The Editorial Board

Definition of insanity

In a rare venture into current events, the head of Yad Vashem has spoken out about the urgency of humanitarian disaster in Syria. After the forces backing Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad succeeded in taking the rebel-controlled areas of Aleppo last week, murderous retribution unfolded and terrified residents fled for their lives.

Avner Shalev, chair of Yad Vashem, said “the global community must put a stop to these atrocities and avert further suffering, as well as provide humanitarian assistance to the victims seeking safe haven.”

It is not insignificant that the head of the world’s leading Holocaust museum and memorial would be moved to speak out on the subject. The atrocities the world is seeing stir memories of the past. No history is precisely like other history, obviously, and making direct comparisons can be unhelpful. Yet, after the Second World War, as the extent of the Holocaust became understood, international agencies, nations and individuals committed to a future free of those sorts of atrocities. Those promises have been betrayed too many times in the seven decades since, most recently in Syria.

When we look back in history, we ask, why didn’t this party or that country do more? Why was this or that allowed to happen? How did the world not step in sooner, when evidence began to mount about the rising danger of authoritarianism? Questions and answers are easier in hindsight. Yet there can be no doubt that Syria has presented especially difficult choices, even for actors who want to do the right thing.

U.S. President Barack Obama has insisted through the years of the Syrian civil war, which began at the time of the Arab Spring in 2011, that there was no military solution to the problem; that diplomacy had to prevail. He may have been correct that there was no military resolution. There are multiple bad guys in this fight – Assad’s regime, backed by Iran, Hezbollah and Russia, on one side, and al-Qaeda and ISIS on the other. And, on the third side – because this is, vexingly, a multiple-sided conflict – is an amalgam of defectors from the Syrian military, Kurdish militias, and other anti-Assad forces who may have democratic and pluralist intents. Or, were they to be victorious – which now seems unlikely in the extreme – they could split among themselves, their only cohesion perhaps being the glue of opposition to Assad. By one count, what we call the Syrian civil war is as many as 10 separate conflicts. The United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar have provided some support to the rebels, but it has been unreliable and uncoordinated. Estimates of the number of civilians and fighters killed range from 312,000 to more than 400,000.

Civilians casualties have been enormous, with all sides indiscriminately attacking civilian targets. Torture and extrajudicial killings typify the regime’s approach to war. Assad’s forces have also been accused of deliberately targeting medical installations and personnel. When the United Nations was able to secure humanitarian aid routes within Syria to provide food and medicine, the regime ensured that aid reached government-controlled areas and prevented aid from reaching rebel-controlled areas.

Negotiations have gone nowhere, because Assad is determined to hold on to power no matter how much of his population dies in the process, and he has powerful military friends in Russia and Iran who back his iron fist. The opposition is unequivocal that Assad must be deposed. There is no room for negotiation.

And so, the matter has come down to military might, with the last stronghold of the opposition crushed in recent days. Assad has now regained control of almost all the population centres of the country, with the rebels limited to peripheral enclaves.

In the process of the civil war, half of Syria’s population has been uprooted – six million people are displaced internally and another six million have been made refugees, with global implications, as European, American and other politicians have exploited fears of radicalization among refugees to advance their own xenophobic agendas. The effect may ultimately unravel the entire European Union.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah has been significantly strengthened and ISIS, which has suffered in Syria, will likely turn its attentions to more fertile ground elsewhere. The murderous Assad regime is more secure than it has been in years. Russia is ascendant in the region and globally. The United States has been chastened, and the incoming president is, characteristically, belligerent in rhetoric but anti-interventionist in expressed policy, which indicates nothing if not pandemonium in future U.S. approaches.

The world has failed the people of Syria – and, as a result, the world is a far more dangerous place.

Significant blame for this disaster must be placed on the United Nations, the primary bodies of which are hobbled by the control of despots who owe more to Assad’s governance style than to the vision of the idealists who founded the organization. While there are agencies under the UN umbrella that do superb work, its governance structures are so dysfunctional that talk of a replacement body must continue in earnest.

