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October 3, 2003
A twist on an old theme
David Matas sees anti-Semitism in attacks on Israel.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
When he was a child growing up in Winnipeg, David Matas was subjected
to taunts of children who accused him of killing Christ.
"Though I was young, I knew full well I hadn't killed Christ,"
said the lawyer and noted human rights activist. As an adult, he
attended the human rights conference in Durban, South Africa, where
he was taunted as a killer of Palestinian children.
Matas recalled the two incidents during a presentation organized
by the Vancouver chapter of B'nai Brith Monday night. The topic
was anti-Zionism as a "cover" for anti-Semitism, and Matas
outlined a comprehensive critique of current events, concluding
that propagandistic attacks on Israel have been expanded to include
attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions worldwide in a relatively
new twist on the historically familiar Jew-hatred of centuries past.
One by one, Matas debunked the excessive accusations made by critics
of Israel and considered them in the context of a long history of
anti-Semitism. The attacks on Israel come from Canadian and world
media, world leaders who should be able to winnow fact from fiction
better than they apparently do, and is especially prevalent in places
where world opinion leaders gather, including the United Nations
and its affiliated bodies, according to Matas.
Among the attacks Israel's critics frequently make is that Israel
is an "apartheid state" and that offers of a Palestinian
homeland amount to "Bantustans." Matas, who was active
in the anti-apartheid movement in Canada and globally, said these
attacks are intended as a shorthand to delegitimize Israel. Though
Israeli law protects the equality of racial minorities and explicitly
attempts to ameliorate inequalities, he said, the apartheid accusation
is easy because it evokes revulsion among anyone who understands
the institutionalized inequality of the former South African regime.
Matas said that if anti-Zionists can convince people that Israel
has a system that is akin to apartheid, it makes it easy to argue
that, like the former South Africa, Israel is founded on universally
repugnant principles and, like the defunct South African racist
regime, Israel should cease to exist.
Supporters of Israel are left defending their positions against
wildly unfounded accusations such as colonialism, Matas added.
"It's being picked up as a trendy condemnation," he said.
Matas ran through a litany of recent events he said indicated that
anti-Zionism is being used as a cover for the familiar anti-Semitism
of the past. The strategy, he suggested, is to undermine Israeli
legitimacy with a raft of unsubstantiated accusations.
"Israel is condemned for the worst crimes known to humanity,"
Matas said. "If Israel were guilty of the human rights violations
they're accused of, it would be a good reason to argue against the
existence of Israel."
Rhetorical attacks against Israel have had tangible impacts worldwide,
including here in Canada, he noted. The perpetrator of a 2000 bombing
of an Edmonton synagogue defended himself, saying he was moved to
attack the Jewish religious structure out of frustration over Middle
East events, said Matas, noting the equation of Israel with a Jewish
institution half a world away. All Jews are considered responsible
for the actions of the Israeli government, regardless of their attitudes
or citizenship, which is where anti-Zionism morphs into anti-Semitism,
according to Matas.
"It doesn't even matter if you support Israel or what it does.
If you're a Jew, that's enough," he said.
The term "occupation" is especially troublesome to a lawyer
who knows something about international law. And it is common to
tack on the modifier "illegal occupation," he noted.
"That is simply not correct law," said Matas. "According
to international law, in order for there to be occupation, there
has to be an occupied state. Egypt and Jordan have abandoned claims
[to the West Bank and Gaza]," he said. "What we've got
are territories whose status is unsettled. To call them occupied
is a misnomer. To call it an illegal occupation is just wrong."
Anti-Zionists accuse Israel of being a "terrorist state,"
but then refute any conventionally accepted definition of terrorism.
Israel is accused of "ethnic cleansing," which defies
reconciliation with the facts of Israel's legal and practical protection
of minorities. Ariel Sharon is accused of being a war criminal because
he was in a position of leadership when a terrible mass murder occurred
in the camps of Shatila and Sabra in the 1980s, yet Palestinian
leaders are not held equally responsible when suicide murderers
kill Israelis on their watch. Israeli West Bank and Gaza settlements
are decried as "illegal" which is, again, a misnomer,
according to Matas. Though international law forbids the forcible
movement of civilians into contested territories, it makes no regulation
against people voluntarily settling in such areas.
When terror attacks take place against America or Israel, it is
not the attackers who get blamed, but the victims, he said.
"When things go wrong, the people who commit the offence do
not take responsibility," said Matas. "If it's not the
Israelis or the Jews, it's the Oslo accords. It's always something
else."
Critics of Israel flood the world with unverifiable details, said
Matas, making claims of atrocities that cannot be substantiated
or which would take an enormous amount of effort to prove.
"There's just reams of this stuff. It's being manufactured
every day," he said.
Decontextualization is another twist, according to Matas. After
a suicide attack, Israeli reaction is depicted by world media as
random and wanton violence, vengeance undertaken without rhyme or
reason, ignoring the fact that such reactions are invariably targeted
against bomb factories and other centres of terrorist infrastructure.
There is also an assumption of bad faith, an example of which Matas
said was an Amnesty International investigator who travelled to
Jenin after the false reports of a civilian massacre there by Israeli
soldiers. Because the investigators could not find any bodies to
substantiate the claim, according to Matas, the investigator concluded
that Israel had buried the bodies in unmarked graves.
"If you can't prove it, it means the Israelis have covered
up the truth," he said.
Despite the litany of falsehoods and bad news, Matas said Zionists
should not give up hope. Outreach is necessary to reduce anti-Semitism
among other groups the way ecumenism reduced the prevalence of Christian
anti-Semitism over the past couple of decades. And while many Zionists
dismiss the United Nations as a hotbed of anti-Semitism, Matas maintains
that many branches of the UN do excellent work worldwide and that
it is necessary to remain there and continue to make the case for
Israel.
"There are people who can be persuaded," he said. "The
fact that people around you disagree isn't a reason to walk away.
It's a reason to stay."
Matas spoke at what was promised to be one of many public events
sponsored by a reinvigorated local chapter of B'nai Brith. The Winnipeg
lawyer and activist has been on delegations to countless international
conferences on human rights, the Holocaust, war crimes and development.
He is the author of seven books including Justice Delayed: Nazi
War Criminals in Canada and Bloody Words: Hate and Free Speech.
He is the recipient of a Governor General's Confederation Medal
and an honorary doctorate of law from Concordia University, as well
as numerous other recognitions of his work.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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