ottawa@ijvcanada.org

Contents this page – Scroll down:
1. Overview
2. INDEPENDENT JEWISH VOICES OPPOSES CANSEC
3. The Canadian Jewish Movement for Justice for Palestinians
4. CORRECTING COMMON MYTHS ABOUT ISRAEL/PALESTINE

* IJV-Ottawa opposing the CANSEC Weapons Trade Show in Ottawa: For the past 20 years, Ottawa has barred weapons trade shows. But this year, using the excuse that amagamation had created a new “city” entity,  City Council allowed CANSEC to proceed on city property.  IJV joined a broad-based coalition opposed to CANSEC.  On May 27, IJV-Ottawa co-sponsored a spirited day-long demonstration outside Lansdown Park.  Six protesters were maced.  That night, Diana Ralph gave the attached speech linking Israeli warmongering to Ottawa weapons manufacturers.

1. Overview

Dear Folks,

Ottawa IJV has been very active this past month.  Here are a few highlights:

* IJV AGM As the host city, we’ve been working hard to firm up the final details on the IJV AGM.

* Bi’lin tour: Corey Balsam is organizing the Ottawa leg of the Bi’lin tour which will come to Ottawa June 15-16.

* Group of 78 Speech: Diana Ralph gave a speech on “The Canadian Movement for Justice for Palestinians”  (mostly why and how we built IJV) May 27, 2009  to the Group of 78, an Ottawa Canadian foreign policy discussion group encouraging them to take on the issue of Justice for Palestinians.  It was enthusiastically received, and Diana will be joining them in planning a fall conference on Canada’s Israel/Palestine foreign policy. (See attached speech and the Myths handout.)

* Ottawa IJV BDS Resolution: At our May 17 meeting, we unanimously approved the IJV-BC BDS resolution in principle. Corey Balsam, Linda Belanger and Adam Balsam will work with the BC IJV representatives to tighten up the wording slightly.

* Israel & Afghanistan: Dylan Penner is writing a paper on the connections between Israel and Afghanistan and the war industry.

______________________

2.

INDEPENDENT JEWISH VOICES OPPOSES CANSEC

Diana Ralph

May 27, 2009

Independent Jewish Voices represents Jews across Canada who stand in solidarity with the campaign for justice for Palestinians. We challenge the legitimacy of the Israel Lobby and Canada’s complicity in promoting Israel’s war crimes and violations of human rights and international law. Today we stand proudly opposed to CANSEC, to allowing our city to be used to sell weapons anywhere, and especially to be used against the people of Palestine. In the face of the growing list of Israeli atrocities and war crimes, we have become “NION-ists” (as opposed to Zionists), who say Not In Our Name. We support the just demands of Palestinians.

As the only nuclear power in the Middle East, and the 4^th or 5^th largest military in the world, war is Israel’s main industry. Israel pushed hard for the US’s disastrous war against Iraq, and it is now lobbying hard for the US to attack Iran[i]. Many people think that the Bush “war on terror” was a newly minted response to the 9/11 attacks. Not so. Benjamin Netanyahu invented the concept and laid out the elements of a “war on terror” in 1979, at the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (another term he coined—it referred to any popular resistance funded by another country). He and Shimon Perez sold the “war on terror” policy to the George Bush Sr. (then CIA head) and to Ronald Reagan, shortly before launching Israel’s 1982 assault on Lebanon. [ii] Since 9/11, the Israel Lobby has waged its own assaults on Muslims, and worse, it has been “providing valuable lessons for the United States in its own war on terrorism.”[iii] Israel has always served as a strategic asset to various imperial powers, most recently the United States, supporting oppressive regimes, not just in the Middle East, but elsewhere, for example in South Africa, El Salvador, Taiwan, Guatemala and Chile[iv]. Last January, the people of Gaza were guinea pigs for Israel to field test and eventually market new horrific weapons specifically designed for powerless urban populations, such as fleshettes, white phosphorous bombs, and remote controlled predator drones which it used to purposely target children playing on roofs[v].

Canada’s growing ties with Israel are damaging our own sovereignty, reputation, civil liberties, and internal policies. Canada has abandoned its honest broker policy in relation to Israel/Palestine. In 1997, Canada quietly approved the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement. Since then, our trade and military ties with Israel have become far stronger. We now sell hundreds of millions of dollars of component parts for Israeli weapons and security devises.[vi] Under the Harper government, Canada has repeatedly pledged unconditional support for Israel. In March 2008, it quietly passed the Canada Israel “Public Security” Agreement, which gives Israel direct influence over our immigration, policing, prison, and security policies and practices. This threatens to undermine our civil liberties and promote torture as a valid interrogation method.

