There’s Michael Jackson’s rabbi, Shmuley Boteach (and, presumably because of his sage advice to the singer, one of Newsweek’s top 50 rabbis) who said, “The Goldstone Report is a modern-day blood libel against the Jewish state.”

The Hudson Institute just called the report “the UN blood libel” while Alan Dershowitz, wanting to one-up his colleagues, likened Goldstone to the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. That, after he called him an evil, evil man. And as Hybrid States Yaniv Reich adds:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak described it as “false, distorted, and irresponsible“.  Information Minister Yuli Edelstein called it “anti-Semitic“.  Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren said it “insidiously… portrayed the Jews as the deliberate murderers of innocents“.  Foreign Minister Lieberman argued that its true purpose “was to destroy Israel’s image, in service of countries where the terms ‘human rights’ and ‘combat ethics’ do not even appear in their dictionaries“.  And the US House of Representatives banded together in bipartisan harmony to pass a resolution (344–36) that called “on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration” of it.

For nearly a year now, vicious attacks on the Goldstone report and on Judge Goldstone himself have been the thing for Israel’s numerous apologists to do.

But now, partially because of pressure created by the Goldstone Report, the Israeli military, the IDF has released it’s own report. As Reich says:

There is just one not-so-minor problem with this knee-jerk criticism of the report and infinite stream of ad hominem libel against its main author.  A majority of the most damning—and damaging—war crimes that are alleged to have taken place have now been confirmed by the IDF’s own investigations into the matter, themselves only conducted in an effort to derail the Goldstone report’s referral to the International Criminal Court.

Reich has the details. A must-read.

Meanwhile, I suppose the Smear Machine has no more chance of being made accountable for their outrageous attacks than the still highly-paid US pundits who said the US war with Iraq would be a walk in the park.

Coalition Letter_Support UCI MSU_For Press Release

If passed, this stunning bill will mark the most severe and antidemocratic backlash thus far against the boycott, sanctions and divestment movement (BDS) to pressure Israel to abide by international law.

The video below includes an interview with Dalit Baum of Who Profits, the project of Israel’s Coalition of Women for Peace that documents which companies profit from Israel’s occupation. The proposed law would put the Coalition out of business, mandating that any Israeli who promotes boycotts be held liable for economic losses suffered by an Israeli company because of the boycott. The report also references the Reut Institute report about the “soft warfare” against Israel –which the rest of the world calls civil society advocacy for universal democratic rights– which we have covered here at length.  There’s also recent news about the harassment of Israeli refuser and BDS support Yonatan Shapira, though no mention of arrest of Palestinian Israelis Ameer Makhoul and Omar Said and others. The entire law depends on the ability of Israeli intelligence services to build and maintain a large databases of internationals and Israelis.

Settlement-based businesses have already reported significant losses due to a new Palestinian Authority ban on settlement-produced goods. The law would ban international supporters of BDS from the country for 10 years, and would  financially devastated the Palestinian Authority by withholding monies rightfully owed to the Palestinians according to international law.

The bill, supported by the so-called “centrist” group Kadmia, is one third of the way to being passed.It is part of a cluster of anti-democratic laws being pushed through the right wing Knesset including, according to Peace Now’s Yariv Oppenheimer: the “NPO registration bill,” the “cinema-loyalty bill” (which demands a loyalty statement as a condition for receiving a budget from the state for making movies), the “citizenship revocation bill” and the “loyalty bill”. Oppenheimer goes on:

Along with these bills, the coalition is succeeding in promoting bills that discriminate in favor of the right wing side of the political map and which give privileges to settlers and their supporters.  The “law for pardoning opponents of disengagement,” the “Golan referendum bill” and the “bill for preserving the rights of Israeli citizens in parts of the Land of Israel to which Israeli law does not apply”–all these are legislative initiatives that place the settlers in a unique legal status above other citizens, and even above the Knesset.

Fast forward over a year and The Israel Project and their right wing buddies are after Fenton (and Ben Ami) again. Amazingly, this time, they were successful and Fenton dropped the account. Completely. JTA reports:

PR firm to stop representing pro-Palestinian group

July 11, 2010

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A U.S. public relations firm said it will not renew its contract with a pro-Palestinian group that helped to organize the flotilla that aimed to breach Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The announcement from Fenton Communications, which specializes in PR for not-for-profit groups, followed The Israel Project’s distribution of a news release publicizing Fenton’s representation of Fakhoora on June 23.

The release noted Fakhoora’s role in helping to organize the flotilla of six aid ships. An Israeli raid on one of the ships on May 31 resulted in the deaths of nine passengers on board.

