peppers and Smotrich proposes legal reforms.”

But, returning to the first items. The connection between UN condemnation of Israel and soaring real estate prices in Israel may be remote but perhaps not random. In any country, high real estate prices indicate a demand for housing that is larger than the supply, a situation due in part to rising economic prosperity (which is not generally shared equally, it should be said, and is too complex to fully discuss in this space).

The larger issues, for our purposes, are the curious parallels between this fact and the accompanying story, about yet another of the UN’s broadsides against Israel. Late last week, a report by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory declared that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is illegal. Not a surprise considering the commission’s mandate, to say the least. Leaving aside whatever legitimacy that investment of resources may or may not have on the ground, it is safe to say it will have little impact on most Israelis beyond a déjà vu. UN condemnations against Israel come fast and furious.

In their 2009 book Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle, Dan Senor and Saul Singer argue that Israel’s economic miracle is not despite the external and internal challenges the country and its people have faced but, to a large extent, because of them. Political and economic isolation bred a degree of self-sufficiency. Military and terrorist threats demand enormous investments, which have had the largely unintended consequence of building a range of high-tech and other industry sectors. The imposition on young adults just out of high school with life-and-death decision-making authority accounts in part for the risk-taking that drives Israel’s entrepreneurship.

On a daily basis, Israelis may not make the connection between their broad economic successes and the incessant rhetorical assaults it receives from the UN and self-appointed arbiters of righteousness worldwide. Even in times of war and other existential threats, Israelis have traditionally continued building their individual and collective futures. What is more, they are consistently ranked in surveys and studies as among the world’s happiest people.

Fighting inflation and inequality, resolving the ongoing conflict, addressing infringements of human rights and all of the other challenges facing Israel must be addressed – and, in the seemingly endless successions of national elections the country is mired, there is no shortage of inventive and outlandish suggestions for resolving every issue.

There is a saying: living well is the best revenge. The world, including the world’s ostensible parliament, can rail all it likes. We should not ignore criticism. But we should celebrate the achievements that others ignore or defame. The arrows aimed at Israel, whether we or the slings that shot them like it or not, seem to strengthen rather than weaken the resolve of its people.