Paul Moist blasts Sid Ryan CUPE National vs CUPE Ontario II
CUPE pulls Ryan proposal from union web site
Sid Ryan, the president of CUPE Ontario, has been heavily criticized for his campaign to ban Israeli academics at Ontario universities unless they publicly denounce Israel's actions against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
But now on the CUPE Ontario website, history is being rewritten. A call to boycott Israeli academics? Never happened. It was misunderstood. Sid Ryan never meant it.
Here's the original press release from the CUPE. The document has been removed from the CUPE website, but remains in the Google cache:
CUPE Ontario to recommend support for ban on Israeli academics in response to Gaza bombings
January 5, 2009
TORONTO, Ont. - CUPE Ontario's university workers committee will bring a resolution to its annual conference supporting a ban on Israeli academics doing speaking, teaching or research work at Ontario universities as a protest against the December 29 bombing of the Islamic University in Gaza.
"In response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, we are ready to say Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn the university bombing and the assault on Gaza in general," said Sid Ryan, president of CUPE Ontario. "It's a logical next step, building on policy adopted by our provincial convention in 2006."
Resolution 50, adopted in May 2006, supported boycotts, divestment and sanctions aimed at bringing about the Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories and a just peace in the region.
"Clearly, international pressure on Israel must increase to stop the massacre that is going on daily," said Janice Folk-Dawson, chair of the CUPE Ontario University Workers Coordinating Committee, whose conference is scheduled for February. "We are proud to add CUPE voices to others from around the world saying enough is enough."
Ryan and other CUPE representatives will join in the demonstration against the Israeli assault on Gaza at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow, Saturday, January 3 at Dundas Square in Toronto.
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For more information, contact:
Sid Ryan, President, CUPE Ontario, 416-209-0066
Pat Daley, CUPE Communications, 416-616-6142
It seems clear, from both the title and the text, that Ryan and CUPE Ontario were demanding individual Israeli professors be ejected from Ontario universities unless they mad some sort of public statement in line with Ryan's view of the fighting in Gaza.
Israeli academics should not be on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn...the assault on Gaza.
But the document is gone and CUPE Ontario has put up an entirely new page:
Questions and Answers on the CUPE Ontario Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
What does CUPE Ontario mean by Academic Boycott?
It is important to understand that this is not a call to boycott individual Israeli academics. Rather, the boycott call is aimed at academic institutions and the institutional connections that exist between universities here and those in Israel.
This could include calling on Ontario universities and university workers to:
- Refuse to participate in academic cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli universities, such as participating in conferences in Israel, refereeing or editing articles for Israeli journals, or evaluating research proposals for Israeli institutions.
- Advocate a boycott of Israeli universities, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies.
- Promote divestment from Israel by Ontario academic institutions.
- Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies and actions in the occupied territories by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic and professional organizations and associations.
CUPE Ontario is taking this action in response to an appeal from the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees.
Why Boycott Israeli Academic Institutions?
The recent assault on Gaza has seen the total destruction of the Palestinian educational system. The Israeli military has bombed numerous universities and schools. On January 7th, Israeli forces killed over 40 Palestinian civilians who had taken shelter in a United Nations school.
The aim of the academic boycott is to put pressure on Israel to fully comply with international law, by cutting off financial support and our connections to those institutions involved in the oppression of the Palestinian people.
The call for a boycott of academic institutions is part of a broader campaign of Israeli boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) that CUPE Ontario had already approved in 2006.
So now it's not a call to boycott individual academics, but anonymous institutions. You know, no submissions to journals, things like that.
Funny, both versions of the boycott claim to be the product of the 2006 resolution to punish Israel.
The original resolution, clearly aimed at individuals and demanding they be put on public display in an anti-Israel talent show, mentioned Sid Ryan three times, including as the main contact for questions. The new page doesn't mention Ryan even once.
I suppose some people will see CUPE Ontario's new position as an improvement. It isn't, because it neglects to correct the mistake of the first one. Rather than disavow the original proposition, it treats the whole thing as a giant misunderstanding. It also neglects to apologize to Israeli academics in Ontario, who could have been forgiven for expecting gangs of militant union supporters to round them up and demand public denunciations of Israel. Perhaps there was never any serious chance that happening, but a threat is a threat, and CUPE Ontario is pretending the threat was never issued.
The one good thing in this otherwise Orwellian piece of historical revisionism is the apparent marginalization of Sid Ryan, who was rebuked by CUPE's national president, Paul Moist, who issued a statement declaring:
"I believe such a resolution is wrong and would violate the anti-discrimination standards set out in the CUPE Constitution".
