CPCCA : Waving at anti-Semitism

Yesterday the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism released its Final Report -two years in the making - on what co-chair and former Lib MP Mario Silva referred to as the "wave of anti-Semitism we are witnessing in our nation". A 71% increase.

Yet a mere seven months earlier in December, here is the CPCCA's other co-chair, Con MP Scott Reid (at the 13:33 mark) :

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

Scott 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." 

Yet there were both Reid and Silva yesterday - gravely intoning at their presser about the need for government to get involved because "Canada is witnessing an unprecedented increase in anti-Semitic incidents and hateful discourse".

What? Just since December?

Well no, because we're talking "the new anti-Semitism" here, or as Silva puts it : "demonizing Israel as an apartheid state."
Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, the report explains, unless you refer to its [current right wing] government['s policies] by the word apartheid.
Especially Israel Apartheid Week.
Especially on campus, where the first Israeli Apartheid Week in the world was held in Toronto in 2005, a movement now gone global.

Reports on campus 'new anti-Semitism' and its lefty or clueless profs and administrators take up 21 pages of their 80 page report. And they have recommendations :

All university staff and students should be encouraged to document and report antisemitic incidents whenever they occur.

We recommend that professors be held accountable for academic rigour of their curricula.

We recommend that Federal Government and/or the Inquiry work with the provinces to help administrators develop suitable tools and structures to deal with this burgeoning problem in an effective and principled manner.

On law enforcement : The Inquiry Panel recommends that police forces across Canada send their officers to the "Tools for Tolerance" program at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in LA.
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On funding NGOs to do monitoring :

We recommend the creation of a permanent, publicly accessible “ambassadorial” position under the auspices of the most appropriate Department (Foreign Affairs, Justice, Multiculturalism) to develop and implement policies, projects and research on combating antisemitism, including the provision of funds to NGOs to further these aims.This office should also monitor implementation of priority recommendations and ensure compliance and accountability.

What, like Israel's NGO Monitor perhaps, the group Kenney credited in his defunding of KAIROS?
Well, we're right off the thought-crime map now, aren't we?

But what about actual anti-Semitic hate crime? Via StatsCan : Police-reported hate crime in Canada, 2009 - but in my own words where not in quotes:

54% of all hate crime incidents reported in 2009 were : "mischief, (e.g. graffiti, vandalism to religious property)"

The second and third highest percentage in hate crimes was : "minor assaults (13%), in which little to no physical harm was caused to the victim, and uttering threats (10%)"
All the other hate crime categories were around 1 or 2%.

There were 283 hate crimes targeting Jews reported to police in 2009. 

"In 2009, hate crime rates were generally highest among youth and young adults. For both victims and persons accused of police-reported hate crime in 2009, the rate peaked among those aged 12 to 17 years and generally decreased with increasing age."

Teenagers and hateful graffitti.

Meanwhile 100s of unnamed First Nations women have been kidnapped, beaten, and killed.
No special $½-million committee for them. No Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Aboriginal Death on the world stage for them.
Hell, the Sisters in Spirit aren't even allowed to use their own name anymore and what federal grant money they had to research those missing women has been rolled over into a general RCMP missing persons fund end of that story.

Speaking of funding ....
CPCCA presser June 2, 2009 : "We will voluntarily disclose all sources of funding."

Scott Reid on video yesterday at CBC :

"We had a number of donors who donated on condition of anonymity and uh the uh we passed a bylaw to ensure that no donations from groups such for example advocacy groups, from trade unions, from businesses would be accepted. These were all individual donations ."

I'll bet. And after all that, you still haven't come up with a reasonable definition of your new anti-Semitism.
"Tools for Tolerance" indeed.
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Update : The definitive smackdown from Dr. Dawg
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First they came for KAIROS ...

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Gerald Caplan, G&M:
The Harper government, women’s rights and the cost of speaking out
The Tories are playing punishment politics with Canada’s progressive NGOs – and eroding civil society in the process

"Despite the chill on speaking out, this week the Canadian Council for International Co-operation announced its fear that its funding is likely to be cut. CCIC is Canada's preeminent coalition to end global poverty. Some 90 Canadian non-profit organizations, including most of the well-known ones, come together under the CCIC umbrella to monitor federal policies on foreign affairs, aid, trade and peace-building."

Betty Plewes, former CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, is not afraid to speak out. She wrote in Embassy Mag in May :

"At Foreign Affairs, the past year has seen the entire division focused on women's rights and gender equality eliminated.

In Pakistan and Kenya, two countries where women's rights violations and violence against women are profound and systemic, CIDA has cut funds that were explicitly dedicated to gender equality. In Canada, Match International, the only international
development organization devoted specifically to women's equality, has lost its funding.

Within CIDA, there is a noticeable retreat from gender equality work. Staff have recommended to NGOs that they remove the words "gender equality" from their proposal if they want a chance at funding."