The least the world should be able to do now is pressure the emboldened government of Assad to allow humanitarian aid to reach those who need it and allow his citizens to move to places of safety. Then, the world should reflect on the lessons of this catastrophic experience and promise, yet again, not to let such a thing recur. What we’re doing isn’t working. To prevent recurrence, we need to stop pursuing the definition of insanity, which involves doing the same things and expecting a different result.

We miss you already, Alex

With gratitude and sadness, we share with readers the news that Alex Kliner’s Menschenings column will appear for the last time in this issue of the Jewish Independent. Alex is retiring and, while we are happy that he’s about to enjoy a well-deserved break, we’ll miss him.

After more than two decades of keeping our readers up-to-date with news, quips, culture, history, wordplay and trivia from the Jewish world, Alex has decided that the time has come to relax a little and give up the grind of a weekly column.

Alex has been a pillar of this newspaper and remains a pillar of this community, reflecting ourselves back to ourselves, with wit, Yiddishkeit and puns that he well knows are groaners. He has brought his unique character to these pages, built on the linguistic and comedic styles that are distinctively Jewish but which are also inimitably Klineresque.

photo - Reading Alex Kliner's Menschenings has always been like spending time with a friend – a gossipy friend, but in the best sense — Reading Alex Kliner’s Menschenings has always been like spending time with a friend – a gossipy friend, but in the best sense. (photo from Alex Kliner)

Reading Menschenings has always been like spending time with a friend – a gossipy friend, but in the best sense. Lashon hara never, ever found a place in Alex’s column. His stories were always positive and joyfully told. Like Alex in person, Menschenings has been a cheery respite amid the world’s sometimes woeful events.

Alex has been able to pack an enormous amount into each column, covering news that matters and nuggets that entertain. He often notes the passing of figures of importance to Jewish life, many of whom were unsung heroes in their fields but little known to the general public. Goings-on around town, important new works of literature, tidbits from showbiz with a Jewish angle: there have not been many limits to the Menschenings beat.

His columns have also been filled with kavods and kudos for local and international figures about whom readers may otherwise have known nothing. Mazal tovs for simchot, recognitions of landmark events, notes on new cultural diversions and businesses opening and closing. Through these many years, week after week, Alex has curated stories of ordinary and extraordinary people, distilling a huge range of events and personalities into a tight package that is a pleasure to peruse. His chatty style has made our community feel a sense of togetherness, as though even people we do not know are linked with us through a mutual friend.

Importantly, each week Menschenings has featured a member of the local community, often someone whose contributions to the smooth running of communal organizations or a local business are crucial yet uncelebrated, an artist being introduced to new audiences, an author, a chef, an athlete, any number of people we were better for knowing about through Alex’s introduction. He has often been the first to identify rising stars in the local arts scene and there is no gauge to measure the careers he has helped along the way.

For 21 tireless years, and just two columns short of 1,000, Alex has been an irreplaceable and beloved voice of this newspaper and the community we serve. Together with Elaine, whose name has appeared frequently in Menschenings as a muse and a foil – El-Al, as they are collectively known – Alex has attended more community events, concerts, plays and other events than the most dogged culture vultures.

Thank you, Alex, for everything you have done to help build this community and tell our stories. Your name is, appropriately, inextricably connected with the word mensch.

– all of us at the Jewish Independent

There is danger in autocracy

Last week, an Israeli artist erected a life-sized golden statue of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square. Reminiscent of the golden calf with its connection to forbidden idolatry, artist Itay Zalait said he was making a statement about freedom of speech in Israel and what he sees as a type of idolatry growing around the man sometimes called King Bibi.

Citizens gathered around the statue, arguing about its meaning and various interpretations. Because the installation was erected without a permit, city officials ordered it removed but, before the artist could do so, it was toppled by a bystander and left laying on its side like the figure of a deposed despot.