The Israel Lobby, the most powerful lobby in the US and Canada, is an unholy alliance between the world’s military and corporate powers, right-wing Christian Zionists (including Stephen Harper), and pro-Israel Jewish organizations working under the control of the Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA). These are the Masters of War, and in shutting down CANSEC, we help to shut them down too.

Among the many Canadian companies exporting military products to Israel are several right here in Ottawa. For example:

· Absopulse Electronics in Carp

· A.D. Metro in Gloucester

· KG Canada on Wilbrod Street

· Mechron Power Systems on Kaladar Ave

· Optotec Ltd, on Montreal Road

· PixeLIJK, on Conroy Road

· Plaintree, in Arnprior

This summer, let’s visit them and tell them loud and clear that we don’t welcome murderers as our neighbors!

Let us say together Peace! Shalom! Salaam! No CANSEC here!

The Canadian Jewish Movement for Justice for Palestinians

May 26, 2009 Group of 78, Ottawa

Diana Ralph

ijv@magma.ca

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. I have been looking forward to meeting with you.   The Group of 78 can be justifiably proud of its role in providing responsible, informed leadership on a broad range of key foreign policy issues.   I understand that the Group is now in the active planning stages for a conference this fall focused on Israel/Palestine.  I am particularly honoured that you’ve invited me to talk to you today, and hope that my talk provide further context for your conference planning.

What makes it difficult to take up this issue?

Many Canadians have given the issue of Israel/Palestine a wide berth, even those concerned about topics which logically should have included it, such as human rights, international law, diplomacy, foreign policy, the UN, nuclear non-proliferation, water etc. It has been seen as a “can of worms” which could cause them trouble or even destroy their careers.  I, myself, avoided it until a few years ago. I had grown up in a Jewish family, believing that Israel was a “good thing,” and hardly aware of the concerns of Palestinian people.  My father was an international lawyer who encouraged me to work for justice on all issues.  But after the Six Day War in 1967, when I told him that I had serious concerns about the injustice of Israel holding onto the Occupied Territories, he angrily threatened to disown me if I ever again questioned Israel’s right to protect its security.  At that point, I was young, and busy with  the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements. So I told myself that the Israel/Palestine was just one in a shopping list of important issues, that I really didn’t know enough, and that I preferred to focus on issues closer to home. Palestinian rights is too hot a topic for many Jews to even acknowledge, much less address.

Secular people, Christians, and those of other religions too have tended to avoid this issue.  Like me, some feel that there are many other serious conflicts worldwide, and this one is too fraught with controversy to take on.  Many believe that the Israel/Palestine conflict is between Jews and Muslims, and that they have no right to interfere.   And many fear being accused of being anti-Semitic if they meddle.

This avoidance of Israel/Palestine and the silencing and truncation of public discourse that it entails has not served our country well. Nor has it served Israel or Palestine well.  I congratulate you on your decision to create space for your members to discuss this topic, and I hope that others will follow your lead.

So how can we navigate this challenging territory?  The answer is to link our deliberations to the same principles of human rights and international law, the same universal expectations that should be applied without exception to all sates.  We need to insist on the same frankness and rigour in discussion as we would expect on any other issue, and to recognize that if this is being blocked-internally or externally- it constitutes a flashing red light indicating that something is threatening our democratic values which have served us so well.

Once we honestly look at the situation in Israel/Palestine, we cannot fail to be concerned about the plight of Palestinians-not because we arbitrarily favour them, but because universal human rights and the protections of international law have been denied to them for over six decades.  Like most human rights organizations, such as B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, we should apply the same universal standards to both Palestinians and Israelis.

One of the dangers of avoiding Israel/Palestine is the ease with which we become indoctrinated with myths which have been heavily promoted by Israel, the Israel Lobby, and Western media, movies and politicians.  Without the light of open enquiry and discussion, these myths are assumed to be true.  I’ve prepared a list of the most common myths with my best assessment of the actual facts. Here they are:

1. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. Israel is a “democracy” in form only.  Jewish citizens enjoy major rights which are denied to the 20% of non-Jews living in Israel and it brutally oppresses those living in the Occupied Territories, and denies Palestinian refugees any rights at all.  Israel even discriminates against its 2.5 million Mizrahi (Arab) Jewish citizens. 

2. Because of the Holocaust and the ongoing threat of anti-Semitism, Jews deserve and need a Jewish state for their security. Anti-Semitism is now illegal in most countries and Diaspora Jews live well as full citizens. A state that privileges Jews is therefore not necessary for the safety or survival of Jews.  In fact, Israel is about the least safe place in the world for Jews to live, and the blatant racist oppression it practices fuels hatred of Jews worldwide.   

