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March 14, 2003
A challenge to the leaders of the Jewish community
Letters
Editor: Jews in Canada are under siege. Our positions are becoming
increasingly unpopular and I strongly believe there will be dear
consequences for us if we don't react. Jewish institutions in Vancouver
must create ad-hoc committees in order to mobilize the community
to tackle this issue, to educate and inform about Israel, the Jews
and the danger of anti-Semitism. You merely need to see Roman Polanski's
The Piano to understand that nobody is sheltered when things
go wrong, no matter our political affiliations or friendships.
Recently, an important Canadian First Nations leader, David Ahenakew,
exposed Jews to hate with an intensity rarely heard in Canada. The
distinguished Lebanese ambassador to Canada also accused Canadian
Jews and Zionists of dominating the press and determining Canadian
international policy. Over the years, First Nations people have
had very few relationships with Jews, which might explain Mr. Ahenakew's
bigotry. However, there is no such explanation for the Lebanese,
who are perceived by the general public as being among the most
moderate of the Arabs.
I am concerned that the snake of anti-Semitism is becoming a real
threat in our country. It feeds on public apathy and confers the
licence to many politicians to take positions unsympathetic to Israel.
They don't seem to take the Jewish vote seriously and I believe
that this situation has to be confronted.
The public's perspective is based on the delusion that the Jews
only arrived in Israel in 1948, where they displaced a teeming Arab
population from its rooted homeland since time immemorial. The vast
majority of Canadians view the spiral of horror as a wrestling match:
the David-like Palestinian refugees crushed by the might of the
Goliath-Israelis who want to dominate and confiscate their land
with the help of settlers. This perception is fed by Arab propaganda,
supported by their local friends from student unions and other pro-Palestinian
organizations. This view has become so common that even we, ourselves,
are sometimes caught off-guard and question Israel's position.
The truth however is that there really is no cycle of violence.
Murders are perpetrated in cold blood and articulated by the Palestinian
leadership. They try to gain political advantage by terrorizing
Israelis. Little do they know Israel has a secret weapon
ein breira (no choice)!
In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan tells a true story: A boy
who threw a stone at a general's dog was arrested, stripped naked
and, before his mother, torn to pieces by a pack of the general's
dogs. "I say beforehand that the entire truth is not worth
such a price," cries Ivan. "I do not want a mother to
embrace the torturer who had her child torn to pieces by his dogs.
Is there in the whole world a being that could or would have the
right to forgive?" Such is the case of the Palestinians. In
a world where Jewish blood is again cheap, we must not remain silent
when children are murdered, torn to pieces and maimed by them. Supporting
their armed struggle is moral bankruptcy and trying to justify it
is being complacent. Every single Israeli deserves the right to
live, no less than the Palestinians. Our obligation as individuals
and Jews is to extend our solidarity, no matter our political opinions
and unmask the defenders of Palestinian cruelty.
The media endorse the Arab version of the Palestinian refugee story.
I believe that it is indeed a tragedy and every decent human being
is heartbroken to see how Palestinian populations have suffered
since the beginning of the intifada. However, all efforts must be
made to educate the public of the story behind the story. For this
we need perspective and I urge the leaders of the Jewish community
to take up this challenge.
It sounds strange that, over the years, Arab propaganda has succeeded
in manipulating the public to believe a false history. The propaganda
has been swallowed whole.
The myth is that there was an Arab homeland in Western Palestine.
The fact is that 100 million refugees moved around the world since
the Second World War. Oddly, Arab refugees are seen in a different
light from all the other, far more numerous, people who were also
displaced. Who were the Arabs who were living within the borders
of present-day Israel and where did they come from? Why are they
seen differently from other refugees? Why have millions of refugees
on this planet been integrated and welcomed but at the same time,
the Arab countries have refused to do the equivalent for their Palestinian
brothers? Whose interests did abandoning the Palestinians to their
desolation advance?
Why is there a double standard where Israel is the concerned? Whose
goals converge to de-legitimize Israel's existence and make her
the pariah of the civilized world?
Around the time of the independence of the state of Israel in 1948,
the overwhelming majority (over 90 per cent) of all the Jewish populations
living in Arab countries were expelled and dispossessed by the Muslims
and their property plundered. Some of these communities had been
living in these countries for more than 2,000 years, long before
the ascent of Islam. We are talking about the Arab Jews of Yemen,
Aden, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon and
Libya. In all, more than 600,000 men, women and children were left
homeless. For every Palestinian refugee, the same number of Jews
were expelled from Arab lands.
The effectiveness of the Arab propaganda machinery, however, has
obscured all common sense regarding the Arab-Jewish conflict and
is based mainly on their success in alterating in the United Nations
the definition of what constitutes an Arab refugee from Israel.
In other cases, the more or less universally used description of
eligibility included those people who were forced to leave "permanent"
or "habitual" homes. In the case of the Arab refugees,
however, the definition has been broadened to include any person
who had been in Palestine for only two years before Israel's statehood
in 1948. (Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial) This is a far
stretch from the image of Arab people being pushed from plots of
land inhabited by them from time immemorial! The truth is that Arab
immigration to Palestine between the two world wars was huge.
It hurts to note how selective the awareness is towards human misery.
The defenders of rights don't have much unease with China (which
has occupied Tibet for more than 50 years), Russia (in Chechnya,
Putin doesn't just occupy Grozny, he destroys it), Iraq (Saddam
killed many thousands of his own Kurds, among others), Sudan (more
than a million Animists and Christians murdered in the Nuba mountains
by the Islamic regime in Khartum don't get one millionth the compassion
given the 2,000 Palestinian deaths in the intifada).
The most recent act of the Arab propaganda machine is to link public
feelings of compassion toward the Palestinian refugees to a vigorous
anti-Semitic campaign. The strategy is illustrated by the Lebanese
ambassador's interview where he spread the worst conspiracy theories
of Jews wanting to dominate the world.
Our duty is to defend ourselves, educate and inform about Israel
and the Jews and to confront the danger of anti-Semitism.
Georges Sommer
Richmond
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