June 14, 2011
by Diane V. McLoughlin
Toronto City Councillor Sheila Grimes has clarified that the legality of the term
'Israeli Apartheid' is not going to be voted on either as a matter of
principle, or policy, by Council.
As the Councillor at the same time wondered about it, I thought I might try to
briefly explain why individuals such as myself felt concerned enough to write.
Toronto City Council presides over one of the largest cosmopolitan cities in
Canada. Council felt compelled to look into whether or not the term 'Israeli
Apartheid' was legal, or, conversely, illegal hate speech. This is symptomatic
of something taking place on a larger canvass. There is tremendous
pressure being brought to bear on elected officials to intimidate them into silent
acquiescence.
An example of this recently transpired in the Ontario Legislature.
Certain provincial members of Parliament singled out a university student,
Jennifer Peto, who is Jewish, to denounce her graduate thesis:
'The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of
Hegemonic Holocaust Education' .
Her thesis was denounced for the public record - as "shockingly anti-Semitic";
"disgusting"; "hateful". The National Post and others waded in, as well.
I've read her thesis and wrote about it. While I can see how it would be
shocking to some - novel ways of looking at things can be - anti-Semitic,
disgusting or hateful, it isn't. In fact, what Ms. Peto actually advocates for is
decency, at not inconsiderable personal risk to herself.
Our ability to steer the ship of state clear of rocky shoals - erosion of civil
liberties; the imposition of ideas antithetical to Canadian values; the support
for, or unnecessary engagement in, immoral war - are always to be guarded
against in societies that wish to remain democratic and free.
In November 2010, I wrote the essay entitled, 'Hate Speech Laws to Shield
Israel From Accountability?', regarding an international conference that took
place the same month in Ottawa which was funded to the tune of half a million
Canadian tax dollars.
One hundred parliamentarians from 45 countries were invited to attend.
Enquiries regarding the conference were shunted to a public relations firm that
touted itself as, 'help[ing to] influence public policy...and...fundamentally
change public attitudes...'.
For a year prior leading up to the conference, a small group of federal
members of Parliament took it upon themselves to study something they called
'the new anti-Semitism.' The CPCCA was an ad hoc committee that was not
appointed by Parliament. They appointed themselves. Groups such as
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East were excluded from
presenting to the committee. Members of the Bloc party had the integrity to
resign in protest.
A central aim of the committee, as well as the conference, was to promote
outlawing criticism of Israel as a 'Jewish collectivity' as spelled out in the
London Declaration.
If this is so, if we are to view it as illegal to suggest that Israel is anything other
than a Jewish collectivity, how then are we to view the million-plus in
Israel-proper who are Palestinian-Israeli citizens?
Well, for one, Avigdor Lieberman, a Russian-Israeli immigrant now Israel's
minister of foreign affairs, not so long ago thought that a 'transfer' of
Israel's Palestinian-Israeli citizens would be a good demographic move to
preserve superior Jewish numbers in the state: ethnic cleansing.
In the West Bank, ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in favour of Jews
overtaking and 'settling' their space is an ongoing, brutal, affair aided, in no
small measure, by generous donations collected in Canada and elsewhere. As
the occupation is illegal under international law, obviously all such donations
should be outlawed forthwith.
Twenty percent of Israel's citizens are Palestinian. Include the illegal
military-besieged 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the millions of
Palestinians languishing under illegal military occupation in the West Bank, and
the millions of Palestinian refugees that Israel illegally prevents from returning
to their homes - the rather surprising fact of the matter is that the numbers of
Palestinians and Israeli-Jews are pretty much the same, or at least closer than
we think.
Taking it from another angle, the hypocrisy is more obvious if we were to
imagine how we would feel if the American Deep South were to adamantly
assert that it was to be respected as a 'democratic white collective' -
threatening legal sanctions for daring to suggest otherwise. (Or, more close to
home, how we would feel if legislation were passed making it illegal to suggest
that Canada was anything other than Anglo-Saxon.)
It is a matter of fighting oppression. It is a matter of fighting racism and
injustice. It is a matter, now, of fighting for the democratic fundamental right
of free speech here in Canada. It is one of the most fundamental issues of
justice in our time.
So, this is why I wrote to the Honourable members of Toronto City Council.
The attempt to outlaw the words 'Israeli Apartheid', or to outlaw the
suggestion that Israel is anything other than a democratic 'Jewish collectivity', is
part of an on-going struggle for justice. Declarations such as the Ottawa Protocol
are endeavours meant to permit the legal harassment of anyone who
would dare to say so. I believe that the bitter irony of it is that instruments
such as the Ottawa Protocol may well inhibit, rather than promote, prospects
for peace. As elected representatives, I wrote because I thought you should
know.
For your interest, the other letter I wrote today was addressed to the leaders of
Canada's federal political parties to share my view that Canada should not be
involved in any way, shape or form with the military assault on Libya, the real
aim of which is western corporate control over African wealth.
I am, most sincerely and respectfully yours,
Diane V. McLoughlin
Showing posts with label CPCCA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CPCCA. Show all posts
December 22, 2010
Mr. Galloway Returns
Mr. Galloway Returns
By Diane V. McLoughlin December 6, 2010
main website: mcloughlinpost.com
[Author's note: The apostrophe, ' ' is used below for the spoken word when I am not absolutely certain that I transcribed exactly what the speaker said, while conveying the spirit of what was said. It is also used to indicate a fanciful inner dialogue of 'policeman,' below. Square brackets [ ] are sometimes used to interject a note of clarification, or when there is audience reaction.]
Mr. George Galloway, peace activist and distinguished former British Member of Parliament, gave a speech delivered with wit and charm at Ottawa's Bronson Centre early on the overcast Saturday afternoon of November 27, 2010.
The tour was entitled, ‘Free Afghanistan, Free Palestine, Free Speech.’ It was Mr. Galloway’s last scheduled stop of ten cities, raising funds for the Canadian Boat to Gaza, as well as the anti-war movement.[1]
Some of the main sponsors of the event were the Ottawa Peace Assembly, and the Canadian Peace Alliance.
Messages the peace groups themselves conveyed were, 'end the war', and, 'expose the lies of Stephen Harper’s government'.
Directly after Mr. Galloway’s presentation, there was to be an anti-war march to Parliament Hill. This corresponded nicely with the fact that Canada was expected to vote on whether to extend participation in the Afghanistan war, early in the following week.
Unexpectedly, there was a too-early-for-this winter’s wind direct from the Arctic. It charged over the Gatineau Hills, scooped up damp off of the surface of the Ottawa River, to rush, North - South, up and over the earthquake fault-line running under Bronson Avenue. I braced, cursing the weather, as I walked from my car, tilted sideways against the wind. Probably not too many people coming out; too bad.
And it was true, there was not much action outside the modest entrance. Just a few frigid souls handing out leaflets. Here is the text of the two flyers I was handed as I rushed to get in out of the cold:
‘VIGIL, International Human Rights Day & Mohamed Harkat’s 8th year anniversary of his arrest under a Security Certificate, December 10th, 2010, 5 P.M.
Human Rights Monument (corner of Lisgar and Elgin)
Bring candles or flashlights/friends
Stop Secret Trials in Canada
Abolish Security Certificates
Mohamed Harkat was arrested on December 10th, 2002 under a
Security Certificate without charge or access to the evidence.
Detained for 43 months and spent one year in solitary confinement.
Released in June of 2006, under the toughest conditions in
Canadian history. His Canadian wife was his full-time jailer and
prisoner in her own home. Now he faces deportation to torture…
all under a veil of secrecy for National Security reasons.
CSIS alleges, assumes, believes…would you trust them with your life?
(For more info: http://www.justiceforharkat.com/ )’
Regarding the Harkat case, Sophie Harkat, a French-Canadian, is a pearl. Over the long years, she has continued to fight for her husband‘s freedom. It was she herself who handed out the flyers.
Another flyer handed out:
‘Support the Canadian Boat to Gaza
A Canadian humanitarian initiative to aid the
Civilian population of Gaza living under Israeli blockade
http://www.canadaboattogaza.org/ ’
There were also flyers handed out that were negative on Galloway, according to subsequent media reports. I didn’t see any of those. They would have been interesting to read and share, as well. Aggravating. But interesting.
In the surprisingly crowded lobby, people were being directed to, ‘please take a seat in the hall if you already have tickets, it’s going to start [very late] soon.’
In the middle of the milling crowd, within a wide circle of avoiding-that space, there is a bemused young man
speaking to an imposing, wide-stanced policeman. The policeman is a giant who, I note wryly, is standing with legs so far apart that it is as if to say, 'That’s right. My balls are that big. So my personal recommendation to everybody here is that nobody mess with me.' I can see I’m with the kid on this one, unable to decide whether I should be amused or intimidated. The officer is warmly dressed, in an ensemble that includes black splash pants with reflective tape on them, and enormous winter boots. The young man is saying something politely above the bustle of the crowd about how he understands, but that he’s not really in any official capacity to tell people how to stay on the sidewalks.
Subsequent published estimates put the capacity crowd in the auditorium at 900. Impressive, considering the bitter cold.
Typical city dress: Jacket, sweater and jeans. A few hijabs. The assembling throng is college- and middle-aged. Eclectic. There is a distinctive aura of education.
I would share that, on my way out afterward, there was a woman seated apart against the wall by the auditorium doors, with a solicitous man hovering by her. She was all in black, only a slit where her eyes were exposed. Fortunately, from my own cultural perspective, one sees few women so cut off from society in these parts by way of what they wear. In Western society there are other ways women can find themselves oppressed. My heart went out to her with a twist: I wished my man was hovering solicitously near me.
Hoping to sit where clacking on my laptop won’t aggravate…hall is too full. No one seems bothered. (Happiness.)
Introductions on-stage. The Canadian Peace Alliance has 140 member groups, including the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers [both big;] rabble.ca [indy on-line news site;] the Canadian Arab Federation.
Jason Penner, Independent Jewish Voices, is at the mike: “It is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel!” [loud clapping]…not anti-Semitic to stand up for Palestinian human rights!” [Audience: ‘Hooray!’]
Another group’s spokesperson, Canadian Boat to Gaza: ‘Fundraising brings people together from coast to coast to break the siege - we have a special responsibility, considering the Harper government’s unquestioning support of Israel.’
More from the stage: ‘We are upholding our right to free speech. Defend human rights. Jason Kenney [a Canadian Member of Parliament] has done more for promoting the peace groups. We thank Mr. Kenney for making sure the people of Canada know what he’s really all about.’ ‘And,’ [gesturing magnanimously to the speaker‘s right] “we’ve saved him a seat today…;” [a table and chairs are on-stage. One of the seats has a ’Jason Kenney’ sign taped to it. Audience laughs.]
‘-…controversial topic. Let’s keep it respectful. Everyone who wants to participate in the discussion may do so at the question-and-answer portion of the event.’
Background: The last time Mr. Galloway was invited to Canada to speak, in 2009, a staff member who works in Conservative MP Jason Kenney's office (Minister for Citizenship and Immigration Canada) no doubt prompted by loud noise from self-styled pro-Israel lobbyists, acted to bar Mr. Galloway from being admitted into the country. The argument: Mr. Galloway should not be admitted, being a ‘supporter’ of the Palestinian group, Hamas, a group that is designated a terrorist organization by the Canadian government.
The actions of the government were subsequently denounced. Mr. Galloway and others successfully sought a legal judgment in Federal Court. Justice Mosley ruled, 'that the main reason why the respondents sought to prevent Mr. Galloway from entering Canada was that they disagreed with his political views.' [2] [2a]
All that this abuse-of-authority foolishness did - in trying to squelch freedom of speech and assembly - was delight Mr. Galloway with a democratic challenge. It is as if he is made of aplite - an interesting entry convenient to 'aplomb' in the dictionary: a light-colored, fine-grained granite rock.
Threatened with being barred at the Canadian border, Mr. Galloway did two things: He spoke at the scheduled 2009 events through live video feed; and he prepared to defend, not only his own rights and his own reputation, but, in defending himself he was defending Canada's reputation as a democratic country; he was fighting for Canadian freedoms of speech and assembly, too.
Due to the authoritarian behaviour of the Conservative government, and the wide coverage by the press, the anti-war and social justice crowd couldn't have been more pleased. The results were packed auditoriums and church halls to hear one live in-person, giddy, gifted Scot, victorious in 2010.
Perhaps because the police escort had to wait around all afternoon for the anti-war protest march afterward, many were no doubt disappointed to find that organizers either did not, or could not, keep their word: There was no time for anyone to lob questions, hard or soft, at Mr. Galloway. The march began with evident haste, ‘while there’s still daylight’, immediately following.
George Galloway introduction; he ascends the stage to rousing standing ovation.
Mr. Galloway: “As I was saying - before I was [rolling, soft Gailic ‘r’s] rrrudely interrupted!” “So close [audience laughter] I can almost sense Mr. Kenney’s presence!”
Galloway: ‘So close to the Supreme Court!’ ‘So lucky!’ ‘Despite not being a gambling man - as I am a religious man, gambling is, in fact, forbidden - nevertheless!’ “Today, I bought a lottery ticket!” [The day’s pot, $30 million dollars.] “If, on behalf of the peace movement, I scoop the lotto this evening - but I won’t ask you to pray for that, because it’s not really permitted - but I would like to see Jason Kenney’s face!” [Laughter; applause.]
‘Thanks to everyone involved. ‘Fantastic tour, coast to coast to coast of Canada. Thousands of people, thousands, have come to these rallies. In inclement weather. Donating generously. Our message has reached millions in the last two weeks!’ Audience: "Bravo!"
‘Any book you try to ban, automatically gets on the best-seller list! We intend to stay there! This is not goodbye [last tour date] but a bien tot - until we meet again. I will be back again and again!” [More applause.]
Galloway:
‘My eye caught something on the metro [bus]:
‘Last Laugh for Former Brit MP.’
‘True. Up to a point. But what Jason Kenney did was not funny. To be slandered in front of the entire world whilst sitting for a quarter of a century in the biggest of parliaments - doesn’t get much more serious that.’
