New Theory on Antisemitism

A new and perverse theory on antisemitism seems to be taking hold, and some of its proponents come from very unlikely quarters.  Let us take the example of a long-time friend of Israel, Liberal MP Anita Neville.  In comments at a hearing of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, she alleged that the Jewish community faced a possible “backlash” of hate in response to the Harper Government’s proclamations in support of the Jewish State and its decisions to defund organizations engaged in antisemitic activity.  What is surprising is that her comments were tantamount to a repeat of various other statements emanating from organizations such as the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), which also recently alleged that the government’s support of Israel is “fostering” antisemitism.

To B’nai Brith Canada, Canadian Jewry’s senior advocacy organization, suggesting that the government’s clear and principled policies on the Middle East and on countering antisemitism are creating a backlash against the Jewish community is simply preposterous.

All mainstream Jewish organizations in Canada have continually appealed to governments of varying political affiliations to counter, both verbally and materially, all manifestations of antisemitism in Canada, and to stop the moral equivalency between the democratic state of Israel and the terrorists who seek its destruction.  These Jewish organizations, ours included, also urged governments to ensure that there be full accountability for all taxpayer dollars funding overseas NGOs, and to give unqualified assurance to Canadians that these funds will not be utilized directly or indirectly in promoting un-Canadian activities such as glorifying terrorism, the publication of textbooks that include antisemitic and anti-Christian material, or any other activity which undermines the legitimacy of a fellow democracy and ally.

Today, Canada has exactly such a government.  It has assumed the responsibility of ensuring that there is full accountability for Canadian taxpayers’ dollars in the foreign aid that we distribute.  As an example of this principled position, we recently learned that Canadian funds which used to be sent to the general fund of UNRWA (an organization with a history of terrorist infiltration) have now been redirected to food aid.  Specific projects which will lay the groundwork for a fully-functioning justice system in the West Bank, a crucial element in building a strong Palestinian civil society that will strive for peace, will also be funded.  How ironic it is that there are now suggestions that this sort of accountability in the re-distribution of Canadian aid dollars for the benefit of the Palestinians will somehow lead to a backlash against the Jewish community.  How sad if such a far-fetched notion were true.  How short-sighted to try to create any kind of conceptual justification for such activity.

The demonization and delegitimization of the world’s only Jewish State amounts to antisemitism: it is the denial of the legitimate right of the Jewish people as a collective entity to self-determination in its own homeland in much the same way as Jews as individuals were denied basic human rights accorded to all others in the past.  This is a statement which has emanated not only from Canadian parliamentarians from more than one side of the political spectrum, but indeed from authoritative sources and public figures from across the globe.  Pushing the idea that taking action to denounce and defund exactly that type of antisemitism in Canada will somehow endanger the Jewish community is ill-advised since it unwittingly gives license to the base motives of Jew-haters everywhere.

In essence, the newest theory on antisemitism seems to go like this: when the Government makes policy changes which support an ally and fellow democracy, Jews are ultimately responsible and, therefore, bring upon themselves any repercussions from antisemites who take offence at those changes.  Such an assertion would be laughable, if not for the chorus of disparate voices saying just that.

If, according to the likes of CAF, action taken against the enemies of the Jewish community and Israel will in some way encourage antisemitism, than what is the suggested course of action?  Is our government supposed to sit back and continue sending millions of public dollars to obsessively anti-Israel entities in order to appease them and their Canadian supporters?  Is this to be done out of fear of the purported “repercussions” to be faced by Canadian Jews?  The success of appeasement in solving global issues in modern history has a very sad track record. We would do well to bear that lesson in mind, instead of crafting theories that could, unfortunately, become self-fulfilling prophecies.

DÉJÀ VU: AMERICAN JEWISH LEADERSHIP

The irony of President Barack Obama summoning American Jewish leadership for a chit-chat in the Roosevelt Room at the White House recently was certainly not lost on students of Jewish history.

To American Jewry, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the beloved president of the community: they adored him, voted for him, and could see no wrong doing in his actions. The Jewish community today, or about 80% of it, has embraced Barack Obama with the same vigour as their predecessors embraced FDR. But there is a slight difference: I believe that in Obama’s case, there is also an element of fear present.