In addition to the prime minister’s office, Netanyahu occupies the portfolios of foreign minister, economy minister, minister of regional cooperation and communications minister.

In this latter role, Netanyahu has appointed figures to oversight positions that have allowed them to put a finger on the scale in support of media outlets that are sympathetic to the government. Similarly, American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson bankrolls the newspaper Israel HaYom, which is widely seen as a propaganda machine for Netanyahu.

The Netanyahu government is also seen as threatening the broadcast news sector, having undertaken an effort to replace the state-run broadcaster with a more complimentary version, only to reverse course when it appeared the new agency would also be insufficiently uncritical. Like other politicians in democratic countries, Netanyahu has found some popularity among his supporters by picking fights with the media, including individual reporters who report things unfavorable to the prime minister.

While discourse in Israel remains legendarily vibrant, evidence that the government may be attempting to influence or control aspects of journalistic freedom are rightly drawing deep concern. And this concern is exacerbated by evidence of other tendencies within Israeli society that seem to reflect authoritarian, anti-democratic and discriminatory inclinations.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett is having “ethical rules” drawn up for what university lecturers can and cannot say about politics. Culture Minister Miri Regev has promoted a bill to retroactively cut funding to cultural institutions that do not meet the government’s standard of “loyalty” to the state of Israel.

On a different, but similarly ham-fisted front, there is the attempt to legislate the public broadcast of the muezzin, the five-times-a-day call to Muslim prayer, which begins before dawn. Granted, not everyone is keen to have daily pre-dawn loudspeaker broadcasts, whatever the purpose, but such a move against a religious minority already experiencing myriad forms of discrimination calls into question fundamental issues of multiculturalism and respect for religious freedom and pluralism that need to be addressed.

The rabbinate has also weighed in on a few issues that have outraged progressive and feminist Israelis.

Crediting a 15th-century scholar, the Sephardi chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef declared that women and yeshivah scholars are forbidden from serving in the Israel Defence Forces or performing national volunteer service. He claimed that women had been permitted to go to war at times in Jewish history, but only to cook and clean. The comments come at a time when Israel has seen a four-fold increase in the number of women combat soldiers and as some segments of the political spectrum and civil society are speaking up against what they see as the unsustainable tradition of military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox.

Then there is Eyal Karim, who was recently sworn in as chief rabbi of the IDF. During his confirmation hearings, Karim was forced to explain earlier comments that seemed to justify the rape of non-Jewish women during wartime. He apologized, saying that his comments were a theoretical consideration of biblical permissions and prohibitions. Karim has also stated that women should not serve in the IDF, or sing at army events.

These and other developments have combined with the Netanyahu government’s warm reaction to Donald Trump’s election to raise alarm among some that Israel is on a path similar to the populist, authoritarian phenomenon seen in the United States and much of Europe. In so many ways, Israel’s body politic is sui generis, utterly unlike any other democracy on earth. Yet it should not surprise that what emerges among its closest allies should also find a place among Israelis.

Trump, tweeting from his gold-embossed chambers in Manhattan, is exhibiting plenty of monarchical characteristics. European political upstarts are glorifying strongmen of the past and, in some cases, of the present, in the form of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin. When these sorts of autocratic inclinations arise in Israel, they should be opposed there, just as they should be everywhere.

Inspired by Standing Rock

The story of Chanukah is a narrative of the victory of a small group of righteous fighters against a powerful empire. It is a redemptive story of standing for one’s beliefs (and existence) and triumphing in the end.

The end of 2016 is a time when redemptive stories are even more welcome and the decision by the U.S. government last weekend to accede to the defiance of protesters in North Dakota is just such a story. Plans to run an oil pipeline through a cemetery and under a water reservoir near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation were kiboshed. This doesn’t mean an alternative route won’t see the project completed, but it does alleviate the immediate fears the people had of the potential destruction of their water supply and further desecration of sacred sites, some of which have already been bulldozed.

