Jack Layton was a warmonger and Tommy Douglas was deeply anti-Palestinian. To end complicity in empire and Zionism NDP members need to hear the truth.
In response to my recent article “To break with imperialism, NDP must break with Layton legacy”, Jimothy McGill posted “If you thought the NDP had no political instincts, may I present to you Yves Engler. The two things the NDP hold sacred and tap into are Jack Layton and Tommy Douglas. Going after Layton — as someone running for NDP leadership — is an astonishingly bad political decision.”
I see your Jack ‘let’s bomb Libya’ Layton and raise you a Tommy ‘erase Palestinians’ Douglas. The famed NDP leader was deeply anti-Palestinian.
After a trip to that country in 1975 Tommy Douglas said “Israel was like a light set upon a hill — the light of democracy in a night of darkness — and the main criticism of Israel has not been a desire for land. The main enmity against Israel is that she has been an affront to those nations who do not treat their people and their workers as well as Israel has treated hers.” This speech was made eight years into Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a quarter century after 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed during the 1948 war.
Despite Ottawa’s strong pro-Israel alignment, then NDP leader Douglas criticized Prime Minister Lester Pearson for not backing Israel more forthrightly in the 1967 war. Describing the NDP convention shortly after the Six-Day War Toronto Star reporter John Goddard wrote, “the delegates were solidly behind Israel. I remember David Lewis leading the discussion at the Royal York Hotel, the look of steely resolve on his face, and the sense of relief in the room over the defeat of the Arab armies.”
Douglas’ anti-Palestinianism was longstanding, dating to a time when the CCF (NDP’s predecessor) was still officially anti-Zionist. He was a member of the Canadian Palestine Committee (CPC), a group of prominent non-Jewish Zionists formed in 1943 (future external minister Paul Martin Sr. and Alberta premier Ernest C. Manning were also members). In 1944 the CPC wrote Prime Minister Mackenzie King that it “looks forward to the day when Palestine shall ultimately become a Jewish commonwealth, and member of the British Commonwealth of Nations under the British Crown.” Three years later Canada played a central role in the highly unjust partition plan that gave the Zionist movement most of Palestine despite Jews being less than a third of population and owning 7% of land.
Many CPC members’ Zionism was motivated by religious belief. Douglas was a Protestant minister and his Zionism was partly inspired by biblical teachings. As an indication of the extent to which religion shaped Douglas his main biography is titled Tommy Douglas: The Road to Jerusalem.
Those who praise Douglas should confront his anti-Palestinian positions and NDP members should question how a party icon could so clearly be on the wrong side of history. Making sense of this is imperative to changing course.
The truth will set you free from racism, imperialism, colonialism, sexism and just plain bad politics.
Ignoring Tommy Douglas’ anti-Palestinian positions are a stain on today’s NDP.
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