The release was issued to The Israel Project’s mailing list and Fenton clients.

“The purpose of a public relations firm is to help provide a good name to their clients, and only a PR firm with their own good name and reputation can succeed in business,”  said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder of The Israel Project.

Representatives from Fenton were unavailable for comment. The firm, well known in Democratic and liberal circles in the United States, has represented Jewish groups, including the American Jewish World Service, a relief group.

According to its website, Fakhoora is a campaign to help improve education for children in Gaza. The organization is supported by the second wife of the emir of Qatar, whose office paid Fenton to represent Fakhoora from March 1 to Aug. 31.

Fenton distributed materials on the Fakhoora’s website, such as a “flotilla action alert,” and helped spread the organization’s message through social networking sites such as Facebook. Fenton has offices in New York, Washington and San Francisco.

“Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah  . . . . One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”

Fadlallah was one of the world’s most revered Shia leaders. He was also the religious leader most associated with the political party of US ally Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Upon his death, UK ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy wrote in a piece (which, believe it or not, she has now taken down, presumably due to pressure after the Nasr uproar- on her official blog) called (cached version) The Passing of Decent Men, “When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person.  That for me is the real effect of a true man of religion; leaving an impact on everyone he meets, no matter what their faith…The world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths, acknowledging the reality of the modern world and daring to confront old constraints.”

After the Twitter controversy first happened, Nasr wrote a thoughtful explanation. But to no avail.

Greenwald goes on:

That message spawned an intense fit of protest from Far Right outlets, Thought Crime enforcers, and other neocon precincts, and CNN quickly (and characteristically) capitulated to that pressure by firing her.  The network — which has employed a former AIPAC official, Wolf Blitzer, as its primary news anchor for the last 15 years — justified its actions by claiming that Nasr’s “credibility” had been “compromised.”  Within this episode lies several important lessons about media “objectivity” and how the scope of permissible views is enforced.

First, consider which viewpoints cause someone to be fired from The Liberal Media.  Last month, Helen Thomas’ 60-year career as a journalist ended when she expressed the exact view about Jews which numerous public figures have expressed (with no consequence or even controversy) about Palestinians.  Just weeks ago, The Washington Post accepted the “resignation” of Dave Weigel because of scorn he heaped on right-wing figures such as Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh.  CNN’s Chief News Executive, Eason Jordan, was previously forced to resign after he provoked a right-wing fit of fury over comments he made about the numerous — and obviously disturbing — incidents where the U.S. military had injured or killed journalists in war zones.  NBC fired Peter Arnett for criticizing the U.S. war plan on Iraqi television, which prompted accusations of Treason from the Right.  MSNBC demoted and then fired its rising star Ashleigh Banfield after she criticized American media war coverage for adhering to the Fox model of glorifying U.S. wars; the same network fired its top-rated host, Phil Donahue, due to its fear of being perceived as anti-war; and its former reporter, Jessica Yellin, confessed that journalists were “under enormous pressure from corporate executives” to present the news in a pro-war and pro-Bush manner.

Bottom line-the tectonic plates are shifting.

And yet, with all this movement, in the mainstream media in the US, as Greenwald says, holding the Israeli government narrative is still seen as neutral, while anything even slightly more critical (or, I would argue, more reality-based) is seen as biased. Cross that line, and as journalist Letty Pogrebin calls them, “the Israel right or wrong mafia” won’t hold back in making sure a price is paid. It is shameful that institutions of all kinds capitulate to such threats. It’s only a matter of time, though, before the extremist settler ideology pit bulls are revealed to have nothing in their favor but empty threats.  Meanwhile, bigots can feel safe knowing that they can offer racist platitudes about Arabs and Muslims, celebrate Israeli terrorist attacks on civilians and so forth, and remain good friends to the US, and respected journalists in good standing.

Some must-reads on the incident:

Juan Cole

Stephen Walt

Matt Duss at Think Progress

If you have been following the story, you know that Pride Toronto, the LGBTQI group that puts on Toronto’s annual gay pride parade, yielded to outside pressure to ban the words “Israeli apartheid”, and then, in the face of a huge backlash, rescinded the ban.  Proponents of the ban, led by Canadian Jewish groups, are now fighting back. One legislator, who would rather see Pride Toronto destroyed, is seeking defunding of the organization.

You can write a letter of thank you to Pride Toronto here.They should hear from you-they need thanks for making the right decision and they’ll need support for standing up to censorship.

