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Gaza: It’s the new Vietnam. Many Canadians under age 30 are incensed, angry and protesting. In cities from Halifax to Vancouver there are weekly rallies and marches. For six months, even over Xmas holidays, the protests against Israel have gone on. True the numbers of Canadians taking part waxes and wanes – but that is due to the harassment and discouragement they face.
The younger people are disgusted by Israel’s intransigence, racism, and its absolute refusal to stop the killings and destruction in Gaza. Israel has refused to heed even one UN vote, or to pay attention to the recommendations by the International Court of Justice. Israel’s war crimes are magnified by the astronomical body count of dead Palestinian civilians—34,000 --- dominated by the number of women and children killed by Israel over the last six months.
In sympathy, young Canadians are donning Kaffiyeh scarves to show support for Palestinians.
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Mainstream Jews distract us with "look over here" -- just don't look at the facts on the ground in Gaza
The young people are also furious with Canadian politicians’ pointless dithering. Our politicians turn away from the bloodbath in Gaza caused by Israeli bombs, missiles and snipers. Rather, our politicians and their friends in the mainstream Jewish community continue to whip up false fears of antisemitism on Canadian campuses. They point us to “look over there” – don’t look at the facts on the ground. Instead look at how Jewish students “don’t feel safe” when there are debates, literature tables, and classroom discussions about Palestine. The idea is to divert attentionfrom the tens of thousands of Gazan civilians who are dead and dying – and insist the biggest problem is Canadians’ protests, insults and outrage about these massacres half a world away. As Australian writer and artist Caitlin Johnstone notes in her Substack newsletter,
"Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than your feelings. Your feelings don’t matter. ....
"Stopping the slaughter in Gaza is more important than some privileged Ivy Leaguers pretending to feel “unsafe” or “unwelcome” on campus."
The last time I can remember when thousands of students and other Canadians took the lead in demonstrating against international injustice was during the Vietnam war. At that time protesters held campus sit-ins, marches and went out of their way to help US draft dodgers and US army deserters settle in Canada.
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Was it so long ago that students sat-in and marched to oppose the Vietnam war? Was it so long ago that we called for ending Canadian “complicity” with the US military-industrial complex, and demanded the Canadian government oppose the US war on Vietnam?
Canada is Complicit in Israel's war crimes
What’s so different about Israel – and today’s detractors?
Can someone tell me what is antisemitic about criticizing Israel or marching against Israel.
Or criticizing Jewish institutions such as B’nai Brith, or the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, or CIJA (the Centre for Israel-Jewish Affairs) who vow to “stand with Israel” no matter what. These three organizations not only insult and harass, they even succeed in getting anyone in public-facing jobs (such as Dr Yipeng Ge who is critical of Israel) fired.
What is wrong with criticizing Israel’s genocide of 34,000 Palestinians?
Or criticizing Israel’s shooting missiles and bombs (weapons paid for or supplied by the US and Canada) which have struck thousands of homes and left more than 7,000 women and children – alive or dead-- stuck under the rubble of their own apartment buildings.
Or Israeli missile strikes which have mangled children’s legs and arms and resulted in more than 1000 child amputees?
In this topsy turvey world: Stopping pro-Palestinian demonstrations is more important than ending Israel's genocide against Palestinians
Can someone tell me what’s antisemitic about boycotting Israeli products in grocery stores, protesting pro-Israel speakers, or arguing or debating with people openly representing pro-Israel campus group Hillel, or other pro-Israel voices on campus? The Jews who defend Israel are sometimes taunted, and their feelings get hurt. Hurt feelings are not equal to tens of thousands of women and children killed.
We live in
"a society where more political firepower is going into stopping pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses than ending Israel’s murderous assault on an enclosed enclave packed full of children. A society where trying to stop a genocide is considered evil, and committing one is considered good." Caitlin Johnstone in Medium
We boycotted South African wines...& protested at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford
Didn’t we boycott South African wines, oranges and grapes in Canadian grocery stores; didn’t we keep South Africa out of the Commonwealth, and didn’t South Africa become a pariah state? I don’t remember any arguments about how criticism had hurt the feelings of white South Africans and their cronies during the murderous Apartheid years.
I recall a 1987 demonstration I attended in Stratford-Upon-Avon in the British Midlands when I was a student there. Thirty-seven years ago this week, scores of people including my son 6-year-old son Max and I demonstrated at the opening day of the annual Stratford Shakespeare Festival. The ceremony included raising flags and short speeches from diplomats from countries who loved the bard -- including South Africa. We protested South Africa’s presence, and demanded its flag be taken down. Our anti-Apartheid group called for an end to Apartheid and the release of Nelson Mandela. We used loudhailers to disrupt the ceremony. Most people understood why we protested. No one demanded we be arrested. Nor did our opponents –including the local Stratford town council --insist the event be shut down, or that we be prevented from shouting the truth about Apartheid.
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Today when we criticize Israel we are called antisemites. This is despite the fact that at most protests there is a healthy contingent of Jews, myself and others in Independent Jewish Voices Canada. In the US, according to Peter Beinart, the well-known Jewish critic and journalism professor at City University in New York City, at every US campus where he has been invited to speak, nearly half the demonstrators against Israel are themselves Jewish.
In Canada, even breathing opposition to Israel is labelled antisemitic
How is it that Israel can do no wrong – even when it does do wrong. The facts speak for themselves.
Everyone reading this is probably opposed to this week's announcementby UK prime minister Rishi Sunak. He declared that his government is now arranging flights to deport undocumented migrants and asylum seekers to Rwanda. Against their wishes and international human rights, thousands in the UK will be flown to Rwanda to spend lifelong punishment because the powers that be in the UK will not tolerate Black and brown immigrants. Does opposing Sunak’s racism and denial of human rights mean we are anti-British? And so what if we are? Britain richly deserves our censure.
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The Uighur issue and Chinese human rights abuses have been the subjects of many reports in the Canadian media. Does that mean we hate the Chinese? The Canadian government, since the “two Michaels” affair and the house arrest of business tycoon Meng Wanzhou, has been beating the drum against the Chinese government. Whether we are or are not against the Chinese government, most Canadians are probably not against Chinese Canadians.
The Sound of Silence
The worst, and most dangerous, is the silencing. The threats against free speech are real. Our Halifax Public Library has cancelled presentations on Gaza; some universities refuse to allow us to book halls on campus for public events. Pro-Palestinian activists are disciplined and fired, as I’ve written here, here and here at the behest of B’nai Brith and other pro-Israel organisations. There is a huge witch hunt going on -- and it must be stopped.
We are supposed to be quiet and silently concerned about Israel’s genocide-- but do nothing. We are supposed to listen to Jewish and other pro-Israel supporters insist that the Hamas-led Oct 7 killing of perhaps 1200 people (Jewish civilians, military people, and foreign ‘guest’ workers) plus the kidnapping of 250 justifies Israel’s cold blooded murder 35 times bigger. Is that proportionality? Not by my math.
And by the way, history did not start on Oct. 7. It started more than 75 years ago, when Israel drove more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, took their homes and land, and forced them into dozens of impoverished refugee camps, where millions of Palestinians must live to this day. This is called the Nakba. Since early on in Israel's war on Gaza, 2.3 million Palestinians who live in Gaza have no homes, nowhere to go-- no escape from Israel's reign of terror. For Israel, killing Gazans is a game like shooting fish in a barrel. Chilling. As the photo below illustrates:
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The Palestinians are not armed and have no army but are subject to Israel’s deadly drone strikes, missile hits, and army sharpshooters. This happens against a backdrop of rampant starvation, plastic bags for shelters, bombed out hospitals, destroyed schools and not a university building still standing. All these were deliberately targeted and destroyed by Israel in the last six months.
As we all know more than 200 aid workers -- those bringing water, food and medicine -- have been purposely killed by Israel. The seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) workers targeted and killed by Israeli drone strikes three weeks ago have been all but been papered over by Israel's phoney coverup. The WCK killings are classed as war crimes.
Photo at the top: This famous, award-winning photo was taken by photographer Nick Ut. Titled The Terror of War, and known also as Napalm Girl, Ut took the photo June 8, 1972. From left: Phan Thanh Tam, brother of Kim Phuc, Phan Thanh Phouce, youngest brother of Kim Phuc, Kim Phuc, and Kim's cousins, Ho Van Bon and Ho Thi Ting. For more on this photo, and the incredible photographer please read this.
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