Genocide advocates are whipped up by my call to defend Canadians’ civil liberties and a colonized people’s internationally enshrined right to resist a brutal occupation. The panic highlights just how weak the NDP’s opposition to a live-streamed holocaust has been.
On Sunday I told a Montreal 4 Palestine demonstration that as part of my bid to lead the NDP I was calling for the end to charities subsidizing apartheid, arms sales and Canada’s anti-Palestinian terrorism list. The Leviathan account posted 50 seconds of my speech under the comment “Rabbid antisemitic dickhead Yves Engler makes a pledge as NDP leader to remove Hamas & terrorist groups from the Canadian designated list.” For its part, the J.ca posted “Yves Engler Pledges To Remove Hamas From Canada Terrorist List, Drawing Community Condemnation” while Honest Reporting Canada executive director Mike Fegelman labeled me “An antisemite who wants to be NDP leader, and if successful, plans to remove terror groups from Canada’s banned list. … If this is the future of the NDP, the left forfeits its ability to accuse others of soft-peddling extremism.”
The racist genocidal mayor of Hampstead, who told me he was okay with killing 100,000 Palestinian children because “good needs to prevail over evil”, retweeted the message noting: “The fact that the NDP hasn’t already disqualified Yves Engler speaks volumes. His unhinged rhetoric should have ended his campaign before it even began. Either the party is so desperate for cash they’ll tolerate anything, or they’re openly admitting their base actually buys into his nonsense. Whichever it is, the writing’s on the wall: the NDP is finished.”
Regardless of the right-wing reaction to my call to abolish the terror list, it’s not actually that contentious of a position. Created in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack in the US, Canada’s terror list grants the government powers to ban an organization without providing a standard legal burden of proof. The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, which is “a national coalition of 44 Canadian NGOs, unions, professional associations, faith groups, environmental organizations, human rights and civil liberties advocates, as well as groups representing immigrant and refugee communities in Canada”, has campaigned against the terror list for two decades.
Alongside the panic over my speech, Zionists condemned my campaign’s leafletting. With some 30 people handing out over 3,000 “Yves Engler for NDP leader” leaflets at a half dozen anti-genocide protests across the country this weekend, Canadian Zionist Chronicles listed the leafletting in Vancouver as one of the recent “antisemitic” incidents while the anti-Palestinian Caryma Sa’d account posted a photo critical of one of the campaign’s main organizers in Toronto.
While the leaflet includes the call to “abolish anti-Palestinian terrorism list”, half of the points on the flyer are little more than calls to apply existing Canadian law (banning arms sales, prosecuting Canadians fighting in Gaza, investigating institutions “inducing” Canadians to join the IOF and ending some of the charity donations). Still, most of these demands aren’t being raised by the NDP.
Yet prominent leftists are suggesting there are alternative “anti-Zionist” candidates seeking the NDP leadership. In a string of Facebook posts smearing me, Judy Rebick recently claimed there are other “anti-Zionist” candidates in the NDP leadership race. Who?
The NDP, for instance, has been quiet about scrapping Canada’s anti-Palestinian terrorist list. When I googled probable leadership contender Heather McPherson’s name and terrorist list what came up was her repeated echoing of the Israel lobby’s call for the government to add Iran’s military to that list.
It’s worse than that. Ten months ago, the Liberals listed the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network a terror organization even though no one claims the Vancouver-based grassroots solidarity organization has engaged in any violence. This was an egregious attack against civil liberties, the left and Palestinian solidarity. The BC Civil Liberties Association, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Groupand others condemned the move. Still, the federal NDP was silent (BC NDP leader David Eby released a statement noting “I completely agree with the decision to designate Samidoun as a terrorist organization.”)
The Vancouver-based NDP candidate Rebick is supporting in the leadership race doesn’t appear to have said anything about the listing of Samidoun. Avi Lewis condemned as “gross” those who posted placards, which even the police said didn’t break any law, on rabid genocidal fanatic Selina Robinson’s riding office after she was turfed from the BC NDP cabinet (conversely, I worked with Samidoun organizer Charlotte Kates in drafting and circulating an email campaign that contributed to Robinson’s ouster.).
My campaign to lead the NDP is directly challenging Canadian complicity in Israel’s crimes. I have a two-decade history of challenging Canadian, including NDP, complicity in Israeli apartheid and genocide. I will stand up to the lobby’s bullying.
That’s why Jeremy Levi, Meir Weinstein, Mike Fegelman, B’nai Brith and others have been attacking me relentlessly in recent weeks. They want the NDP to block a candidate who will boldly challenge Canadian complicity in genocide.
To assist or learn more about my bid to lead the NDP check out yvesforndpleader.ca
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