Elle Flanders is a member of QUAiA, Queers United Against Israeli Apartheid, the group whose mere existence at Pride prompted the censorship campaign. Read Flanders’ moving piece here:

Healing the Gay Jewish Divide-Elle Flanders

As a Canadian Jew who grew up in Israel, I am stymied. My Israeli friends debate what is happening in their country freely. I say the same in Toronto, and I am not only an anti-Semite, but an enemy of the state. As a gay Jew I am told that my only legitimate presence at Pride would be as pro-Israel, running down the street with Israeli flags to ‘show my allegiance’ to the Jewish state. As a gay Canadian I have NEVER carried a Canadian flag at Pride, homonationalism has never been my thing. Does that mean I am anti-Canadian and a Canadian hater? Does it make me an enemy of the Canadian state? Why do I have to show my Jewish pride by not only carrying an Israeli flag, but also silencing all debate on what’s happening in Israel at the moment?

And what about all the Jews that have NO affiliation with Israel whatsoever? Should they have to join Kulanu’s pro-Israel stance if they simply want to march showing their Jewish identity? Is allegiance to Israel-at-all-costs the prerequisite for being Jewish at this point? Bernie Farber and the Canadian Jewish Congress, the B’nai Brith, Hillel, Kulanu and the United Jewish Appeal would like you to think so and it’s damaging our community.

Kulanu, which means ‘everyone’ in Hebrew, is a gay Jewish contingent that marches at Pride, it claims to be Canada’s only gay Jewish organization. I think some other gay Jewish groups may beg to differ, but as they are not pro-Israel, they are dismissed for all intents and purposes. Kulanu says in its mission statement that they do not take a position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, yet their actions over the last two years would lead one to believe otherwise. I am guessing that although I fit the bill of ‘everyone,’ I would not be welcome with my Israel critique at Kulanu who have said expressly in their emails and website, that they march in support of Israel and all Jews who feel similarly, gay and straight, should join them this year.

According to Martin Gladstone, the anti-QuAIA crusader (Queers Against Israeli Apartheid), we should not be marching, as our issues are not ‘queer’. With all due respect, one might ask what ‘support for Israel’ has to do with queer issues? But unlike Gladstone, I would never argue that they should not march. If that is their expression of queerness, support for Israel-at-all-costs, so be it.

The truth is that Israel, through its ministry of foreign affairs, has launched a campaign here in North America to turn all eyes away from the human rights abuses and violations, towards the ‘good stuff’: gay rights; innovations in science; technology; the arts, etc. This campaign as it relates to the gay community has been called Pinkwashing—the using of a gay agenda to cover up less-pleasant realities in Israel at the moment. That’s where this all comes together. That’s one of the reasons QuAIA marches, saying don’t use our queer bodies to justify your war crimes. Sure there is a gay parade in Tel Aviv, that’s fantastic, but it doesn’t make the rest of the issues disappear does it?

Back to the issue of why mainstream Jews in North America seem to be liberal on so many issues yet cannot bring themselves to critique Israel, even in the slightest way. There are issues there that would make the average queer’s hair stand on end, and that get debated in Israeli society regularly. Specifically to the gay plight, do we ever hear about how Rabbis and religious members of the Knesset lead the fight against Gay rights there? Or do we only hear about Israel, the land of tolerance and democracy that has a Pride parade? Do we talk about the gays that got stabbed at a Jerusalem Pride two years ago by orthodox Jews, or do we simply celebrate that a Pride parade occurred? Why the silence on the complexities in Israel by the mainstream Jewish community?

From a liberal perspective, how does a Canadian Jew distinguish between rights for gays and rights for Arabs for example? Just recently, the Knesset passed a law forbidding Arab citizens of Israel from purchasing homes within Jewish settlements (those inside Israel, not the West Bank). Effectively the law states that based on one’s ethnicity (not citizenship), one may not buy property in certain areas. If we simply replaced this for ‘gays’, would the liberal Canadian Jew then be outraged? What if a gay person was forbidden by the Canadian parliament from settling in Alberta? Or let’s make it simpler: What if a Jew was forbidden from living in Mississaugua? Sounds ludicrous? Well, it may, but that’s one of the many laws recently passed as it relates to Arab citizens of Israel. But the community remains mum; they’d rather talk about Iran and its threat to Israel’s existence rather than the daily erosion of democracy therein.

My Israeli friends are baffled by the lack of honesty in the Jewish Canadian community and my Jewish Canadian gay friends are nervous that they have become targets in the ever-more polarizing campaign of Kulanu and the mainstream Jewish Canadian organizations who maintain that ‘either you are with us or against us, you are pro-Israel or for its destruction’. For Jewish members of the LGBT community and their friends, this has produced acrimoniousness and a sense of fear as evidenced by a young gay man who would not take my free speech pamphlet at an event last week. He glared at me and said: “I’m Jewish!” I retorted, “Wow, cool, me too!” His confusion was legitimate in the face of Kulanu’s messaging. He looked even more baffled when I told him I grew-up in Israel. He said, “So, you’ve even been over there? What’s it like?” Despite his absolute ignorance, his mind had been made-up—Those who questioned Israel were the enemy.

