Videotaped ignorance

Editorial

Last weekend, Libby Davies posted an apology and a retraction on her webpage. Davies, the New Democratic party member of Parliament for Vancouver East and NDP deputy leader, was captured on video a few days earlier in what amounted to Canada’s own Helen Thomas moment.

The video was taken by University of British Columbia graduate student David Katz, now, thanks to Davies, a moderately renowned citizen-journalist. On tape, Davies declares that the “occupation” began in 1948; a statement from a member of Canada’s Parliament that is on moral par with journalist Helen Thomas’ assertion that Jews should go back “home” to Germany and Poland and with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s promise to wipe Israel from the map.

“Israel has to remove itself from illegal settlements – and they’re basically all illegal,” Davies said. “They have to dismantle the wall, they have to drop the siege [of Gaza]. People are really, really suffering there and you can’t even get basic necessities in. To isolate people to that extent, to take away people’s basic human rights is, to me, unconscionable.”

In the astonishing five-minute clip, Davies is not cross-examined enough to scope out, for instance, what she means by “they’re basically all illegal” or to provide any evidence that “you can’t even get basic necessities in.” Nor is she called on the statement that it is Israel that has taken away “basic human rights” from Gazans, who live under a totalitarian Islamist terrorist theocracy.

The cherry on top is Davies’ assertion, despite all evidence and her own political career to the contrary, that people are afraid to speak up against Israel.

“Somehow we have to make this issue something that can be properly debated in the political arena because it’s not, because of fear, because of self-censorship,” Davies told Katz. “People are very worried about being criticized. If you are perceived to be anti-Israeli occupation, somehow you are also branded as being antisemitic. To me, it’s new McCarthyism.”

Type “Israel” into Google and see just how afraid people are to criticize. Not very. The idea that Jews manipulate the political agenda and control what people think and say is a hybrid of the hackneyed Jewish power motif and the medieval Jewish magic mythology.

By calling for an end to the “occupation” that began, according to Davies, in 1948, she is rejecting the right of Israel to exist. Is there any national liberation movement that Davies opposes, other than the Jewish one? Can she see how such a position might be perceived as antisemitic? Of course not. It’s McCarthyism.

Finally, when challenged, Davies retreated into claims of ignorance. Despite acknowledging earlier that she has “been to the West Bank and Gaza twice, so I’ve seen myself what’s going on,” when faced with the inconsistency of her position, Davies sought quick refuge. “I don’t know that I’m that ... enough knowledgeable,” she said.

On the heels of her comment that “I’m probably the strongest supporter in Parliament” of the movement to impose boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, Davies’ pleading ignorance seems disingenuous. And yet, it remains the most logical explanation for a huge political and moral faux pas.

In her online mea culpa, Davies (or the office of her party leader, or whoever wrote the terse retraction) makes a full retreat.

“My reference to the year 1948 as the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory was a serious and completely inadvertent error; I apologize for this and regret any confusion it has caused,” the statement reads. “I have always supported a two-state solution to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have never questioned Israel’s right to exist and the Palestinian[s’] right to a viable state.”

Actually, she did. On video. The videographer, who stumbled onto the anti-Israel rally near the Vancouver Art Gallery and took the opportunity to capture the MP’s opinions, said he was shocked by what he heard – not the anti-Israel extremism, but the ignorance.

“As the interview went on, it became more clear that she did not actually know much about the conflict,” Katz wrote on his blog. “How is it that a leader on a national stage can take such a stand against another country without understanding what she is taking a stand on? She had no clue what she was talking about other than parroting a few lines at me.”

Is Davies’ apology sincere? It is more likely that the lesson she will take from this experience is that she was right all along. Criticize Israel and the McCarthyites will get you.

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