Wrong forum in wrong city

JACK CHIVO

The city of Vancouver is in big financial trouble. The newly elected mayor, Sam Sullivan, who was warmly endorsed by the Jewish community, has just found that the previous administration has left him with a substantial deficit, requiring either a potential tax increase or the reduction of services. To add to the problems, Sullivan inherited another hot potato, namely a controversial event called the World Peace Forum, which is to take place in a few months in the city.

The forum appears to be one of those very expensive conferences trumpeted with a lot of nice slogans and grand designs, but with a hidden and nefarious agenda, where ultra-leftists and Islamic activists will promote their anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israel propaganda, with no expectation of balance and no desire to engage in a meaningful and useful dialogue.

While the list of the supporters and sponsors is still in its initial form, and we do not know the names of the speakers and the specific topics to be addressed, one has only to look at some of the organizations mentioned so far to get a taste of who was invited by the organizers and their political orientation and true agenda.

For instance, among the groups represented are what could be called the "rejectionist" Arab and Palestinian organizations in Canada, especially in British Columbia, whose ideology and platforms reject the idea that Israel is a legitimate state and describe its creation by the word nakba, or catastrophe. During a period when the whole civilized world is still reverberating with revulsion after the president of Iran called Israel an illegitimate state and asked for its destruction, the city of Vancouver is supporting a meeting where groups embracing the same hateful ideology have been invited.

It is enough to have a look at their websites, showing their version of the map of Palestine, covering the whole territory of the area without any mention of, or space for, the state of Israel, to wonder what kind of a peace message are they going to bring to the Vancouver forum.

Next we find the usual suspects – namely some of the most virulent anti-American, anti-capitalist groups in Canada and their ultra-leftist supporters, including Judy Rebick, the so-called Jews for a Just Peace and a whole alphabet of other anti-Israel groups. Of course, there are also some of the unions, churches and "progressive" organizations, along with a few genuine, naïve, "peace activists," but, as a whole, this is not meant to be a true peace forum, as it is understood by people of good faith, but a biased and one-sided meeting.

This partisan event might even end in the same manner as the infamous Durban conference, which is, unfortunately, still remembered as the "standard" for the vicious bashing of the United States, Israel and Britain and the Western democracies as a whole, and the trashing of the most basic democratic values we promote and cherish.

It is not my intention to suggest that such no peace forum should ever take place here, but there should be a modicum of decency and balance required before it merits the privilege of being endorsed by the mayor of a great city such as Vancouver. If the aforementioned groups are attending, why not invite similar revisionist organizations from Germany and Austria, who, like some of these groups, are also demanding the return of 20 million erstwhile refugees and their heirs to their former lands in Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia or Ukraine and the re-annexation of such territories by Germany? One can add to the list some extreme North American and European right-wing religious, political or ethnic groups, white supremacists or the people behind the Air India bombing. Not unlike some of the sponsors of the so-called Peace Forum, they also pretend to promote peace - under their terms, of course - and they could one day choose Vancouver as the place for their meetings.

Vancouver is a big and open city, where all political opinions, even some outlandish, strange or repulsive, are covered by the charter of rights, including the right of free speech. These rights, however, do not include endorsement by the mayor of the city. A few years ago, thousands of supporters from all over the world of a North American fundamentalist Christian group, the Promise Keepers, gathered in Vancouver in what they called a celebration of peace and harmony. The city of Vancouver neither sponsored them, nor recognised them in any way. I would respectfully suggest that if the supporters of Jean-Marie Le Pen or David Duke were to meet in Vancouver, the city would not offer them its sponsorship, the same way the mayor of Victoria is not sponsoring the yearly award of the George Orwell prize for "freedom of speech," whose former recipients included such "democratic minds" as the late Doug Collins.

Finally, perhaps a change in venue might be appropriate. The enlightened and progressive mullahs in Tehran have announced a scientific symposium about the Holocaust. Wouldn't it be great if the organizers of the World Peace Forum were to move their event to Iran, where they properly belong, taking the Palestinian propagandists and their Jewish soulmates along, and save this wonderful city a few hundred thousands dollars in unnecessary expenses?

Jack Chivo is a freelance writer living in West Vancouver.

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