I would hence ask Israel’s liberal supporters, when IS it justifiable to speak out against one’s country (or one’s that you support in any case)? Amongst my Israeli friends, the line was crossed so long ago that this is not even the question anymore—their question is back at us—“As Jewish gays in Canada, when will you speak about what is really happening here? Because our government, the rise of the religious right, and the erosion of democracy makes Israel a dangerous place to live in for gays and straights alike. When will you support us as people and not as an ideology?”

I also thought about my World Social Forum piece because of Robert Fowke’s personal essay in the UK Guardian this week, Why this obsession with Israel and the Palestinians?

One reason why Israel is singled out for so much attention is because its supporters are so very vociferous, pushing their agenda at every opportunity. As a consumer of news, the speed of their responses and their sheer ubiquity inflames my interest and my antipathy. Why do they persist in trying to defend the indefensible?

Another reason for my disproportionate interest in this conflict is that I feel I have been lied to, and I feel that people are still trying to lie to me and I don’t like it. Why try to convince me that those Turkish activists on board the Mavi Marmara were terrorists? Whatever else they were, they patently were not that. If the word “terrorist” is to have any meaning at all it must refer to those who attack innocent civilians. From an Israeli propaganda perspective, silence would be better than lies.

This is precisely what happened to me when I went to Mumbai.  I was in many ways naive, and it was the confrontation with the smear-machine that politicized me even more. One can only ask the Israeli government - With friends like these (Simon Wiesenthal Center, Canada’s B’nai Brith etc), who needs enemies?

Anti-Semitism at the World Social Forum? A Personal Report
February, 2004
By CECILIE SURASKY
It is my first morning at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India and I am at a workshop on Palestinian women and the occupation. In the audience is a woman who I first think might be Israeli–she could easily be one of my friends and I feel an immediate kinship with her. She tells me she is 34 and has lived her whole life in Gaza except for college. I ask her if I can interview her.

She cautiously eyes my card, on which I have purposely written in thick, visible letters: Jewish Voice for Peace. “I don’t know, she says. “Do you support the occupation?” It seems such a surreal question. How could anyone support an occupation?

The very word evokes domination, a kind of cruelty. No, I say, we want to end the occupation. We want a peace that is just.

I ask about the checkpoints. She describes sitting in her car waiting to be allowed to drive through. The young Israeli soldiers are in sniper posts. You can’t see them, but they can see you, she explains. They signal it’s time to go by shooting their guns. She waits a long time until the soldiers say, “OK, now the dogs can go.”

“You think, ‘Do I want to be called a dog, or do I just want to go?’ ” she tells me. “I don’t care, so I start my car and they yell ‘No! Not you, I said dogs!’ So she turns her car off, and sometime later they say, “OK, now humans can go!” She starts her car and they look at her and the others and say “No! I said humans.” And she turns her car off and waits until finally this “other” category of Palestinian–neither human nor animal–is allowed to pass. “This,” she says, “is my only contact with Israelis.” And this, I think, and is my first contact with someone from Gaza.

The WSF and the new anti-Semitism
The World Social Forum (WSF) is the populist answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Instead of a gathering of the world’s mostly wealthy, white, and male heads of state and captains of industry in Davos, the WSF is a cacophony of anti-globalization/human rights activists from all over the globe. The roughly 100,000 participants represent every imaginable cause–from Indian “untouchables” and Bhutanese refugees to child trafficking and sexual minorities. They are seen in the hundreds of marches that seem to appear out of nowhere down the main thoroughfare, at the 500 information booths, in more than 1,000 workshops, and on the political posters filling every inch of available wall space.
I have come because my New Voices human rights fellowship has decided to send the fellows to the WSF. But I have an additional reason for being here. The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) has cited the WSF as one of the centers of what it and others refer to as the “new anti-Semitism”, and these charges have been picked up by various journalists as evidence of a dangerous new trend on the left. Upon closer reading, most of these accounts make little if any distinction at all between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel, or between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