This is what Senator Nancy Ruth was talking about when she recently advised NGO's to "Shut the fuck up" about abortion funding overseas. "If you push it, there will be more backlash," said Nancy Ruth.

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Antonia Zerbisias covered much of this ground recently in Is Ottawa leaving women behind? with a great quote that "the women's movement is the canary in the coal mine" :

"Canadians are snoozing while they are losing their country,” says [Liberal SWC critic Anita] Neville.
“I don’t think people know or understand what’s going on. I don’t think they will realize it until it hits them personally."

Yeah, that's how it usually is - women and children always go first.

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George Galloway vs Team Carpet Pee

Just over a year ago, British MP George Galloway was banned from Canada because, in the words of former American Enterprise Institute alumnus and Jason Kenney spokesthingey Alykhan Velshi :

"He is a threat to the security of Canadians. It is actually quite odious and I think it is entirely appropriate for our security agencies to say that if they have advanced notice that Mr Galloway is going to come to Canada to pee on our carpet, that we should deny him entry to the home."

A spokesman said he first heard about Galloway's visit from the Jewish Defence League letter."

Today Galloway's court case to overturn that ban begins in Toronto.

Unfortunately for Team Carpet Pee, in the meantime there have been 'developments', as they say. Despite Kenney's insistance that there was no political interference on his part in the decision to ban Galloway :

Kenney stressed that his political staff never contacted the Canada Border Services Agency – which made the call that the veteran politician was inadmissible under national-security grounds.

"Neither I nor my office have been in direct touch with CBSA officials about it," Kenney said in an interview.

frantic government correspondence between Kenney's office, CBSA, Immigration and Canada’s High Commissioner to Britain about banning Galloway was inadvertantly forwarded to Galloway's lawyer Barbara Jackman. You can read it for yourself in two parts at Rabble here and here.

Also at issue in the case is how newsmedia were able to publish stories about the ban on Galloway entering Canada before he was informed himself :

"... on March 18, Mr. Velshi asked Canada’s High Commission in London for phone numbers of political editors for British newspapers. On March 20, The Sun published an “exclusive” – that George Galloway had been barred from Canada.
Mr. Velshi insisted last week that he did not leak the story: "No. Absolutely not."

Galloway, you will recall, was able to make the speech that so alarmed Velshi, "Resisting War from Gaza to Kandahar", to Canadians via video link from New York City, where they are evidently made of sterner stuff and do not share Velshi's view that he is "a threat to the security of Canadians".

"It's all nonsense," says Galloway. "If you want my honest opinion, I think the Canadian government is more afraid of my views on Afghanistan than they were on my views on Palestine."

One of the sponsors of Galloway's proposed Canadian tour last year, the church group KAIROS, subsequently had its government funding cut off later that year for apparently entirely unrelated reasons I'm sure.

Opening arguments in the case begin today. Insert popcorn-munching smiley here.

Update : Laura at We Move To Canada attended the hearing. Her excellent and amusing coverage in three parts here. Thank you, Laura!

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Canadian policy on Israel - It's a small, small, small world

It's so small it seems to fit entirely inside the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism held in Israel in December. Speaking and chairing panels at that conference were ImmigrationMin Jason Kenney, Israeli NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg, and Senior Legal Counsel to B'nai Brith Canada and new Rights and Democracy board member - David Matas.

It was from that conference that Jason Kenney announced the funding cut to KAIROS in his speech about combating antisemitism in Canada. Back home in Canada his office sited the rightwing Israeli thinktank NGO Monitor as disapproving of KAIROS when asked for an explanation of the cuts. As it happens, NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg was chairing a panel on Trends in the Delegitimization of Israel at the same conference.

Steinberg has been staging what he calls a Name and Shame campaign against a number of mideast human rights groups including KAIROS - and Oxfam! - since 2004. UNRWA, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, was also on that hit list and in January it had its Canadian funding restricted to food aide only. Steinberg crowed about it in the Jerusalem Post and has promised to name names to our own Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism .

Most recently the Cons have blown up the Montreal human rights organization Rights and Democracy by stacking the board with pro-Israel hawks. Ex-VP of B'nai Brith and current R&D Chairman Aurel Braun invited NGO Monitor Gerald Steinberg to speak at R&D - you can watch Braun gracelessly slag previous R&D Chair Ed Broadbent at the CTV link below.
New R&D appointee David Matas co-chaired a panel on Antisemitism in Cyberspace at the Israel conference this December. Matas favours an enlarged definition of what constitutes "new anti-semitism". Matas :

"If you accuse Israel of crimes against humanity and Israel has committed crimes against humanity, then it is a legitimate criticism. If Israel has committed no such crimes, then it is antisemitism.

In my book Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism published by Dundurn Press, I have written chapter after chapter detailing criminal accusation after criminal accusation against Israel, and showing that all these accusations have no foundation either in fact or in law. The mere fact that the criticism would be legitimate if the accusations were warranted, does not save these accusations from the charge of antisemitism."

