|
|
October 1, 2010
Antisemitism surging?
Attacks fault of Israeli government, says Keefer.
JONATHON NARVEY
An event billed as a “face-off” in downtown Vancouver over whether Israel’s critics are antisemitic may have left audience members as confused as ever.
University of Guelph professor and prominent Canadian 9/11 conspiracy theorist Michael Keefer spoke at Simon Fraser University Harbor Centre last week about his book Antisemitism Real and Imagined: Responses to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism. He focused on what he sees as the CPCCA’s suggestion to Parliament that criticism of Israel be criminalized.
Keefer said that the CPCCA were “announcing conclusions they’d arrived at before conducting research and getting feedback.” However, while Keefer suggested that criminalizing criticism of Israel represented a dire threat to Canadian freedom of expression and civil rights, he also mentioned that the CPCCA had not yet presented its report to the public – it is expected in November. It seemed lost on the audience that Keefer’s book was based on assumptions about the CPCCA’s yet-to-be-announced conclusions. Keefer stressed that Israel supporters use “baseless accusations of antisemitism as a means to defend Israel, no matter what actions it takes.” He acknowledged that he lacked the credentials of a sociologist, but explained that his research showed the supposed rise in antisemitism in recent years to be nonexistent and that his results came from more intensive study of the issue. He admitted there were spikes in the numbers of antisemitic attacks during and following conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah or Israel and Hamas, but shrugged off these incidents as the work of “ignorant young people who don’t know better.” And, Israel itself is to blame for these conflicts, he suggested.
Keefer said the role of the Hamas de facto government was irrelevant, but suggested Hamas might be vindicated by history. “We have shifting definitions of what constitutes a terrorist organization,” he said. “The ANC [African National Congress] was a terrorist organization. Nelson Mandela was a famous terrorist in the discourse of the South African state.”
Keefer said Canada is complicit in Israel’s violations of international law for blockading Gaza, a blockade which, he claimed, has an aim to “terrorize” and “starve” the Palestinian population.
“What I said is that the blockade of Gaza ... is intended, let’s use the term, to ‘terrorize’ the civilian population into reversing the position it took in what is generally acknowledged to have been an untarnished and democratic election.”
After Keefer’s remarks, Micheal Vonn, policy director for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), gave her opinion on what her organization sees as a chilling of free speech in this country, but didn’t define precisely what sort of speech regarding Israel is being chilled.
She said this is “not a time to be optimistic about free speech in Canada,” and briefly mentioned the recent case against Canadian journalist Mark Steyn, who was brought in front of a human rights tribunal for an excerpt published in Maclean’s magazine. Mohamed Elmasry, a member of the editorial board of the Canadian Charger – which published Antisemitism Real and Imagined – was the complainant in the Maclean’s case. When asked whether the night’s forum topic – freedom of expression – and the publisher of the book were acting hypocritically, Vonn avoided the issue. “For many people, I don’t think that a real broad-based emotional commitment to freedom of expression is common,” she said, adding that, in her opinion, the parameters of commitment depended on political ideology.
Neither speaker suggested during the forum a specific phrase that might be criminalized – or protected – if the CPCCA’s hypothetical recommendations were made into law. When Vonn was asked by a member of the audience whether the phrase, “All Israelis over the age of 18 are legitimate targets to be murdered,” a statement similar to one made by Elmasry on the Michael Coren television show in 2004, might be considered incitement, merely offensive or protected fair comment, she said, “Honestly, I don’t know. On a kind of ‘where does this fall on the line,’ there needs to be a reason to bring that for the board and a whole discussion on it. But no representative from the association could say we take the position that that’s incitement.” When asked her personal opinion on the same question, she said she did not want to comment, as she “would hope that the context would be important.”
Jonathon Narvey is a Vancouver freelance writer.
^TOP
|
|