The SWC description of the “anti-Jewish” atmosphere at last year’s WSF in Brazil is one of these accounts.
And yet, their description of the WSF is so disturbing, even frightening, that I am prepared to encounter at minimum silent hostility, and possibly even physical attacks from my fellow attendees. I have come to the WSF to be loudly and visibly Jewish, to make a presentation that deconstructs the theory that Jews dictate U.S. policy in the Middle East, and to see for myself this purported new tidal wave of hatred of Jews from the rest of the global left.
The conference is not what I expected
It is surprising to find that the Israel-Palestine conflict and the occupation are not more prominently featured at the conference. Out of hundreds of ongoing marches, I witness only one small pro-Palestine march, which includes a prominent Israeli leftist marching in the front row.
Out of about 500 information stalls, only two represent Palestinian human rights groups: PENGON, which is working to tear down the wall Israel is building through Palestinian land, and Al-Haq, which is launching a campaign identifying collective punishment as a war crime. Of the thousands of political posters, I see only one series–Al-Haq’s powerful posters on collective punishment–related to the issue.
I attend most of the workshops I can find on the Israel-Palestine issue. What I do not hear (or see) is anything I would consider anti-Semitic. In a global conference of 100,000 people, one expects to hear an enormous range of political perspectives, including the occasional extreme or intolerant remark. Given that I am prepared for the worst, I am shocked that the overwhelming majority of what is said in workshops critical of US and Israeli policies in the territories is milder than the articles and essays one can read in Israeli newspapers on any given day.
Two realities, one anti-Semitism industry
After I return home, the Wiesenthal Center publishes an alarming piece entitled “Networking to Destroy Israel” in the Jerusalem Post. The article claims that this year’s WSF was “hijacked by anti-American and anti-Israeli forces” and leads me to wonder whether we attended the same conference. In this piece, and for the second year in a row, they strangely declare themselves the only Jewish NGO to attend the WSF.(I personally saw participants from Brit Tzedek and Yesh Gvul, to name just a few–and Jewish Voice for Peace is listed in the official program.)
They go on to cite a litany of statements, including mine, as proof that the WSF is a place where people who want to destroy Israel meet to plot and recruit. Employing a form of twisted logic that would make Donald Rumsfeld proud, they essentially claim that the absence of any blatant anti-Semitism is not proof that there was none, but merely an indication of a more “sophisticated” kind of anti-Zionism (and therefore anti-Semitism) in which sympathetic Jews such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) play a starring roll.
The account is so riddled with errors–I am misquoted, JVP is described as “campus-based”, all of my colleagues are given the wrong attributions, and quoted either inaccurately or out of context–that it is pointless to list them all. It contains bits of truth but strings together isolated statements to make them sound like a tidal wave of hatred and part of what they call an “orchestrated” and “insidious” campaign to destroy Israel.
All this begs the question of why a group such as the SWC would want to fuel hysteria about anti-Semitism in general, especially in regard to the left. The SWC has an important history of hunting down former Nazis, exposing the activities of neo-fascists and other right-wing hate groups, and fighting genuine anti-Semitism.
But the SWC is like many other mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States that have expanded their mission from fighting the oppression of Jews by others to attempting to silence critics–including other Jews–of Israel’s human rights record. These organizations’ new role as arbiters of acceptable opinion is a far cry from their proud past. And it is ironic, given the spirited debate about Israel’s occupation that takes place in Israel, but apparently is unacceptable in the rest of the world.
For many of these organizations, as evidenced in the SWC op-ed, the mere mention of the heartbreaking reality of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians is proof of an insidious plan supported by other Jews to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Further, it is evidence of bias simply to point out causality-that groups like JVP or Al-Haq exist not because we are anti-Jewish or anti-Israel-but to end the injustices of Israel ’s occupation and treatment of Arabs, and to stop the spiral of revenge that has become a horrible tragedy for everyone.
To even the most casual observer, this is shocking for a community with a long tradition of protecting free speech, and an even longer tradition of embracing debate. It is also self-defeating given the now increasingly mainstream view both in Israel and the US that the occupation and militarization of Israeli culture is bad not just for Palestinians, but also for Israelis.
What is perhaps most troublesome is that by fueling the fires of fear through hyperbolic statements, (an easy thing to do to a people with our history of suffering and persecution) these groups_who say they represent all Jews_ play a critical role in giving the current Israeli government permission to violate virtually every moral and ethical standard central to the Jewish tradition in its effort to keep down the Palestinians.
They make peace ever more distant by perpetuating the myth that Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians, have nothing to say to each other and are incapable of recognizing each other as full human beings with similar wants and needs. They get under our skin and seek to make Jews believe that indeed, the world is out to get us and we can trust no one.

