Canadian Author and Activist
The Israel lobby regularly torments people and seeks to undermine their ability to make a living. While increasing numbers of Canadians are wise to their slander campaigns, some progressives still end up aligning with the bullies who have misused the term anti-Semitism to intimidate and silence. The list of good people who have been put... Continue Reading →
A large campaign that forced the University of Toronto to re-offer a job to Valentina Azarova is a blow to the Israel lobby. But her rejection of the position highlights the lobby’s power to torment individuals. A year ago a University of Toronto law school hiring committee unanimously selected Azarova to direct its International Human... Continue Reading →
Charities that promote racism against Palestinians, illegal West Bank settlements, the armed forces of another country and racial/religious purity in Israel are subsidized by Canadian taxpayers. Incredibly, people of conscience are being forced to launch legal complaints with the Canada Revenue Agency to end these subsidies that violate their policies. There are as many as... Continue Reading →
Why does the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) treat Jewish, Christian and Muslim charities so differently? In June the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLM) released a report showing that the CRA disproportionately targets Muslim groups. According to the report, 75% of the groups whose charitable status was revoked following a division audit by the CRA... Continue Reading →
A request to revoke the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association’s charitable status is an important step towards lessening Canadian complicity in Palestinian dispossession. Registered Canadian charities provide significant support to Israel and drawing attention to the massive taxpayer subsidy undercuts the Israel lobby. Today Palestinian-Canadian refugee Khaled Mouammar and Rabbi David Mivasair submitted a formal legal... Continue Reading →
The Trudeau government presents itself as both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. In fact, Ottawa pursues policies that enable Israel’s expansionism while its relations with the Palestinians also serve the colonial authority. At the start of last week Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had successive calls with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali “I have killed lots of Arabs” Bennett and... Continue Reading →
The dominant media permit only a narrow spectrum of opinion regarding Canadian foreign policy. Their refusal to report critical information about this country’s foreign policy can be startling. Even journalists who uncover illuminating internal government files put the information down the memory hole. Recently Canadian Press journalist Lee Berthiaume reported on Canada’s military mission... Continue Reading →
Over the past two weeks Canada has seen its most significant ever outpouring of support for Palestinian rights. More than 150,000 letters have been sent to Canadian officials calling on Ottawa to criticize Israel human rights violations or to sanction Israel. Tens of thousands have also taken to the streets to denounce Israel's... Continue Reading →
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s call for an arms embargo on Israel is a positive development. But, with tens of thousands taking to the streets across the country on Saturday we should expect more forthright efforts to stop Israeli violence, which has killed well over 220 Palestinians, including 64 children, in the past ten days. Below... Continue Reading →
Today marks the 74th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). This body was tasked with determining Palestine’s fate. Few are aware of the extent to which Canada shaped UNSCOP and its role in promoting the unjust Partition Plan. This, despite warnings that going down this path would... Continue Reading →
At the start of the year Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem released “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid”. Two weeks ago Human Rights Watch published a long report saying Israel’s treatment of Palestinians “amounted to the crimes of apartheid”. Since then, Israel has ramped... Continue Reading →
Once again a human rights group has determined that Israel's treatment of Palestinians amounts to apartheid. Human Rights Watch is calling for governments around the world "to impose sanctions and reconsider trade deals," according to Tuesday's Globe and Mail. Once again supporters of Israel claim “bias” and “anti-Semitism” instead of acknowledging the obvious crime against... Continue Reading →
On Saturday New Democratic Party members delivered a victory for Palestinian rights and a blow to the Israel lobby in Canada. Over 80% of convention delegates voted for a resolution calling for “Ending all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine” and “Suspending the bilateral trade of all arms and related materials... Continue Reading →
On CBC’s The House on Saturday Jagmeet Singh was asked about resolutions submitted to next week’s NDP convention regarding “Canada’s relationship to Israel and the Palestinian territory”. Instead of responding to the question, he mentioned “anti-Semitism” four times. Asked again about “resolutions that in a sense condemn Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians”, Singh again failed... Continue Reading →
Oddly the most significant institutional purveyor of anti-Palestinianism in Canada operates largely below the radar of solidarity activists. In fact, some even seek to exculpate the Jewish Federations’ support for racism, colonialism and an apartheid state. In a recent column critical of the Conservative party aligned Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) Andrew Cohen... Continue Reading →
Recently Israel’s largest human rights organization concluded the country was run based on a “regime of Jewish supremacy”. B'Tselem wasn’t only referring to the occupied West Bank but an “apartheid” system in place from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. A week after B'Tselem’s report was released, one of Canada’s leading lobbyists for the... Continue Reading →
There’s a Canadian law that makes it illegal to recruit soldiers for a foreign state, but you’d never know it the way Israel and its supporters operate in this country. The Foreign Enlistment Act states: “Any person who, within Canada, recruits or otherwise induces any person or body of persons to enlist or to accept... Continue Reading →
Canadian law makes it illegal to recruit soldiers for a foreign state. But, the line between enticing impressionable young people to oppress Palestinians and formal recruitment is unclear. Today an open letter signed by Noam Chomsky, Roger Waters, filmmaker Ken Loach, author Yann Martel, former MP Jim Manly, poet El Jones and more than 150... Continue Reading →
How much is too much? When will Israeli nationalists in North America completely discredit themselves by overusing their power to crush those defending Palestinians? The ruthlessness of the Israel lobby is remarkable. Recently they’ve convinced Zoom to cancel a university sponsored talk, a prominent law program to rescind a job offer, a public broadcaster to... Continue Reading →
Stephen Lewis seems to want Palestine to disappear. The latest example in a long history of anti-Palestinian activism is his claim that Canada’s anti-Palestinian voting record at the UN didn’t contribute to its defeat for a seat on the Security Council. Recently I was forwarded an email that activist Elizabeth Block shared to Independent Jewish... Continue Reading →
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