When President Obama summoned the Jewish leaders to the Roosevelt Room, he was quite clear about whom he wanted present, and whom he wanted excluded. Similarly, President Roosevelt had a Jewish invitation list made up of primarily one, Rabbi Stephen Wise. Rabbi Wise was, in the historical sense, a court Jew. He was the most famous Reform Rabbi in the United States during World War II and, at the same time, was considered the most influential Jewish and Zionist leader in the country. Historically, there were court Jews who put themselves on the line in order to advocate for issues which directly affected the security and safety of the Jewish community. These court Jews would plead with kings, bishops, and princes to rescind orders which negatively affected the Jewish community, to remove heavy burdens of over-taxation which became oppressive and unbearable, and would even intervene to try and stop edicts from being proclaimed which were detrimental to the very welfare and existence of the Jewish people. Rabbi Stephen Wise did not fall into the same category as these court Jews.

For as millions of Jews were being massacred in Europe, Rabbi Wise, during his meeting with FDR, had tea and chatted about the weather, sports, and other issues of American concern. He refused to press the President to act in order to try to save those Jews who were condemned to die in the Holocaust. A protest from the United States declaring that those responsible for the genocide of the Jewish people would suffer serious consequences when the war was over, might have given the Nazi killers some pause. But Stephen Wise did not ask and President Roosevelt kept silent.

Jumping to the recent meeting with President Obama, the attendees collectively reflected a Jewish communal leadership that was intent on supporting the President, no matter what he was pushing for. From the description provided by those in attendance, this is exactly what happened.

There was no strong voice present calling for a united Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, or for the inalienable right of Jews to live in their ancestral homeland, including in Judea and Samaria. There were no voices that called the notion that Jews in Judea and Samaria should be forcibly removed from their homes so that certain areas become Judenrein by its true adjective: obscene. There was also no one to tell the President that such an exercise was recently tried in Gaza and resulted in massive failure and terrorist training camps where Jewish communities had once thrived.

At this point, it is interesting to note that just as Obama recently did, FDR denied many Jewish organizations access to his tea party with Rabbi Wise. The Bergson group, led by Hillel Kook, and a delegation of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, that was rousing American Jewry from their slumber and warning of the killing machine in Europe, were both denied entry by President Roosevelt. Nationalists from the Jabotinsky movement and the Orthodox Vaad Hatzalah, who were involved in various rescue efforts at the time, were also shut out of the meeting. These organizations were to march on the streets and fill Madison Square Gardens, but no tea with the President and Rabbi Wise.

Today, the organizations that were excluded from Obama’s private tea party have been thrust into the spotlight and given the responsibility to advance the opinions of what may appear, at first glance, a minority but, I believe, will rapidly become the majority among American Jews. It will be up to B’nai Brith International, the Young Israel Movement, and the Zionist Organization of America to lead the American community in the cause of proclaiming Jerusalem as the united capital of the Jewish people and, at the same time, to assert that Jews have a historical right to live throughout Eretz Yisrael. No dictate from the White House, Moscow, Tehran, or, for that matter, any other place in the world will change the Biblical Covenant that the Jewish people have that gives them the religious, historical, and legal rights to settle their own land. The Jewish Aboriginals have reclaimed and rebuilt their national home according to the road map laid out in the Old Testament, the foundation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Sadly, the one individual who, more than any other, failed in his moment of trial was Steven Savitsky, President of the Orthodox Union. It was his challenge to speak on behalf of the Orthodox Zionist world and to clearly articulate to President Obama the position of this significant component of the Jewish community. Rabbi Yaffi, the Reform leader, clearly had the time to make known the position of his movement which, not surprisingly, was in total support of President Obama’s policies. On the other hand, Mr. Savitsky apparently did not feel he had enough time to argue the case for Jerusalem and object to the edicts of the President. Mr. Savistsky would be well served to review Megillat Esther where Mordechai reminds Esther when she is afraid to intervene with the King that G-d will still save his people, but only Esther will lose her place in history. Sadly, Mr. Savitsky missed that message.

Rabbi Stephen Wise

At first glance, the Israeli vote shows a deadlocked society, divided between right-wing and left-wing constituencies.  This is certainly what the media would like us to focus on.  However, in reality, one has to understand the Jewish mentality, its history and its soul to effectively appreciate the Talmudic situation in which we find ourselves.

On the surface, election results point to two political parties – Likud and Kadima – that are diametrically opposed on all major issues and incapable of working with each other. To many, this appears to be an unsolvable situation. In reality and upon closer examination, the dynamics point to a very different unfolding scenario.

The national vote reflects the inner struggle of the Jewish soul.  It is an attempt to reconcile essential survival and security issues with that of peace.  Thus, we have the two basic fundamental concepts locked in unison, survival and peace. These two all too often competing tensions form the crux of our Jewish dialectic.   On the one hand, the Israeli public wants instant gratification, and it wants it now. The organization Peace Now perhaps best embodies this school of thought. Its name, by definition, emphasizes peace now, and all the wonderful things peace will bring: the cessation of rockets raining down on Israeli town, the ability to go about one’s daily life without fear, and to be accepted as a fellow human being in the society of nations.

