Friday, July 29, 2011

Canadian Parliamentary Coalition for a New Battlefield



Avi Lewis interviews

MP Scott Reid, Chair, Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism;
Jonathan Kay, Editor, National Post;
Irwin Cotler, Chair, International Coalition for Combating Antisemitism; and
Amir Gissin, Israeli Consul General.

Excerpted from "Fault Lines - Canada-Israel: The other special relationship" December 2010

Lewis : "There's no wave of anti-Semitism in Canada?"

Reid :  "No no no, no, absolutely not. No, it's funny I've heard people who have criticized us, saying that we think this, but no, there is absolutely no spike in the kinds of anti-Semitic incidents that I think appall us."

Kay : "No I don't think anti-Semitism is a huge problem in Canada. In fact, as I've written, I think Canada is probably the least anti-Semitic country in the entire world - including Israel."

Cotler : "And I thought that this might appear as a kind of psychological disconnect because what we would be discussing would be global anti-Semitism but it would be taking place in the Canadian arena and people would look at it through the Canadian prism and say, you know, why are we doing this?"

Yes why are we doing this?

Lewis : "Here's how one senior Israeli diplomat views Canada."
Gissin : "The most important arena in the world for this new campaign, or rather new battlefield that, uh, on one hand have all those who want to delegitimize Israel, and on the other all those who want to present it in its full colours."

End of transcript.

Leave it to Steve to arrange for Canada to become an arena, a new battlefield for a new campaign on the new anti-Semitism, or as he put it to the international Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism in Ottawa last December : "the choice between good and evil", when even the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee to Combat Antisemitism says there's "no spike" in the regular old evil kind in Canada today.

Meanwhile Pogge and John Geddes at Macleans are still asking questions about that undisclosed anonymous CPCCA funding.
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4 comments:

West End Bob said...

Al-Jazeera English snared a coup when they lured Avi Lewis from the CBC which has so few real journalists to lose . . . .

Skinny Dipper said...

Egypt is having a struggle among the military, secularists, and Islamists. This could hurt Egypt in the long run.

Now I get to criticize Israel since I criticized a neighbouring country. However, I must get my criticism approved by the Legitimate Criticism Committee for Israel.

Lindsay Stewart said...

met avi backstage at an ani defranco concert years ago. really pleasant and generous with his time. managed to carry on a series of intelligent conversations among the after party glad handers.

amazing how he coaxed candour from this batch of dry humping manipulators. kay must have escaped momma's skirts for a moment and oopsed the agenda. the rest of politicos just come off as hypocrites jockeying for position, tongue deep in the rump of opportunity.

Anonymous said...

Wow. Good catch. I'd be interested in hearing Scott Reid's reaction to being caught out like this.

The new rise in antisemitism is like the new rise in crime - statistically invisible but a useful stick to beat Canada back to the halcyon intolerance of 1950s with.

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