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Jan. 20, 2006
Aiming at anti-Zionism
Winnipeg author looks at global problem.
PAT JOHNSON
David Matas can claim firsthand experience with one of the most
disturbing and horrific incidents of mass anti-Semitism of the new
century. In 2001, days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the
United States, Matas was a Canadian participant at the United Nations
World Conference Against Racism. The Winnipeg human rights lawyer
and author watched and spoke up in dismay as the UN conference in
Durban, South Africa, devolved into one of the modern world's most
concentrated and bloodthirsty attacks on the rights and security
of Jews.
Matas, who will speak in Vancouver next month, uses the Durban conference
as a jumping-off point for an extensive review of the state of anti-Zionism
in the world today.
In a comprehensive recounting of this dismal incident at Durban,
Matas provides one of the most cogent and valuable records of how
an event intended to address global racism and bigotry itself deteriorated
into a grisly and lamentable example of the very hateful prejudice
it was convened to eliminate.
In his new book, Aftershock: Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism,
Matas offers a compendious debunking of effectively each and every
claim of Israel's critics. With a courtroom lawyer's precision and
the deft hand of a talented, articulate writer, Matas fillets what
logic exists in the anti-Israel movement, shining light into the
vacuous intellectual foundations of such accusations as Israel's
alleged ethnic cleansing, genocide, colonial expansionism, apartheid,
crimes against humanity and the raft of insupportable blood libels
that constitute the contemporary world's default position toward
the country.
Matas was in Durban to see the debacle from a front-row seat and
he provides one of the most comprehensive testaments so far of that
circus of anti-Semitism. Matas's experience at Durban, which have
been published previously, including in the Jewish Independent
when it was called the Jewish Western Bulletin, provide perhaps
the definitive record of those dark days.
Matas told the Independent during a telephone interview from Nottingham,
England, that there is still room for facts and arguments in the
highly emotional debate between Zionists and anti-Zionists. He said
many people who are sympathetic to the Zionist cause simply do not
know how to respond to the phony charges thrown up against the Jewish
state.
"What you've got are some people who are emotionally convinced
and no facts are going to change their mind," Matas acknowledged.
"They're kind of propagandists and promoters of anti-Zionist
sentiments. But there's a lot of people out there who basically
don't know or who are convinced by bafflegab and untruths. Not everybody
who is anti-Zionist is a committed Jew-hater. Some people just don't
have the information. And there's a lot of people out there who
are sympathetic to the Zionist cause, but they simply do not know
how to answer these arguments. This is as much directed to the people
who are sympathetic to the point of view I express but don't know
how to answer all these phony charges as it is to the people who
are hostile."
There have been many books recently defending the right of Israel
to exist and to defend itself, but Matas said his book is slightly
different.
"My book, though it is obviously about Israel, it's about anti-Semitism,"
said Matas. "It's about the connection between anti-Zionism
and anti-Semitism. It's about the anti-Semitism we see in Winnipeg
and Vancouver and Saskatchewan and so on. It's that anti-Semitism
that prompted me to write the book, not the hope of generating peace
in the Middle East, which is far beyond my ambitions or the intent
of the book."
As an international lawyer, Matas sees the anti-Zionist rhetoric
as an attempt to "criminalize" the Jewish people.
"The message of the book is that the current anti-Semitism
is kind of a criminalization of the Jewish people, because of the
criminalization of the Jewish state," he said. "So what
it does is it answers the charge of criminalization by going through
international criminal law."
The connection between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, he said,
is that Jews suffer when Israel is under attack.
"Whenever Israel does anything to defend itself, Jews around
the world get attacked," he said. "When there's a lull
and there's nothing Israel does that becomes internationally visible
in terms of its self-defence, the incidents kind of fade. But the
underlying phenomenon is anti-Zionism."
While Matas has written this book – and while much of his life
has been dedicated to this cause – he is not a picture of optimism
on the issue of tenacious anti-Zionism.
"I don't think what we've got now is something that is going
to go away," he said. "We have had anti-Semitism since
time immemorial and now that we have a Jewish state, we are going
to have anti-Zionism as long as Israel exists."
Comparing Canada to other places, Matas suggested we fall somewhere
in the middle, when United Nations votes and anti-Semitic incidents
are considered.
"We're better than Europe and worse than the U.S.," he
said.
Matas is being honored by B'nai Brith and the Interfaith Brotherhood
in Vancouver next month.
"It is an honor," Matas said. "It's beyond the Jewish
community, so it shows the messages I am trying to convey are reaching
beyond the Jewish community and that's heartening."
Pat Johnson is editor of MVOX Multicultural Digest, www.mvox.ca.
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