December 12, 2016: Ontario legislature stands against the BDS movement

By Michael Regenstreif

On December 1, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, voted overwhelmingly to condemn the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Motion 36, submitted by Conservative MPP Gila Martow (Thornhill), said the legislature should: “Stand firmly against any position or movement that promotes or encourages any form of hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism and intolerance in any way; Recognize the longstanding, vibrant and mutually beneficial political, economic and cultural ties between Ontario and Israel, built on a foundation of shared liberal democratic values; Endorse the Ottawa Protocol on Combating Antisemitism; And reject the differential treatment of Israel, including the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.”

The motion passed with a vote of 49 in favour and just five opposed. The governing Liberals and the Progressive Conservative Party – the official Opposition – supported the motion while the New Democratic Party was opposed.

Almost half the members, including three-quarters of NDP members, and almost all Ottawa-area MPPs were not in the legislature at the time of the vote. The only Ottawa member present was Progressive Conservative Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton), who spoke in favour of the motion during the debate.

With the vote, the Ontario legislature follows the House of Commons, which passed a similar motion in February. Comparable motions have also been passed by the United States Congress and 16 U.S. states.

Among the criticisms of the BDS movement is that it unfairly places entire responsibility on Israel for lack of progress in resolving Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, and completely absolves Palestinians – both the Palestinian Authority, which holds power in the West Bank, and Hamas, which holds power in Gaza – of any accountability at all. This is despite the fact that the Palestinians walked away on numerous occasions from nearly completed agreements and have used every subterfuge at their disposal to avoid further negotiations – despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated invitations to sit down without preconditions and negotiate a peace agreement and Palestinian state.

And, while I don’t believe that all BDS activists are antisemitic, or, antisemitic in their intent, antisemitism is at the root of the BDS movement in that it unilaterally stigmatizes the world’s only Jewish state with all responsibility for the situation. This is what renowned human rights activist and former justice minister of Canada Irwin Cotler has referred to as “the new antisemitism” in which Israel is singled out as “the Jew among nations.”

Pro-BDS groups, though, like to paint themselves as the true human rights activists and deny there is any element of antisemitism in their actions or intent. But, just two days before the BDS vote in the Ontario legislature, pro-BDS groups at Ryerson University in Toronto prevented the Ryerson Student Union from even voting on a motion put forward by Ryerson Hillel in support of Holocaust Education Week at the school.

Holocaust Education Week was not about Israel. It was about education and commemoration of the worst genocide in history – a genocide that was perpetrated just over seven decades ago, in the lifetime of many students’ grandparents, against the Jewish people. To stand against Holocaust education and commemoration is nothing but antisemitism.

If those pro-BDS groups were truly about human rights activism, and if they were not at all antisemitic, they would be among the first standing up in support of Holocaust education and commemoration – not blocking it.

As mentioned, pro-BDS groups like to paint themselves as human rights activists, or as peace groups. But, really, their entire raison d’être is to delegitimate the State of Israel. No less a figure than Norman G. Finkelstein, the former DePaul University professor who is perhaps the world’s most vocal and visible Jewish anti-Zionist, agrees. In a 2012 interview, he attacked the BDS movement, which he repeatedly referred to as a “cult,” for its “silliness, childishness, and a lot of leftist posturing,” in seeking to hide its true goal: the elimination of the State of Israel.

Although the Ontario motion rejecting BDS was put forward by an opposition member, it’s important to note the support it received from the government was unequivocal.

“I want to make this clear,” said Minister of Transport Steven Del Duca, “the Ontario provincial government does not support the BDS movement, or any other positions or movements that attempt to divide our society. Rejecting the boycott of Israel is in keeping with Ontario and Canadian tradition.”

Our legislature has done the right thing.

October 26, 2015: There is never any possible justification for terrorism

 By Michael Regenstreif

As I’ve mentioned before, this column is generally the last thing written before an issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin goes to press, so I often use this space to comment on issues of concern that are in the news while being as up-to-date as is possible when we have to go press 10 days before the official publication date and about a week before the issue begins to arrive in subscribers’ mailboxes.

The two news stories that have dominated my attention as we worked on this issue have been the federal election campaign here in Canada and the terrible wave of terrorism in Israel.

As I write, we are three days away from the October 19 election day. While the votes will have been counted by the time you read this, we can only look at the opinion polls – which may or may not reflect what actually happens at the only polls that ultimately count – and speculate on what will happen and who will form the next government. I expect to have more to say in our next issue on what did happen when we voted.

The latest wave of terrorism has been brutal – at least seven innocent Israelis have been murdered in terrorist attacks in recent days – and so utterly senseless in that the terrorists, many of whom seem to be lone wolves attacking independently, have been inspired, as Barbara Crook notes in her My Israel column, by absolutely false lies and rumours that Israel will seize control or even destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim holy place built on the site of the ancient Jewish Temples in Jerusalem.

These rumours are not new. When the Second Intifada was launched in 2000, it was said to be in response to a visit to the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon and his plan to seize control of the Muslim holy place. It turned out, of course, that PLO leader Yasser Arafat had long planned the Intifada.