The example of the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies from all over the country who stood up to the oil company is already being held up as a model for British Columbians, many of whom spent the weekend fuming over an announcement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The prime minister declared that cabinet had approved the Kinder Morgan Trans-Mountain pipeline – which would see the number of tankers transporting bitumen from Burnaby, through Burrard Inlet, to Asia, increase to 34 per month from five – as well as another pipeline to the United States, while rejecting the Northern Gateway pipeline, which would have sent diluted bitumen to Asia via northern British Columbia. The incongruity of the decision – that the government recognizes the pristine fragility of the northern coast, but not that of the southern coast – is among the causes of outrage. Other concerns involve larger global issues of fossil fuels and the range of options that could, if we are going to use this non-renewable resource, at least reduce the negative environmental impacts.

Ahavat ha’beriot, love for (God’s) creation, is at the heart of Jewish identity. There is also the commandment to not stand by the blood of your neighbor; that is, do not behave passively in the face of violence toward others. While there was violence at Standing Rock, the greater threat was to the livelihood of the community there, based on the necessity of potable water. Likewise, the potential for ecological disaster as a result of the increased tanker traffic along Vancouver’s coast could destroy much creation, while the commitment to non-renewable fuels exemplified by the pipeline infrastructure will have global consequences.

Protecting creation is at the heart of First Nations identity as well, as was so articulately expressed at Standing Rock and which has also been demonstrated by reaction to Western Canadian pipelines, much of the opposition to which is led by indigenous people. Among the most heartening aspects of the Standing Rock story was the solidarity between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

Even if we disagree on this issue – we who drive cars or otherwise exploit non-renewable resources should demonstrate commitment to reducing emissions with our actions as well as our words – the lesson of Standing Rock goes beyond this single topic.

The United States and much of the world is experiencing a political upheaval. Particular challenges will emerge from the stunning U.S. election result, which handed the White House and both chambers of Congress to a party that rejects much of what has been termed “progressive” – environmental regulations, equality for women and minorities, protections for workers and a long list of other advances that cannot now (if they ever could) be taken for granted.

In the face of a Washington that is uniformly Republican, there may be a renewed need for public demonstrations that advance alternative viewpoints. People stood up at the coincidentally but aptly named Standing Rock. People may have to do the same in many places, including Burrard Inlet, during the coming years.

We need not be modern Maccabees to take such a stand. It is highly unlikely that any of us will see our lives threatened for opposing a pipeline, or acting within the law to advance or oppose some other viewpoint. Conversely, if action is not taken, if voices do not coalesce to demand alternatives to our world’s rapacious appetite for fossil fuels, all of creation may well be threatened.

Does the truth still matter?

A recently released study from the graduate School of Education at Stanford University engaged 7,800 middle school, high school and college students to evaluate the information they received on the internet. The report said there was a “stunning and dismaying consistency” in the responses from the students, demonstrating an inability to discern information based on whether it originated from activist groups, neutral sources or advertising, and students routinely could not tell the difference between news articles from legitimate sources and unreliable webpages, nor between ostensibly balanced news coverage and opinion pieces.

The aftermath of the recent U.S. presidential election has seen commentators raise alarms over “fake news” – stories planted on social media with the deliberate intent to mislead. Obviously, this is another wrinkle in the whole issue of discerning fact from fiction. Then there is the ability of wholly unchecked assertions to go viral and be taken as fact by hundreds of thousands of people.

The New York Times analyzed one example of how these things can happen. In Austin, Tex., a man with just 40 Twitter followers saw a lineup of buses in downtown Austin on Nov. 9, the day after the election. That evening, crowds gathered in Austin, protesting the election of Donald Trump the night before. The man put two and two together and tweeted that “Anti-Trump protesters in Austin today are not as organic as they seem. Here are the buses they came in. #Fakeprotests #Trump2016 #Austin.”