‘Must have come as a surprise, as her Majesty the Queen, regularly meeting with her as I did in Buckingham Palace, that not only was I harboring a terrorist organization … surprising to the House of Commons, too, where I have been voted 'Debater of the Year', all the while a member of a terrorist organization with the aim to harm Canada! [Audience laughter.] And even under George Bush’s presidency I was permitted into that country! But Jason Kenney apparently knew something that the CIA did not!’
‘The Canadian security services knew that both the allegations were false: that George Galloway is not a member of a terrorist organization and he is not a threat to Canada’s security. Thanks to any CSIS agents present [Canadian Security Intelligence Services] …jokingly invites any secret agents in the audience to stand and publicly take credit; [dramatic pause.] 'No?' [Laughter.]
‘What can we say about a Canadian government that lies on such a scale? Their tune has changed; apparently I wasn’t banned at all. But we know better.
‘Kenney tried to proclaim that, ‘Galloway isn’t coming here, and that is that.’
Galloway: “That is not that.” Audience: "Here, here!"
‘Jason Kenney should meet me man-to-man to resolve this matter. If he doesn’t see me here he’ll see me in court, that’s for sure.’ [Clapping].
Galloway has launched legal suits. ‘Every cent we win from the Canadian government will be used to build a greater Canadian anti-war movement.’ [Applause.]
‘How did Canada go, in such a few short years, where freedom of speech and association…regarded as a model of multicultural society; a place where liberal values prevailed; was loved in the 1970’s and 80’s in Lebanon…the Canadian soldiers were the favorite soldiers under UNIFIL. How did this happen, to be reduced to merely an embassy of the most extreme right-wing Israeli government the world has ever seen?!’
‘[Canadian Prime Minister] Harper is prepared to pay “any price.” [3]
‘[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s a fascist. Harper is prepared to pay any price. But the Canadian people are not prepared!’ [Much clapping.]
‘In any other democratic society, a minister would not have survived politically, the sixty-page caning from the court [as Jason Kenney received] and would have resigned; pages that unmask the crime that the people could be treated as children: who to hear, what to speak, what to think; I am proud of Canadians!’
‘There are limits to freedom of speech! Not to defame and libel anyone. No one may use their freedom to whip up religious hatred. Such hate speech is repugnant to all of us in the anti-war movement.’
Mentions the National Post: ‘…surely the worst paper I have ever seen in my life!’
Shares a little of his background: Joined the labor party at 13. Active as a child at election-time with parents. A socialist.
‘We are against the racist ideology of Zionism!’ [Cheering; applause.]
‘There are thousands, hundreds of thousands marching with us, including in Israel itself. We are not guilty of any form of racism. In fact, those who accuse us have a far more questionable record, and we refuse to be intimidated out of our right, from this smear, from criticizing Israel!’
Analogy of Russia and communism: ‘We didn’t want to destroy the people of Russia, but the ideology. Zionism is, itself, a racist ideology. It believes that, for example, a Canadian Jew isn’t Canadian. Israel is described as a Jewish state; even though 25% of Israel’s citizens are not Jews. Israel is also racist against the occupied Palestinians.
‘I saw Apartheid South Africa. I worked underground there. Jewish members of the African National Congress financially supported me and my work.
'We fight in Iraq for democracy while there is none in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, there were free and fair elections by the Palestinians, who unfortunately [according to Israel and the U.S.] voted the wrong way’ [and were, and continue to be, roundly punished for it.]
Galloway on Afghanistan: ‘The Canadian government has broken another promise: not withdrawing the troops. This was supposed to be the Canadian military’s last tour of duty. We have been training Afghans for ten years.
“Nobody trains the Taliban, and yet…they do quite well!” [Laughter.]
‘The training budget for President Karzai’s army is [didn’t quite catch Galloway’s figure…billions.] ‘No noticeable improvement in ten years.’
Riled audience member shouts out - no pensions! The inference being Canadian tax dollars are going to bullets and bombs rather than social spending at home. Galloway responds by sharing that in Scotland, pensioners are more likely to freeze to death in winter even as compared to the outer reaches of Siberia. [Sharp intake of breath from the shocked audience.]
‘Thirty-five percent of the Afghan military recruits we train slip out the back door and join the Taliban. Apparently the wages are better.
‘No one has successfully occupied Afghanistan, not even Alexander the Great.
“Mr. Harper, you ain’t no Alexander the Great!”
‘We are so desperate for somebody, anybody, to negotiate our withdrawal, that the other day a shopkeeper showed up and said, 'I’m a leader of the Taliban.' He met [U.S.] General McCrystal. He flew to meet Karzai. They gave him four hundred-thousand dollars! He really won the lottery. He came back three times before somebody realized he wasn’t the real guy!
‘The conflation of al-Quaeda - terrorists - to Taliban: Taliban only want to drive out the occupied armies, and any would. The Afghans are good at it: British, Russians: defeated in their times. Karzai’s administration is not worth the blood of a single soldier’s life.
‘Our demand is that Afghanistan does not become a base for bin Laden. But those terms have always been available. Every life lost was lost in vain. Al Quaeda are not in Afghanistan. See Bob Woodward’s book. There are forty-five al-Quaeda left in all of Afghanistan. Why do we still have hundreds of thousands of troops there?
‘Our presence is recruiting for bin Laden all over the world. The swamp of hatred in the Muslim world is ever deepened by our continued occupation - in which the enemy has actually left! We sent those people in there in the first place. Bin laden was only in Afghanistan because [U.S. President] Reagan and [Great Britain’s Prime Minister] Thatcher sent him in there under the dubious moral principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
‘I am completely against this global al-Quaeda mindset. I despise bin Laden, a medieval savage. I despised him when you were giving him guns and money. The blood of Iraqis, Afghanis and Palestinians is far cheaper than others, and it is recognized for what it is in the Muslim world.
On the subway-bombing terrorist attack in London: ‘The murder of innocent people for the crimes of others - is no different as a crime, regardless of what he wears or what tools of destruction are used. The base hypocrisy, the double-standard of what we are doing over there is not recognized in the media.
‘Palestine is the heart of the matter, the center of the confrontation between the two worlds. The Palestinians who are the victims of terrorism, and Israel which perpetrates the terror is called the victim. This double-standard Muslims cannot accept. Its people have been scattered.
‘On my tour here in Canada I couldn’t believe it - there are six Palestinian families living in the Great Slave Lake region of the Canadian Arctic!
‘Millions of Palestinians that were driven from their lands now have foreigners living in their houses. Sixty-two years in rancid, rat-infested refugee camps - Palestinians demand to go home! [Audience roars approval.]
‘The kaffiya [Palestinian scarf of white, with a wavy black-check pattern] has become a symbol throughout the world, for the struggle for peace and justice.
‘The Palestinians will ultimately win. How did it come about - that my country, the British foreign secretary [Balfour; turn of the 20th century] promised one people, atheistic Jews, promised the land that belonged to a third people that Britain didn’t even possess at that time. This group of white European atheistic settlers had no real desire to go there. They wanted to go to the Seychelles, or to Patagonia in Latin America. Only later, that God was a state agent. A bogus claim.
‘The U.S. for the past fifty years has paid for every bullet, every bomb supporting the occupation. A country
eliminated - the people - scattered.
‘Finally, the people had an election, described by Jimmy Carter as pristine and transparent. The problem is that the people voted the ‘wrong’ way.
‘I am not a supporter of Hamas. I am a supporter of democracy, and the only people qualified to choose who represents them is the Palestinian people themselves.
Regarding pro-Israel Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff:
“Two cheeks of the same backside!” [Guffaws.]
‘Why is there an economic siege for voting the wrong way?! How can this be justified with our protestations of love for democratic processes in other countries? In Gaza today, eighty percent are refugees and therefore entitled to protection from the international community. Eighty percent are living on a dollar a day. The children are under- or malnourished.
‘We have not seen anything like it since the Second World War. 1.6 million Palestinians were locked up in Gaza so that death and destruction could be rained down upon them, live, on television. For twenty-two days and nights we saw a barbarous assault of a people who could not escape because the doors were locked by those dropping the bombs. Not only bombs, but gas. Can you believe a state calling itself a Jewish state dropping white phosphorous gas on a civilian population? [Late-2008 - early 2009: Israel’s military assault on Gaza, nicknamed, ’Operation Cast Lead.’]
Pictured: white phosphorous bombs
Galloway, on Lebanon: ‘The resistance drove out an Israeli occupation of 28 years. White phosphorous was used against Lebanon in 1982. I visited the hospitals. I saw the effects of white phosphorous on children as they lay there, breathing out white smoke as the gas cooks them from the inside out!
‘God-fearing Christian, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair supported Israel’s assault on Gaza.'
Audience shouts of, "Shame!"
‘In the village of Zeitoun, one family of thirty-five: Dead. The Israeli army prevented ambulances for five days from reaching the wounded and dead. They killed ambulance workers who tried to get in!
A five-year old child demanded to know from Galloway:
“Where is the Arab world? The Umma? [Islamic leadership.] Why don’t they help us?”
‘I promised that child, with my last breath, to tell the world.
‘Five convoys so far have broken the siege of Gaza to bring the people humanitarian supplies: ambulances, medicine, educational equipment - and this makes this terrorism! The word has been bankrupted of all meaning if that is supporting terrorism!
‘We live in a very, very dangerous, unbalanced world…fake indictment of Hezbollah for the assassination of Hariri by Canadian authorities. For four years we were told it was Syria; not the Lebanese resistance.
“Stand up for Palestinians! For Afghans! For freedom!”
Standing ovation, whistles, hooting. End of George Galloway speech.
There is a brief statement from the peace groups about American war resisters fighting deportation proceedings. The Canadian Labor Congress needs two-thousand dollars fighting to keep U.S. war resisters from being forced to go back to the U.S. A fragile-looking individual introduced to the audience as Skyler shares that they joined the U.S. army, but, with, 'don’t ask don’t tell,' the U.S. military does not 'stand for gays.' Skyler, from all appearances, looks pretty depressed. Enjoys Canada: people are welcoming. I should have been born in Canada, 'best place in the world.' A collection is taken the old-fashioned way passing buckets through the aisles. Folding money and change come out of pockets, wallets and purses.
Last, the audience is strongly encouraged to join in the anti-war march.
Outside, protest signs are being handed out. I scoot, hunched in the cold, back the way I came to my car. I end up stuck at the bottom of the street at a long red light as the march, I suddenly realize, advances, bearing down on my car from on high at the crest of Bronson Avenue - drums drumming, banners waving. The policeman's car, like a tank, is leading, onward, safe passage for these troops who fight for peace and social justice, marching to Parliament Hill.
Colder now. The day grows dim and with all my might, I will the traffic light to change.
__________
Notes
1] Organizers and sponsors of the tour:
Ottawa Peace Assembly: http://ottawapeace.org/ ;
Palestinian Canadian Congress: http://www.pcc-cpc.ca/ ;
Ottawa Palestine Solidarity Network ;
Pan-Canadian tour organizers:
Canadian Peace Alliance: http://www.acp-cpa.ca/;
Canadian Boat to Gaza: http://canadaboatgaza.org/;
Canadian Arab Federation: http://www.caf.ca/ ;
Independent Jewish Voices: http://www.independentjewishvoices.ca/;
Defend Free Speech Campaign: http://www.defendfreespeech.ca/;
Media sponsor:
rabble.ca: http://www.rabble.ca/ ;
[2] Article, 'Court dismisses George Galloway Appeal'; Mike Blanchfield;
Canadian Press for the Globe and Mail; Sept. 27, 2010;
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/court-dismisses-george-galloway-appeal/article1728317/ ;
[2a] The September 27, 2010 legal judgment; can be viewed here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38659265/2010-09-27-George-Galloway-Canada-Court-Decision ;
[3] Youtube of CTV news clip: 'Canadian PM: Canada will defend Israel, whatever the cost';
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUfFdhIOoQM ;
Youtube: George Galloway speech, 'Free Palestine, Free Afghanistan, Free Speech'; Ottawa; Nov. 2010;
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5366AAEA9D2C7CFE ;
from Youtube StraightGoodsNews channel;
Copyright 2010, Diane V. McLoughlin
All Rights Reserved.
By Diane V. McLoughlin December 6, 2010
main website: mcloughlinpost.com
[Author's note: The apostrophe, ' ' is used below for the spoken word when I am not absolutely certain that I transcribed exactly what the speaker said, while conveying the spirit of what was said. It is also used to indicate a fanciful inner dialogue of 'policeman,' below. Square brackets [ ] are sometimes used to interject a note of clarification, or when there is audience reaction.]
Mr. George Galloway, peace activist and distinguished former British Member of Parliament, gave a speech delivered with wit and charm at Ottawa's Bronson Centre early on the overcast Saturday afternoon of November 27, 2010.
The tour was entitled, ‘Free Afghanistan, Free Palestine, Free Speech.’ It was Mr. Galloway’s last scheduled stop of ten cities, raising funds for the Canadian Boat to Gaza, as well as the anti-war movement.[1]
Some of the main sponsors of the event were the Ottawa Peace Assembly, and the Canadian Peace Alliance.
Messages the peace groups themselves conveyed were, 'end the war', and, 'expose the lies of Stephen Harper’s government'.
Directly after Mr. Galloway’s presentation, there was to be an anti-war march to Parliament Hill. This corresponded nicely with the fact that Canada was expected to vote on whether to extend participation in the Afghanistan war, early in the following week.
Unexpectedly, there was a too-early-for-this winter’s wind direct from the Arctic. It charged over the Gatineau Hills, scooped up damp off of the surface of the Ottawa River, to rush, North - South, up and over the earthquake fault-line running under Bronson Avenue. I braced, cursing the weather, as I walked from my car, tilted sideways against the wind. Probably not too many people coming out; too bad.
And it was true, there was not much action outside the modest entrance. Just a few frigid souls handing out leaflets. Here is the text of the two flyers I was handed as I rushed to get in out of the cold:
‘VIGIL, International Human Rights Day & Mohamed Harkat’s 8th year anniversary of his arrest under a Security Certificate, December 10th, 2010, 5 P.M.
Human Rights Monument (corner of Lisgar and Elgin)
Bring candles or flashlights/friends
Stop Secret Trials in Canada
Abolish Security Certificates
Mohamed Harkat was arrested on December 10th, 2002 under a
Security Certificate without charge or access to the evidence.