3. The Palestinians don’t exist as a people and don’t have any legitimate claims to the land because God gave it to the Jews. Within the white colonial framework of both Western powers and eastern European Zionists, Palestinian villagers simply didn’t count as “real” people, any more than any other indigenous people’s claims to land counted.  But in 1856, about 500,000 people certainly lived in Palestine, mostly Muslims. About 4% were Jews and 12% were Christians.[i] Modern archeological research also reveals that the Exodus story is a myth from start to finish, with no evidence of an Egyptian Jewish slavery revolt, much less that God promised Jews real estate thousands of years ago. [ii] Palestinians date their tenure on their land for at least 1,000 years, far longer in fact than the tenure of the Jewish Kingdom which lasted only from 835-800 BCE.[iii]

4. Israel is surrounded by hostile Arabs who constantly threaten to destroy Israel and Jews. Both Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas (implicitly) and all the Arab states except Iran have recognized Israel’s right to exist and proposed reasonable peace offers, which Israel has rejected out of hand. Arabs have never posed any real threat to Israel’s existence. Israel now has the 4^th or 5^th largest military in the world and the unconditional backing of the US and other Western countries.  It has systematically expropriated Palestinian land and water, ethnically cleansed hundreds of Palestinian villages, gutted the Palestinian economy, and imposed a brutal military colonial rule over the remaining Palestinian people.

5.      Arabs and Palestinians are terrorists.  Israelis are the real victims of a constant stream of suicide bombings and Qassam rockets. The term “terrorism” refers to violence against civilians, whether committed by state or non-state groups.[iv] Israeli forces inflict far more damage on Palestinian civilians than vice versa. At least 6,348 Palestinians and 1,072 Israelis have been killed since September 29, 2000..[v] Under international law, resistance against an occupying power is legal.

6.      Israel has a right to defend itself by any means. The Separation Wall, check points, settlements, the siege of and assault on Gaza, targeted assassinations, torture, and house demolitions  have little to do with ensuring the safety of Israeli people, and much to do with creating “facts on the ground” to extend Israeli territory and drive out or subjugate Palestinians. The International Court of Justice has ruled them illegal and the United Nations has passed numerous resolutions condemning these practices, which Israel ignores.

7.      Greater Israel includes the entire Promised Land.  There is no “occupation” but only “disputed territories” between Israel and Jordan. The Occupation is clearly illegal under international law, as is Israel’s refusal to grant Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.

8.      Those who criticize Israel hold it to a higher standard than other human rights violating countries. Although Israel complains that its critics hold it to a higher standard than other countries, the opposite is truer. Israel and the Israel Lobby demand that the world hold it to a lower standard than all the rest of the world, immune from international law and human rights oversight.

9. To criticize Israel is equivalent to threatening the lives of all Jews, because it will leave Jews open to another Holocaust.  Anyone who criticizes Israeli policies or practices is therefore anti-Semitic. Like all other nations, Israel has an obligation to respect human rights and international law.  To criticize its failings is not anti-Semitic (a term which refers to promoting hatred and discrimination against Jews). In fact, there is strong evidence that Israel’s atrocities actually generate hatred against Jews and threaten the future of Israel.

10. Israel represents Jews worldwide.  All Jews support Israel.  Those who don’t are “self-hating Jews,” not really Jews at all. Many Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora criticize Israeli policies both out of principle and a concern for the future of Israel and/or Jews.  

Anyone who believes these myths would be reluctant to advocate for the human rights of Palestinian people, both out of sympathy for Israel and out of fear of being called anti-Semitic.  But they are all lies.

Why must we challenge these lies?

First of all, this is not a conflict between Muslims vs. Jews, or Palestinians vs. Israelis, but one of justice vs. injustice.  We share an ethical obligation to support the rights of oppressed people. The Palestinian people have endured over 60 years of ethnic cleansing, racist oppression worse than South African apartheid, and escalating violence approaching genocide. Israeli settlements, Israeli-only roads, and control of the economy and infrastructure have established what Jeff Halper calls a matrix of control over the Occupied Territories which virtually precludes a two-state solution, and which leave Palestinians isolated in Bantustans and the virtually imprisoned under constant control.[vi] The Gaza massacre was only the latest in an escalating litany of war crimes, atrocities, and human rights violations.  The Palestinian people need and deserve our support.

Israel also threatens the legitimacy of the UN and international law. Since 1955, Israel has been noncompliant with over 65 UN resolutions[vii] and rulings by the International Court of Justice that the Occupation and the Security Wall are illegal.  Since 2001, Israel has also been mobilizing to damage and discredit the UN, as part of its campaign to destroy the Durban Review of the World Conference Against Racism.

