November 25, 2019: Feel the Bern on antisemitism and Israel

By Michael Regenstreif

Since returning to work a year-and-a-half ago after open-heart surgery, daily exercise has been a priority and since my office is located in the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC), I am very lucky to have a first-class fitness centre just downstairs from my desk. The SJCC locker room is often the scene for impromptu and opinionated discussions on the news and issues of the day.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders – who is currently campaigning for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination – has been the centre of a couple of recent locker-room discussions. If nominated, Sanders would be the first Jewish candidate nominated by one of the two major parties for the U.S. presidency.

The first discussion was in early October after Sanders suffered a heart attack on the campaign trail and had a couple of stents inserted to open up his arteries. One of my locker-room buddies was angry that Sanders, whom he described as “pro-BDS, anti-Israel and antisemitic,” would have Israeli-made stents inserted.

I don’t know whether or not Sanders’ stents were made in Israel. I could find no mainstream media references to where the stents were made. Be that as it may, it is simply wrong to suggest that the leftist Sanders is “pro-BDS, anti-Israel and antisemitic.”

Sanders has spoken of his admiration for the Jewish state and for the ideals of Zionism, and has noted that he lived and worked on a kibbutz near Haifa as a young man in 1963.

While Sanders has consistently voiced his support for the State of Israel, including the right of Israel to defend itself from attacks, and for a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, he has been vociferous in his opposition to certain Israeli government policies, particularly the occupation and settlement expansion in the West Bank, and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On these matters, Sanders is in lockstep with about 75 per cent of the American Jewish community, as well as with millions of Israelis.

On BDS, Sanders has repeatedly rejected the call to boycott Israel. Earlier this year, he released a statement saying, “While I do not support the BDS movement, we must defend every American’s constitutional right to engage in political activity.”

The more recent locker room discussion about Sanders was on November 14 (I am writing this on the 15th), a few days after Sanders published an article in Jewish Currents on antisemitism – an article that has provoked much reaction in Jewish circles.

I was pleased to see Sanders write so eloquently about antisemitism, particularly about the lethal consequences of right-wing antisemitism as manifested by the white nationalist movement. As Sanders points out, “hate crimes against Jews rose by more than a third in 2017 and accounted for 58 per cent of all religion-based hate crimes in America.” That year, we saw what happened in Charlottesville, and more recently we have seen right-wing antisemitism lead to the tragic synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway.

But it was disappointing to see Sanders merely pay lip service to left-wing antisemitism, noting, “It is true that some criticism of Israel can cross the line into antisemitism, especially when it denies the right of self-determination to Jews, or when it plays into conspiracy theories about outsized Jewish power.”

While right-wing antisemitism has repeatedly proven lethal, the effects of left-wing antisemitism are also consequential. Look at how pro-Israel students are marginalized on many campuses. Look to the United Kingdom, where the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, once overwhelmingly supported by British Jews, is now seen by many as an existential threat to the Jewish community. Or look to some of Sanders’ own supporters like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has apologized more than once for using antisemitic tropes, or Women’s March organizer Linda Sarsour, who claims that a feminist cannot be a Zionist.

Sanders’ generalized thoughts on antisemitism and his specific thoughts on right-wing antisemitism are correct. But he seriously underplays the extent and the effects of left-wing antisemitism.

September 2, 2019: The news is now stranger than fiction

By Michael Regenstreif

My column in our August 19 issue discussed the explicitly racist attacks of U.S. President Donald Trump on four rookie members of the U.S. House of Representatives, all of whom are women of colour. In the days and weeks after that issue went to press, there have been some downright bizarre developments to the story.

Two of the congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who both support the anti-Israel BDS movement, were scheduled to visit East Jerusalem and the West Bank in August. In July, despite a law allowing Israel to bar BDS supporters from entering the country, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States (who is known to be extremely close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu), announced, “Out of respect for the U.S. Congress, and the great alliance between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any member of Congress into Israel.”

That changed on August 15 when Trump tweeted, “It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds.”