Detained for 43 months and spent one year in solitary confinement.
Released in June of 2006, under the toughest conditions in
Canadian history. His Canadian wife was his full-time jailer and
prisoner in her own home. Now he faces deportation to torture…
all under a veil of secrecy for National Security reasons.
CSIS alleges, assumes, believes…would you trust them with your life?
(For more info: http://www.justiceforharkat.com/ )’
Regarding the Harkat case, Sophie Harkat, a French-Canadian, is a pearl. Over the long years, she has continued to fight for her husband‘s freedom. It was she herself who handed out the flyers.
Another flyer handed out:
‘Support the Canadian Boat to Gaza
A Canadian humanitarian initiative to aid the
Civilian population of Gaza living under Israeli blockade
http://www.canadaboattogaza.org/ ’
There were also flyers handed out that were negative on Galloway, according to subsequent media reports. I didn’t see any of those. They would have been interesting to read and share, as well. Aggravating. But interesting.
In the surprisingly crowded lobby, people were being directed to, ‘please take a seat in the hall if you already have tickets, it’s going to start [very late] soon.’
In the middle of the milling crowd, within a wide circle of avoiding-that space, there is a bemused young man
speaking to an imposing, wide-stanced policeman. The policeman is a giant who, I note wryly, is standing with legs so far apart that it is as if to say, 'That’s right. My balls are that big. So my personal recommendation to everybody here is that nobody mess with me.' I can see I’m with the kid on this one, unable to decide whether I should be amused or intimidated. The officer is warmly dressed, in an ensemble that includes black splash pants with reflective tape on them, and enormous winter boots. The young man is saying something politely above the bustle of the crowd about how he understands, but that he’s not really in any official capacity to tell people how to stay on the sidewalks.
Subsequent published estimates put the capacity crowd in the auditorium at 900. Impressive, considering the bitter cold.
Typical city dress: Jacket, sweater and jeans. A few hijabs. The assembling throng is college- and middle-aged. Eclectic. There is a distinctive aura of education.
I would share that, on my way out afterward, there was a woman seated apart against the wall by the auditorium doors, with a solicitous man hovering by her. She was all in black, only a slit where her eyes were exposed. Fortunately, from my own cultural perspective, one sees few women so cut off from society in these parts by way of what they wear. In Western society there are other ways women can find themselves oppressed. My heart went out to her with a twist: I wished my man was hovering solicitously near me.
Hoping to sit where clacking on my laptop won’t aggravate…hall is too full. No one seems bothered. (Happiness.)
Introductions on-stage. The Canadian Peace Alliance has 140 member groups, including the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers [both big;] rabble.ca [indy on-line news site;] the Canadian Arab Federation.
Jason Penner, Independent Jewish Voices, is at the mike: “It is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel!” [loud clapping]…not anti-Semitic to stand up for Palestinian human rights!” [Audience: ‘Hooray!’]
Another group’s spokesperson, Canadian Boat to Gaza: ‘Fundraising brings people together from coast to coast to break the siege - we have a special responsibility, considering the Harper government’s unquestioning support of Israel.’
More from the stage: ‘We are upholding our right to free speech. Defend human rights. Jason Kenney [a Canadian Member of Parliament] has done more for promoting the peace groups. We thank Mr. Kenney for making sure the people of Canada know what he’s really all about.’ ‘And,’ [gesturing magnanimously to the speaker‘s right] “we’ve saved him a seat today…;” [a table and chairs are on-stage. One of the seats has a ’Jason Kenney’ sign taped to it. Audience laughs.]
‘-…controversial topic. Let’s keep it respectful. Everyone who wants to participate in the discussion may do so at the question-and-answer portion of the event.’
Background: The last time Mr. Galloway was invited to Canada to speak, in 2009, a staff member who works in Conservative MP Jason Kenney's office (Minister for Citizenship and Immigration Canada) no doubt prompted by loud noise from self-styled pro-Israel lobbyists, acted to bar Mr. Galloway from being admitted into the country. The argument: Mr. Galloway should not be admitted, being a ‘supporter’ of the Palestinian group, Hamas, a group that is designated a terrorist organization by the Canadian government.
The actions of the government were subsequently denounced. Mr. Galloway and others successfully sought a legal judgment in Federal Court. Justice Mosley ruled, 'that the main reason why the respondents sought to prevent Mr. Galloway from entering Canada was that they disagreed with his political views.' [2] [2a]
All that this abuse-of-authority foolishness did - in trying to squelch freedom of speech and assembly - was delight Mr. Galloway with a democratic challenge. It is as if he is made of aplite - an interesting entry convenient to 'aplomb' in the dictionary: a light-colored, fine-grained granite rock.
Threatened with being barred at the Canadian border, Mr. Galloway did two things: He spoke at the scheduled 2009 events through live video feed; and he prepared to defend, not only his own rights and his own reputation, but, in defending himself he was defending Canada's reputation as a democratic country; he was fighting for Canadian freedoms of speech and assembly, too.
Due to the authoritarian behaviour of the Conservative government, and the wide coverage by the press, the anti-war and social justice crowd couldn't have been more pleased. The results were packed auditoriums and church halls to hear one live in-person, giddy, gifted Scot, victorious in 2010.
Perhaps because the police escort had to wait around all afternoon for the anti-war protest march afterward, many were no doubt disappointed to find that organizers either did not, or could not, keep their word: There was no time for anyone to lob questions, hard or soft, at Mr. Galloway. The march began with evident haste, ‘while there’s still daylight’, immediately following.
George Galloway introduction; he ascends the stage to rousing standing ovation.
Mr. Galloway: “As I was saying - before I was [rolling, soft Gailic ‘r’s] rrrudely interrupted!” “So close [audience laughter] I can almost sense Mr. Kenney’s presence!”
Galloway: ‘So close to the Supreme Court!’ ‘So lucky!’ ‘Despite not being a gambling man - as I am a religious man, gambling is, in fact, forbidden - nevertheless!’ “Today, I bought a lottery ticket!” [The day’s pot, $30 million dollars.] “If, on behalf of the peace movement, I scoop the lotto this evening - but I won’t ask you to pray for that, because it’s not really permitted - but I would like to see Jason Kenney’s face!” [Laughter; applause.]
‘Thanks to everyone involved. ‘Fantastic tour, coast to coast to coast of Canada. Thousands of people, thousands, have come to these rallies. In inclement weather. Donating generously. Our message has reached millions in the last two weeks!’ Audience: "Bravo!"
‘Any book you try to ban, automatically gets on the best-seller list! We intend to stay there! This is not goodbye [last tour date] but a bien tot - until we meet again. I will be back again and again!” [More applause.]
Galloway:
‘My eye caught something on the metro [bus]:
‘Last Laugh for Former Brit MP.’
‘True. Up to a point. But what Jason Kenney did was not funny. To be slandered in front of the entire world whilst sitting for a quarter of a century in the biggest of parliaments - doesn’t get much more serious that.’
‘Must have come as a surprise, as her Majesty the Queen, regularly meeting with her as I did in Buckingham Palace, that not only was I harboring a terrorist organization … surprising to the House of Commons, too, where I have been voted 'Debater of the Year', all the while a member of a terrorist organization with the aim to harm Canada! [Audience laughter.] And even under George Bush’s presidency I was permitted into that country! But Jason Kenney apparently knew something that the CIA did not!’
‘The Canadian security services knew that both the allegations were false: that George Galloway is not a member of a terrorist organization and he is not a threat to Canada’s security. Thanks to any CSIS agents present [Canadian Security Intelligence Services] …jokingly invites any secret agents in the audience to stand and publicly take credit; [dramatic pause.] 'No?' [Laughter.]
‘What can we say about a Canadian government that lies on such a scale? Their tune has changed; apparently I wasn’t banned at all. But we know better.
‘Kenney tried to proclaim that, ‘Galloway isn’t coming here, and that is that.’
Galloway: “That is not that.” Audience: "Here, here!"
‘Jason Kenney should meet me man-to-man to resolve this matter. If he doesn’t see me here he’ll see me in court, that’s for sure.’ [Clapping].
Galloway has launched legal suits. ‘Every cent we win from the Canadian government will be used to build a greater Canadian anti-war movement.’ [Applause.]
‘How did Canada go, in such a few short years, where freedom of speech and association…regarded as a model of multicultural society; a place where liberal values prevailed; was loved in the 1970’s and 80’s in Lebanon…the Canadian soldiers were the favorite soldiers under UNIFIL. How did this happen, to be reduced to merely an embassy of the most extreme right-wing Israeli government the world has ever seen?!’
‘[Canadian Prime Minister] Harper is prepared to pay “any price.” [3]
‘[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s a fascist. Harper is prepared to pay any price. But the Canadian people are not prepared!’ [Much clapping.]
‘In any other democratic society, a minister would not have survived politically, the sixty-page caning from the court [as Jason Kenney received] and would have resigned; pages that unmask the crime that the people could be treated as children: who to hear, what to speak, what to think; I am proud of Canadians!’
‘There are limits to freedom of speech! Not to defame and libel anyone. No one may use their freedom to whip up religious hatred. Such hate speech is repugnant to all of us in the anti-war movement.’
Mentions the National Post: ‘…surely the worst paper I have ever seen in my life!’
Shares a little of his background: Joined the labor party at 13. Active as a child at election-time with parents. A socialist.
‘We are against the racist ideology of Zionism!’ [Cheering; applause.]
‘There are thousands, hundreds of thousands marching with us, including in Israel itself. We are not guilty of any form of racism. In fact, those who accuse us have a far more questionable record, and we refuse to be intimidated out of our right, from this smear, from criticizing Israel!’
Analogy of Russia and communism: ‘We didn’t want to destroy the people of Russia, but the ideology. Zionism is, itself, a racist ideology. It believes that, for example, a Canadian Jew isn’t Canadian. Israel is described as a Jewish state; even though 25% of Israel’s citizens are not Jews. Israel is also racist against the occupied Palestinians.
‘I saw Apartheid South Africa. I worked underground there. Jewish members of the African National Congress financially supported me and my work.
'We fight in Iraq for democracy while there is none in Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, there were free and fair elections by the Palestinians, who unfortunately [according to Israel and the U.S.] voted the wrong way’ [and were, and continue to be, roundly punished for it.]
Galloway on Afghanistan: ‘The Canadian government has broken another promise: not withdrawing the troops. This was supposed to be the Canadian military’s last tour of duty. We have been training Afghans for ten years.
“Nobody trains the Taliban, and yet…they do quite well!” [Laughter.]
‘The training budget for President Karzai’s army is [didn’t quite catch Galloway’s figure…billions.] ‘No noticeable improvement in ten years.’
Riled audience member shouts out - no pensions! The inference being Canadian tax dollars are going to bullets and bombs rather than social spending at home. Galloway responds by sharing that in Scotland, pensioners are more likely to freeze to death in winter even as compared to the outer reaches of Siberia. [Sharp intake of breath from the shocked audience.]
‘Thirty-five percent of the Afghan military recruits we train slip out the back door and join the Taliban. Apparently the wages are better.
‘No one has successfully occupied Afghanistan, not even Alexander the Great.
“Mr. Harper, you ain’t no Alexander the Great!”
‘We are so desperate for somebody, anybody, to negotiate our withdrawal, that the other day a shopkeeper showed up and said, 'I’m a leader of the Taliban.' He met [U.S.] General McCrystal. He flew to meet Karzai. They gave him four hundred-thousand dollars! He really won the lottery. He came back three times before somebody realized he wasn’t the real guy!
‘The conflation of al-Quaeda - terrorists - to Taliban: Taliban only want to drive out the occupied armies, and any would. The Afghans are good at it: British, Russians: defeated in their times. Karzai’s administration is not worth the blood of a single soldier’s life.
‘Our demand is that Afghanistan does not become a base for bin Laden. But those terms have always been available. Every life lost was lost in vain. Al Quaeda are not in Afghanistan. See Bob Woodward’s book. There are forty-five al-Quaeda left in all of Afghanistan. Why do we still have hundreds of thousands of troops there?
‘Our presence is recruiting for bin Laden all over the world. The swamp of hatred in the Muslim world is ever deepened by our continued occupation - in which the enemy has actually left! We sent those people in there in the first place. Bin laden was only in Afghanistan because [U.S. President] Reagan and [Great Britain’s Prime Minister] Thatcher sent him in there under the dubious moral principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
‘I am completely against this global al-Quaeda mindset. I despise bin Laden, a medieval savage. I despised him when you were giving him guns and money. The blood of Iraqis, Afghanis and Palestinians is far cheaper than others, and it is recognized for what it is in the Muslim world.
On the subway-bombing terrorist attack in London: ‘The murder of innocent people for the crimes of others - is no different as a crime, regardless of what he wears or what tools of destruction are used. The base hypocrisy, the double-standard of what we are doing over there is not recognized in the media.
‘Palestine is the heart of the matter, the center of the confrontation between the two worlds. The Palestinians who are the victims of terrorism, and Israel which perpetrates the terror is called the victim. This double-standard Muslims cannot accept. Its people have been scattered.
‘On my tour here in Canada I couldn’t believe it - there are six Palestinian families living in the Great Slave Lake region of the Canadian Arctic!
‘Millions of Palestinians that were driven from their lands now have foreigners living in their houses. Sixty-two years in rancid, rat-infested refugee camps - Palestinians demand to go home! [Audience roars approval.]
‘The kaffiya [Palestinian scarf of white, with a wavy black-check pattern] has become a symbol throughout the world, for the struggle for peace and justice.
‘The Palestinians will ultimately win. How did it come about - that my country, the British foreign secretary [Balfour; turn of the 20th century] promised one people, atheistic Jews, promised the land that belonged to a third people that Britain didn’t even possess at that time. This group of white European atheistic settlers had no real desire to go there. They wanted to go to the Seychelles, or to Patagonia in Latin America. Only later, that God was a state agent. A bogus claim.
‘The U.S. for the past fifty years has paid for every bullet, every bomb supporting the occupation. A country
eliminated - the people - scattered.
‘Finally, the people had an election, described by Jimmy Carter as pristine and transparent. The problem is that the people voted the ‘wrong’ way.