The due diligence the man performed was a Google search to determine whether there were any major conferences being held in Austin and he found none. It turns out the buses were hired by a software company that was holding a conference for more than 13,000 people. Nevertheless, the tweet, which implies that the anti-Trump protesters were bused into town by some nefarious organizer, was shared 16,000 times on Twitter and 350,000 times on Facebook.

This was an example of a “story” not being adequately researched and proven. It is a slightly different species from the deliberately false “news” stories that popped up during the election with headlines like “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president” and “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apartment in murder-suicide.” Both of these, and countless more like them, were intentionally false, yet shared by thousands of people who believed – or wished – them to be true.

Comedian Jon Stewart used to refer to his program The Daily Show as “fake news,” but in fact it was parody and satire, taking a grain of truth and riffing humor and social commentary from it. This differs as well from sites like The Onion or Canada’s The Beaverton, which are not intended to be taken seriously, but sometimes are.

Then there is, to bring it full circle, the forms of legitimate journalism – news and analysis – which are generally well-researched, with facts corroborated and sources verified, but are often received by consumers as something else. In other words, people will take falsified news as fact and decry factual reporting as made-up.

On Sunday, Trump himself tweeted, without a shred of evidence, “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” With vote counting (inexplicably) still underway, Trump has easily won the electoral college and, therefore, the presidency, but Hillary Clinton is currently 2.2 million votes ahead of Trump in the popular vote.

This sort of assertion from a sore winner is typical of the man, who seems to lie even when there is no advantage, as if to keep in practice. Throughout the campaign,

Trump routinely told untruths, which helps explain why the Oxford dictionary chose “post-truth” as its international word of the year for 2016.

Tens of millions voted for Trump despite, or possibly because of, his awkward relationship with the truth, suggesting that truth doesn’t matter like we once assumed it did. Or that people don’t care what the truth is, so long as what is said, published or posted conforms to or supports their preexisting opinions. People are willing to hear (or read, say or write) falsehoods and accept them as true if they wish them to be, rather than question their own beliefs or situation at all.

The unwillingness or inability to differentiate truth from fiction has long been a concern. Purveyors of lies – in advertising, politics, daily life – have been doing their deeds for centuries. Yet the ability in the internet age for people to select “news” that supports their worldview, or to be duped by people with agendas, has opened whole new universes of falsehood. Scarier, by far, is the apparent insouciance with which many people approach the issue. Some of us are satisfied with fiction if it suits our preferred version of fact. In such a case, we are not facing a problem of media literacy. We are facing a more serious affront to the very idea of reality.

Where will the money go?

The Canadian government has announced that it will resume funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The government made the announcement last week, allocating $20 million to UNRWA’s budget and an additional $5 million to support the emergency appeal issued by the organization in order to aid Palestinian refugees affected by the catastrophic war in Syria.

In a statement, the government said, “with this funding, Canada joins all other G7 countries in supporting UNRWA’s efforts to meet the ever-increasing needs of Palestinian refugees, assists in providing basic services for vulnerable people, and contributes to some stability in the region.”

Canada’s previous Conservative government backed away from supporting UNRWA, reducing funding from $32 million in 2007 to $19 million in 2009 and, in 2010, cutting funding entirely. The justification at that time was that UNRWA has ties to the terrorist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.

The $20 million just announced is expected to support health, social services and education “for millions of vulnerable Palestinian refugees,” according to Ottawa. But the announcement comes just days after renewed reports that raise concerns about the more than 200 Palestinian schools sponsored by UNRWA, which teach students between first and ninth grade.