Immediately following Trump’s tweet, Israel announced that Omar and Tlaib would not be allowed to visit after all. Although Netanyahu and his ministers claimed the change had nothing to do with Trump’s tweet, few analysts believed that.

The decision was immediately condemned by mainstream American Jewish organizations including AIPAC, Jewish Federations of North America, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Israel Policy Forum, and J Street as contradicting democratic values.

Barring Omar and Tlaib may well have provided more PR value to the BDS movement than the visit itself would have.

Then the story got even weirder. On August 20, Trump proclaimed, “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat; I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.” (According to the Pew Research Center, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received 71 per cent of the Jewish vote in 2016, compared to 24 per cent for Republican candidate Trump. In the 2018 midterm elections, after two years of the Trump administration, 79 per cent of the Jewish vote went to Democratic candidates, compared to just 17 per cent for Republicans.)

Trump invoked the antisemitic trope about the loyalty of Jews – one of the most common expressions of antisemitism throughout history. In the following days, Trump doubled-down and tripled-down on the trope elaborating that Jewish Democratic voters (in other words, Jews who don’t support Trump) are disloyal to the Jewish people and to Israel.

“In my opinion, if you vote for a Democrat you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel. And only weak people would say anything other than that,” he declared on the White House lawn.

And in a tweet, Trump quoted and thanked talk radio conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root for his “very nice words”: “President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world and the Jewish people in Israel love him like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God.”

The nightly news – in these Trumpian times – is, indeed, stranger than fiction.

July 23, 2018: A few troubling sore spots

By Michael Regenstreif

Almost three years ago, after Justin Trudeau led the Liberal Party to victory in the federal election, I wrote a column suggesting Canada’s strong friendship with Israel would continue unabated under the new government (From the Editor, November 9, 2015). Stephen Harper, then the outgoing prime minister, had often been lauded for his strong support of Israel.

Indeed, Canada and Israel have maintained strong ties since Trudeau became prime minister. Just a few months after taking office, Trudeau’s Liberals joined with the Conservatives in passing a motion strongly denouncing the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. In the debate, Liberal cabinet ministers denounced the BDS movement as a modern-day form of antisemitism. And, on May 28, a modernized and more comprehensive Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement was announced by the two countries.

So while the relationship between Canada and Israel has remained strong, there have been a few “sore spots” in the relationship, which have troubled many in the Canadian Jewish community.

One is that the Trudeau government declined to follow the U.S. lead and move the Canadian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That decision reflects the policy that “Canada considers the status of Jerusalem can be resolved only as part of a general settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. Canada does not recognize Israel’s unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem,” and that an Embassy move should only take place after a settlement has been reached.

Former prime minister Harper has since stated that Canada should follow the U.S. lead and move our Embassy to Jerusalem as well. However, Harper made no move to take that lead himself while he was in office from 2006 until 2015 – and the official policy on Jerusalem quoted above is unchanged from the Harper era.

Two other sore spots came up recently over Canada’s response to Palestinian deaths during the violent protests on Israel’s border with Gaza.

On May 16, Trudeau issued a statement condemning the use of excessive force against the demonstrators and the loss of life and injuries. Trudeau’s statement came in the wake of a Palestinian-Canadian doctor being wounded while treating injured Palestinians on the front lines in Gaza. Trudeau’s major sin of omission was that he failed to mention the role of Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza, in engineering the violence or that many of the Palestinians killed were actually Hamas terrorists.

Then, on June 13, Canada abstained from a United Nations General Assembly vote condemning Israel for the violence in Gaza. The vote passed by a margin of 120-8 with Canada being one of 45 countries that abstained. (Canada did however support a failed U.S. amendment that would have recognized the role of Hamas and its ongoing campaign of rocket attacks in the conflict.)

There was a not-unjustified feeling among many in the community that Canada abstained rather than voted against the resolution condemning Israel because of Canada’s campaign to win one of the temporary seats on the UN Security Council in 2021. Canada’s support for Israel was seen as a reason it failed to win a seat in 2010. If that was the motivation, I doubt that an abstention will be seen as enough for the overwhelming anti-Israel bloc at the UN.