‘I am not a supporter of Hamas. I am a supporter of democracy, and the only people qualified to choose who represents them is the Palestinian people themselves.
Regarding pro-Israel Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff:
“Two cheeks of the same backside!” [Guffaws.]
‘Why is there an economic siege for voting the wrong way?! How can this be justified with our protestations of love for democratic processes in other countries? In Gaza today, eighty percent are refugees and therefore entitled to protection from the international community. Eighty percent are living on a dollar a day. The children are under- or malnourished.
‘We have not seen anything like it since the Second World War. 1.6 million Palestinians were locked up in Gaza so that death and destruction could be rained down upon them, live, on television. For twenty-two days and nights we saw a barbarous assault of a people who could not escape because the doors were locked by those dropping the bombs. Not only bombs, but gas. Can you believe a state calling itself a Jewish state dropping white phosphorous gas on a civilian population? [Late-2008 - early 2009: Israel’s military assault on Gaza, nicknamed, ’Operation Cast Lead.’]
Galloway, on Lebanon: ‘The resistance drove out an Israeli occupation of 28 years. White phosphorous was used against Lebanon in 1982. I visited the hospitals. I saw the effects of white phosphorous on children as they lay there, breathing out white smoke as the gas cooks them from the inside out!
‘God-fearing Christian, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair supported Israel’s assault on Gaza.'
Audience shouts of, "Shame!"
‘In the village of Zeitoun, one family of thirty-five: Dead. The Israeli army prevented ambulances for five days from reaching the wounded and dead. They killed ambulance workers who tried to get in!
A five-year old child demanded to know from Galloway:
“Where is the Arab world? The Umma? [Islamic leadership.] Why don’t they help us?”
‘I promised that child, with my last breath, to tell the world.
‘Five convoys so far have broken the siege of Gaza to bring the people humanitarian supplies: ambulances, medicine, educational equipment - and this makes this terrorism! The word has been bankrupted of all meaning if that is supporting terrorism!
‘We live in a very, very dangerous, unbalanced world…fake indictment of Hezbollah for the assassination of Hariri by Canadian authorities. For four years we were told it was Syria; not the Lebanese resistance.
“Stand up for Palestinians! For Afghans! For freedom!”
Standing ovation, whistles, hooting. End of George Galloway speech.
There is a brief statement from the peace groups about American war resisters fighting deportation proceedings. The Canadian Labor Congress needs two-thousand dollars fighting to keep U.S. war resisters from being forced to go back to the U.S. A fragile-looking individual introduced to the audience as Skyler shares that they joined the U.S. army, but, with, 'don’t ask don’t tell,' the U.S. military does not 'stand for gays.' Skyler, from all appearances, looks pretty depressed. Enjoys Canada: people are welcoming. I should have been born in Canada, 'best place in the world.' A collection is taken the old-fashioned way passing buckets through the aisles. Folding money and change come out of pockets, wallets and purses.
Last, the audience is strongly encouraged to join in the anti-war march.
Outside, protest signs are being handed out. I scoot, hunched in the cold, back the way I came to my car. I end up stuck at the bottom of the street at a long red light as the march, I suddenly realize, advances, bearing down on my car from on high at the crest of Bronson Avenue - drums drumming, banners waving. The policeman's car, like a tank, is leading, onward, safe passage for these troops who fight for peace and social justice, marching to Parliament Hill.
Colder now. The day grows dim and with all my might, I will the traffic light to change.
__________
Notes
1] Organizers and sponsors of the tour:
Ottawa Peace Assembly: http://ottawapeace.org/ ;
Palestinian Canadian Congress: http://www.pcc-cpc.ca/ ;
Ottawa Palestine Solidarity Network ;
Pan-Canadian tour organizers:
Canadian Peace Alliance: http://www.acp-cpa.ca/;
Canadian Boat to Gaza: http://canadaboatgaza.org/;
Canadian Arab Federation: http://www.caf.ca/ ;
Independent Jewish Voices: http://www.independentjewishvoices.ca/;
Defend Free Speech Campaign: http://www.defendfreespeech.ca/;
Media sponsor:
rabble.ca: http://www.rabble.ca/ ;
[2] Article, 'Court dismisses George Galloway Appeal'; Mike Blanchfield;
Canadian Press for the Globe and Mail; Sept. 27, 2010;
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/court-dismisses-george-galloway-appeal/article1728317/ ;
[2a] The September 27, 2010 legal judgment; can be viewed here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/38659265/2010-09-27-George-Galloway-Canada-Court-Decision ;
[3] Youtube of CTV news clip: 'Canadian PM: Canada will defend Israel, whatever the cost';
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUfFdhIOoQM ;
Youtube: George Galloway speech, 'Free Palestine, Free Afghanistan, Free Speech'; Ottawa; Nov. 2010;
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5366AAEA9D2C7CFE ;
from Youtube StraightGoodsNews channel;
Copyright 2010, Diane V. McLoughlin
All Rights Reserved.
Hate Speech Laws to Shield Israel from Accountability?
Hate Speech Laws to Shield Israel from Accountability?
by Diane V. McLoughlin, November 8, 2010
main website: mcloughlinpost.com
An international conference on anti-Semitism (the Inter-parliamentary Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism - ICCA) is taking place November 7 - 9th, 2010, in Ottawa, Canada. An *'Ottawa Protocol' is to be declared on the last day of the conference. One hundred parliamentarians from 45 countries are reportedly being hosted by the coalition's Canadian counterpart, the CPCCA (Canadian Parliamentary Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism.)
I have had difficulty ascertaining whether or not the conference is open to the media. There is a rumor going around that it is a closed event. I have been assured that the conference is closed to me, however, according to Fleishman-Hillard, a private public relations firm hired to vet enquiries regarding this publicly-funded event. Clues as to why the committee chose Fleishman-Hillard can be found on the PR firm's website:
'Fleishman-Hillard’s Ottawa office is a leader in helping Canadian and international companies shape the national agenda. We help influence public policy...and...fundamentally change public attitudes...[we] help clients influence what Canadians are thinking and talking about...We bring together all aspects of government relations, regulatory affairs, strategic communications, issues management and research services to help public, private and not-for-profit clients influence the audiences that matter to them most.' (1)
The Canadian government is providing almost $500,000 dollars to finance this event (1a), with the apparent aim of fundamentally altering law on an international scale. It appears to be all of a piece that the CPCCA would hide behind a PR firm, seeing as they actively excluded participation of such groups as Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East in CPCCA hearings; they have so far chosen not to release the CPCCA's final report, as well.
The goal of stamping out the embers of anti-Semitism - racist hatred of Jews - is noble. But why is the scope of discussion not broader, to reject racism and discrimination in all forms? For the fact of the matter is that
there are racist pinheads in every society, including amongst Jews themselves.
For instance, rabbis of a prominent religious school in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur, published a 230-page book earlier this year entitled, 'The King's Torah' (Torat Hamelech)
which in part details under which conditions it is permissible to kill non-Jews, including babies.
According to these teachers, it is permissible to kill babies if it prevents them from growing up to be enemies. (1b)
The only time a human being could argue in defense of killing another groups' babies is when he believes his group is more worthy of life itself. These are teachers that shape the minds of the next generation, as they contemplate life while residing on ethnically-cleansed Palestinian land.
(art by Latuff)
The ramifications of what may be the ICCA's true goal are profound, to whit: To silence criticism of
the State of Israel. I am deeply concerned that the ICCA and CPCCA intend to use the fight against racism as a shield to cover for it. To do so would cause Israel to be more vulnerable to attack by those it oppresses, not less so, by tightening the screws on non-violent resistance rather than concentrating on which choices might lead to a just peace.
The number-one declaration coming out of last year's ICCA conference (1c), is as follows (emphasis added):
'We today in London resolve that; challenging antisemitism Parliamentarians shall expose, challenge, and isolate political actors who engage in hate against Jews and target the State of Israel as a Jewish collectivity'.
Democratic societies believe it is imperative that people be free to say things that are unpopular or offensive to some, in order that we might maximize our opportunity to be acquainted with the unfettered truth.
When speech is free, what is true has the opportunity to shine bright against what ought to be exposed, challenged and isolated: falsehood. Messing with this fundamental law is a dangerously foolish gambit.
The ICCA, chaired by Canada's former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, calls criticism of Israel the 'new anti-Semitism'. One might note that one of the six identified on the ICCA's steering committee, Mr. Yuli Edelstein, happens also to be chief of public affairs for Israel, aka director of 'hasbara' (propaganda.) Edelstein is a Jewish settler on illegally occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank. He, quite understandably under the circumstances, does not believe that 'settlements' - read colonization and ethnic cleansing - is any impediment to achieving peace with the Palestinian people. (1d)
If the drivers behind the ICCA-CPCCA initiative get their way, perhaps in future one could be fined or jailed for pointing out that the State of Israel is rife with discriminatory attitudes against its minority. Israel is, after all, a pluralistic society; over 20% of Israel's citizens are Arab.
Of course, it is also true that there are those within Israel, such as Israel's own foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who propose a solution to this thorny problem: A 'transfer' of Israel's Arab-Israeli citizens, in order to achieve maximum purity of the Jewish 'collectivity'. (2a; 2b).
At the beginning of the 21st century, aren't we bigger than this?
Apparently not. Israel's far-right coalition government has passed legislation this year that would require all future non-Jewish applicants applying for Israeli citizenship to swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish democratic state.
Ironically, as ultra-Orthodox Jewry reject nationalism, they themselves will be exempt from having to swear
this oath. (3a) (3b) (3c)
The fact is that there are many Jews both within Israel and without, including Canadian Jews, who vociferously object to the odious and malevolent mistreatment of the Palestinian people.
Regarding peace in the Middle East, my own view is that so much Palestinian land has been stolen and overrun by Jewish fanatics that the two-state solution has been rendered moot. (4) According to Jewish historian Ilan Pappe, the U.S. government thought so too, all the way back to 1948. (5; pg. 123.)
The population numbers, many may be surprised to learn, of Israeli Jews to Palestinians, are roughly equal: One group enjoys full legal rights and the vote, while the other does not. Within Israel, Arab-Israelis (also known as Israeli-Palestinians) are discriminated against throughout - jobs, education, housing, municipal services, health - you name it; in Gaza and the Occupied Territories, Palestinians have no rights, subsisting under brutal military occupation, or in squalid refugee camps in bordering states.
The Israeli-Palestinian problem emerged from the pogroms and centuries of horrific mistreatment of Jews in Europe and elsewhere - including, one notes, in Canada itself. The Palestinians have been defacto forced to pay for the crimes of others with their homes, land and lives.
By 1948, Jewish extremists instigated a deliberate military-precision ethnic cleansing program against a people who were inclined to peaceful coexistence with their Jewish neighbours. Methods included rounding up Palestinian males 13 years-old and up, to murder them in cold blood; biological warfare; creeping into villages in the dead of night to throw bombs in Palestinian homes as families slept; the genocide of entire villages; firing down upon stampeded Palestinians, leaving them as their only recourse to flee drowning, into the sea (ibid); that last is one of many ironies, as this is what Palestinians are accused of wanting to do to Israeli Jews.
In the end I think the biggest problem to overcome is Fear (combined with an historical sense of entitlement, and religious dogma).
A word about Gaza is in order. Palestinians in Gaza are scapegoated for the current impasse. Jews claim they 'gave up' land in Gaza; that from their 'sacrifice' all they got were rockets in return. This is a false representation of the facts.
The Palestinians in Gaza are refugees of the ethnic cleansing operations of 1948-49. The land modern-day Jews were dragged from in Gaza a few years ago for the most part did not belong to them. But the villages and homes in Israel belonging to Palestinians who languish in refugee camps in Gaza and Lebanon and Jordan have yet to be returned.
I personally would not argue with the theoretical position that painful concessions will have to be made on both sides to achieve peace. But peace cannot possibly be achieved without an honest accounting of who lost what; and that is not happening at all, so far as I can see.
I believe one bi-national state with equal rights for all is the peaceful and just solution moving forward. But I also believe that for some, on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, this is the most threatening thing to say of all. The one-state solution is, nevertheless, a view increasingly discussed. I have no dog in this hunt for a just peace other than compassion for those who suffer, along with a deep concern otherwise over the increasingly unstable state of global affairs. I am neither Jewish or Palestinian. I have been truly blessed in my friendships with both Jews and Palestinians; friendships which have deeply enriched my life.
If justice and peace can be equitably achieved in a two-state arrangement that both sides accept, then (an agnostic) hallelujah! But as it now stands, what those such as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu call a two-state solution, is one in which much of the best land stolen is never returned, in exchange for borders Israel continues to control with their miitary, barbed wire and watch towers.
Current negotiations themselves are entirely bogus, as the Palestinians are being illegally represented by a cabal whose electoral mandate was thin at best - if it ever existed at all - one which has long since expired.
If this intellectual envelope, 'the new anti-Semitism', is successfully pushed by the ICCA, then it begs the question, what might be the suggested remedy against those criticizing Israel's oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people? Mere vilification? Or arrest and imprisonment - for daring to criticize the odious, murderous and racist policies of a state.
In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined Jews proposing shutting up criticism of a state, after what Nazi Germany wrought against them.
Shut up criticism of one state and other states are sure to follow, too, demanding the same legalistic papering-over of their own racist or discriminatory crimes; a cultural imperative, they will argue, and thus, beyond anyone's reach in trying to advocate for equality and justice for the marginalized and oppressed.
For anyone with a lick of common sense, this is a a bad bargain being hammered out in bad faith in the backrooms and corridors of power.
In short, if I were deemed worthy to attend and participate at the ICCA conference, I would loudly and proudly stand to affirm:
Down with anti-Semitism. Up with freedom - to advocate for justice, and to criticize the politics of any state, including the current apartheid condition of Israel.