Most seriously, as the only nuclear power in the Middle East, Israel promotes war and instability. It strongly advocated for the US’s disastrous war against Iraq, and it is now lobbying hard for the US to attack Iran[viii].  Many people think that the Bush “war on terror” was a newly minted response to the 9/11 attacks. Not so. Benjamin Netanyahu invented the concept and laid out the elements of a “war on terror” in 1979, at the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism (another term he coined-it referred to any popular resistance funded by another country). He and Shimon Perez sold the “war on terror” policy  to the George Bush Sr. (then CIA head) and to Ronald Reagan, shortly before launching Israel’s 1982 assault on Lebanon. [ix] Since 9/11, the Israel Lobby has both waged its own assaults on Muslims, but as been “providing valuable lessons for the United States in its own war on terrorism.”[x] For example, the web site Israel’s War on Terror lists 78 other Israeli “anti-terrorism” links including an anti-UN site called Uniting Nothing.com [xi]. Israel has always served as a strategic asset to various imperial powers, most recently the United States, supporting oppressive regimes, not just in the Middle East, but elsewhere, for example in South Africa, El Salvador, Taiwan, Guatemala and Chile[xii]. Last January, the people of Gaza were guinea pigs for Israel to field test and eventually market new horrific weapons specifically designed for powerless urban populations, such as fleshettes, white phosphorous bombs, and remote controlled predator drones which it used to purposely target children playing on roofs[xiii].

Canada’s growing ties with Israel are also damaging our own sovereignty, reputation, civil liberties, and internal policies.  Canada has abandoned its honest broker policy in relation to Israel/Palestine. In 1997, Canada quietly approved the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement.  Since then, our trade and military ties with Israel have become far stronger. We now sell hundreds of millions of dollars of component parts for Israeli weapons and security devises.[xiv] Under the Harper government, Canada has repeatedly pledged unconditional support for Israel. In March 2008, it quietly passed the Canada Israel “Public Security” Agreement, which gives Israel direct influence over our immigration, policing, prison, and security policies and practices. This threatens to undermine our civil liberties and promote torture as a valid interrogation method.  It is strongly suspected that that Agreement was recently invoked to bar British MP George Galloway from entering Canada.[xv] In another attack on free speech, this week, the Ontario Legislature will vote on a private member’s bill by MPP Peter Shurman to condemn the use of the term “Israeli Apartheid Week.”[xvi]

The Israel Lobby, a world-wide alliance between neo-conservative military and corporate interests, Zionist groups both Jewish and Christian, is now recognized as the one of the most powerful lobbies in the US and Canada.[xvii] It promotes the interests not just of Israel, but also of the Western rich and powerful.  For example, I just returned from representing IJV at the Durban Review conference of the World Conference Against Racism in Geneva.  There I witnessed over 1,000 delegates from the International Jewish Coalition (yes there really is such a thing) and other pro-Israel lobby groups (compared to about 350 other NGO delegates from the entire world) mobilizing with military precision to prevent NGOs from attending, pressuring Western nations to boycott, and wiping any mention of reparations for slavery, refugee rights to return home, Islamophobia, and concerns about Palestinian rights from the Review document. They held large anti-UN demonstrations on 3 of the 5 days of the conference, and succeeded, without a shred of evidence, in characterizing the conference as “an anti-Semitic hate fest.”  They intimidated and divided UN officials, and ended by damaging both the UN and the world’s best hope for ending racism in all its forms.

Canada’s Israel Lobby[xviii] promotes Israel’s interests with Canadian businesses, the military, politicians, and the media. It promotes bilateral agreements with universities and attacks professors and students who criticize Israel, as we saw recently when they mobilized against Israeli Apartheid Week organizers. Every MP I have approached has acknowledged the power of Canada’s Israel lobby to make or break their political careers.

The Lobby also offers generous bribes. For example, all new Canadian MPs are offered free propaganda trips to Israel. In 2007 the Canada-Israel committee spent over $200,000 to send 23 federal politicians and their spouses to Israel.[xix] The free trips also are available for university presidents, police chiefs, and First Nations chiefs.  In Ontario high school principals and teachers are given free trips to the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles to become imbued in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and pro-Israeli views. [xx]

Why is it important that progressive Jews organize for justice for Palestinians?