Acts of Lovingkindness at the WSF, the untold story
In my own experience as a very “out” Jew at the conference, I felt no hate. Instead, I met a number of Palestinians and Arabs who, on some fundamental level, expressed the pain of separation. “I am Muslim, and we were raised to respect the Jewish tradition,” a Palestinian woman living in Jordan told me. “We used to live next door to Jews, and we were friends.”
After I spoke at a session about suspending military aid to Israel until it ends its occupation, and identified myself as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a Palestinian woman thanked me and a distinguished Lebanese man from Jordan came up and gave me a huge hug and a kiss.
Two of the Arabs that the SWC op-ed quoted most prominently in their description of what they called a campaign to destroy Israel were environmental scientist Rania Masri and activist journalist Ahmed Shawki.
Thirty minutes after meeting me for the first time at the Forum, Ahmed Shawki offered to loan me the new digital camera given to him by his wife. He knew I was eager to take pictures and the airline had misplaced my luggage. Knowing nothing of my politics, only that I was from a Jewish peace group, he gave me his digital camera.
The next day, the bag containing my passport, credit cards, and his camera was stolen. Our mutual friend and colleague from Lebanon, Rania Masri, handed me a hundred dollars from her wallet and absolutely insisted I take her ATM card and PIN number so I would have money for the rest of the trip. And Ahmed? To this day, Ahmed refuses to accept payment for the camera that was stolen.
This is the real story of Jews, Arabs, and the World Social Forum that needs to be told; that is, the ways in which we so quickly and easily recognize each other’s fundamental humanity. As one young Arab-Israeli woman–who will never be quoted in an article about the rising tide of anti-Semitism–said so eloquently and passionately the last night of the conference, “Yes, I experience discrimination in Israel. But my friendship with Jewish Israelis is proof that it is a lie when both sides tell us we can’t live together. We can live together. You must not believe the lie.”
Cecilie Surasky can be reached at: cecilie@jewishvoiceforpeace.org

B’nai Brith boasted in a May press release:

B’nai Brith Canada has contacted the organizers of Toronto’s Pride Parade to urge them ensure that the agenda of the annual Pride Parade is not allowed to be hijacked by the propaganda of anti-Israel agitators. The Jewish human rights organization has also contacted the Prime Minister of Canada, the Premier of Ontario, and the Mayor of Toronto, all contributors to the Pride Parade, asking for a review of the funding in light of the stated agenda of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.

And after Pride Toronto remarkably agreed to censor the two words “Israeli apartheid” from the parades (while it’s perfectly legal to utter the phrase in Israel or write it in Israel’s most prestigious newspaper), it seemed as though B’nai Brith and friends won. But after a massive backlash, Pride Toronto has just announced it has overturned the ridiculous decision. Xtra reports:

Pride Toronto (PT) has reversed its May board resolution banning the term “Israeli apartheid” and will instead require all participants to sign and abide by the City of Toronto’s non-discrimination policy.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) — the target of the ban — has declared a victory and congratulated the queer community for pushing PT to reverse its censorship decision.

“This is a victory for the Palestine solidarity movement, which has faced censorship and bullying tactics from the Israel lobby for far too long,” said QuAIA member Tim McCaskell in the release.

Of course, QuAIA now owes a debt of thanks to their opponents who have done more than anyone to make sure the phrase “Israeli apartheid” would be on the lips of just about everyone in Canada following the story. Plus, before the ban was rescinded, QuAIA didn’t waste any time in offering an alternative free speech track for pride events. This is creative organizing:

And yet, as UC Irvine’s Daily Pilot reports: “A UC Irvine student conduct committee has recommended suspending the Muslim Student Union, following repeated disruptions by several of its members during a February speech by the Israeli ambassador, a campus spokeswoman said. The recommendation has not taken effect because the student group has appealed the decision, said UCI spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon.”

If something seems off here, the Los Angeles Times thinks so too in UC Irvine protest case raises questions about discipline practices. They say “Experts say it’s unusual for a whole group to be sanctioned in civil disobedience cases.” Indeed. Is such a judgment fair or consistent? And if not, why not?

Attorney Reem Salahi responds with this damning litany of hypocrisy:

The University’s disciplinary recommendation never explains why the alleged violations and particularly the alleged lie justifies the massive, unprecedented sanction that the University has levied against the MSU.  In the past, UCI has permitted protestors to disrupt speakers by heckling, breaking into song and even, on one occasion, allowing an organized group of students to surround an MSU speaker critical of Israel with posters and continually shout him down to the point that he was unable to be heard. Neither these students nor their respective organizations were administratively sanctioned. Similarly egregious protests have taken place at the different UCs with little to no administrative response.

