June 18, 2008 – The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC) endorses and supports the call by the New Democratic Party for Canada to participate in the Durban Review Conference. The NDP has adopted this position in response to assurances by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated at the conference.
It is crucially important for the world community to come together and fight racism, hatred and oppression in all its forms and the opportunity “Durban II” presents for making progress on these goals is too precious to pass up. In the words of Ban Ki-Moon, it is a process that cannot be permitted to fail.
We suspect that an alternate conference that the Harper government is calling for will result in a formal attempt to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and attempt to tar any criticism of Israel with the brush of anti-Semitism. This would be a grave mistake which would not only threaten the peace process but would also put Jews in peril by debasing the concept of anti-Semitism.
Those who are uncritical of Israel and cast a blind eye towards the issue of Palestinian human rights have supported the boycott and attacked the NDP for its principled position. This opposition is based on an ongoing opportunistic attempt to label any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. This is a fundamentally unprincipled position and one which undermines the concept of anti-Semitism by trivializing it and broadening it to such an extent that it becomes meaningless. By devaluing the concept of anti-Semitism and applying it in such a cynical fashion, right-wing Zionists make it easier for actual anti-Semitism to manifest itself. As philosophy professor Brian Klug of Independent Jewish Voices (UK) has warned, “when anti-Semitism is everywhere, it is nowhere. And when every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no longer know how to recognize the real thing–the concept of anti-Semitism loses its significance.”
We agree that Durban II needs to condemn anti-Semitism as well as all forms of racism but we disagree with the suggestion made by the WCAR’s critics that criticism of Zionism is anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism cannot be ended by jingoistic support for Israel or by the subjugation of another people. Rather, the way to end anti-Semitism is to oppose all racism and hatred. One cannot oppose anti-Semitism without also opposing Islamophobia. One cannot believe in democracy if one doesn’t also oppose the suppression of democracy and human rights by the Israeli government and one cannot fight anti-Semitism by boycotting the world community’s conference on combating racism. If anti-Semitic ideas are raised, the way to combat them is through debate and with facts, not by walking away.We regret that groups that claim to speak for Jewish Canadians such as the Canadian Jewish Congress have joined the call for a boycott and have condemned the NDP for its principled stance. No group, neither the CJC nor the Canada-Israel Committee, can claim to speak for Canadian Jews as a whole. We are a diverse community with eclectic and varied opinions. A growing number of Jewish Canadians, and Jews worldwide, are increasingly concerned about the actions of the Israeli government and its treatment of the Palestinians. Many Jews are passionately involved in the struggle for justice for our Palestinian sisters and brothers. Groups like the CJC and CIC represent an increasingly narrow band of opinion and should not be seen as representative of the broader Jewish community.
The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC) is an umbrella group consisting of 18 organizations opposed to the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and committed to universal human rights. We join a growing number of groups throughout the Jewish Diaspora and within Israel in sharing these values.
This Statement has been endorsed by the Interim Steering Committee of ACJC.
Diana Ralph, Ph.D
Coordinator Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians
