April 19, 2017: Syria and the world’s ‘Responsibility to Protect’

By Michael Regenstreif

I’m writing this column on April 7 just as this issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin is about to go to press.

April 7 is a significant date. In 2008, a unanimous vote in the House of Commons approved a motion put forward by then-MP Irwin Cotler, a former minister of justice and legendary human rights activist, making April 7 Canada’s National Day of Reflection on the Prevention of Genocide.

The date was not random. Cotler specifically chose it because it was the anniversary of April 7, 1994, the start of 100 days of genocide in Rwanda that saw more than 800,000 Tutsi people murdered by the Hutu-dominated government – a genocide that the world community was aware of, but did not act to prevent or stop. As Cotler wrote in an op-ed published in the National Post last year on April 7, “Indeed, what makes the Rwandan Genocide so unspeakable was not only the horror of the genocide itself, but the fact that it was preventable. No one can say that we did not know – we knew, but we did not act.”

In an op-ed for the Huffington Post that was also published last year on April 7, Cotler wrote about the principles of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine (R2P) adopted by the United Nations in 2005.

The R2P doctrine, Cotler wrote, “mandates international action to ‘protect a state’s population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.’ In a word, if such mass atrocity crimes are being committed, and the state where these crimes are occurring is unwilling or unable to act – or worse, is the author of such international crimes – the Responsibility to Protect arises.”

Cotler goes on to discuss the devastating humanitarian crisis arising from the civil war in Syria and the crimes against humanity committed by the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. “Indeed, if mass atrocities in Syria – with 500,000 killed, 12.5 million displaced, five million refugees – are not a case for R2P, then there is no R2P.”

This week, on April 4, a year after Cotler wrote that article, the Assad regime launched a chemical weapons attack against civilians in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria’s Idlib province. At least 100 people, including infants and small children were massacred as the world looked on in horror.

It seemed like a repeat of a 2013 chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Assad regime. A year before, then-U.S. president Barack Obama had warned Assad that using chemical weapons was the “red line” he must not cross, or the U.S. would act. Many commentators pointed to Obama’s failure to take military action in response to that crime against humanity as his greatest foreign policy failure. Others pointed to his diplomatic efforts to have Assad give up his chemical weapons stockpile as a great success in preventing both further chemical weapons attacks and American involvement in another Middle Eastern war.

Among those who vehemently opposed a U.S. response to the 2013 chemical weapons massacre was future U.S. president Donald Trump.

And, in the 2016 U.S. election campaign, Trump routinely ridiculed his opponent, Hillary Clinton, when she called for action in Syria.

It seems, however, that Assad held on to at least some of his chemical arsenal and may well have been emboldened by the Trump administration’s recent statements that regime change in Syria was no longer an American goal.

Then, last night [April 6], on Trump’s orders, 59 cruise missiles were launched at the Shayrat air base from which Assad’s forces launched this latest chemical weapons attack against civilians.

As I write, it is much too early to know if this missile response will make a difference in the Syrian civil war. Will it make a difference in helping to protect the Syrian people from Assad?

Trump said he was affected by the sight of the “beautiful babies” killed in the massacre. But it’s hard to forget that Trump’s policy has been to refuse to help any Syrian refugees. And, with all the controversy about Russia in recent months, Trump has had (at least, so far) nothing to say about Russian complicity with Assad in the Syrian civil war.

April 3, 2017: ‘We are connected in ways both painful and powerful’

By Michael Regenstreif

Last issue (March 20), I wrote about the waves of bomb threats that have plagued Jewish institutions – mostly Jewish community centres, but also Jewish schools and offices of Jewish organizations – over the past three months. I wrote that the bomb threats, all of which turned out to be hoaxes, were “antisemitic in their intent.”

Then, on March 23 – the day before this issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin went to press – there was a shocking development in the case. Police in Israel – working in cooperation with law enforcement officials in several countries, including the United States and Canada – arrested a suspect they had determined was responsible for the threats: a Jewish, 19-year-old dual Israeli-U.S. citizen who lives in Ashkelon in southern Israel.

We have not yet heard from the suspect about his motives. Early reports in the Israeli media said he was not answering questions or cooperating in any way with police investigators. At his first court hearing, his lawyer said that he has a non-malignant brain tumour that leads to behavioural issues. The Israel Defense Forces, apparently, had previously found him to be unfit for military service.

The suspect, evidently, was highly sophisticated in his use of computer equipment and software with which he perpetrated the bomb threat hoaxes while disguising his identity and whereabouts. But he did make a mistake while making one of the bomb threats and did not hide his IP (internet protocol) address, which enabled authorities to trace the threat to him. This triggered a lengthy investigation, ultimately leading to his arrest.

The entire Jewish world, to be sure, was relieved that a suspect was caught. Hopefully, these waves of bomb threat hoaxes – there have been nearly 150 since January – will now stop. But the fact that the suspect in this case is Jewish does not change the antisemitic intent behind the crimes.

As Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League – an organization in the United States that combats antisemitism – said in a statement after the suspect’s arrest, “While the details of this crime remain unclear, the impact of this individual’s actions is crystal clear: These were acts of antisemitism. These threats targeting Jewish institutions were calculated to sow fear and anxiety, and put the entire Jewish community on high alert.”