At UC Riverside earlier this academic year, Republican students shouted down and visually blocked a panel of speakers. These students espoused hate speech and yelled homophobic and racist epithets at the panelists.  Police and administrators stood by and permitted the presentation to be thoroughly disrupted for over an hour.  They made no attempt to detain, arrest or identify those students, even though the faculty speakers and others present could readily identify them.  Nor did they conduct an investigation, punish them, or punish the campus organization with which these disorderly students were associated. Similarly at UC Berkeley, pro Israeli students interrupted a distinguished pro-Palestinian scholar and UN Special Rapporteur using a bullhorn after they were explicitly told by the police not to do so. They were not arrested and following an internal investigation, no disciplinary sanctions were levied. So, while the University preaches the “marketplace of ideas,” the disparate treatment of those who speak on the wrong side of the Israel/Palestine question reveals the weakness of the University’s commitment to this ideal.

Instead, UCI deflects attention from its obvious bias by accusing the MSU of “lying”. The disciplinary recommendation focuses on whether or not the MSU as a body lied, apparently in an attempt to justify the sanction against the body as a whole.  But it ignores the fact that the MSU’s president made clear to the University that individual students would protest the Ambassador’s speech.  While some MSU members were involved in the protests, the protests were organized separate from the general MSU meetings and involved a coalition of individuals. Due to the significant disagreement within the MSU, amongst other reasons, the MSU did not endorse the protest. The evidence that the University cites in its report does not reflect these sentiments and the lack of consensus. Nor does it show how the individual students, some of whom were members of the MSU, organized separately from the general MSU meetings.  Yet now the University is maintaining that its draconian recommendation is justified based on the neutral application of policy. The University’s recommendation is not neutral and is unjustifiable.

UC Irvine’s MSU has been the target of outside Israel advocacy groups for some time, as The Forward reports. To be fair, MSU as a whole has shown terribly poor judgment by inviting a marginal hate-monger named Amir Abdel Malik Ali to speak on campus year after year (what does it say that he is virtually unheard of in the Israeli-Palestinian justice movement here in his hometown of Oakland, but has found a privileged speaking spot 7 hours to the south in Orange County.)

There are videos on Youtube featuring his hate-filled speeches, including a clip of a Palestinian woman yelling at him for putting hate into the minds of Muslim kids. How giving this man a platform in any way furthers the aims of the MSU is beyond me- it would be helpful to open up dialogue between progressive Jewish students and MSU members for starters. Reflecting back what has become all-too common anti-Muslim hatred and conspiracy theories with the same hateful mirror image just can’t be justified on any level.

Of course, like it or not (and I don’t), students still have the right to invite hate-mongers: Infamous Islamophobe Daniel Pipes and company probably make quite a nice sum on campus speaking fees. Same for Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and many others, all very popular speakers on the conservative campus circuit. As far as I know, no group has been suspended for inviting them.

But really, this has nothing to do with Ali. And it shouldn’t. This is about a student protest against the Israeli Ambassador -who, by the way, is paid to defend the policies of a government that shows so little respect for Palestinian life that high level officials joke about the Gaza blockade as “putting them on a diet.” Ambassador Oren, in the end, was able to complete his talk. Will MSU be able to complete next year? We’ll let you know when the appeals process is done. In the meantime, did the ongoing Israel and Jewish advocacy group campaigns against MSU have a role in the draconian recommendation?

On June 7, over 20 high-level past and present awardees and grand marshals left their statuettes at the door of Pride Toronto following the resignation of the parade’s international grand marshals. They were protesting what will surely be remembered as one of the most shameful actions ever taken by a pride group: succumbing to pressure from Canada’s excessively right wing B’nai Brith to bar the group Queers United Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) by banning the use of the phrase “Israeli Apartheid.”

Talk about backfiring. Performers and speakers continue to jump ship and the condemnations are coming fast and furious. One can only hope that if for no other reason than the principle of it, people wearing “Israeli Apartheid” stickers will show up at pride parades all over the world, including and especially in Toronto.

The Canadian gay and lesbian paper Xtra has really remarkable coverage of the sequence of events. We wrote extensively about the story here before it was announced that the words “Israeli Apartheid” would be banned not just from the pride parade but also from the trans and dykes marches. (Presumably QuAIA can come to the party if they change their names to “Queers United Against Israeli Mmmmmmm”)

What’s worse, in justifying their stunning decision, Pride Toronto literally made up threats that didn’t exist. They claimed that InterPride, owners of the WorldPride brand, threatened that Toronto might lose its right to hold World Pride in 2014. Interpride issued a statement in response:

“It was never our intention to suggest that Interpride would withdraw Pride Toronto’s hosting of World Pride 2014 and any interpretation along those lines is misleading and incorrect.”