_____________________________________________________________
References:
(1) Ottawa - Fleishman-Hillard Canada - website;
http://fleishman.ca/our-offices/ottawa/ ;
(1a) Article: Government of Canada supports international conference on anti-Semitism:
http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?m=/index&nid=553729 ;
(1b) 'Police release rabbi arrested for inciting to kill non-Jews'; Chaim Levinson; Haaretz; July 27, 2010;
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/police-release-rabbi-arrested-for-inciting-to-kill-non-jews-1.304261 ;
*(1c) ICCA, The London Declaration; Feb. 17, 2009;
http://www.antisem.org/london-declaration/ ;
*Article, 'For the record: the full text of the Ottawa Protocol';
Inside Politics Blog (CBC); Kady O'Malley; Nov. 10, 2010;
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/11/for-the-record-the-full-text-of-the-ottawa-protocol.html ;
(1d) Article: 'Israel struggles to combat image problem'; Jonathan Cook; Mar. 26, 2010; Middle East Online;
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=38083 ;
(2a) Interesting article discusses Lieberman's 'transfer' proposal, in the Philedelphia Jewish Voice, 'Population Transfer in Perspective'; 2006(?); Dr. Alex Grobman;
http://www.pjvoice.com/v18/18003transfer.aspx ;
(2b) Also on Lieberman, Washington Post: 'Israeli Foreign Minister Breaks with Netanyahu Over Peace Talks'; Checkpoint Washington; Colum Lynch; Sept. 28, 2010;
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkpoint-washington/2010/09/israeli_foreign_minister_break.html ;
(3a) ABC News, 'Israeli Cabinet Approves Loyalty Oath'; Simon McGregor-Wood; Oct. 11, 2010 ;
http://abcnews.go.com/International/israeli-cabinet-approves-loyalty-oath/story?id=11849413 ;
(3b) See, also, Haaretz, 'Cabinet approves loyalty oath, but only for non-Jewish citizens'; Jonathan Lis; Oct. 10, 2010;
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/cabinet-approves-loyalty-oath-but-only-for-non-jewish-new-citizens-1.318212 ;
(3c) See also, this cogent and intelligent discussion - Huffington Post's, 'Why This Zionist Opposes Israel's Loyalty Oath';Moriel Rothman; Oct. 21, 2010;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/moriel-rothman/why-this-zionist-opposes-_b_771439.html ;
(4) Americans for Peace Now, 'Facts on the Ground'; c. 2010; an interactive map of Jewish settlements
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), otherwise referred to as the West Bank;
http://peacenow.org/map.php ;
(5) Book: 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'; Ilan Pappe; One World Publications Ltd.; 2006; 313 pgs.;
Website: Inter-Parliamentary Coalition Combatting Anti-Semitism (ICCA) ;
http://www.antisem.org/ ;
Canadian Parliamentary Coalition for Combatting Anti-Semitism (CPCCA)
http://www.cpcca.ca/home.htm ;
Copyright 2010, Diane V. McLoughlin
All Rights Reserved.
by Diane V. McLoughlin, November 8, 2010
main website: mcloughlinpost.com
An international conference on anti-Semitism (the Inter-parliamentary Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism - ICCA) is taking place November 7 - 9th, 2010, in Ottawa, Canada. An *'Ottawa Protocol' is to be declared on the last day of the conference. One hundred parliamentarians from 45 countries are reportedly being hosted by the coalition's Canadian counterpart, the CPCCA (Canadian Parliamentary Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism.)
I have had difficulty ascertaining whether or not the conference is open to the media. There is a rumor going around that it is a closed event. I have been assured that the conference is closed to me, however, according to Fleishman-Hillard, a private public relations firm hired to vet enquiries regarding this publicly-funded event. Clues as to why the committee chose Fleishman-Hillard can be found on the PR firm's website:
'Fleishman-Hillard’s Ottawa office is a leader in helping Canadian and international companies shape the national agenda. We help influence public policy...and...fundamentally change public attitudes...[we] help clients influence what Canadians are thinking and talking about...We bring together all aspects of government relations, regulatory affairs, strategic communications, issues management and research services to help public, private and not-for-profit clients influence the audiences that matter to them most.' (1)
The Canadian government is providing almost $500,000 dollars to finance this event (1a), with the apparent aim of fundamentally altering law on an international scale. It appears to be all of a piece that the CPCCA would hide behind a PR firm, seeing as they actively excluded participation of such groups as Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East in CPCCA hearings; they have so far chosen not to release the CPCCA's final report, as well.
The goal of stamping out the embers of anti-Semitism - racist hatred of Jews - is noble. But why is the scope of discussion not broader, to reject racism and discrimination in all forms? For the fact of the matter is that
there are racist pinheads in every society, including amongst Jews themselves.
For instance, rabbis of a prominent religious school in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur, published a 230-page book earlier this year entitled, 'The King's Torah' (Torat Hamelech)
which in part details under which conditions it is permissible to kill non-Jews, including babies.
According to these teachers, it is permissible to kill babies if it prevents them from growing up to be enemies. (1b)
The only time a human being could argue in defense of killing another groups' babies is when he believes his group is more worthy of life itself. These are teachers that shape the minds of the next generation, as they contemplate life while residing on ethnically-cleansed Palestinian land.
The ramifications of what may be the ICCA's true goal are profound, to whit: To silence criticism of
the State of Israel. I am deeply concerned that the ICCA and CPCCA intend to use the fight against racism as a shield to cover for it. To do so would cause Israel to be more vulnerable to attack by those it oppresses, not less so, by tightening the screws on non-violent resistance rather than concentrating on which choices might lead to a just peace.
The number-one declaration coming out of last year's ICCA conference (1c), is as follows (emphasis added):
'We today in London resolve that; challenging antisemitism Parliamentarians shall expose, challenge, and isolate political actors who engage in hate against Jews and target the State of Israel as a Jewish collectivity'.
Democratic societies believe it is imperative that people be free to say things that are unpopular or offensive to some, in order that we might maximize our opportunity to be acquainted with the unfettered truth.
When speech is free, what is true has the opportunity to shine bright against what ought to be exposed, challenged and isolated: falsehood. Messing with this fundamental law is a dangerously foolish gambit.
The ICCA, chaired by Canada's former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, calls criticism of Israel the 'new anti-Semitism'. One might note that one of the six identified on the ICCA's steering committee, Mr. Yuli Edelstein, happens also to be chief of public affairs for Israel, aka director of 'hasbara' (propaganda.) Edelstein is a Jewish settler on illegally occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank. He, quite understandably under the circumstances, does not believe that 'settlements' - read colonization and ethnic cleansing - is any impediment to achieving peace with the Palestinian people. (1d)
If the drivers behind the ICCA-CPCCA initiative get their way, perhaps in future one could be fined or jailed for pointing out that the State of Israel is rife with discriminatory attitudes against its minority. Israel is, after all, a pluralistic society; over 20% of Israel's citizens are Arab.
Of course, it is also true that there are those within Israel, such as Israel's own foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who propose a solution to this thorny problem: A 'transfer' of Israel's Arab-Israeli citizens, in order to achieve maximum purity of the Jewish 'collectivity'. (2a; 2b).
At the beginning of the 21st century, aren't we bigger than this?
Apparently not. Israel's far-right coalition government has passed legislation this year that would require all future non-Jewish applicants applying for Israeli citizenship to swear an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish democratic state.
Ironically, as ultra-Orthodox Jewry reject nationalism, they themselves will be exempt from having to swear
this oath. (3a) (3b) (3c)
The fact is that there are many Jews both within Israel and without, including Canadian Jews, who vociferously object to the odious and malevolent mistreatment of the Palestinian people.
Regarding peace in the Middle East, my own view is that so much Palestinian land has been stolen and overrun by Jewish fanatics that the two-state solution has been rendered moot. (4) According to Jewish historian Ilan Pappe, the U.S. government thought so too, all the way back to 1948. (5; pg. 123.)
The population numbers, many may be surprised to learn, of Israeli Jews to Palestinians, are roughly equal: One group enjoys full legal rights and the vote, while the other does not. Within Israel, Arab-Israelis (also known as Israeli-Palestinians) are discriminated against throughout - jobs, education, housing, municipal services, health - you name it; in Gaza and the Occupied Territories, Palestinians have no rights, subsisting under brutal military occupation, or in squalid refugee camps in bordering states.
The Israeli-Palestinian problem emerged from the pogroms and centuries of horrific mistreatment of Jews in Europe and elsewhere - including, one notes, in Canada itself. The Palestinians have been defacto forced to pay for the crimes of others with their homes, land and lives.
By 1948, Jewish extremists instigated a deliberate military-precision ethnic cleansing program against a people who were inclined to peaceful coexistence with their Jewish neighbours. Methods included rounding up Palestinian males 13 years-old and up, to murder them in cold blood; biological warfare; creeping into villages in the dead of night to throw bombs in Palestinian homes as families slept; the genocide of entire villages; firing down upon stampeded Palestinians, leaving them as their only recourse to flee drowning, into the sea (ibid); that last is one of many ironies, as this is what Palestinians are accused of wanting to do to Israeli Jews.
In the end I think the biggest problem to overcome is Fear (combined with an historical sense of entitlement, and religious dogma).
A word about Gaza is in order. Palestinians in Gaza are scapegoated for the current impasse. Jews claim they 'gave up' land in Gaza; that from their 'sacrifice' all they got were rockets in return. This is a false representation of the facts.
The Palestinians in Gaza are refugees of the ethnic cleansing operations of 1948-49. The land modern-day Jews were dragged from in Gaza a few years ago for the most part did not belong to them. But the villages and homes in Israel belonging to Palestinians who languish in refugee camps in Gaza and Lebanon and Jordan have yet to be returned.
I personally would not argue with the theoretical position that painful concessions will have to be made on both sides to achieve peace. But peace cannot possibly be achieved without an honest accounting of who lost what; and that is not happening at all, so far as I can see.
I believe one bi-national state with equal rights for all is the peaceful and just solution moving forward. But I also believe that for some, on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, this is the most threatening thing to say of all. The one-state solution is, nevertheless, a view increasingly discussed. I have no dog in this hunt for a just peace other than compassion for those who suffer, along with a deep concern otherwise over the increasingly unstable state of global affairs. I am neither Jewish or Palestinian. I have been truly blessed in my friendships with both Jews and Palestinians; friendships which have deeply enriched my life.
If justice and peace can be equitably achieved in a two-state arrangement that both sides accept, then (an agnostic) hallelujah! But as it now stands, what those such as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu call a two-state solution, is one in which much of the best land stolen is never returned, in exchange for borders Israel continues to control with their miitary, barbed wire and watch towers.
Current negotiations themselves are entirely bogus, as the Palestinians are being illegally represented by a cabal whose electoral mandate was thin at best - if it ever existed at all - one which has long since expired.
If this intellectual envelope, 'the new anti-Semitism', is successfully pushed by the ICCA, then it begs the question, what might be the suggested remedy against those criticizing Israel's oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people? Mere vilification? Or arrest and imprisonment - for daring to criticize the odious, murderous and racist policies of a state.
In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined Jews proposing shutting up criticism of a state, after what Nazi Germany wrought against them.
Shut up criticism of one state and other states are sure to follow, too, demanding the same legalistic papering-over of their own racist or discriminatory crimes; a cultural imperative, they will argue, and thus, beyond anyone's reach in trying to advocate for equality and justice for the marginalized and oppressed.
For anyone with a lick of common sense, this is a a bad bargain being hammered out in bad faith in the backrooms and corridors of power.
In short, if I were deemed worthy to attend and participate at the ICCA conference, I would loudly and proudly stand to affirm:
Down with anti-Semitism. Up with freedom - to advocate for justice, and to criticize the politics of any state, including the current apartheid condition of Israel.
_____________________________________________________________
References:
(1) Ottawa - Fleishman-Hillard Canada - website;
http://fleishman.ca/our-offices/ottawa/ ;
(1a) Article: Government of Canada supports international conference on anti-Semitism:
http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?m=/index&nid=553729 ;
(1b) 'Police release rabbi arrested for inciting to kill non-Jews'; Chaim Levinson; Haaretz; July 27, 2010;
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/police-release-rabbi-arrested-for-inciting-to-kill-non-jews-1.304261 ;
*(1c) ICCA, The London Declaration; Feb. 17, 2009;
http://www.antisem.org/london-declaration/ ;
*Article, 'For the record: the full text of the Ottawa Protocol';
Inside Politics Blog (CBC); Kady O'Malley; Nov. 10, 2010;
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/11/for-the-record-the-full-text-of-the-ottawa-protocol.html ;
(1d) Article: 'Israel struggles to combat image problem'; Jonathan Cook; Mar. 26, 2010; Middle East Online;
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=38083 ;
(2a) Interesting article discusses Lieberman's 'transfer' proposal, in the Philedelphia Jewish Voice, 'Population Transfer in Perspective'; 2006(?); Dr. Alex Grobman;
http://www.pjvoice.com/v18/18003transfer.aspx ;
(2b) Also on Lieberman, Washington Post: 'Israeli Foreign Minister Breaks with Netanyahu Over Peace Talks'; Checkpoint Washington; Colum Lynch; Sept. 28, 2010;
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkpoint-washington/2010/09/israeli_foreign_minister_break.html ;
(3a) ABC News, 'Israeli Cabinet Approves Loyalty Oath'; Simon McGregor-Wood; Oct. 11, 2010 ;
http://abcnews.go.com/International/israeli-cabinet-approves-loyalty-oath/story?id=11849413 ;
(3b) See, also, Haaretz, 'Cabinet approves loyalty oath, but only for non-Jewish citizens'; Jonathan Lis; Oct. 10, 2010;
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/cabinet-approves-loyalty-oath-but-only-for-non-jewish-new-citizens-1.318212 ;
(3c) See also, this cogent and intelligent discussion - Huffington Post's, 'Why This Zionist Opposes Israel's Loyalty Oath';Moriel Rothman; Oct. 21, 2010;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/moriel-rothman/why-this-zionist-opposes-_b_771439.html ;
(4) Americans for Peace Now, 'Facts on the Ground'; c. 2010; an interactive map of Jewish settlements
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), otherwise referred to as the West Bank;
http://peacenow.org/map.php ;
(5) Book: 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine'; Ilan Pappe; One World Publications Ltd.; 2006; 313 pgs.;
Website: Inter-Parliamentary Coalition Combatting Anti-Semitism (ICCA) ;
http://www.antisem.org/ ;
Canadian Parliamentary Coalition for Combatting Anti-Semitism (CPCCA)
http://www.cpcca.ca/home.htm ;
Copyright 2010, Diane V. McLoughlin
All Rights Reserved.