One expert on the subject told a conference organized by the Centre for Near East Policy Research (CNEPR) this month that the textbooks reflect the educational principles introduced by Yasser Arafat when the Palestinian authority gained control over the education system in the West Bank and Gaza, and have not been cleansed of hate, antisemitism and incitement. Participants in the conference obtained textbooks from the warehouse that supplies Palestinian schools and they claim the books still encourage a violent struggle for the liberation of “Palestine,” which is defined to include all of present-day Israel, the rejection of historical facts about Jewish holy places and the demonization of both Israel and of Jews.

A spokesperson for UNRWA outright rejects the accusations, saying that two significant analyses of textbooks, including one by the U.S. Department of State, debunked the assertions of incitement in the curriculum. However, David Bedein, director of CNEPR, said he was prepared to present the U.S. government with evidence that contradicts the state department’s findings but told the Jerusalem Post he was rebuffed by the White House.

These conflicting reports are disconcerting. It should be possible for funders who send hundreds of millions of aid dollars to find out for sure whether their money is funding genocidal incitement. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is certainly correct in declaring that donor countries “have a responsibility to ensure that aid is used for the purpose for which it is given, and we are pleased Canada has taken the lead in establishing a robust accountability protocol.”

In announcing the renewed funding, the federal government promised “there will be enhanced due diligence applied to UNRWA funding … accompanied by a very robust oversight and reporting framework, which includes regular site visits and strong antiterrorism provisions.”

This would be a positive step, to say the least. It would also be a positive step if these Canadian funds do actually provide health, education and social services to people who need them. But this, too, will be difficult to discern. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year that an analysis by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicates that the Palestinian Authority budgets about $75 million a year to support Palestinian terrorists – about 16% of foreign donations the PA receives. A lack of transparency about where the rest of the money goes means the world has been unable to determine how much money is lining the pockets of cronies of the dictatorship and what proportion is making positive social and economic contributions in the lives of Palestinians. Notably, the Palestinians receive more international aid per capita than any other people in the world – by far. Even as the catastrophe in neighboring Syria has seen 250,000 killed and 6.5 million refugees displaced, Syrians receive $106 per capita in international aid, while Palestinians receive $176.

One could argue whether Canadian funds are needed by the Palestinian Authority at all. And, clearly, we cannot be entirely confident that funds are going to the places they are intended. But, if the Canadian government does indeed follow the money, as promised, and determines whether it is making life better for Palestinians or is instead inciting terrorism, this might finally answer some questions that today seem subject to accusations and denials. That would be money well spent.

Small but important

There were fears that, if Donald Trump lost the election last week, his supporters would riot. Fewer people thought the opposite would happen – either that Trump would win or that those who opposed him would riot.

Nightly protest marches after the election were largely peaceful, but some were not, notably in Portland, Ore. It would be informative to learn if any participants in these street rallies were among the 45% of Americans of voting age who didn’t bother to cast a ballot. It would be galling in the extreme to find that people who couldn’t take a few minutes to vote on Nov. 8 were spending hours on the following days marching against the results of an election in which they didn’t think it necessary to vote.

But something more predictable has happened as well. Given the tenor of Trump’s campaign, and the glee with which his victory was met by such groups as the Ku Klux Klan, other white supremacists and those who go by the neologism alt-right, the Republican victory seems to have unleashed among some Americans a spurt of acting out. There have been countless recorded incidents of antisemitic, anti-black, anti-Muslim and anti-gay slurs, graffiti and even physical attacks. It was predictable that Trump’s hateful rhetoric would have an impact regardless of the election’s outcome, but the validation he received from more than 50 million Americans appears to have legitimized, or at the very least, inspired, some people to act out in antisocial, racist and violent ways.

In response, online articles, videos and infographics have been created demonstrating how to intervene and de-escalate a point of conflict. Also, a movement has emerged in which individuals demonstrate solidarity with individuals and groups who feel threatened.

A safety pin. A simple safety pin affixed to a garment is a new signal for people who may feel threatened in a situation – on a subway, in a classroom, at the mall, anywhere – that the person wearing a safety pin is a person who can be relied on for support.

