In the Fine Tradition of Literary Antisemitism
"Canlit Responds, originally formed as the literary community’s protest against charges laid against demonstrators who disrupted the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize over it’s main sponsor’s substantial investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, has released a statement signed by 20 Canadian authors withdrawing their work from the 2024 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and refusing to participate in the Giller Foundation’s ongoing programming.""Fifteen authors have pulled their 2024 fiction releases from contention for the prize. The other five signatories are authors who have prior relationships to the prize – one is a former Giller winner, and the remaining authors have either been shortlisted or longlisted for the prize.""The letter states that the authors 'cannot abide [their] work being used to provide cover for sponsors actively investing in arms funding and Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians'.""The authors call on the Giller Foundation to 'use their organizational leverage to pressure their main sponsor, Scotiabank, to fully divest from Elbit Systems' and to 'cut ties with all funders directly invested in Israel’s occupation and genocide in Palestine, including the Azrieli Foundation, Indigo, and Audible'."Atilla Berqi, Quill & Quire
Elana Rabinovitch, executive director of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, says she will maintain her partnership with the bank despite protests from authors, several of whom have withdrawn their works from consideration. over the bank's investment in an Israeli weapons manufacturer. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press) |
So
it is that in their conscientious proselytizing for compassionate
regard for the Palestinians in Gaza -- beset by an
industrialist-military complex contiguous with the territory that Arabs
who call themselves Palestinians insist is their exclusive patrimony of
ancestral heritage although history documents the rightful indigenous
population as 'Palestinian' Judaeans -- David Bergen, Noor Naga, Aimee
Wall, André Forget,
Catherine Hernandez, Farzana Doctor, Sheung-King, Jacob Wren, Nour
Abi-Nakhoul, Colin Barrett, Frankie Barnet, Greg Rhyno, Jen Currin, Jess
Taylor, John Elizabeth Stintzi, Julie Delporte, Kazim Ali, Lily Wang,
and Sydney Hegele call upon the Giller Foundation to pressure
Scotiabank to fully divest from Elbit Systems.
Their stern voices condemning Israel as an occupier of Palestinian-designated territory -- above all, "Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians",
is testimony to their deep ignorance of reality, much less that of
history and a recognition of actual events as opposed to aggressive and
malignant propaganda. That no fewer than 40 Canadian authors signed a
letter protesting the Giller Prize representing a group specifically
formed in support of protesters charged for disrupting the Giller Prize
ceremony of the year previous speaks to utter arrogant sanctimony in a
veneer of humanitarian concern for human life.
Tellingly,
the group's 'progressive' ideological embrace condemning Israel for its
temerity in assuming it has the right to defend itself from forty
decades of violent hostility from a Palestinian population that feels in
the aggregate that the Jewish state has no right to exist, speaks
volumes about their love affair with antisemitism. Equating the
Palestinian 'struggle' against an 'aggressor' with a legitimate nation's
counter-struggle to deter murder-minded terrorists from claiming
greater numbers of Jewish lives describes vulnerable victims of Jewish
terror, a complete and deliberate inversion of reality.
Protesters are escorted out of the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto by police after interrupting the Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony in November 2023. Three of them were later charged in connection with the disruption, CP24 reported. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press) |
Their
intention to force Scotiabank as the major sponsor of the Giller Prize
in literature to divest from Elbit Systems, the Israeli arms
manufacturer, is merely a veneer to gloss over hatred of Israel and of
Jews. Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank have long demonstrated
their hostility toward Israel and Jews and done so at the behest of
their leaders who have groomed them from cradle to grave to view Israel
as an illegitimate nation squatting on Arab territory. The horrors of
the October 7 mass atrocity masterminded by Hamas and joined by other
terrorist groups such as the PLFP and PIJ had the full support of the
larger population.
It
is not Israel for which 'genocide' is a goal, but rather it is
Palestinians supporting their terrorist groups whose purpose is the
eradication of Israel from its heritage soil. Israel is living proof
that a Jewish state is capable of viewing non-Jewish inhabitants of a
Jewish state as citizens, be they Christian, Druze, Kurds, Bedouin or
Palestinian Arabs. Along with the right of electing their own
representatives to the Knesset (Jewish parliament) to represent
their interests; to sit on the judiciary; to have full respect as
members of important professions, to serve in the military as trusted
colleagues.
Scotiabank
may invest in an Israeli arms manufacturer as an astute financial
choice for its investors, but it also invests in Boeing and Lockheed
Martin as well as Raytheon Tech. If CanLit Responds views weapons
manufacturing as deplorable, do they also call on divesting from those
weapons manufacturers? Elbit after all, manufactures weaponry used by
the United States and NATO countries as well as by Israel. U.S. weapons
manufacturers supply planes and bombs; do they not also merit
attention?
Does
it not disturb CanLit Responds that Palestinian terrorist groups like
Hamas deliberately place Palestinian citizens they reportedly care so
much about in harm's way with a deliberate focus on numbers that they
then use to stir the humanitarian concerns of groups like themselves?
Their lens is so fixed on a belief of Israeli malevolence against
Palestinians that they cannot -- or will not -- recognize that to
Palestinian terrorists their own citizenry is expendable in their longer
vision of annihilating Israel by any means possible -- including
propaganda distribution to stir the rage of antisemites eager to isolate
Israel on the international stage.
The
associated targets this group of Israel-haters focus on, from the
Azraeli Foundation, Indigo and Audible all support the ancient homeland
of the world's Jews reborn. As why would they not? Since diaspora Jews
from antiquity to the present have always faced the headwinds of
antisemitism to survive -- and millions did not survive. A people whose
existence is barely tolerated and between lulls of tolerated
co-existence face dread times of resurgent threats, hate and existential
violence.
CanLit
Responds is just yet another of the many groups that have arisen in the
past to the present, to exalt themselves as principled humanitarian
examples of global compassion for the oppressed and whose identity as
warriors for justice is beyond question. The target of their wrath and
condemnation just always happens to be Jews, a mere coincidence that
speaks to the tired old, but always-useful contention that Jews are
responsible for whatever occurs that reflects human dysfunction.
A protest at November's Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony in Toronto sparked calls from authors for the prize to cut ties with the bank, because of its investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. On Thursday, more than 20 authors pulled their books from consideration for this year's prize. (Rob Gillies/The Associated Press) |
Labels: CanLit, Flaming Antisemitism, Giller Literary Prize, Pro-Palestinian Propaganda, Protests, Scotiabank
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