Toronto Pride also blamed QuAIA for ”loss of funding from Canada Council for the Arts ($34,000).” The CCA responded again saying their loss of funding had absolutely nothing to do with QuAIA. Xtra writes:

The ranks of the so-called Pride Toronto refuseniks — those who have refused honours from the organization out of protest over the censorship decision — grew again today after the 2010 Youth Leadership Award winners turned it down. In an open letter addressed to Pride Toronto’s board of directors, the Unity Conference Committee wrote:

“The reasons and rhetoric why Pride is censoring language are the same that are used against educators speaking about sexuality, gender identity, homophobia and transphobia in schools.”

Makes you wonder who, exactly, is going to get the hardware at their Gala and Awards Ceremony on June 30.

Meanwhile, you can let Pride Toronto know what you think of their shameful decision and write them a letter here.

An open letter from former Pride Toronto director Fatima Amarshi:

Two weeks ago, I watched footage of Pride’s leadership flanked by police and enclosed by a fence, tell our community that its most basic right to free-expression would no longer be guaranteed.  Like many of the other former staff and volunteers who have dedicated so much of themselves to the build the organization that you have inherited, I was shocked and heartbroken by the decision.  But as vehemently as I disagreed with it, as the former Executive Director, I understood what an immensely difficult position Pride was in, and was sympathetic to the toll that this was taking on you.  I also remembered an organization that struggled hard to keep itself rooted in the community and was both willing and capable of self-reflection, so there was hope that you would find a way to rectify this.

Many of you that still sit on Pride’s Board and committees are respected colleagues who have worked with me to re-politicize Pride and expand our community’s biggest platform for self-expression. Together, we put politics front and center into the event with our international human rights program, paid tribute to the fearless and extraordinary heroes still fighting religious bigotry, rights of sex workers, trans rights, etc…showcased more queer art in more genres and more places than ever before, made the Dyke March trans inclusive, gave queer families a truly great family pride celebration, launched new community stages, worked on dis/ability access, and most importantly, unanimously rejected the same voices that called on us to ban QuAIA well before this year.  So until this week I sincerely believed that once the community voiced their concerns, you would listen, understand, and realize your mistake.

But watching you consistently turn a deaf ear to the community over the last few weeks, and whip yourselves into such an impenetrable siege mentality that you chose to lock your doors and call the police to protect your property when the community came calling on Monday, is not just heartbreaking, it is appalling!   To effectively bar the likes of Gareth Henry, Rachel Epstein, Tim McCaskell, your own choices of ILGA, Dr. Li and Jane Farrow for honours this year, from participating in Pride for standing up for the very principle that led to your founding, and then dismiss it in a press release as “regrettable”, is not only short-sighted, it’s cowardly.

It is the very people that you should be celebrating and calling on for support — people who withstood arrests, violence, governments and a public that denied them far more than permits over the last thirty years — that you are barring from your doors with police officers.  These are the very people that have so fundamentally changed the legal, cultural and political landscape in this country for queers, that today, on your 30th anniversary, you have the luxury of facing only permitting and noisy election year saber-rattling as your greatest challenges.

Pride the movement and the organization quite literally grew out of the act of “parading” our queerness long before this became anyone’s idea of celebration.  It was precisely by exercising our right to express our love, lives and sexuality, in spite of how uncomfortable it made anyone, that we were able to demand justice and equality for ourselves.  We learnt early on that in order for our right to free expression to stand, we had to stand behind it as a fundamental and unequivocal principle.  And that requires valuing diverse voices and even vehement disagreements within our community.  So to suggest that censoring language doesn’t negate our history or infringe on the principle of free speech, is disingenuous and the worst kind of self-rationalizing.

So Pride Toronto, I say to you now: it’s time to wake up and turn to the community, instead of against them! As of yet, you have only managed to justify your decision as some sort of pre-emptive protection against a series of “ifs” and “maybes” and have done nothing to prove that your demise is really inevitable or imminent.  This community has a legion of lawyers, fundraisers, organizers and a powerful voting bloc that can still work with you to fight for whatever you need, so let them.  And for those of you that are too tired, step aside with our gratitude for shouldering the burden so far, and let those in the community that have the capacity and ability, fight the rest of the battle for you.

As you go into your 30th Anniversary, I challenge you to take a long hard look at your own mission statement and remember exactly what it is that you are supposed to be celebrating and the covenant you made with your community: “Pride Toronto exists to celebrate the history, courage, diversity and future of Toronto’s LGBTTIQQ2SA communities”.  I can think of no better way for you to truly honour and celebrate the history and courage of our community than to emulate it by facing up to your own mistake and reversing this decision.

Sincerely,
Fatima Amarshi
Former Executive Director of Pride Toronto (2005 – 2008)

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