Paul Wells and Dr. Dawg have both done excellent coverage of the whole Rights and Democracy debacle and Kudos to CTV for their surprise coverage also.

Did I mention the next Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism, parent of our own Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, is expected to be held in Canada this year? You can read their London Declaration from last year's conference here.
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First KAIROS, then UNRWA ... and Frank steps in it.

Last month Jason Kenney explained his government's decision to cut off funds to the church aid group KAIROS thusly:

"Our government is working to dismantle the client relationship that existed between the government of Canada and organizations whose priority is seemingly to advocate for the legalization of banned terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as deny the Jewish people's right to a homeland."

Or, as Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda put it, "the program didn't meet CIDA's current priorities".

Naturally enough, the churches comprising KAIROS -the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops - did not much care for Kenney's insinuations.

This month Oda doesn't think the UN's Palestinian refugee agency meets CIDA's current priorities either :

Embassy Mag : Outcry erupts as Canada starts to move away from Palestinian refugee agency

"The government has quietly taken what many consider the first step to cutting ties with the UN agency responsible for supporting more than 4.67 million Palestinian refugees scattered throughout the Middle East."

While not cutting the actual amount of the aid, funding of UNRWA is being shifted away from its traditional core funding for food, clothing, health services, and schools - to food aid only.

"Jewish organizations have long alleged that UNRWA has been infiltrated by groups like Hamas" and "that funds given to the UN agency are being diverted to the group".

B'Nai Brith and the Canada-Israel Committee have both released statements applauding the government's decision, while pro-Israel websites and media have reported widely on the change. Mr. Dimant said his organization had been advocating in favour of moving away from UNRWA for a long time"

Frank Dimant, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada and a member of the Cross-Cultural Roundtable on Security at Public Safety Canada, is pleased the government has adopted his viewpoint:

"This is certainly a step in the right direction," he said. ... "I believe it's a very progressive step forward. ... I think that it is strange, to say the least, that there is a specific refugee agency just dedicated for the Palestinians and that all the millions of other refugees in the world are serviced in a different category."

Oh, good one, Frank.
I'm willing to bet you do not think it at all strange, to say the least, that there is a Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism and that all the millions of other people in distinct minorities in Canada are not serviced by their own pet privately-funded parliamentary coalition.
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KAIROS - Jason Kenney digs himself a deeper hole

Really, Jason, I didn't think you could make this any worse.

G&M, today : In a media release issued from Jerusalem, Mr. Kenney explained his decision to cut off funds to the church aid group KAIROS :

"Our government is working to dismantle the client relationship that existed between the government of Canada and organizations whose priority is seemingly to advocate for the legalization of banned terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as deny the Jewish people's right to a homeland."

KAIROS - as one might expect of a group comprised of the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops - is of course a very strong supporter of "the Jewish people's right to a homeland".
Its website also says it is opposed to boycotts and sanctions against Israel.

Back to the G&M :

Mr. Kenney's office referred - as did the Canada-Israel Committee, an influential Jewish body - to statements from NGO Monitor, an Israeli organization that says it analyzes "the misuse of development aid funds in the Israeli-Arab conflict zone by highly partisan Canadian NGOs such as Kairos."

And previously, on Dec 17th in The Sun :

"Kenney’s office pointed to critical comments made by an Israel-based group. The NGO Monitor said KAIROS is a “main supporter of the anti-Israel divestment movement in Canada..."

Ok, that's twice now Kenney's office has cited NGO Monitor as the source of his intel on KAIROS and for his decision to libel and defund KAIROS from the podium at a conference in Israel.

So who is NGO Monitor? ... *google google google* ...
A rightwing US-funded Israeli lobby group which has been agitating against Canadian government funding for KAIROS since 2004 as part of their 'name and shame' program.
NGO Monitor board members include Alan Dershowitz, James Woolsey, and Elliot Abrams, and coincidentally, the president of NGOM Gerald Steinberg is chair of a panel at the same anti-Semitism conference in Israel from which Jason Kenney denounced KAIROS.

NGOM sure don't like KAIROS :

"KAIROS demonizes Israel through accusations of “war crimes” and “collective punishment."

...they write, while curiously providing a link to a KAIROS letter to Stephen Harper which condemns the attacks on civilians by both Israelis and Palestinians.

They also don't much like Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Ford Foundation, the BBC, numerous Israeli human rights groups, the Israeli soldiers who testified about Israel's atrocities during the Gaza seige, or the Goldstone Report.

Well done, Jason. Really.
NGOM is free to carry on its support for the policies of Israel's military as it chooses, while occasionally getting smacked down for its embarrassing biases .

But you, you made it Canadian government policy and then you announced it on foreign soil.
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Dec 24 Update : Jason Kenney sends word that since all the major churches in Canada are royally pissed with him for announcing in Israel last week that KAIROS had its funding cut off for anti-Semitism, he would now like us all to forget what he and his spokesweasel said and blame Bev Oda instead.
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