November 29, 2010: Adbusters crossed the line – and it was hardly the first time

By Michael Regenstreif

Adbusters, a Vancouver-based anti-globalization, anti-capitalist and anti-consumerism bimonthly magazine caused somewhat of a media storm when a photo essay in the November-December 2010 issue – published just as Holocaust Education Week was about to be marked in many communities, including ours – directly compared contemporary Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto of the early-1940s and the Gaza Palestinians with the Warsaw Ghetto Jews, and, by overt implication, Israel with Nazi Germany.

The comparison, to be sure, is not only wholly inaccurate, there is little doubt that it crosses way over the line, dividing legitimate criticism of Israel from blatant antisemitism.

The Warsaw Ghetto images that Adbusters used came from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Apparently, the magazine received permission from the museum to use the images on the pretence that they were being used for a 2009 article about war crimes in the Warsaw Ghetto.

When the museum was advised on how the images were actually being used, they took legal action, forcing Adbusters to remove the images from its website, and issued a statement that emphatically said, “Any comparison between the Warsaw Ghetto (or the Holocaust as a whole) and the situation in Gaza is wildly inaccurate, a gross misrepresentation of the facts and offensive to victims of the Holocaust.”

This recent photo essay was not the first time Adbusters had compared Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. That supposed article about war crimes in the Warsaw Ghetto for which the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum granted permission to use its images was actually an article in the May-June 2009 issue directly comparing Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto.

And that 2009 issue was not the only other Adbusters article that has crossed the line vis-à-vis Israel and or Jews. A perusal of its online archive reveals a pattern of typical fringe-left anti-Zionism, including the all-too-predictable references to “Israeli apartheid” and a fawning tribute to Hamas as a revolutionary movement.

Perhaps the most infamous example of antisemitism in Adbusters is “Why won’t anyone say they are Jewish?”, a March-April 2004 exposé by publisher Kalle Lasn about how Jewish neo-conservatives controlled the Middle East policies of the administration of then-U.S. president George W. Bush, manipulating Bush on everything from Israel to Iraq. Adbusters published what it called “a carefully researched list of who appear to be the 50 most influential neocons in the U.S.,” pointing out, with a black dot next to their names, that more than half on the list were Jews.

These examples from Adbusters are consistent with what has been termed the “new antisemitism,” which was addressed this month in Ottawa at the conference of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating antisemitism. The unequivocal conference speech by Prime Minister Stephen Harper left absolutely no doubt as to the position of the Canadian government on this type of antisemitism.

The speech by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, while not as strong a statement as Harper’s, indicated that there is little tolerance within mainstream Canadian politics for any variety of antisemitism.

November 8, 2010: Peace, justice and human rights are not on the BDS agenda

By Michael Regenstreif

Late last month, a coalition of anti-Israel groups held what they promoted as a global BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) conference on the campus of the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Although some of the groups involved in the BDS movement pretend to be about peace, justice and human rights, those admirable ideals are not really on their agenda.

Their agenda is all about promoting the delegitimization of the State of Israel with the long-term goal of what many of them call “Free Palestine,” a Palestine that isn’t just about the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem – it’s also about West Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.

The BDS activists are the same people who talk about “Israeli apartheid.” Their game has nothing to do with promoting the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. They reject the peace process.

I happened to hear an interview with some of the BDS activists on a Montreal campus radio station a few weeks ago and they described the peace talks as being about nothing other than who collects the trash on the West Bank.

The BDS activists reject the peace process because they reject peace. It serves their anti-Israel propaganda interests to eternally maintain the Palestinians as an oppressed people, as victims.

So, the BDS movement would seek to isolate Israel through boycott, divestment and sanctions.

They would have consumers boycott Israeli products and stop collaborations between universities in North America and Europe with universities in Israel. They’ve even called for boycotts of businesses – like Chapters bookstores – whose owners are known to be supporters of Israel.

A cultural boycott of Israel is one of the hallmarks of the BDS movement. They’ve applied great amounts of public pressure on prominent musical artists booked to perform in Israel in the past couple of years to cancel their concerts.

Sometimes they’ve been successful, sometimes not.

Elvis Costello and Carlos Santana are the two most prominent artists who caved to the BDS pressure.

Among those who didn’t are Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, Elton John and Diana Krall (who is married to Costello).

This past summer, it was announced that Pete Seeger would participate in an Israeli-organized global peace rally over the Internet on November 14.

Immediately, the BDS movement went into high gear trying to persuade the 91-year-old folksinger to cancel his participation.

I’ve known Pete Seeger for many years and I know him to be one of the most sincere and most committed peace activists I’ve ever met.

I know he believes peace between Israelis and Palestinians to be a righteous goal. I was not at all surprised to see him recognize the BDS movement for what it is, to reject the cultural boycott and the demands that he withdraw from the online peace rally, and to carry on his support for the search for peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.