Enough is long past enough

When I read this piece in the Guardian by Simon Jenkins, the first two paragraphs resonated.

“For the first time in my adult life I cannot watch – or read – the news. Its presentation makes me profoundly upset. For over a week I have not read, heard or watched the news from Israel/Palestine. I am afraid doing this has made me feel better. I have asked around and many other people are doing the same.

“I would normally consider it shocking to not know what is going on elsewhere in the world. We owe it to common humanity not to ignore inhumanity, wherever it occurs. We should listen and at least sympathise, even if to no concrete purpose. The obligation on journalists is more specific; it is to supply the requisite information, which can be unpleasant to collect and convey. I have visited war zones and found it harrowing. Unspeakable horrors are occurring somewhere on Earth all the time. The media may have space for only so much. When did you last hear about Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo – or even Ukraine? But the effort must be made, not dodged.”

There really aren’t the words to adequately convey the horror of watching the news at the moment.

What is going on in Gaza is a war crime. Pure and simple. Yet no western leader is prepared to call it that. Leaders who had no difficulty calling Putin a war criminal simply will not say the same about Netanyahu. None of these leaders will say JUST FUCKING STOP.

Watching this familiar story (the story of never being allowed to meaningfully challenge the actions of the Israeli government) reminded me of another incident 13 years ago when Libby Davies got into boiling hot water for voicing her support of the Palestinian people. 

So outraged were Mike and I at the time that we asked the editor of one of the local papers if we could submit a guest editorial, which she ran. The paper folded a few years ago, but the editor, when I asked her yesterday, was able to find and send me what we wrote.

Calling for Justice

Once again a vocal member of the progressive left has run afoul of the Israeli lobby, timed conveniently to discredit and silence her just before the G20 Summit. What’s the issue? Whether the Israeli occupation of Palestine began in 1948 (the date of Israel’s founding by UN resolution) or 1967 (the date Israel forcibly occupied the West Bank of the Jordan, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip. 

If you happened to be a Palestinian Arab living in (say) Tel Aviv, 1948 will be the date you’ll remember. If you happen to live in Jenin, 1967 will be the date stamped indelibly on your memory. In either case, the issue isn’t a matter of chronology but of the ongoing sense of injustice felt by Palestinian Arabs who live in “Greater Israel” with fewer rights – and sometimes no rights – than Israeli Jews living in the same territory. Focusing on a mix up of dates clouds the key issue: the rights (or rather, lack thereof) of Palestinian Arabs. 

But because NDP MP Libby Davies gave the “wrong” answer (1948) in a blind side interview, B’Nai Brith and others (including fellow NDP caucus member Thomas Mulcair) are calling for her head on a platter. 

We’ve known Libby for many years, first as a progressive Vancouver councillor and later as our MP in Vancouver East. One of her most enduring and endearing virtues is her dedication to the rights of the oppressed. 

In the 19th century titanic figures such as Emile Zola risked imprisonment to fight for the rights of a Jewish officer in the French Army falsely accused of traitorous acts. Libby would no doubt laugh at the thought of being compared to Zola, and yet, why not? 

Where else in Canada are the titans prepared to speak out against the actions of the Israeli Defence Force or the policies of the Israeli state in the occupied territories? 

So effective is the Israeli propaganda machine become that anyone who attempts to raise awareness of the tragic human rights abuses in Gaza and the West Bank is ipso facto an anti-Semite, and by extension a threat to Israel’s very existence. Incidentally, being Jewish oneself provides no exemption; Jewish critics of Israeli policies (and there are many) are deemed the worst sort of anti-Semite, the “self-hating Jew”. 

A simple illustration demonstrates the foolishness of equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, particularly in Libby Davies’ case. 

Given Libby’s longstanding involvement with and support of First Nations rights in Canada (and particularly in BC where land was stolen fair and square with no charade of signing treaties), what answer might she give if asked when the occupation of Canada began? Beginning with the founding of the first European settlements, a logical answer might be the 17^th century. 

Does it follow from this that she advocates the dismantlement of Canada and the United States, all lands returned to First Nations, and all non-aboriginal settlers and their descendants ejected? Obviously not. In the case of the First Nations and the Palestinians alike, a just and lasting peace involves a negotiated balance between and among the rights of all. As far as we are aware, this is Libby’s position with regard to the rights of both First Nations and Palestinians. It is simply foolishness – dangerous, malicious foolishness – to equate her support for Palestinian rights with a threat to the existence of Israel.  

Instead of knuckling under to the demands of B’Nai Brith and their ilk, Jack Layton should stand up for one of the few completely ethical and principled politicians in this country. But that would involve Layton, as party leader, taking a principled stand on the Palestinian issue himself. Like so many, he’s assuming that a real friend of Israel cannot be critical of its policies and actions. 

But real friends tell their friends the truth. If, when you tell your friend he must stop beating his wife, he replies that at least he didn’t kill her, do you simply shrug and accept that answer? Or do you tell him that he’s missed the point: he really has to stop beating his wife? 

Put bluntly, Layton, the NDP, Canada and every other ally and supporter of Israel, needs to stop grovelling to the orchestrated lobbying of the Israeli hard right, and stand up for the rights of all. 

I can’t say nothing has changed in the past 13 years, because they have changed and for the worse. 

Yes, Bernie Sanders and other progressives in the US are calling on the Biden administration to do something. And Biden has been more critical of Israel’s inhuman actions in Gaza than I can remember and president ever being of the Jewish state, but it’s not enough.

We’re long past enough. Biden, Trudeau and other western leaders need to do a helluva lot more. Failing to do so makes them complicit in this slaughter of innocents.