It’s a small thing, but it isn’t. For an individual feeling threatened because they are identified as a target because of their ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, a tiny signal of solidarity, support and refuge could be a lifeline.

We are in Canada, of course, not in the United States. But we would be naïve to think that what happens there doesn’t impact the social fabric here. There is racism, antisemitism, anti-Muslim bias, homophobia and other forms of bigotry under and at the surface here. The idea that we could provide a place of safety for individuals feeling threatened – or indeed that we could find ourselves looking for such a place – is as realistic for Canadians as it is for Americans.

Now that Remembrance Day has passed, we will remove our poppies, the symbol of respect for those who fought and died in the past for democratic and civil rights. Some of us, if we feel inclined, will replace it with a safety pin, evidence that we are committed to upholding these values today and in the future in whatever small but meaningful way we can.

What now, America?

Many of our readers survived the predations of fascism or communism; some endured both. It is probably safe to say these people do not take democracy for granted, as some of us who have been fortunate to live our entire lives under democratic governments may.

For many of us, Remembrance Day is one of the few times in the year when we stop and take stock of our good fortune and the sacrifices that made it possible. This year, we should perhaps give even more consideration to the fact, which we have mentioned in this space before, that democracy is a remarkably new and fragile thing. What we recognize as modern democracy is an American invention just 240 years old.

There have been concerning noises in the birthplace of democracy leading up to the close Tuesday of this ugliest of presidential election campaigns. In addition to Donald Trump’s threats to not abide by the democratic decision of the people because of some imaginary “rigging,” much of his rhetoric has seemed deliberately calculated to undermine democracy and its parallel values of pluralism and respect for diversity. Trump’s behavior and language – and the vitriol and violence he inspired and encouraged among his followers – are antithetical to American democracy.

We should not fall into the trap of comparative blame. This was probably the nastiest campaign in American history, but that is not something we can ascribe equally to both leading candidates and their followers.

Hillary Clinton ran a negative campaign, yes, but only within the comparatively gentle parameters of what has become conventional in American politics of the television age. Trump’s campaign, on the other hand, was a blast furnace of hatred, ridicule, dehumanization, lies, racism, sexism and incitement.

One of the most important pillars of democracy is also one of the most ephemeral: the confidence of the populace in the institutions of governance. And polls indicate that Americans currently have extraordinarily low opinions of their officials.

The American people – and the new president (who was declared after the Independent went to press) – have an unenviable task ahead of them in restoring confidence in the system, in their institutions and in their ability to advance as the world’s beacon of democracy.

For the sake of their country – and for the sake of the magnitude of impact it will have on the rest of the world – we should all wish for a period of reflection, healing and reconciliation.

The future of democracy

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin spoke strong words at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session this week. The very survival of democracy, he suggested, is on the line.

“Against a background of political upheavals occurring in the West, the free world, it is no secret that democracy – or Western liberal democracy – is in a state of confusion,” said Rivlin. “Many citizens across the world feel that the existing democratic system is struggling to function and, moreover, is struggling to offer an answer to their needs in light of the current threat of terrorism, the current wave of migration and refugees, or the ongoing economic and employment crises.”

Rivlin was speaking broadly, apparently referencing the various movements springing up in recent years at the fringes of what was once the political mainstream. These include new nativist and often xenophobic movements in Europe. The vote by Britain to leave the European Union is a symptom of a strain of political ideology that rejects open borders – both for trade and for people. While the Brexit vote was supported by people across the political spectrum, its campaign was led by the United Kingdom Independence Party, a movement pushing its way into the mainstream from the far right.

While Europe struggles with the challenges of and reactions to economic meltdowns and waves of refugees and migrants, the presidential election in the United States has been rocked by events that also threaten foundational understandings of democracy.

Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president, has suggested he may not abide by the results of the election, an outcome he is alleging to be “rigged.” There is no evidence, according to almost all commentators, of any rigging of the electoral system. Indeed, say most, the patchwork nature of the American electoral system makes comprehensive manipulation of a federal election essentially impossible. However, Trump’s assertions seem based less on the idea that the electoral infrastructure is rigged than on his perception that the media and the political establishment are nearly uniformly against him. As paranoid as this may seem, it is not altogether false. The political establishment, even in his own Republican party, is lukewarm at best toward their outsider nominee. And the media is merely reporting the attitudes of some of the public, many of whom are aghast and appalled at the successive emanations from Trump’s mouth.

However, if the establishment and commentators in the media are lined up against him, this should arguably be viewed as a statement about him, not them – which brings us back to the issue of Trump’s threatened refusal to admit defeat. Absolutely crucial to democracy is the legitimacy – and perception of legitimacy – of the electoral process. In the most contested election in modern history, in 2000, Al Gore accepted defeat even though he received more votes in the state of Florida than the declared victor George W. Bush and, therefore, should have been the winner. In the interest of national unity and the preservation of confidence in the system, Gore acceded to the determination of a Florida court.

Now, Trump suggests he may not accept the results even if he is conclusively defeated. Of course, anything is possible with this candidate, so it may be bluster. But the bigger picture in this scenario is the impact Trump’s words have on his followers. Some are already promising “revolution” if Trump is defeated.

Then, of course, there is the other possibility: Trump wins.

Where American democracy – and the country’s role as a model of responsible government – would go from there is an ominous mystery.

Whose holy site?

When organizers of the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival select the films they will screen, timeliness is probably among the considerations. They could hardly have known they would hit the nail on the head so perfectly with One Rock Three Religions. The film explores the contending claims for the world’s most in-demand religious real estate: that which Jews call the Temple Mount.

The site of the First and Second Temples, the latter destroyed by the Romans after 70 CE, is also the location of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, holy sites for Muslims. The Western Wall, adjacent to the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, is the holiest site on earth for the Jewish people. The Temple Mount also holds significance for Christians. This is not breaking news.

But the 58-member executive board of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, earlier this month passed a resolution – with 24 countries in favor, 32 against or abstaining and two absent – that uses language that exclusively recognizes the Muslim history of the area, implicitly erasing Jewish and Christian claims to the space. (Canada is not part of the board.)

Denying Jewish claims to the Temple Mount is not breaking news, either. This form of historical erasure has been going on for decades.

In the film, Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles and a rabbi emeritus of Vancouver’s Schara Tzedeck, notes that the supreme Muslim authority in Jerusalem published for decades a visitor’s guide to the site. From 1924 until 1953, the guidebook made clear that the location was indisputably the site of Jewish temples. The 1954 iteration of the guide omitted the Jewish connection to the holy place for the first time. Some Arab and Palestinian figures, including Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, have made it their business to deny the historical and archeological truth ever since. The denial of a Jewish connection to Jerusalem has come to coexist with the denial of Jews to a right to self-determination in our unceded ancestral territory, as part of a global phenomenon of denying Jewish history.

It may be naïve to get on our high horses and pretend that UNESCO’s appalling denial of Jewish (and Christian) connections to the Temple Mount is some new low in global attitudes toward Israel. This is nonsense, certainly, but only on a continuum of nonsense that defines the anti-Israel movement globally.

We can take some solace in the fact that the vote was not passed by a majority. As well, on the positive side, this “theatre of the absurd,” as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called it, at least forced the hands of a few leaders, including Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who promised to find out why his country’s representative abstained from the vote. Even UNESCO’s own director-general, Irina Bokova, said: “Jerusalem is the sacred city of the three monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.… To deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site, and runs counter to the reasons that justified its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage list.”

In the end, it all amounts to bubkes for Israel. Israel will continue to provide, as the VJFF film demonstrated, access to all religious sites for all peoples, to say nothing of continuing to be the educational, scientific and cultural exemplar it is. If only UNESCO contributed as much.