The State of Israel claims to represent Jews worldwide. That is even more ridiculous than claiming that the Harper government represents the views of all Canadians. It has never been true. Before 1948, most Jews worldwide rejected Zionism, including leading Orthodox, Reform, and secular Jewish organizations and prominent individuals. Many Jews now believe that Israel’s behaviour violates core Jewish values.  Many are even saying Israel-worship is a new fascistic religion which is destroying Judaism (along with many of the people of Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and soon, we fear, Iran).  For example, Judaism emphasizes serving God and acting ethically.  Israel emphasizes serving its nationalistic interests and puts its security above ethics. Judaism emphasizes “shalom” (peace) and humility, and Israeli policy has always emphasized war and power.

In the face of the growing list of Israeli atrocities and war crimes, which are damaging our own country,  many Canadian Jews have become “NION-ists” (as opposed to  Zionists), who say Not In Our Name.  We feel a deep ethical obligation to organize to oppose the Israel Lobby and to support the just demands of Palestinians.

What difference can a small minority of progressive Jews make?

After all, Canadian Jews constitute only about one percent of the Canadian population, and those critical of Israel are a tiny minority of those.  But over the past three years, we have demonstrated that we have a unique power to undercut the hegemonic legitimacy of the right-wing Zionist narrative.  Without that legitimacy, the Israel Lobby will lose much of its power to intimidate opposition and to command political and financial support.  Even with small numbers (so far), a progressive Jewish movement offers unique and crucial support to the broader anti-Occupation, peace, and civil liberties struggles in Canada.

We challenge the Israel Lobby’s claim to speak for all Jews.  We also have more legitimacy than non-Jews when we debunk the false assumptions the Lobby keeps promoting.. Because the power of the Israel Lobby rests on support by mainstream Jews, we  undermine its foundation by encouraging synagogues, Jewish community centres, and the Jewish media to consider other valid perspectives.

As Jews, we have a special credibility in publicly critiquing Canada’s unholy ties to Israel.  When we join our allies as a national Canadian Jewish group, the politicians and Foreign Affairs officials take all of us more seriously. Unions, churches, peace groups and others who have taken anti-occupation stands need the solid support of Jews to counter allegations that they are anti-Semitic.

The Israel Lobby and the Harper government are actively promoting prejudice and discrimination against Muslims and Arabs through the so-called “war on terror.”  So when as Jews, we ally with Muslims and Arabs, we challenge the Islamophobic claim that they are enemies of Jews and dangerous terrorists.

Finally, because Israel and the Israel Lobby are promoting wars of imperial conquest in the Middle East and Central Asia, and because, as Naomi Klein points out, the War on Terror represents the likudization of Western policies[xxi], we, as Jews, have an important role in the peace movement when we challenge Israeli government war-mongering.

How did we build Independent Jewish Voices?

In 2006, even in the midst of Israel’s devastating assaults first on Gaza and then the much more publicized one on Lebanon, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) mobilized to defeat a modest motion calling for divestment from companies contributing to the Israeli occupation at the United Church of Canada’s bi-annual meeting. In a heavy-handed and vicious campaign, they deluged delegates with threats to label the United Church of Canada as anti-Semitic if it passed the motion, and attacked the leadership of both the UCC and the Toronto group which had proposed the motion. They also mobilized both the Globe and Mail and National Post against the UCC.  In no time the UCC was reeling.  What had happened?  The UCC knew its human rights values were consistent with those of Judaism.  However, they had made a classic error in their ecumenical outreach by assuming that the views of the CJC reflect Jewish religious values.  The CJC is not a religious group, but a political organization which uncritically supports Israeli policies.  Now the powerful non-religious CJC was opposing their divestment motion and accusing them of anti-Semitism in the national media. .  In addition, UCC leaders and members-like all Canadians-had heard media coverage mostly from the stridently vocal Israel-right-or-wrong-Jews and from Christian fundamentalists who took the same stance..  But they had not heard from those espousing Judaism whose views were much more closely aligned to the values of the UCC.  Virtually the only source which carried these quieter, concerned Jewish voices was OUTLOOK -Canada’s magazine for progressive Jews.

Loose networks of friends across Canada-Jewish, Christian and secular-shocked by these tactics by CJC realized that we had to challenge the monolithic CJC and provide an alternative perspective of solidarity for justice.  In the 11^th hour a small group of us launched a multi-pronged approach to connect the UCC to the Jews whose values were most aligned with theirs: Scores of concerned Jewish Canadians sent personal  letters of support to the UCC.  An online petition of concerned Jewish Canadians supporting the UCC divestment motion garnered hundreds of signatures.   And we prepared a booklet to hand out to UCC convention delegates which included a statement of support, rebuttal of the CJC manifesto and numerous articles from Jewish voices aligned with values similar to the UCC.   We also helped to sponsor a small delegation of UCC members and Jewish friends to attend the conference, talk to the delegates and speak to the ideas contained in the booklet. At the conference, the CJC sent a large delegation who continued their tactics of intimidation, including throwing away almost all the copies of the dossier we had prepared. However, many UCC delegates got our message, and  the motion passed, with minor amendments.  We realized then that there really is power in uniting progressive Jews, working collaboratively with non-Jews who share the same ethical, moral and human rights values.  This, in essence, became the vision for what eventually became Independent Jewish Voices.