November 08, 2010
June 07, 2010
Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan - Interesting Political Times
A feature-length magazine article
by Diane V. McLoughlin
June, 2010:
Seasoned politico and writer Pat Buchanan has been taken to task for pointing out that, should Elena
Kagan be confirmed, the Supreme Court would consist of three Jews, six Catholics, and not a
Protestant in the lot of them. [1]
Sounds a bit like an opener to a bad joke, doesn't it? 'So, three Jews, six Catholics and zero
Protestants walk into a bar...' blah, blah, blah and punch-line. For the record I'm an agnostic,
cognizant and supremely tolerant of the fact that most other people are not.
Anyway, I infer from Buchanan's parsing of the numbers that he believes that religion influences the
ways in which a Supreme Court justice might weigh-in on the law, and, by extension, that religious
belief might have a profound effect on the ways in which a Supreme Court justice might leave their
imprint on civil liberties as well as the social fabric of the nation. After all, that is what the justices
are there for - to interpret how legal cases ought to be settled based on the guiding principles of the
Constitution.
I really don't have a problem with Mr. Buchanan's reasoning, but Huffington Post's Keli Goff goes
way out there to smear Buchanan's thoughts as 'dangerous' antisemitism. [2]
Why is it racist to suggest that color, class, social groupings and/or religion might shape one's views
to varying degrees, and that one would hope to have reasonable proportional representation - or,
inversely - not an unreasonably disproportionate over-representation of any identifiable group? Is it
really fair to say that efforts at inclusion are discriminatory?
Power of one group over other groups is sometimes abusive and tyrannical, such as the tyranny of
majority-rule. Sometimes tyranny might take the form of a small elite over the unwitting majority,
instead.
The Founders tried to take into account such threats to the liberty of the individual. They wanted to
maximally protect civil liberties for All. President Barack Obama's successful nomination of Ms.
Kagan would mean that thirty percent of the Supreme Court justices would be Jewish, versus less
than two percent of America's general population. As I say, Ms. Goff seems to feel it is racist even
to bring it up.
The above merely hints at the controversy swirling around this story.
Who is Elena Kagan? What are her qualifications?
For starters, Ms. Kagan does not have a legal record to review from time spent on the bench.
I repeat, because it is so stunning as to be disbelieved - Ms. Kagan has been nominated to serve as
one of only nine individuals who are to determine, judge and personally influence the highest laws
and their philosophical underpinnings, while never having been a judge - not for one day, anywhere,
ever.
Frankly, it boggles the mind. Out of a population of three-hundred and ten-million - how many
talented, brilliant, experienced judges might there be? From that pool, how many did U.S. President
Barack Obama find worthy of interest? Apparently, none.
This raises some rather obvious questions. Why Elena Kagan? Who brought her to Obama's
attention? What overriding considerations were given to nominating her? Why is an inexperienced
judge preferable to an experienced judge? What does it say about Elena Kagan that she would even
agree to be considered, given this lack of experience? What is hoped to be achieved by her
nomination? What are her goals in accepting the invitation to serve?
Elena Kagan held the prestigious post of Dean of Harvard Law School. But the accepted criteria in
qualifications are performance as well as time spent on the bench, along with scholarly legal
publication.
In the view of writer James Petras, Obama's nomination of Ms. Kagan, based on her academic
publication record, 'might give her a fighting chance for tenure at a first rate correspondence law
school in the Texas Panhandle.' [2a]
What really recommended her, in his opinion?
'The evidence points to a purely political appointment based, in part, on social networks...Kagan’s
approval of indefinite detention of suspects squares with the extremist restrictions on constitutional
freedoms first articulated during the Bush Administration and subsequently upheld by President
Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder. It is no coincidence that Kagan appointed a notorious Bush
torture advocate, the genial Jack Goldsmith, to the Harvard Law faculty.
'...Elena Kagan got tenure at the august halls of the University of Chicago in 1995 on the basis of
one substantive article and one brief piece, neither outstanding. With this underwhelming record of
legal scholarship, she became visiting professorship at the Harvard Law School, published only two
more articles (one in Harvard Law Review) and received tenure. Prima facie evidence strongly
suggests that Kagan’s ties to the staunchly Zionist faculty at both Chicago and Harvard Law Schools
(and not her intellectual prowess) account for her meteoric promotions to tenure, deanship and now
the US Supreme Court, over the heads of hundreds of other highly qualified candidates with far
superior academic publication records and broader practical judicial experience.' [ibid]
--------
9/11 and the Constitution
Much of the legal public square has been taken up, after the catastrophic experiences of 9/11, with
questions that go to the heart of human rights and civil liberties.
Are we entitled...to presumption of innocence? Habeas Corpus? Is it still our right to be Mirandized -
that is, to be advised of our right to an attorney and to our right to remain silent? Are we entitled to
any trial at all? A speedy trial? Are we entitled to see the evidence against us? To challenge witnesses
and evidence in an open court? Do we have the right not to be coerced into incriminating ourselves
through torture or threats, and not to have such tainted evidence used against us? Do we still retain
the right not to be locked up indefinitely?
The fact that these questions in law have been torn open to situational interpretation - laws which
were heretofore considered long settled and carved in stone - is a loud alarm sounding for us all.
The recent would-be Times Square bomber was not advised of his rights. He was encouraged to
talk, first. Then he was told he had a right to remain silent. The outline of fascism is there when
some demand we rescind his American citizenship; assume he is guilty; deny him the right to his day
in court or to see the evidence against him. They would encouragingly approve his torture to extract
useless information he thinks they want to hear so that the pain will stop - causing us to drag others
who are innocent into the evil vortex as well.
Let's take the direction of the above to its logical conclusion. Let's bring back the test once used on
unfortunate people accused, by religious idiots and enemies, of being witches. Tie him up in a chair
and throw him in a pond of water. If he sinks and drowns he's human - oh! Too bad! If he manages
to float, he's a witch and we burn him.
Conversely, keep him alive but deprive the suspected terrorist (meaning, the otherwise innocent
person) of their liberty by locking them up indefinitely - a living death.
---------------------
Israel
Israel factors into American politics in a big way. Israel has gotten away with the on-going ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinian people largely through the Israel right-or-wrong political support of the
U.S.
Israel's oppression of the Palestinians was cited as one of the top reasons, by Osama bin Laden, for
the attacks on 9/11. That, and the murderous ten-year military blockade of Iraq which inflicted such
devastating suffering and death amongst the Iraqi people.
The New York Times, in a city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, seemingly
refused to report the Israel angle as they followed the unfolding events of 9/11. Many other
American media outlets reported on 9/11 in the same way, helping to create in the American publics'
mind a false and dangerously misleading case for why 9/11 occurred, and, it follows, in what ways
the country ought to respond.
Israel and 9/11 both became factors in our ongoing war against much of the Middle East. That, and
corporate competition for scarce oil resources. Thousands of young Americans in the prime of their
youth are coming home damaged or dead from these wars never having been told the truth of why
they were sent.
Speaking of Israel and the truth, there is a big push behind the scenes in western countries, Canada
and Great Britain being two notable examples, the United States being another, to make the following
statements thought or hate-speech crimes:
One, to suggest that Israel is an apartheid state; two, to suggest that Israel should be one democratic
state with equal rights for both Palestinians and Jews. [3] [3i]
Surely other states will line up for similar legalized blinkers. Is it not possible that hate speech laws
could be enacted against Americans who criticize American policy itself, if we start down that road?
I believe that it is.
Because American society is so polarized and divided, I think any Supreme Court nominee would, in
fact, come in for the same intense scrutiny as Ms. Kagan should.
One of the most important constitutional protections in troubled political times is freedom of speech.
How do Elena Kagan's views hold up on free speech rights? From the New York Times:
'As a scholar, Ms. Kagan’s interests were narrow, somewhat technical, and steered clear of ideology.
She was interested in questions like when the government could limit free speech. “This is not a
subject about which there is any ideological slant,” Mr. Stone said. “It’s an intellectual puzzle.” ' [4]
From Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at Reason magazine:
'Kagan's understanding of First Amendment law, described most fully in a 1996 University of
Chicago Law Review article, suggests a tolerance for censorship when it is appropriately disguised by
euphemisms. In Kagan's view, the main goal of First Amendment doctrine is not to maximize
freedom or promote robust debate, but to ferret out impermissible motives for speech restrictions.
'While the government may constitutionally restrict speech based on "neutrally conceived harms,"
Kagan says, it may not restrict speech based on "hostility toward ideas." But as she herself more or
less acknowledges, this distinction ultimately collapses because people are hostile to ideas they
consider harmful.' [5]
From Marjorie Cohn, past president of the National Lawyer's Guild:
'In one of her few law review articles, Kagan advocated expansive executive power consistent with a
formulation from the Reagan administration. This is reminiscent of the “unitary executive” theory
that George W. Bush used to justify grabbing unbridled executive power in his “war on terror.”
'As solicitor general, Kagan asserted in a brief that the “state secrets privilege” is grounded in the
Constitution. The Obama White House, like the Bush administration, is asserting this privilege to
prevent people who the CIA sent to other countries to be tortured and people challenging Bush’s
secret spying program from litigating their cases in court.' [6]
In order to continue the rapacious war for Empire - in order for the military-industrial-Congressional-
religious complex to continue unimpeded - laws to suppress dissent should be anticipated.
It may seem like these disparate things do not go together. But what I would argue is that there is an
overlap of aims, desires and purposes at work. The one thing shared in common is that goals will be
reached far easier if they could whack off chunks of the Constitution.
Zealots never seem to consider what risks there might be to themselves in destroying the legal
protections of others.
We depend on the Supreme Court to be a Constitutional voice of conscience. All the most
fundamental protections of the individual from the tyranny of king or state or privileged group are on
life support. Which rights, that Americans hold most sacrosanct, are left? The answer: few.
Through the quiet machinations of American politicians such as John McCain and Joseph
Lieberman, who, in senate bill S.3081 propose to lock up indefinitely anyone, including American
citizens, merely accused of terrorism, without charge or trial - soon the answer may be that we have
no rights left at all:
S.3081, Sec. 5 Detention Without Trial of Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents:
'An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy
belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention
Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without
trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the
individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent
with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress
pertaining to such hostilities.' [6a] (It is heartening to note that on the website Open Congress, the
split of readers who voted their judgement of this bill so far is 29 in favor, 433 against, for a mere
6% in support.)
It doesn't matter to me whether Elena Kagan is Jewish. What matters is her philosophy on the fundamentals of constitutional justice.
It matters what a Supreme Court nominee believes. It matters what his or her record is and what
they have stood for. All Supreme Court candidates go through a vetting process where ideas and
beliefs that could profoundly affect decisions in law are hopefully weighed and debated as to the
candidate's suitability.
If there is no record, there is no way to judge a would-be judge. One of the most important jobs of a
Supreme Court justice is the job of telling the state one word - that word is no. No you can't lock up
a person indefinitely without evidence or trial. No you can't torture. No you can't brand a human
being 'terrorist' to deny them the right to be presumed innocent. No you can't be President of the
United States without counting every vote cast. No you can't spy on Americans without real cause
and a warrant. No.
Telling the state no, or any particular power configuration operating within the state no, takes balls.
---------------------------------------
Judicial Independence
To risk being ostracized or shunned from one's group when making pronouncements on issues of
right and wrong takes tremendous moral courage, too. The group might include your friends, family,
neighbors, colleagues, religious community or even most of your whole tribe.
The threat of being shunned is a powerful disincentive to swim against the current of your group's
opinion - regardless of whether or not you are on the side of justice and truth. Studies have
determined that to be ostracized or shunned can have tremendously negative effects on the
individual, both psychologically and physically.
A very recent example of shunning:
South African judge Richard Goldstone is internationally renowned and highly respected in the field
of law. He agreed to conduct an independent review, for the United Nations, of Israel's late 2008 to
early 2009 military assault on Gaza, for evidence of war crimes by both sides.
Goldstone is Jewish. No doubt he had at least an idea of what he would be in for, but he chose to
serve and accepted the assignment, anyway. The Goldstone Report concluded that serious war
crimes were committed by both sides and that these required further investigation.
Israel came in for unaccustomed direct, harsh criticism, weighted in fact:
Paragraph: '1883. The Gaza military operations were, according to the Israeli Government,
thoroughly and extensively planned. While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations
as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the
Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the
people of Gaza as a whole.' [6b]
Subsequently, the South African Jewish community threatened to picket Judge Goldstone's
grandson's bar matzvah. Goldstone put out a statement that he wouldn't be attending so that his
grandson's day could proceed unspoiled.
The S.A. Jewish leaders put out word that they would call off their planned picket if Goldstone
agreed to a meeting, which he did.
They used his grandson, and in effect held his family hostage, in order to try to manipulate this judge.
In fact, Judge Goldstone has been smeared, vilified and portrayed as a traitor and a self-hating Jew.
These kinds of attacks by the group against the individual applies an unbelievable amount of
pressure, and it can be extremely effective - which is, of course, why it's done; not everyone is stout
enough of heart, nor independent enough of mind and spirit to withstand it.
----------------------
The Palestinian Equation
Palestinians suffer arbitrary arrest, torture and indefinite detention without trial. They suffer
property and home confiscation as well as home demolition, with little notice or legal recourse.
Twenty-three year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death in 2003, by an
Israeli military Caterpillar bulldozer. She put stood in the path of the Cat to block it from destroying
a Palestinian physician's home. She was at eye level to the driver, standing on a mound of earth;
daylight visibility was good. The Cat drove forward over her and backed up over her again.
Of the Spring 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, the last boat prevented by Israel from carrying relief
supplies to the people in Gaza - people who continue to endure a life of want and despair under
Israel's continuing military siege - was named after her: the MV Rachel Corrie.
In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, otherwise known as the West Bank, Palestinians suffer life
under military occupation, surrounded by hostile Jewish extremists who believe God gave them the
right to steal Palestinian land and to kill them, if necessary, to take it. There are Jews-only roads and
Palestinian villages surrounded by troops, barbed wire and locked gates that are opened by Israeli
troops for only fifteen minutes, three times per day.
