Anti-Semitism: A Cause of "Great Concern" in the Western World
"The member states of the European Union support policy initiatives at European level that aim to combat incitement to antisemitic hatred and acts of violence, as well as the dissemination of antisemitic conspiracy myths online.""The increase in threats to Jewish persons in Europe including the resurgence of conspiracy myths, public expressions of anti-Semitism, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and an increase in anti-Semitic incidents and hate crime is a cause of great concern."Council of the European Union"The UN’s display of hypocrisy continues this afternoon, as the General Assembly continues to debate the so-called 'question of Palestine' resolutions which are all one-sided, all blame Israel and are all detached from reality.""Countries that supported Israel today have understood that this package of resolutions does nothing to forward peace but serves instead to entrench the Palestinian’s rejectionist position and deepen the conflict.""No other country in the world faces such discrimination in the UN ... and it is time for more UN members to join our struggle to challenge the organization's anti-Israel agenda."
Hillel Neuer, UN Watch
What
continues to surprise sympathetic onlookers to these annual rites of
condemning a democratic nation which has absorbed and given citizenship
to millions of Palestinian Arabs, Bedouin, Druze, Christians and B'hai,
rescuing black Ethiopians who traditionally identify as Jews from
persecution to bring them to safety in Israel, is the cowering hypocrisy
of nations that assure Jews and Israel that they support the Jewish
state's sovereign presence in their ancestral home and are committed to
fighting anti-Semitism and to honour the memory of the Holocaust, yet in
the august halls of the United Nations they uniformly vote against
Israel's interests.
It
is as though a mental block obscures reality, commitment and morality
for these nations who see no contradiction in publicly voting against
Israel, condemning the state for its existence in essence, while in
another breath they claim to be fully supportive of its right to exist.
In the one-way street of voting against Israel there is no balance, no
recognition that Israel has attempted time and again to satisfy the
demands of the Palestinians, only to be turned down time an again.
Similarly
there is no recognition of the incitement by the Palestinian Authority
for violence against Israel, for refusal of normalization of relations,
while it continues to dole out financial awards and honours to
Palestinians and their families who have committed violent acts against
Jews. Much less the constant refusals to bargain in good faith to
achieve a sovereign state of their own, for the covert plan aspiring to
Palestinize the geography from the river to the sea. ("From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.")
The
sanctimony of government leaders like Canadian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau who appoints a well-known Canadian human rights activist to the
role of envoy to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance by a
prime minister who was unable to muster the word "Jew" when unveiling
the then-newly-opened Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa while bemoaning the
death of six million people, and whose administration overlooked the
word "Jewish" on the commemorative plaque is painful to observe.
Under
the government preceding his own led by Conservative Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, the long-running Canadian tradition of voting in support
of Israel on UN resolutions was assured, but it has executed an abrupt
and to some, puzzling turnabout under Trudeau, the ultra-progressive,
post-nationalist, feminist prime minister anxious to display himself on
the world stage as a leading progressive.
Canada,
like other countries, has seen fit to formally adopt the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be
expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations
of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals
and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and
religious facilities.”
Yet
though the IHRA definition has been adopted by countries and groups
that agree with the definition per se and want that recognition to
signal that they are morally opposed to anything resembling, leading to
or aggravating anti-Semitism, they appear to suffer amnesia when a vote
in the General Assembly comes up which has familiar content that aids
and abets and formalizes and promotes anti-Semitism. Canada's stance a
case in point. Anti-Semitism is exemplified by denying the Jewish people
their right to self-determination, and by affirming the right of the
Palestinians to self-determination without taking Israel's into
consideration is ipso facto, anti-Semitism, clear and simple.
The
United Nations has entertained 96 resolutions since 2015 condemning
Israel, while seven have been allocated for Syria, five for North Korea,
four for Iran and three for Myanmar. Canada has company in its
hypocrisy given the European Union speaks passionately about fighting
anti-Semitism and the promotion of Holocaust remembrance, but again,
once at the United Nations all that is forgotten in the obligatory
bashing of Israel at the behest of countries notoriously acknowledged
for their human rights abuses.
The British newspaper, The Guardian,
this week published a piece signed by 122 Palestinian and Arab
academics, journalists and intellectuals denouncing the definition of
anti-Semitism claiming "profound disagreement" with the notion that "Israel in its current reality embodies the self-determination of all Jews",
an astounding impudence by self-righteous, anti-Israel belligerents
claiming that they know better than Jews themselves what Israel should
represent as a Jewish state; the assurance that Jews will never again
face the horror of genocide.
Labels: Anti-Semitism, Canada, European Union, Hypocrisy, Israel, United Nations, Unity
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