At that point, all of the progressive Canadian Jewish groups were small, marginal, weak financially and politically, and disconnected from the mainstream Jewish community. Their tactics tended to be reactive and symbolic, rather than realistic attempts to influence any particular group to do anything specific.   By contrast, the Israel Lobby is enormously powerful financially and politically, deeply integrated into and supported by the mainstream Jewish community and the Canadian, U.S., and Israeli governments. Its several wings operate in unison as a coherent, streamlined machine to promote the legitimacy and power of Israel.

So it was no wonder that we progressive Jews felt overwhelmed and powerless.

However, I was confident that progressive Jews in alliance with other pro-justice groups had the potential to build a movement powerful enough to expose, weaken, and eventually defeat the Canadian Israel Lobby. In spite of heavy pro-Israel propaganda, most Jews are far more progressive than the Israel Lobby which claims to speak for them. For example, a 2008 poll of 800 U.S. Jews found they “overwhelmingly disapproved of the Middle East policies of the George W. Bush administration and felt that Israel was less secure as a result of his policies by a 61-25 margin.” [xxii] By contrast, the Canadian Jewish Congress (and Stephen Harper) uncritically endorsed Bush’s policies.

Because Canadian Jews tend to value human rights and to vote Liberal or NDP, many are uncomfortable with brutal Israeli actions and the allegiance between the Harper government and the Canadian Israel Lobby.  Many other Jews who uncritically support Israel do so out of misinformation and fear promoted by the Israel Lobby. Working together in campaigns targeting mainstream Jewish communities, we have the potential to correct these myths.

Our first priorities, therefore, were to unite Canada’s progressive Jews, to encourage other Jews to join us, and to link with progressive non-Jews. Rather than allowing our differences to divide us, we welcomed a healthy diversity of opinions about Zionism, Israel, and possible solutions (so unlike the monolithic Israel Lobby).

In March of 2008, last year, we organized a national conference of Canadian Jews who were already promoting a just peace in Israel/Palestine.  We also invited unions, churches, peace and student groups, and Palestinian, Muslim and Arab groups to send delegates.  It was the largest gathering of progressive Jews and allies Canada has ever seen. We came from all across Canada. About 3/4 of us were Jews ranging from secular to Orthodox, from young adults to seniors, representing 18 Jewish organizations. We  unanimously adopted a statement of unity and launched Independent Jewish Voices (Canada).

Since then, IJV has played a major role in a broad range of campaigns and tours to promote Palestinian justice.  During Israel’s Gaza massacre last January, we co-sponsored demonstrations and press conferences with Palestinians from coast to coast, which helped to show that this was a united demand for justice, not a conflict between Muslims and Jews.

We organized a cross-Canada tour by Jeff Halper, Director of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions and a tour by Al-Haq, which is challenging the legality of Canada Park, built with Canadian funds in the Occupied Territories where 3 Palestinian villages had stood.  We also co-sponsored performances of the play My Name is Rachel Corrie across Canada and Israeli Apartheid Week activities on several Canadian campuses.

We also have taken an active advocacy role in supporting CUPE Ontario, CUPW, and the Canadian Arab Federation all of which have come under attack for criticizing Israel.

We helped to organize progressive Jews internationally to support the Durban Review of the World Conference Against Racism. Our tiny delegation made a major difference in challenging the claim that the Durban Review was anti-Semitic.

We have sent several IJV representatives to Palestine, Gaza, and Israel to build solidarity relationships with progressive movements there, to challenge the siege of Gaza by bringing in urgently needed medical supplies, and to document the injustice for future tours in Canada. We’ll be sending them across Canada to speak about their experiences.

And we are helping to support progressive Members of Parliament, Senators, and DFAIT to help them risk taking principled stands for a more just Canadian policy in the Middle East.

We now have active chapters in seven cities from Halifax to Vancouver. We have built cooperative working relationships with our allies, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, unions, churches, students and peace groups.

As we have become more visible and effective, the Israel Lobby has started to attack us. We regularly get hate mail and threatening phone calls. The National Post, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Canadian Jewish Tribune attack us.  B’nai Brith publishes press releases against us. Carleton University obliquely threatened to expel students organizing Israeli Apartheid Week.

