April 26, 2010: Campuses need to be places of dialogue, discussion and respect

By Michael Regenstreif

Many of you are reading this issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin a few days after celebrating Yom Ha’Atzmaut – the anniversary of Israel’s independence – at Lansdowne Park’s Aberdeen Pavilion. The Yom Ha’Atzmaut celebration – this year the 62nd – is always one of the biggest events of the year for Ottawa’s Jewish community and you might be wondering why you’re not seeing Yom Ha’Atzmaut coverage as you turn the pages.

Although this issue is dated April 26, it was actually printed on April 19, the day before the big party. So, watch for our Yom Ha’Atzmaut coverage in the May 10 issue of the Bulletin.

Yom Ha’Atzmaut, a day celebrated with great joy by Jewish communities around the world, is immediately preceded by Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s memorial day for fallen soldiers and for victims of terrorist attacks, and comes not long after Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), two days of great sorrow. We do have extensive Yom HaShoah coverage in this issue.

We also have a disturbing story about the alleged early-morning attack in Gatineau, earlier this month, on two Carleton University students who are prominent pro-Israel advocates on campus.

Incidents like that alleged off-campus attack, screaming matches on campus, events like Israel Apartheid Week and campaigns like BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions), whose goals are to demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel, are antithetical to the cause of peace because they polarize sides and stifle debate.

Our campuses need to be places of dialogue, discussion and respect.

I know that dialogue, discussion and respect work.

About 15 years ago, I was back at Concordia University in Montreal doing an MA in the political science department. Concordia was still some years away from its infamous Netanyahu riot, and I participated in an advanced seminar course, which included extensive discussion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The students included Israelis, Canadian Jews, Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims.

Those seminars took place not too long after U.S. president Bill Clinton brought Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chair Yasser Arafat together for that memorable signing ceremony and handshake on the White House lawn. It was a time when we thought an end might be in sight to the conflict and a two-state solution might soon be achieved. The discussions also helped partisans and advocates representing all manner of perspectives achieve an understanding of the other, even to become friends.

While the peace promised back then by the Oslo Accords failed to materialize, the understanding created by such dialogue does a lot more to help pave the way to peace than does polarization and demonization of the other.

Toronto pride parade

There’s an ongoing debate about whether the gay pride parade in Toronto should lose $200,000 in annual public funding because the parade has been used in recent years as a venue by Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA). There has been an editorial and flurry of letters on the issue this month in the National Post.

It always strikes me as bizarre that a group like QuAIA even exists. This marginal organization of LGBTQ persons seeks to demonize and delegitimize the only country in the Middle East where someone can live an openly LGBTQ lifestyle (and where some LGBTQ Palestinians have sought and received refuge).

Meanwhile, in California, San Francisco, with the active support of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the local Jewish federation, is currently celebrating Out in Israel, a four-week festival of Israeli LGBT culture that includes films, music, dance, literary events and lectures.

Harvey Brooks

There’s a JTA article in this issue that talks about older North Americans who have made aliyah to Israel recently. As a music lover who has always paid attention to credits, the name of Harvey Brooks (né Harvey Goldstein), one of the people profiled, jumped out at me.

The article mentions that Brooks, a bassist, had played with Bob Dylan, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix and B.B. King.

But, just mentioning those names does not begin to tell the story of Brooks’ significance. If his only credit was being the bass player on Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” his position in music history would be secure. But Brooks has a list of credits that includes playing on literally hundreds of the most important rock, folk, jazz and blues recordings of the past 45 years and in concert with many of the most important artists of the 1960s and since.

April 5, 2010: Ann Coulter played Ottawa like a violin

By Michael Regenstreif

It could have – should have – been an insignificant event.

Ann Coulter, the American far right-wing demagogue, blew through Ottawa as we were working on this issue of the Bulletin and managed to grab a whole lot of international attention for a speech she didn’t make at the University of Ottawa.

A chain of events, that began with an email sent by uOttawa Provost François Houle to Coulter warning her that freedom of expression in Canada is not seen as quite the same as freedom of speech in the United States, and inviting her to “educate yourself, if need be, as to what is acceptable in Canada and to do so before your planned visit here,” eventually led to Coulter’s organizers cancelling her Ottawa appearance at the last minute because, they said, they feared for her safety in the wake of an anti-Coulter demonstration outside the uOttawa theatre at which she was to speak.

Here we go again, I thought, it’s just like last year’s George Galloway case, but from the other end of the winged spectrum.

Galloway is the fringe British MP and far left-wing demagogue – and commentator for Press TV, the Iranian government’s English-language propaganda network – who has delivered highly publicized cash gifts to Hamas and was denied entry into Canada for a four-speech tour. So, instead of playing to, perhaps, a couple of thousand people in total, Galloway got a platform to spout his views on every newscast and interview program in the country and was seen and heard by millions.

So it was with Coulter.

Houle’s email, and, then, the cancelled speech, became huge stories that allowed Coulter to paint herself as a victim of repression being denied the right to speak.

Without the email, and the fuss that almost anyone could have predicted Coulter would have made about it, she might have generated a little bit of local coverage at her three stops. Instead, all the national TV networks were there for Coulter’s London and Calgary speeches – and for the Ottawa speech that never was – and she generated coverage in literally thousands of publications around the world, on talk radio and TV, and on countless websites and blogs.

Coulter, like Galloway before her, was handed a violin. And she played it for so much more than it was worth.

The email to Coulter from the uOttawa provost seems to have been unprecedented. And, while Coulter has a habit of saying hateful things – Muslims should ride camels instead of airplanes, Jews should convert to Christianity to become perfected – seemingly for the sole purpose of being offensive, there is no evidence the university has ever sent a similar warning to other speakers, like some of the Israel Apartheid Week firebrands, who also have records of saying things that are hateful and offensive.