Palestinians live under the constant threat of Jewish violence. Yet Palestinians are not permitted to
defend themselves. The Israeli military passively looks on while Palestinians are brutalized and does
nothing - when, that is - the Israeli military isn't brutalizing Palestinians itself.
Part of what makes the entire situation so bitterly unpalatable is the fact that Jews themselves should
know all too well from their own history how abhorrent and morally wrong it is to be treated this way.
As noted earlier, there is a quiet but powerful push to criminalize criticism of Israel. That requires
fundamental shifts in civil rights law. Bringing us back to Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination
and the questions outlined above.
------------------------
Vet them; protect them
In vetting a Supreme Court nominee, these days it might be prudent to ask whether or not they are
impervious to threats and intimidation in an increasingly polarized society.
From former American Vice President Al Gore's New York Times bestselling book, 'The Assault on
Reason', (Penguin, 2007):
'One of the coalition's "constitutional scholars," Edwin Vieira, echoed [Ann] Coulter's hateful rant at
a conference on the so-called Judicial War on Faith by explaining how he would recommend
handling the Supreme Court. He actually quoted Joseph Stalin, saying that Stalin "had a slogan and it
worked pretty well for him whenever he ran into difficulty: 'No man no problem.'
"The only way to explain an American constitutional scholar endorsing ad hominem attacks on Supreme Court justices is to assume that he has abandoned reason and surrendered to dogma. Moreover, by quoting Stalin - a homicidal dictator whose only peers are Mao and Hitler - he had to realize that people might
interpret this as a vague threat of physical violence against justices whose opinions violated right-wing orthodoxy.' [7]
Obviously, a society based on laws must have a legal community that is able to conduct itself free
from fear and intimidation.
Conclusion
In spite of the tremendous importance to the country that a nomination to the Supreme Court entails,
we are supposed to support the inexplicable nomination of an individual who has no judicial record
of any kind, in an increasingly shaky and unstable democratic environment.
These are some of my concerns with regard to any Supreme Court nominee, and the direction of the
Supreme Court: Restoration and protection of civil liberties; judicial independence from influence, or
prejudice, or religious parochialism; putting the interests of the country and the constitution ahead of
any other consideration of any kind whatsoever.
If a nominee is able to demonstrate that they can foot this bill? Hire them. Then please make sure
the Supreme Court justices are secure.
It's a tough job in tough times. It shouldn't be made any tougher having to worry about wing-nuts
making veiled threats quoting Stalin.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Diane V. McLoughlin is a writer and peace activist particularly focused on the Israel-Palestine
region. Ms. McLoughlin posts editorials of her own along with excellent links to articles and video
she discovers on the web on her website, mcloughlinpost.com and on her blog at mcloughlinpost.
blogspot.com. Follow on Twitter: McLoughlinPost ; Friend on Facebook: Diane McLoughlin;
contact at mcloughlinpost.com'
References:
[1] 'Are liberals anti-WASP?'; Patrick J. Buchanan; worldNet Daily; May 13, 2010;
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=153417
[2] 'Elena Kagan, Pat Buchanan, MSNBC and Me'; Keli Goff; Huffington Post; May 17, 2010;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keli-goff/elena-kagan-pat-buchanan_b_579623.html
[2a] 'Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court: A Barnyard Smell in Harvard, Chicago and Washington';
James Petras; Information Clearing House; May 13, 2010
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25438.htm#close=1
[3] CPCCA - Canadian Parliamentary Coalition Combating Antisemitism Frequently Asked
Questions; http://www.cpcca.ca/faqs.htm ;
[3i] 'Criminalizing Criticism of Israel'; Paul Craig Roberts; Counterpunch; May 7, 2009 ;
http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts05072009.html ;
[4]'A Climb Marked by Confidence and Canniness'; by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Katharine Q. Seelye
and Lisa w. Foderaro; May 10, 2010; The New York Times;
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/us/politics/10kagan.html?pagewanted=1&ref=politics
[5] 'Bounds of Silence: Obama's Court Pick Looks Wobbly on Freedom of Speech'; Jacob Sullum;
Creators.com; May 18, 2010;
http://www.creators.com/opinion/jacob-sullum/bounds-of-silence-obama-s-court-pick-looks-wobbly-
on-freedom-of-speech.html
[6] 'Kagan's Dubious Stand on Civil Rights'; Marjorie Cohn; Consortium News; May 15, 2010;
http://consortiumnews.com/2010/051510b.html
[6a] S.3081 Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s3081/text#
[6b] HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE AND OTHER OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES
Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict; Part Five Conclusions and
Recommendations; September 25, 2009; Pg. 406
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf
[7] 'The Assault on Reason'; Al Gore; Penguin Books; Copyright Al Gore, 2007; pgs. 66-7.
Copyright 2010; Diane V. McLoughlin, All Rights Reserved
by Diane V. McLoughlin
June, 2010:
Seasoned politico and writer Pat Buchanan has been taken to task for pointing out that, should Elena
Kagan be confirmed, the Supreme Court would consist of three Jews, six Catholics, and not a
Protestant in the lot of them. [1]
Sounds a bit like an opener to a bad joke, doesn't it? 'So, three Jews, six Catholics and zero
Protestants walk into a bar...' blah, blah, blah and punch-line. For the record I'm an agnostic,
cognizant and supremely tolerant of the fact that most other people are not.
Anyway, I infer from Buchanan's parsing of the numbers that he believes that religion influences the
ways in which a Supreme Court justice might weigh-in on the law, and, by extension, that religious
belief might have a profound effect on the ways in which a Supreme Court justice might leave their
imprint on civil liberties as well as the social fabric of the nation. After all, that is what the justices
are there for - to interpret how legal cases ought to be settled based on the guiding principles of the
Constitution.
I really don't have a problem with Mr. Buchanan's reasoning, but Huffington Post's Keli Goff goes
way out there to smear Buchanan's thoughts as 'dangerous' antisemitism. [2]
Why is it racist to suggest that color, class, social groupings and/or religion might shape one's views
to varying degrees, and that one would hope to have reasonable proportional representation - or,
inversely - not an unreasonably disproportionate over-representation of any identifiable group? Is it
really fair to say that efforts at inclusion are discriminatory?
Power of one group over other groups is sometimes abusive and tyrannical, such as the tyranny of
majority-rule. Sometimes tyranny might take the form of a small elite over the unwitting majority,
instead.
The Founders tried to take into account such threats to the liberty of the individual. They wanted to
maximally protect civil liberties for All. President Barack Obama's successful nomination of Ms.
Kagan would mean that thirty percent of the Supreme Court justices would be Jewish, versus less
than two percent of America's general population. As I say, Ms. Goff seems to feel it is racist even
to bring it up.
The above merely hints at the controversy swirling around this story.
Who is Elena Kagan? What are her qualifications?
For starters, Ms. Kagan does not have a legal record to review from time spent on the bench.
I repeat, because it is so stunning as to be disbelieved - Ms. Kagan has been nominated to serve as
one of only nine individuals who are to determine, judge and personally influence the highest laws
and their philosophical underpinnings, while never having been a judge - not for one day, anywhere,
ever.
Frankly, it boggles the mind. Out of a population of three-hundred and ten-million - how many
talented, brilliant, experienced judges might there be? From that pool, how many did U.S. President
Barack Obama find worthy of interest? Apparently, none.
This raises some rather obvious questions. Why Elena Kagan? Who brought her to Obama's
attention? What overriding considerations were given to nominating her? Why is an inexperienced
judge preferable to an experienced judge? What does it say about Elena Kagan that she would even
agree to be considered, given this lack of experience? What is hoped to be achieved by her
nomination? What are her goals in accepting the invitation to serve?
Elena Kagan held the prestigious post of Dean of Harvard Law School. But the accepted criteria in
qualifications are performance as well as time spent on the bench, along with scholarly legal
publication.
In the view of writer James Petras, Obama's nomination of Ms. Kagan, based on her academic
publication record, 'might give her a fighting chance for tenure at a first rate correspondence law
school in the Texas Panhandle.' [2a]
What really recommended her, in his opinion?
'The evidence points to a purely political appointment based, in part, on social networks...Kagan’s
approval of indefinite detention of suspects squares with the extremist restrictions on constitutional
freedoms first articulated during the Bush Administration and subsequently upheld by President
Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder. It is no coincidence that Kagan appointed a notorious Bush
torture advocate, the genial Jack Goldsmith, to the Harvard Law faculty.
'...Elena Kagan got tenure at the august halls of the University of Chicago in 1995 on the basis of
one substantive article and one brief piece, neither outstanding. With this underwhelming record of
legal scholarship, she became visiting professorship at the Harvard Law School, published only two
more articles (one in Harvard Law Review) and received tenure. Prima facie evidence strongly
suggests that Kagan’s ties to the staunchly Zionist faculty at both Chicago and Harvard Law Schools
(and not her intellectual prowess) account for her meteoric promotions to tenure, deanship and now
the US Supreme Court, over the heads of hundreds of other highly qualified candidates with far
superior academic publication records and broader practical judicial experience.' [ibid]
--------
9/11 and the Constitution
Much of the legal public square has been taken up, after the catastrophic experiences of 9/11, with
questions that go to the heart of human rights and civil liberties.
Are we entitled...to presumption of innocence? Habeas Corpus? Is it still our right to be Mirandized -
that is, to be advised of our right to an attorney and to our right to remain silent? Are we entitled to
any trial at all? A speedy trial? Are we entitled to see the evidence against us? To challenge witnesses
and evidence in an open court? Do we have the right not to be coerced into incriminating ourselves
through torture or threats, and not to have such tainted evidence used against us? Do we still retain
the right not to be locked up indefinitely?
The fact that these questions in law have been torn open to situational interpretation - laws which
were heretofore considered long settled and carved in stone - is a loud alarm sounding for us all.
The recent would-be Times Square bomber was not advised of his rights. He was encouraged to
talk, first. Then he was told he had a right to remain silent. The outline of fascism is there when
some demand we rescind his American citizenship; assume he is guilty; deny him the right to his day
in court or to see the evidence against him. They would encouragingly approve his torture to extract
useless information he thinks they want to hear so that the pain will stop - causing us to drag others
who are innocent into the evil vortex as well.
Let's take the direction of the above to its logical conclusion. Let's bring back the test once used on
unfortunate people accused, by religious idiots and enemies, of being witches. Tie him up in a chair
and throw him in a pond of water. If he sinks and drowns he's human - oh! Too bad! If he manages
to float, he's a witch and we burn him.
Conversely, keep him alive but deprive the suspected terrorist (meaning, the otherwise innocent
person) of their liberty by locking them up indefinitely - a living death.
---------------------
Israel
Israel factors into American politics in a big way. Israel has gotten away with the on-going ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinian people largely through the Israel right-or-wrong political support of the
U.S.
Israel's oppression of the Palestinians was cited as one of the top reasons, by Osama bin Laden, for
the attacks on 9/11. That, and the murderous ten-year military blockade of Iraq which inflicted such
devastating suffering and death amongst the Iraqi people.
The New York Times, in a city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, seemingly
refused to report the Israel angle as they followed the unfolding events of 9/11. Many other
American media outlets reported on 9/11 in the same way, helping to create in the American publics'
mind a false and dangerously misleading case for why 9/11 occurred, and, it follows, in what ways
the country ought to respond.
Israel and 9/11 both became factors in our ongoing war against much of the Middle East. That, and
corporate competition for scarce oil resources. Thousands of young Americans in the prime of their
youth are coming home damaged or dead from these wars never having been told the truth of why
they were sent.
Speaking of Israel and the truth, there is a big push behind the scenes in western countries, Canada
and Great Britain being two notable examples, the United States being another, to make the following
statements thought or hate-speech crimes:
One, to suggest that Israel is an apartheid state; two, to suggest that Israel should be one democratic
state with equal rights for both Palestinians and Jews. [3] [3i]
Surely other states will line up for similar legalized blinkers. Is it not possible that hate speech laws
could be enacted against Americans who criticize American policy itself, if we start down that road?
I believe that it is.
Because American society is so polarized and divided, I think any Supreme Court nominee would, in
fact, come in for the same intense scrutiny as Ms. Kagan should.
One of the most important constitutional protections in troubled political times is freedom of speech.
How do Elena Kagan's views hold up on free speech rights? From the New York Times:
'As a scholar, Ms. Kagan’s interests were narrow, somewhat technical, and steered clear of ideology.
She was interested in questions like when the government could limit free speech. “This is not a
subject about which there is any ideological slant,” Mr. Stone said. “It’s an intellectual puzzle.” ' [4]
From Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at Reason magazine:
'Kagan's understanding of First Amendment law, described most fully in a 1996 University of
Chicago Law Review article, suggests a tolerance for censorship when it is appropriately disguised by
euphemisms. In Kagan's view, the main goal of First Amendment doctrine is not to maximize
freedom or promote robust debate, but to ferret out impermissible motives for speech restrictions.
'While the government may constitutionally restrict speech based on "neutrally conceived harms,"
Kagan says, it may not restrict speech based on "hostility toward ideas." But as she herself more or
less acknowledges, this distinction ultimately collapses because people are hostile to ideas they
consider harmful.' [5]
From Marjorie Cohn, past president of the National Lawyer's Guild:
'In one of her few law review articles, Kagan advocated expansive executive power consistent with a
formulation from the Reagan administration. This is reminiscent of the “unitary executive” theory
that George W. Bush used to justify grabbing unbridled executive power in his “war on terror.”
'As solicitor general, Kagan asserted in a brief that the “state secrets privilege” is grounded in the
Constitution. The Obama White House, like the Bush administration, is asserting this privilege to
prevent people who the CIA sent to other countries to be tortured and people challenging Bush’s
secret spying program from litigating their cases in court.' [6]
In order to continue the rapacious war for Empire - in order for the military-industrial-Congressional-
religious complex to continue unimpeded - laws to suppress dissent should be anticipated.
It may seem like these disparate things do not go together. But what I would argue is that there is an
overlap of aims, desires and purposes at work. The one thing shared in common is that goals will be
reached far easier if they could whack off chunks of the Constitution.
Zealots never seem to consider what risks there might be to themselves in destroying the legal
protections of others.