Disturbed by Trudeau’s statement and the UN abstention, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) arranged a meeting with the prime minister on July 5.

After the meeting CIJA CEO Shimon Koffler Fogel issued a statement saying, “The discussion was frank, constructive, and encouraging. The prime minister was very receptive and responsive to the issues we raised. He absolutely recognized the destructive role played by Hamas. He expressed full confidence in Israel’s capacity and will to hold its troops to a high ethical standard, rather than be singled out for an inherently biased international investigation. And he reaffirmed Canada’s support for Israel, and committed to be more vigilant in countering anti-Israel resolutions at the UN.”

Although we’ll have to see how future developments unfold, I would certainly feel encouraged by the results of the July 5 meeting.

June 25, 2018: Winds of change in Ontario politics

By Michael Regenstreif

Less than six months ago, Doug Ford, who served one term as a Toronto city councillor between 2010 and 2014, was planning to run for mayor of that city.

Now Ford is a few days away from being sworn in as premier of Ontario after leading the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party to a majority government in the June 7 provincial election. The New Democratic Party (NDP) became the official opposition, and the Green Party – which had never held a seat before – elected its first MPP.

A huge story was the utter collapse of the Liberal Party of Ontario. After winning four elections since 2003, they struck out and were reduced to just seven seats, not quite enough for official party status in the legislature.

I attended the meetings the Jewish Federation of Ottawa held with local candidates from the three major parties and offer here a few observations and opinions beyond the reporting I did on the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin website before the election.

All Ottawa-area candidates for each of the three parties were invited to the meetings, which were scheduled to suit the parties. Each party was asked the same set of main questions provided to them in advance. These questions on combatting antisemitism, support for the vulnerable, community security, Ontario-Israel ties, and preventing genetic discrimination, were drawn from the Ontario election guide prepared by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. A question about funding for faith-based schools was also asked at each of the meetings.

The Liberals sent four candidates – all incumbent MPPs, three of them cabinet ministers: Bob Chiarelli (Ottawa West-Nepean), Natalie Des Rosiers (Ottawa Vanier), John Fraser (Ottawa South) and Yasir Naqvi (Ottawa Centre).

As experienced MPPs, the Liberal candidates were well versed on the issues and offered full or qualified support to Jewish community positions or requests on the main questions. It was only on the issue of funding for faith-based schools that the Liberal candidates diverged from the community. While they would not pledge support for changing the status quo (in which Roman Catholic schools are fully funded while all other faith-based schools receive no funding), the candidates did say they would personally be open to future discussion on the issue.

Des Rosiers and Fraser were among the seven Liberals across Ontario to retain their seats and Fraser became interim Liberal leader following the resignation of Kathleen Wynne.

The NDP was represented by two candidates: Eleanor Fast (Ottawa South) and Chandra Pasma (Ottawa West Nepean).

Fast and Pasma did seem engaged on some of the issues and unfamiliar with others. Neither offered any promise that an NDP government would revisit the issue of funding for faith-based schools.

The white elephant in the room during the NDP meeting was Ottawa Centre candidate Joel Harden and his support for the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Although the meeting took place at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre, which is located in Ottawa Centre, Harden did not attend.

Fast and Pasma – neither of whom was elected – pointed out that BDS was rejected by the federal NDP and is not a policy of the provincial party, and both said they had voted against BDS resolutions at policy conventions or in their riding associations.

Harden, though, was elected in Ottawa Centre and it now remains to be seen what kind of relationship he will develop with the Jewish community. Clearly, outgoing Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi, who was supportive of many community initiatives, will be missed.

The PCs were represented by just one candidate, Colleen McCleery (Ottawa Centre). While she was friendly enough, McCleery seemed unprepared for the discussion and was largely unaware of the issues, including school funding. Clearly, the PCs would have benefited from the presence of more serious candidates like Lisa MacLeod (Nepean) or Jeremy Roberts (Ottawa West-Nepean).

Despite the slimmest of platforms, Ford’s key to winning power was the collapse of Liberal support after 15 years in government, and a populist message. Winning, this time, was seemingly easy. Now he’ll have to govern – and that will be a lot harder.