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As a proud Canadian, I wholeheartedly support the Canadian Armed Forces in its struggle against the radical Islamist terrorist Taliban organization.

As a North American, I pledge my full support to the United States Army in its ongoing struggle against Al-Qaeda, another radical Islamist terrorist group, and its various offshoots worldwide.

As an honourary member of the Commonwealth of Nations, I applaud the efforts of the British and Australians in their struggle against radical Islamist fundamentalists who have made it their mission to destroy the value systems of liberty, human rights, dignity and tolerance that we herald in Western civilization.

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This Hanukkah, just as in years past, we follow the holiday tradition of lighting the Hanukkiah, or candelabra, in commemoration of two major events: the national political freedom of a People, obtained through a war of the few against the many led by the Maccabees against the Greeks, and the spiritual revival and cleansing of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.  While we rejoice in the powerful symbolism of the Hanukkiah and all it represents, we cannot help but be saddened as well as we contemplate the darkness that has befallen the State of Israel. How ironic, that just as we remember the triumph of the Jewish People, we are also witness to the political machinations by those who seek to lead, which threaten to destroy the social fabric of a country.

If ever there was the need to be imbued with the great fighting spirit of the Maccabees, that time has come. Now more than ever, it is essential that we find our inner strength and determination to confront the Jihadists like Hamas and Hezbollah, and, yes, even Fatah’s Al-Aqsa and Tanzeem militias. Instead, we see in Israel a leadership embroiled in an election campaign that shows no clear direction for the future.

The Labour Party, which at one time had nearly absolute control of Israeli society, is all but shattered, surviving under a leadership composed of yesterday’s chiefs and burdened by their overwhelming failures.  Ehud Barak, the man whose folly in southern Lebanon initiated a unilateral withdrawal that created the de facto Hezbollah State, is leading a party which will perhaps end up in fourth or fifth place in the Knesset.

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No sooner had Tzipi Livni, leader of the Kadima Party, called for the dissolution of the Knesset in the run-up to an early election in Israel, then the international media predictably kicked into gear. The verbiage and tone of the world’s press – including Israel’s own leftist-dominated media – took up the mantle of demonizing Bibi Netanyahu and resumed its now-tired refrain about the “death of the peace process”. 

The Toronto Star has already heralded Livni’s inability to create a governing coalition as “kill[ing] the chances of a deal with Palestinians”. The paper’s Middle East correspondent speaks of the year-old talks aimed at forging a peace settlement between Israel and moderate Palestinians, as if that possibility were really within our grasp. He, like so many other journalists, upholds the illusion that there was truly a meaningful dialogue in play and that Abu Mazen was ready in position to deliver a peace treaty on behalf of the Palestinians. If only. 

This desperation to maintain an illusion is further reflected in the many negative references made to Bibi Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud Party. It is Netanyahu’s insistence, they claim, on keeping Jerusalem as the united Jewish capital of the State of Israel that is the real obstacle to achieving peace. 
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Want to know what’s on my mind at present? Edgar Bronfman’s ‘revelation’ that antisemitism is somehow a thing of the past. A relic of a bygone era.

In his latest writings, Edgar Bronfman, at one time one of the most powerful financial leaders in American Jewry, pontificates on the state of antisemitism in North America.  He quickly dismisses it as no longer an issue.

I still remember the pundits who at the time of the signing of the Oslo Accords were also quick to tell us that there would no longer be the need for Israel advocacy organizations since peace was now upon us. Let us remember that Yasser Arafat, a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, would eventually receive this most coveted of honours. The premise was that between Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and now Abu Mazen, we would all enjoy tranquility in our old age. If only these pundits had been correct.
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B’nai Brith’s recent response to Canada’s Israel Advocacy Scene According to Israel Leibler.

I’m interested in knowing what you think. Please be in touch with your comments. Take a look after the break for the full press release.
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If you haven’t heard about the recent hate speech at McMaster University please read the full Tribune article, I was quoted as saying:

“We are calling on the Attorney General to act on the request of the Hamilton police. Failure to bring this matter to a resolution is at odds with the severity of the offence. Campus is an important microcosm of society where there can be no immunity from hate. As universities across Canada gear up for a new academic year, any further delay leaves Jewish students at risk.”

What do you think?