It is a sad fact of recent history – here, in the U.S., Europe and so many other places – that we have been witnessing increased incidents of antisemitism. From Jewish reporters receiving thousands of antisemitic tweets after writing critically about the president of the United States, to graffiti incidents last November in Ottawa, to recent Jewish cemetery desecrations in the U.S., to an imam at a mosque in Montreal referring to Jews as “human demons” and “the most evil of mankind,” the stories come in almost daily.

So, when someone seeks to instil fear in specifically Jewish communities, large and small, by making bomb threats, the acts are most certainly acts of antisemitism – even if the person making the threats is Jewish.

The revelation that the suspect in so many bomb threat hoaxes against Jewish institutions – against Jewish communities – is himself Jewish is very sad and very troubling. After the arrest, the Forward posted an article by Hinda Mandell, a professor in Rochester, New York, whose daughter attends a pre-school in the Rochester JCC that received two bomb threats (the Jewish cemetery in Rochester was also recently desecrated). 

Mandell wrote that she was heartbroken that the suspect was Jewish. “From an emotional perspective, I feel like I’ve just been sucker punched … My gut reaction upon reading the news alert about today’s arrest was straight out of Jewish central casting, a version of ‘What will the goyim think of us now?’”

Last issue, I said that an unintended consequence of the bomb threats and other antisemitic acts was that communities were coming together in solidarity. By the end of her article, Mandell reached the same conclusion.

“So what will the goyim think? They’ll think we’re all in this together. We are connected in unexpected ways that are both painful and powerful.”

March 20, 2017: Threats and attacks can also bring us together in solidarity

By Michael Regenstreif

I’m writing this column in the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin office, which is located within the Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC). I also attend programs at the SJCC and swim in the pool. In other words, I spend a lot of time in the building.

The SJCC is a welcoming place. It really is my second home, and I enjoy coming here almost every day – despite levels of security that are much tighter than when I started here almost a decade ago. The front doors are locked now, and SJCC members and staff swipe their membership cards in barcode readers to enter the building. Non-members are buzzed in after showing photo ID and telling the front desk staff the reason for their visit. Uniformed security guards are always on duty, and there are cameras in strategic locations throughout the Jewish Community Campus.

Even though the security is tighter than it used to be, the security measures are handled in a welcoming and friendly manner, so the experience of coming to the building is not really very different than it was 10 years ago.

The need for these security measures has been painfully obvious in recent months.

In November, there was a rash of antisemitic, racist and Islamophobic graffiti attacks in Ottawa that targeted four Jewish locations – including a building here on the Jewish Community Campus, two synagogues, and a private home used as a prayer and study centre – as well as a church, where the minister and many of the parishioners are African Canadian, and a mosque.

(One person was responsible for all of those graffiti attacks and he was apprehended in large part thanks to security measures in place here on the Jewish Community Campus.)

And, since January, there have been more than 120 bomb threats called and emailed to Jewish institutions in North America – mostly to JCCs, but also to Jewish day schools and offices of Jewish organizations. While the vast majority of the bomb threats have been at JCCs in the U.S., there have been several here in Canada. One that hit particularly close to home for me was the bomb threat at the JCC of Greater Vancouver, a JCC where I spent much time during the four years I lived in Vancouver as a kid, and have visited on numerous occasions since.

All of the bomb threats to date – this column is being written on March 10 – have been hoaxes. Although there have been no real bombs, and no one has been physically harmed and no property has been damaged, we can’t become complacent and treat a bomb threat as routine. Each must be taken seriously in co-operation with law enforcement officials. These bomb threat hoaxes are affecting the Jewish community. A JTA article on pages 1 and 2 of this issue discusses – among other things – the effect of bomb scare evacuations on very young children. Jewish institutions are reviewing security procedures, and the effects of publicly manifested antisemitism are many. And, to be sure, these bomb threat hoaxes are antisemitic in their intent.

Recent manifestations of antismitism have not been limited to bomb threat hoaxes. I’ve mentioned the graffiti attacks we experienced here in Ottawa, and there have been other communities where similar attacks have taken place. Great numbers of tombstones have been overturned at several Jewish cemeteries in the U.S. A bullet was fi red into a (thankfully unoccupied) Hebrew school classroom in a synagogue in Indiana, and many Jewish journalists have been subjected to vicious antisemitic social media campaigns after writing critically about the new president of the United States.

The intent of all of these antisemitic incidents – and you can say the say the same for other forms of racism and bigotry – is to instil fear and insecurity. Sadly, and understandably, many people do become fearful in response.

One of the consequences of these incidents is that they can embolden bigots to act on their prejudices. At this point, we don’t know who is responsible for the vast majority of the recent bomb threats. Is it one person? Is it a small group acting in concert? Or is it a bunch of copycats taking inspiration from previous threats? So far, only one man, linked to eight bomb threats in the U.S., has been arrested – and law enforcement has determined that he was a copycat who had nothing to do with the vast majority of the incidents.

But these antisemitic incidents can also have unintended consequences. One consequence that perpetrators don’t intend is that they bring people and communities together. Those graffiti attacks here in Ottawa resulted in people from different faith and cultural communities gathering together in solidarity.

Political leaders at all levels of government and from across the ideological spectrum have expressed their support for communities under attack and, as Barbara Crook notes in her My Israel column, desecrations at Jewish cemeteries in the U.S. spurred a successful fundraising campaign in the Muslim community to help repair the damages.

To be sure, attacks or threats aimed at intimidating or preventing the full participation in society of any religious, racial or cultural community, is an attack or threat aimed at all of us. But to see individuals and communities responding in solidarity is inspiring.