However we’re discovering that, as in dealing with other bullies, when we stand up to the Israel Lobby, there is little they can do to stop us.  Their attempts to shut down our events just give us free publicity which results in overflowing crowds, and when we respectfully offer to debate them, they tend to slink away. A few even have joined us.  We can tell that the movement for Palestinian justice is growing rapidly both in size and legitimacy, and that the Israel Lobby is running scared.  For example, the numbers attending the Walk for Israel  in Toronto has dropped steadily. This year’s Walk attracted 40 percent few participants than three years ago.[xxiii]

We look forward to working in solidarity with the Group of 78.   Together we can contribute significantly to the movement for justice and peace in the Middle East.  We stand ready to support you both to promote a just peace in Israel/Palestine, and also to expose and eventually dismantle the world-threatening power of the Israel lobby.

Thank you

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[i] Ilan Pappe (2006) A History of Modern Palestine (2^nd edition) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  p. 14

[ii] Nur Masalha (2007) The Bible & Zionism: Invented Traditions, Archaeology and Post-Colonialism in Israel-Palestine. London: Zed Books.

[iii] Israel Finkelstein & Neil Asher Silberman (2003) The Bible Unearthed:  Archeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. (New YorkL Simon & Shuster), p. 1

[iv] Newton Bowles (March 28, 2006) Vivisecting the UN. “…there was no consensus on what we mean by terrorism. …There is no overall treaty on terrorism because members of the U.N. can’t agree on what it is. Is it state terrorism or only what guerrillas–not governments–are doing?” http://www.web.net/~group78/English/Global/Bowles06.shtml

[v] Israelis and Palestinians Killed in the Current Crisis. If Americans only Knew.  http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/deaths.html

[vi] Jeff Halper (2008) An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Disposession, Redeeming Israel. London: Pluto

[vii] UN resolutions targeting Israel and the Palestiians http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/un.html; http://www.jerusalemites.org/facts_documents/un/22.htm

[viii] John J. Mearsheimer & Stephen M. Walt (2008)  The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. NY: Penguin Books.

[ix] Diana Ralph (2008) “Islamophobia and the ‘War on Terror’: The continuing pretext for U.S. imperial conquest.”  In Paul Zarembka The Hidden History of 9-11.  Boston: Seven Stories Press

[x] Yossi Klein Halevi & Michael B. Oren (Sept. 20, 2004) “Israel’s unexpected victory over terrorism” Jewish World Review. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0904/halevi_israeli_victory.php3?printer_friendly

[xi] Israel’s War on Terror links http://www.israel-wat.com/links_eng.htm.

[xii] Noam Chomsky (1999) The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel & the Palestinians. (2^nd ed) Montreal, Black Rose.

[xiii] Marc Garlasco & Darryl Li (March 20, 2009) “Remote Control Death” The Nation http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090406/garlasco_li

[xiv] Canadian Military Companies linked to Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries that are (a) Exporting to the US for Weapons Systems used by Israel, (b) exporting directly to Israel, or (c) actively pursuing direct exports to Israel. http://coat.ncf.ca/ARMX/cansec/CANSEC-Israel.htm

[xv] Deborah Somers (March 20, 2009) “George Galloway Banned from Canada,” Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/20/george-galloway-banned-canada

[xvi] Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (May 21, 2009) http://www.caiaweb.org/node/1399

[xvii] Michelle Collins (Feb. 11, 2009) “How the Jewish Vote swung from red to blue”  Embassy. http://www.embassymag.ca/page/view/jewish_vote-2-11-2009.

[xviii] Canada’s Israel Lobby includes B’nai Brith, the Canadian Council on Israel and Jewish Advocacy, the Canada-Israel Committee, the Canadian Jewish Congress,  National Jewish Campus Life,  and the University Outreach Committee. The Lobby also includes AIPAC-linked groups like Campus Watch which spy on and attack university professors and students, and others that carefully monitor Canadian MPs’ statements. Every MP I have approached has acknowledged the power of Canada’s Israel lobby to make or break their political careers.

[xix] Michelle Collins (Feb. 11, 2009) “How the Jewish Vote swung from Red to Blue”  Embassy. http://embassymag.ca/page/printpage/jewish_vote 2-11-2009

[xx] Ontario Principals Council http://www.principals.on.ca/CMS/display.aspx?nav=pop&cid=5854

[xxi] Naomi Klein (Sept. 10, 2004) The likudization of the world: 9/11’s real legacy.  Guardian. http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0909-04.htm.