Then, as now, Israel has been unequivocal that the Al-Aqsa Mosque will remain under the control of the Jordanian Muslim Waqf, as it has since Israel captured eastern Jerusalem from Jordan in the Six-Day War of 1967 and reunited the city.

While much of this latest wave of terrorism has been propagated by so-called lone wolves – some of them very young teenagers – they have been egged on by the highest levels of the Palestinian leadership. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas repeated the claim that Israel would take control of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and has even followed in Arafat’s footsteps by denying the historical existence of the Jewish Temples.

In what was perhaps his most obscene moment of incitement, Abbas took to Palestinian TV on October 14 to claim that Ahmed Mansara, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, was executed “in cold blood” by Israel.

In fact, Mansara, who was filmed stabbing a Jewish man in Jerusalem, was injured when hit by a car as he attempted to flee the scene of his crime and was recovering well in an Israeli hospital.

Two days later, an unnamed official in Abbas’ office tried to walk back the claim saying Abbas had been misled before making the execution claim. So far, though, Abbas himself has remained silent.

In a speech at Harvard University on October 14, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry blamed the existence of Israeli settlements in the West Bank for the terrorism.

Of course, history tells us that Palestinian terrorism against Israel began years before there was ever an Israeli settlement, and that terrorism from Gaza only increased in the years after Israel shut down its settlements there. The next day, the U.S. State Department walked back Kerry’s statements, suggesting what he meant was the settlements pose an impediment to achieving a two-state solution.

There is never any possible justification for terrorism. In fact, terrorism is always counter-productive as no government (of any country) can allow its citizens to live under such threats for long. The quest for a just peace, for a viable two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, is always set back by such violence.

Let us hope there will soon be a return to calm and that the quest for real peace will resume.

August 25, 2014: Israel’s war with Hamas also plays out in the media, online and in the streets

By Michael Regenstreif

In the book review on page 38, I write about Nora Gold’s fine new book, Fields of Exile. Set 14 years ago as the Second Intifada was breaking out, the main theme of the novel is the effect on a Jewish graduate student at a Toronto-area university of campaigns meant to demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel – campaigns that too often cross the thin line into what is now referred to as the “new antisemitism.”

Despite the fact that Judith, the book’s protagonist, is a committed liberal who had just returned to Canada after a decade in Israel where she had been active in the peace and civil rights movements and in Jewish-Arab dialogue efforts, to the anti-Zionists among her professors and fellow students, she was just a Zionist.

To those who would demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel, a Zionist is a Zionist. A liberal Zionist working for a two-state solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and for fully realized civil rights and equality for Israeli Arabs is no different from an extremist who would annex the West Bank and Gaza while offering no rights to the Palestinians living there.

Fields of Exile proved to be timely reading this summer as war raged between Israel and Hamas and the other terrorist groups in Gaza – groups that have subjected Israelis to unrelenting rocket fire aimed almost exclusively at civilians and who have poured so much of their resources into building an extensive network of cross-border tunnels to be used to commit acts of terrorism.

While Israel has been fighting the Gaza-based terrorists, battles have also raged in the media, in social media and in public demonstrations. The kind of marginalization and antisemitism experienced by Judith in Fields of Exile, and by pro-Israel university students around the time of campus events like the so-called Israel Apartheid Week, have also been experienced by many of us who have Facebook or Twitter feeds or who follow the news – especially by reading articles online at sites with un-moderated comments.

This summer, Europe has witnessed levels of widespread antisemitism unheard of in the post-Holocaust era and too many disturbing reports of antisemitism have surfaced close to home in places like Calgary where a small group of pro-Israel demonstrators were assaulted, in Toronto where antisemitic rhetoric was spouted at a Al-Quds Day rally at Queen’s Park, and even here in Ottawa where the Hamas flag was proudly carried at an anti-Israel march past Parliament Hill.

Make no mistake, waving the flag of a terrorist organization whose charter explicitly calls for the killing of Jews is a profoundly antisemitic act.

I’ve read several articles and blogs this summer by people who have seen their social media feeds disintegrate into confrontations – sometimes ugly confrontations – over the conflict. I’ve seen it on my own Facebook feed where I have unfriended a couple of people after they’ve posted articles or written comments that I perceive as having crossed the line into antisemitism.

Like Judith in Fields of Exile, I see myself as a liberal person committed to peace, to universal civil rights and to the two-state solution, which I believe is the key to both Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state and to the future prosperity of the Palestinian people.

It is because I am a liberal that I support Israel – seemingly the only bastion of liberalism in the Middle East – and am profoundly disappointed to see anyone who claims to be committed to peace and civil rights finding common cause with groups with Hamas or Islamic Jihad, which have no interest in anything to do with peace, civil rights, or justice.

Those marching alongside the Hamas flag, or cheering at the Al-Quds rally, or even posting a stream of one-sided articles on Facebook that blame Israel alone for all of the ills in the Middle East, are not really advocating for peace or civil rights.

As I write on August 15, there is a cease-fire in effect and rumours that a long-term truce is close. I pray that it will have come by the time you read these words.