We depend on the Supreme Court to be a Constitutional voice of conscience. All the most
fundamental protections of the individual from the tyranny of king or state or privileged group are on
life support. Which rights, that Americans hold most sacrosanct, are left? The answer: few.
Through the quiet machinations of American politicians such as John McCain and Joseph
Lieberman, who, in senate bill S.3081 propose to lock up indefinitely anyone, including American
citizens, merely accused of terrorism, without charge or trial - soon the answer may be that we have
no rights left at all:
S.3081, Sec. 5 Detention Without Trial of Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents:
'An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy
belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention
Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without
trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the
individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent
with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress
pertaining to such hostilities.' [6a] (It is heartening to note that on the website Open Congress, the
split of readers who voted their judgement of this bill so far is 29 in favor, 433 against, for a mere
6% in support.)
It doesn't matter to me whether Elena Kagan is Jewish. What matters is her philosophy on the fundamentals of constitutional justice.
It matters what a Supreme Court nominee believes. It matters what his or her record is and what
they have stood for. All Supreme Court candidates go through a vetting process where ideas and
beliefs that could profoundly affect decisions in law are hopefully weighed and debated as to the
candidate's suitability.
If there is no record, there is no way to judge a would-be judge. One of the most important jobs of a
Supreme Court justice is the job of telling the state one word - that word is no. No you can't lock up
a person indefinitely without evidence or trial. No you can't torture. No you can't brand a human
being 'terrorist' to deny them the right to be presumed innocent. No you can't be President of the
United States without counting every vote cast. No you can't spy on Americans without real cause
and a warrant. No.
Telling the state no, or any particular power configuration operating within the state no, takes balls.
---------------------------------------
Judicial Independence
To risk being ostracized or shunned from one's group when making pronouncements on issues of
right and wrong takes tremendous moral courage, too. The group might include your friends, family,
neighbors, colleagues, religious community or even most of your whole tribe.
The threat of being shunned is a powerful disincentive to swim against the current of your group's
opinion - regardless of whether or not you are on the side of justice and truth. Studies have
determined that to be ostracized or shunned can have tremendously negative effects on the
individual, both psychologically and physically.
A very recent example of shunning:
South African judge Richard Goldstone is internationally renowned and highly respected in the field
of law. He agreed to conduct an independent review, for the United Nations, of Israel's late 2008 to
early 2009 military assault on Gaza, for evidence of war crimes by both sides.
Goldstone is Jewish. No doubt he had at least an idea of what he would be in for, but he chose to
serve and accepted the assignment, anyway. The Goldstone Report concluded that serious war
crimes were committed by both sides and that these required further investigation.
Israel came in for unaccustomed direct, harsh criticism, weighted in fact:
Paragraph: '1883. The Gaza military operations were, according to the Israeli Government,
thoroughly and extensively planned. While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations
as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the
Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the
people of Gaza as a whole.' [6b]
Subsequently, the South African Jewish community threatened to picket Judge Goldstone's
grandson's bar matzvah. Goldstone put out a statement that he wouldn't be attending so that his
grandson's day could proceed unspoiled.
The S.A. Jewish leaders put out word that they would call off their planned picket if Goldstone
agreed to a meeting, which he did.
They used his grandson, and in effect held his family hostage, in order to try to manipulate this judge.
In fact, Judge Goldstone has been smeared, vilified and portrayed as a traitor and a self-hating Jew.
These kinds of attacks by the group against the individual applies an unbelievable amount of
pressure, and it can be extremely effective - which is, of course, why it's done; not everyone is stout
enough of heart, nor independent enough of mind and spirit to withstand it.
----------------------
The Palestinian Equation
Palestinians suffer arbitrary arrest, torture and indefinite detention without trial. They suffer
property and home confiscation as well as home demolition, with little notice or legal recourse.
Twenty-three year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death in 2003, by an
Israeli military Caterpillar bulldozer. She put stood in the path of the Cat to block it from destroying
a Palestinian physician's home. She was at eye level to the driver, standing on a mound of earth;
daylight visibility was good. The Cat drove forward over her and backed up over her again.
Of the Spring 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, the last boat prevented by Israel from carrying relief
supplies to the people in Gaza - people who continue to endure a life of want and despair under
Israel's continuing military siege - was named after her: the MV Rachel Corrie.
In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, otherwise known as the West Bank, Palestinians suffer life
under military occupation, surrounded by hostile Jewish extremists who believe God gave them the
right to steal Palestinian land and to kill them, if necessary, to take it. There are Jews-only roads and
Palestinian villages surrounded by troops, barbed wire and locked gates that are opened by Israeli
troops for only fifteen minutes, three times per day.
Palestinians live under the constant threat of Jewish violence. Yet Palestinians are not permitted to
defend themselves. The Israeli military passively looks on while Palestinians are brutalized and does
nothing - when, that is - the Israeli military isn't brutalizing Palestinians itself.
Part of what makes the entire situation so bitterly unpalatable is the fact that Jews themselves should
know all too well from their own history how abhorrent and morally wrong it is to be treated this way.
As noted earlier, there is a quiet but powerful push to criminalize criticism of Israel. That requires
fundamental shifts in civil rights law. Bringing us back to Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination
and the questions outlined above.
------------------------
Vet them; protect them
In vetting a Supreme Court nominee, these days it might be prudent to ask whether or not they are
impervious to threats and intimidation in an increasingly polarized society.
From former American Vice President Al Gore's New York Times bestselling book, 'The Assault on
Reason', (Penguin, 2007):
'One of the coalition's "constitutional scholars," Edwin Vieira, echoed [Ann] Coulter's hateful rant at
a conference on the so-called Judicial War on Faith by explaining how he would recommend
handling the Supreme Court. He actually quoted Joseph Stalin, saying that Stalin "had a slogan and it
worked pretty well for him whenever he ran into difficulty: 'No man no problem.'
"The only way to explain an American constitutional scholar endorsing ad hominem attacks on Supreme Court justices is to assume that he has abandoned reason and surrendered to dogma. Moreover, by quoting Stalin - a homicidal dictator whose only peers are Mao and Hitler - he had to realize that people might
interpret this as a vague threat of physical violence against justices whose opinions violated right-wing orthodoxy.' [7]
Obviously, a society based on laws must have a legal community that is able to conduct itself free
from fear and intimidation.
Conclusion
In spite of the tremendous importance to the country that a nomination to the Supreme Court entails,
we are supposed to support the inexplicable nomination of an individual who has no judicial record
of any kind, in an increasingly shaky and unstable democratic environment.
These are some of my concerns with regard to any Supreme Court nominee, and the direction of the
Supreme Court: Restoration and protection of civil liberties; judicial independence from influence, or
prejudice, or religious parochialism; putting the interests of the country and the constitution ahead of
any other consideration of any kind whatsoever.
If a nominee is able to demonstrate that they can foot this bill? Hire them. Then please make sure
the Supreme Court justices are secure.
It's a tough job in tough times. It shouldn't be made any tougher having to worry about wing-nuts
making veiled threats quoting Stalin.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Diane V. McLoughlin is a writer and peace activist particularly focused on the Israel-Palestine
region. Ms. McLoughlin posts editorials of her own along with excellent links to articles and video
she discovers on the web on her website, mcloughlinpost.com and on her blog at mcloughlinpost.
blogspot.com. Follow on Twitter: McLoughlinPost ; Friend on Facebook: Diane McLoughlin;
contact at mcloughlinpost.com'
References:
[1] 'Are liberals anti-WASP?'; Patrick J. Buchanan; worldNet Daily; May 13, 2010;
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=153417
[2] 'Elena Kagan, Pat Buchanan, MSNBC and Me'; Keli Goff; Huffington Post; May 17, 2010;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keli-goff/elena-kagan-pat-buchanan_b_579623.html
[2a] 'Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court: A Barnyard Smell in Harvard, Chicago and Washington';
James Petras; Information Clearing House; May 13, 2010
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25438.htm#close=1
[3] CPCCA - Canadian Parliamentary Coalition Combating Antisemitism Frequently Asked
Questions; http://www.cpcca.ca/faqs.htm ;
[3i] 'Criminalizing Criticism of Israel'; Paul Craig Roberts; Counterpunch; May 7, 2009 ;
http://www.counterpunch.com/roberts05072009.html ;
[4]'A Climb Marked by Confidence and Canniness'; by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Katharine Q. Seelye
and Lisa w. Foderaro; May 10, 2010; The New York Times;
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/us/politics/10kagan.html?pagewanted=1&ref=politics
[5] 'Bounds of Silence: Obama's Court Pick Looks Wobbly on Freedom of Speech'; Jacob Sullum;
Creators.com; May 18, 2010;
http://www.creators.com/opinion/jacob-sullum/bounds-of-silence-obama-s-court-pick-looks-wobbly-
on-freedom-of-speech.html
[6] 'Kagan's Dubious Stand on Civil Rights'; Marjorie Cohn; Consortium News; May 15, 2010;
http://consortiumnews.com/2010/051510b.html
[6a] S.3081 Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s3081/text#
[6b] HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE AND OTHER OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES
Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict; Part Five Conclusions and
Recommendations; September 25, 2009; Pg. 406
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf
[7] 'The Assault on Reason'; Al Gore; Penguin Books; Copyright Al Gore, 2007; pgs. 66-7.
Copyright 2010; Diane V. McLoughlin, All Rights Reserved
April 04, 2010
Gag orders on criticizing Israel and the advent of the long dark night
by Diane V. McLoughlin, Apr. 4, 2010
main website: http://www.mcloughlinpost.com
The views and convictions currently held by some people are a threat to democracy and civil liberty. They do not seem to realize even after all we have seen, as recently as World War Two, Kent State/Vietnam, to the present-day Patriot Acts, that civil rights and freedoms are extremely fragile and tenuous things.
The framers of the U.S. constitution knew well how fragile liberty is. They warned that the words on paper mean nothing if each generation is not aware that they will have to defend the principles laid down in them.
The only things protecting us from absolute despotism and tyranny are freedom of speech and Habeas Corpus - the latter which refers to the set of laws binding down the state such that the state cannot lock anyone up and throw away the key without making their case in an open court of law. And both of these two requirements for a free and open society are under direct attack.
People lose sight of the crucial fact that laws meant to silence and control will be used to silence and control them. It is a fantasy of monumental proportions to dream otherwise.
On the topic of the crimes of Israel, too many people have their facts wrong. That's all. They do not know what they are talking about. They think that all Israel wants to do in East Jerusalem, for example, is to put up a few townhouses, and that Jews should have that right.
Not true. Choice of words can be used to misrepresent the facts. The correct phrase is 'occupied East Jerusalem'. East Jerusalem is illegally occupied by Jewish settlers.
Those few innocent townhouses referred to are in the hundreds on confiscated Palestinian land. Palestinians are literally being dragged from their homes kicking and screaming and crying while violent settlers move in.
Jerusalem's Palestinian children take their favorite toys and clothes to school with them because they live with the terror and the anxiety of not knowing if their homes will still be there for them at the end of the day.
It is this that is discussed openly on Canadian university campuses each year during Israeli Apartheid Week. Interestingly, some do not wish students to have the right. They do not want any of us to have the right to openly discuss it.
Some applaud the notion that Canada contemplates enacting law to make it illegal to criticize a country - in this case Israel - a direct attack on free speech, freedom of thought and conscience. There is a small band of unaccountable Parliamentarians who have been quietly holding committee meetings to discuss, what they refer to, as 'the new antisemitism' - criticism of Israel. This group calls themselves the Canadian Parliamentary Committee Combating Antisemitism - the CPCCA, for short.
If and when they succeed in outlawing criticism of the State of Israel's crimes, it will be another rope binding humanity up, frustrating the efforts of people of good will to fight for right - around the entire world.
It is a precedent that must not be established. But I fear that it will be made so.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If, like me, you are concerned with protecting the civil liberties of freedom of speech, freedom of thought and of conscience, I urge you to sign the Independent Jewish Voices of Canada petition today.
main website: http://www.mcloughlinpost.com
The framers of the U.S. constitution knew well how fragile liberty is. They warned that the words on paper mean nothing if each generation is not aware that they will have to defend the principles laid down in them.
The only things protecting us from absolute despotism and tyranny are freedom of speech and Habeas Corpus - the latter which refers to the set of laws binding down the state such that the state cannot lock anyone up and throw away the key without making their case in an open court of law. And both of these two requirements for a free and open society are under direct attack.
People lose sight of the crucial fact that laws meant to silence and control will be used to silence and control them. It is a fantasy of monumental proportions to dream otherwise.
On the topic of the crimes of Israel, too many people have their facts wrong. That's all. They do not know what they are talking about. They think that all Israel wants to do in East Jerusalem, for example, is to put up a few townhouses, and that Jews should have that right.
Not true. Choice of words can be used to misrepresent the facts. The correct phrase is 'occupied East Jerusalem'. East Jerusalem is illegally occupied by Jewish settlers.
Those few innocent townhouses referred to are in the hundreds on confiscated Palestinian land. Palestinians are literally being dragged from their homes kicking and screaming and crying while violent settlers move in.
Jerusalem's Palestinian children take their favorite toys and clothes to school with them because they live with the terror and the anxiety of not knowing if their homes will still be there for them at the end of the day.
It is this that is discussed openly on Canadian university campuses each year during Israeli Apartheid Week. Interestingly, some do not wish students to have the right. They do not want any of us to have the right to openly discuss it.
Some applaud the notion that Canada contemplates enacting law to make it illegal to criticize a country - in this case Israel - a direct attack on free speech, freedom of thought and conscience. There is a small band of unaccountable Parliamentarians who have been quietly holding committee meetings to discuss, what they refer to, as 'the new antisemitism' - criticism of Israel. This group calls themselves the Canadian Parliamentary Committee Combating Antisemitism - the CPCCA, for short.
If and when they succeed in outlawing criticism of the State of Israel's crimes, it will be another rope binding humanity up, frustrating the efforts of people of good will to fight for right - around the entire world.
It is a precedent that must not be established. But I fear that it will be made so.
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If, like me, you are concerned with protecting the civil liberties of freedom of speech, freedom of thought and of conscience, I urge you to sign the Independent Jewish Voices of Canada petition today.
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