[xxii] Daniel Luban (July 16, 2008) “Doves outnumber hawks in Jewish community.”  Inter Press Service

[xxiii] This year it took less than an hour for the entire walk to go past us where in the past it’s take several hours. I’ve compared estimates of the crowd size and there has been a steep decline since 2006: 680 News says 12,000 participated this year. http://www.680news.com/news/headlines/more.jsp?content=20090524_110757_8272&page=1 They don’t give a source but I suspect it’s the UJA since the only person the reporter talked to is UJA spokesperson Howard English.  Last year the official estimate was15,000http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14756&Itemid=86 In 2006 the UJA claimed over 20,000 participants http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12163&Itemid=86

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4.

CORRECTING COMMON MYTHS ABOUT ISRAEL/PALESTINE

1. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

Israel is a “democracy” in form only. Jewish citizens enjoy major rights which are denied to the 20% of non-Jews living in Israel and it brutally oppresses those living in the Occupied Territories, and denies Palestinian refugees any rights at all. Israel even discriminates against its 2.5 million Mizrachi (Arab) Jewish citizens.

2. Because of the Holocaust and the ongoing threat of anti-Semitism, Jews deserve and need a Jewish state for their security.

Anti-Semitism is now illegal in most countries and Diaspora Jews live well as full citizens. A state that privileges Jews is therefore not necessary for the safety or survival of JewIn fact, Israel is about the least safe place in the world for Jews to live, and the blatant racist oppression it practices fuels hatred of Jews worldwide.

3. The Palestinians don’t exist as a people and don’t have any legitimate claims to the land because God gave it to the Jews.

Within the white colonial framework of both Western powers and eastern European Zionists, Palestinian villagers simply didn’t count as “real” people, any more than any other indigenous people’s claims to land counted. But in 1856, about 500,000 people certainly lived in Palestine, mostly Muslims. About 4% were Jews and 12% were Christians. Modern archeological research also reveals that the Exodus story is a myth from start to finish, with no evidence of an Egyptian Jewish slavery revolt, much less that God promised Jews real estate thousands of years ago. Palestinians date their tenure on their land for at least 1,000 years, far longer in fact than the tenure of the Jewish Kingdom which lasted only from 835-800 BCE.

4. Israel is surrounded by hostile Arabs who constantly threaten to destroy Israel and Jews.

Both Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas (implicitly) and all the Arab states except Iran have recognized Israel’s right to exist and proposed reasonable peace offers, which Israel has rejected out of hand. Arabs have never posed any real threat to Israel’s existence. Israel now has the 4th or 5th largest military in the world and the unconditional backing of the US and other Western countries. It has systematically expropriated Palestinian land and water, ethnically cleansed hundreds of Palestinian villages, gutted the Palestinian economy, and imposed a brutal military colonial rule over the remaining Palestinian people.

5. Arabs and Palestinians are terrorists.

Israelis are the real victims of a constant stream of suicide bombings and Qassam rockets. The term “terrorism” refers to violence against civilians, whether committed by state or non-state groups. Israeli forces inflict far more damage on Palestinian civilians than vice versa. At least 6,348 Palestinians and 1,072 Israelis have been killed since September 29, 2000.. Under international law, resistance against an occupying power is legal.>

6. Israel has a right to defend itself by any means.

The Separation Wall, check points, settlements, the siege of and assault on Gaza, targeted assassinations, torture, and house demolitions have little to do with ensuring the safety of Israeli people, and much to do with creating “facts on the ground” to extend Israeli territory, to leave Palestinians powerless in Bantustans and open-aid prisons. The International Court of Justice has ruled them illegal and the United Nations has passed numerous resolutions condemning these practices, which Israel ignores.

7. Greater Israel includes the entire Promised Land.

There is no “occupation” but only “disputed” territories between Israel and Jordan. The Occupation is clearly illegal under international law, as is Israel’s refusal to grant Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.

8. Those who criticize Israel hold it to a higher standard than other human rights violating countries.

Although Israel complains that its critics hold it to a higher standard than other countries, the opposite is truer. Israel and the Israel Lobby demand that the world hold it to a lower standard than all the rest of the world, immune from international law and human rights oversight.

9. To criticize Israel is equivalent to threatening the lives of all Jews, because it will leave Jews open to another Holocaust.

Anyone who criticizes Israeli policies or practices is therefore anti-Semitic. Like all other nations, Israel has an obligation to respect human rights and international law. To criticize its failings is not anti-Semitic (a term which refers to promoting hatred and discrimination against Jews). In fact, there is strong evidence that Israel’s atrocities actually generate hatred against Jews and threaten the future of Israel.

10. Israel represents Jews worldwide. All Jews support Israel. Those who don’t are “self-hating Jews,” not really Jews at all.

Many Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora criticize Israeli policies both out of principle and a concern for the future of Israel and/or Jews.

Diana Ralph, May 2009
ijv@magma.ca