"While
we stand firmly behind protections against discrimination for al
communities, including Palestinians, [anti-Palestinian racism] crosses a
line by targeting expressions of Jewish identity linked to Israel."
"Holding differing opinions is not a breach of human rights."
Richard Marceau, vice-president, external affairs, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs
"[A
meeting with the prime minister took place to] highlight how
Islamophobia, and its intersections with anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab
racism, continues to harm our social fabric, undermines pluralism and
poses a direct threat to our democracy."
Amira Elghawaby, anti-Islamophobia representative
"Racism is an appropriate construct for describing the experiences of Palestinians."
"Israel's
treatment of Palestinians is ... at its essence[,] predicated on the
superiority and dominance of one group of people over another."
"A
form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes,
defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives."
Arab Canadian Lawyers Association 2022 report
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Amira Elghawaby, Canada's special representative on combating Islamophobia. Photo by Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press |
The
very height of unredeemable hypocrisy expressed by the Arab Lawyers
slandering Israel's treatment of Palestinians, typical and predictable
of Muslim interpretation of justice, when it is Palestinian violence
meted out in constant death threats and active attempts and successes in
random attacks killing Jews within Israel that is the real issue in the
ongoing standoff between Israel and the Palestinians. Surpassed in
inhumane savagery by the Palestinian terrorist attack led by Hamas on
October 7 2023, when thousands breached the border fence in southern
Israel to slaughter 1,200 Jews and rape innumerable Israeli girls and
women, mutilating many in sheer sadistic inhumanity.
Added
to the fact that Arab, Muslim and Palestinian 'public relation'
campaigns endlessly stereotype, defame and dehumanize Jews and the State
of Israel, entirely reversing reality in pursuit of demonizing the
Jewish State and Jews worldwide as oppressors of Palestinian victims of
Jewish cruelty. Now, those who have celebrated the October 7, 2023
massacre of innocent Israeli civilians and who portray those rapes and
murders as just desserts in punishment for those who victimize
Palestinians -- which is to say a state that defends its citizens from
mass psychopathy -- are lobbying Canada's government to make it a crime
to slander Palestinians.
Irony
upon irony; the very people who expend endless time and energy on
slandering Jews insist the world is obliged to protect them from
opinions garnered from their violent performance in mass murder, along
with their anti-social machinations in never-ending loud and
sometimes-violent, always-threatening marches and demonstrations calling
for the destruction of the Jewish State and the ouster of Jews from
Canada; to 'send them back to Europe' -- ostensibly to the Holocaust
ovens of annihilation -- continue to portray themselves as victims, not
the victimizers that they are.
The
concern within the Jewish community is that accepting the thrust of the
argument that Muslims deserve a law that would outlaw criticism of
Palestinians and by extension Muslims who have, in the past year, broken
myriad Canadian laws with impunity, it would become a criminal offence
for Jews to criticize the mobs who threaten them on the streets, in
their communities and their businesses. The issue of conflating
pro-Israel declarations with racism, in the process insulating
Palestinian interpretations of history and present performances from
criticism is beyond incomprehensible to a logical, neutral mind.
|
Adil Charkaoui, speaking Arabic, denounced "Zionist aggressors" and
called on Allah to "kill the enemies of the people of Gaza and to spare
none of them."Adil Charkaoui's speech has drawn broad condemnation from politicians
like Premier François Legault and groups like the Centre for Israel and
Jewish Affairs. (Adil Charkaoui/X) |
At
the very time that Canada's civil compact of community equality and
plural social mores of acceptance and civil tolerance of others are
being turned into a psycho-social morass of harassment, threats and
unsubstantiated claims of Jewish supremacy plotting the genocide of
Palestinians, the Palestinians, their defenders and allies are accusing
Canadian Jews of plotting against them and turning society into a
critical mass of Palestinian denigration. The classic of victimizer
cloaking itself as victim.
"Denying the Nakba"
will become grounds of prosecution should the Arab Canadian Lawyers
group's definition of 'racism' against Palestinians -- a group that can
hardly be claimed to be a race to begin with -- be agreed to by the
Liberal government. The 'Nakba' is a term used to describe the
displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war when the
nascent Jewish State declared itself and combined Arab armies marched on
Israel to destroy it, and 750,000 Arabs calling themselves Palestinians
fled, to become refugees while believing Israel would fall, and they
could immediately return to claim the land their very own.
Balance
that against the estimated 800,000 Arab Jews who were expelled, their
properties taken, by the Arab countries where they had lived for
centuries in the diaspora forced upon indigenous Jews by the Roman
Empire in the 2nd century BC, dispersing Judeans from their ancestral
lands. Jewish organizations are concerned that equating the Holocaust
with the Palestinian 'Nakba' "risks opening the door to Holocaust minimization".
"These
comparisons are problematic because they equate the Holocaust -- a
systematic industrial-scale genocide in which six million Jews were
targeted and exterminated solely for their identity -- with the
displacement of approximately750,000 Palestinians during the 1948
Arab-Israeli War."
"This
framing not only undermines the historical uniqueness and gravity of
the Holocaust but also fosters perceptions that Jews are committing
atrocities similar to those they endured."
"By
blurring these distinctions, anti-Palestinian racism diminishes the
specific trauma of the Holocaust and undermines the educational impact
of Holocaust memory."
Richard Marceau, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs
Canada
had accepted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
definition of antisemitism for the purpose of combating forms of
anti-Zionism; a distinct form of antisemitism. The IHRA definition was
added to Canada's anti-racism strategy in 2019. It states "manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel conceived as a Jewish collectivity". As an example, "denying
the Jewish people their right to self-determination e.g., by claiming
that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour"; as well, "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis".
All
of which, manifestly, the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel lobby in Canada
has engaged in, fulsomely, loudly and in public demonstrations of
noxious and society-disturbing magnitude. Justin Trudeau was the
recipient of criticism for failing to mention anti-Palestinian racism in
a strategy update of Canada's anti-racism to guide the federal
anti-racism program. Liberal MP Salma Zahid faulted the Prime Minister
for failing to mention anti-Palestinian racism in a strategy update this
year. Now she purrs on the strength of the meeting held by Amira
Elghawaby with Justin Trudeau.
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Liberal member of Parliament Salma Zahid talks to reporters as she arrives to a caucus meeting in Ottawa on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick /The Canadian Press |
"I welcome the prime minister's commitment to recognizing and adopting a definition of anti-Palestinian racism."
"In Canada in recent months, we have seen increasing levels of Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism."
"Before we can fight against such hatred, we need to be able to recognize what it is and what it looks like."
"I look forward to working with the government to move this forward."
Liberal MP Salma Zahid