“The NDP has an antisemitism problem”, blared a Thursday Globe and Mail headline. In fact, the party has a colonial Jewish supremacy problem.
In response to the recent election of Avi Lewis as leader and Niall Ricardo as party president, Konrad Yakabuski claimed the NDP is anti-Jewish. But, Lewis and Ricardo are both Jewish and according to Martin Lukacs Lewis’ “principal secretary and main advisor are also Jewish.”
Immediately after Lewis won the leadership, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Tafsik and other leading Jewish Zionist groups cried antisemitism. Many in the dominant media have echoed the absurdity.
A decade ago I was aggressively criticized for a column labelling antisemitism “the most abused term in Canada today”. It concluded, “Without an intervention of some sort, the Jewish community risks having future dictionaries defining ‘anti-Semitism’ as ‘a movement for justice and equality’.” That column appears particularly prescient today.
While leading Jewish organizations and corporate commentators label a newly Jewish-led NDP anti-Jewish, a graver concern is the party’s anti-Palestinianism. Just before the convention the NDP barred Socialist Caucus chair Barry Weisleder from participating. National director Lucy Watson claimed Weisleder’s support for anti-genocide protesters at the last federal convention amounted to “harassment” and withdrew his credentials. Citing support for a non-violent protest led by young Palestinians to bar Weisleder from the convention highlights the party brass’ indifference to Israeli violence in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
Watson withdrew my campaign co-manager’s credentials after blocking my leadership bid and Bianca Mugyenyi’s candidacy (they also expelled me from the party). One reason for the exclusion was our campaign’s (widely promoted) 10-point plan to end Canada’s complicity in Israeli crimes, including revoking charitable status of groups funding ethnic cleansing, abolishing the anti-Palestinian terrorism list and prosecuting Canadians who fought in Gaza under the War Crimes Act.
The NDP’s three-person vetting committee listened to pro-genocide groups by rejecting our campaign. A slew of anti-Palestinian forces demanded the party block members from being allowed to select me in the leadership race.
Unfortunately, the NDP listened to anti-Palestinian voices and once again excluded candidates opposing Canada’s support for a lawless apartheid state. Over the past 15 years the NDP has blocked/undercut/removed dozens, probably over a hundred, candidates because they stood up for Palestinian rights.
Sarah Jama is the best-known example. Paul Manly, who went on to win the Nanaimo seat for the Green Party, is another well-known example. Morgan Wheeldon and Rana Zaman’s cases also received some attention. Most examples did not. During this year’s federal election retired professor Peter Eglin, whose wife is a city councillor who recently ran for the NDP provincially, was blocked from running in favour of an individual from outside of the city. Party officials said it was because they didn’t have the resources to go through his voluminous writings over the years but Eglin believes it was at least partly due to his longstanding support for Palestinians.
Conversely, it’s unclear if the party has ever rejected a candidate for promoting Zionism. In fact, until recently NDP MPs regularly went on all expenses paid trips to the Jewish supremacist state and were members of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group until last year.
As public revulsion at Israel’s horrors in Gaza and elsewhere has grown, NDP support for Zionism has diminished. But the party continues to display significant deference to pro-genocide forces.
In a commentary criticizing Yakabuski’s Globe commentary David Bush notes, “The point of these articles and attacks is not to convince people via argument (the piece is a ridiculous read providing no substantive evidence to the charge). It is about setting a narrative and forcing terms of debate. The key to fighting back is not to give an inch.”
Our narrative must be to defend international law, oppose all forms of racism, including ideologies that promote apartheid and genocide, as well as an economy that works for everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Let’s build economic democracy and a world order based on treating all equally rather than might makes right.
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