"I will be using my influence in any debates on such a resolution to oppose its adoption."
And just one more thing. Ryan now wants us to believe any controversial statements were corrected a week ago. On Tuesday he claimed he and Moist are "on the same page" and that he had changed his proposal more than a week ago, focusing on Israeli institutions rather than individuals. But the Google cache of the offensive resolution aimed at individuals, with Sid Ryan's name all over it, is dated January 10.
And the meta data on the new page - the one that targets institutions instead of individuals, and that makes no mention of Sid Ryan - marks the page as having been created on January 13, the same day Moist went public with his criticism of Ryan.
It tells me Ryan caved in a big way. Like most bullies, a lot of hot air, but no real courage backing it up.
He is a bully for standing up against a bully? Only when Israel is the bully.
It is a shame Moist lacks the moral courage of Ryan. When the Sioux were massacred by the US cavalry, I bet they were regarded as "savages" for having defeated Custer's raiding party.
The equivalency exists, because the Palestinians, like First Nations, are an indigeneous people being evicted from their land and herded in reservations-cum-ghettos and the Israelis are white settlers killing the natives and taking thier land.
And, incredibly, it is the one person representing a public institutuion, who denounces this theft and massacre and demands we, as Canadians, as human beings, as people who say we regret what we did to our own indigenous populations, do the least we can do, and he is a bully.
I say he is courageous and what if only more Canadians had his courage?
Instead we are moral liars. Stephen Harper stood before parliament and aplogized for a crime committed against our own indigenous peoples, seeking the mantle of an enlightened and moral man, and then turns his back on another indigenous people and applauds their massacre.
We as Canadians should be so, so ashamed. Here we are, knowing the history and suffering, and being prepared not to recognize it as it happens yet again.
If you had an ounce of the courage of Ryan, you would apologize for that childish post.
My understanding is that the CUPE-O University Workers Coordinating Committee, which is where this resolution came from inititally, are quite upset with Ryan.
The actual resolution was directed at institutions, which I think is a far, far more justifiable position than at individual academics, but that Ryan misrepresented it (likely by accident, but who knows). Of course, in the mean time CUPE National has gone on the offensive against Ryan, largely based on the Moist-Ryan rivalry.
This resolution came from a lot of hard work by the International Solidarity Ctte of CUPE-O, (I think that is what it is called) and the CUPE-Ontario Uni Workers Coord Ctte, but has been totally derailed by Ryan's fuckup.
So, no, Ryan didn't "cave". CUPE-O just issued a genuine revision to correct Ryan's earlier screwup. The resolution was never aimed at individuals, but at institutions - just like the South Africa anti-apartheid BDS campaign was.
Incidentally, I haven't seen a text copy of the resolution on this thread or it's parent thread. I don't really have time to track one down, but if anyone has access to it, could you please post it so everyone can see what actually got voted on?
This individuals-versus-institutions distinction is horseshit spin-doctoring.
Academic institutions, like other institutions and corporations, operate through individuals. Individuals represent them; individuals do their bidding; individuals decide on their policies. And when an academic institution enters into an agreement for an exchange program or a visiting professorship, or sponsors a conference, or sends its own people to a conference, the individuals who are a part of that academic institution are at the interface with other academic institutions and indeed with the world in general. They bear the brunt of any actions directed against the institution they represent.
The aim of the Israeli academic boycott is, and always has been, to boycott Israeli academic institutions. But that necessarily involves actions that impact on individuals associated with those institutions (otherwise it would have little or no effectiveness at all).
A Canadian University honouring the boycott would not, for example, invite an Israeli academic to come and give a speech at a symposium, or give guest lectures, and would not offer student exchanges or visiting professorships to Israeli institutions. Is that a boycott aimed at individuals? Well, yes and no; how can you separate the individual and the institution? If the boycott is supposed to put pressure on the institution, how can it do so without putting pressure on the individuals who make up that institution and carry on its affairs?
So the accusation that the boycott is aimed at individuals is bogus. Individuals are inevitably affected by such a boycott, but they are not the primary targets.
Has there ever been a boycott where that is not so? If a labour union calls for a boycott of a particular supermarket, does that not impact on the owners, shareholders, and employees of that supermarket, as well as their customers and suppliers? To suggest that such a union boycott is targetting individuals, merely because individuals may be genuinely inconvenienced by it, is to misrepresent the essential character of the boycott, and to try to turn it into some perceived violation of individual rights and liberties - or a form of discrimination or racism. This is the mischievous tactic of the opponents of the union, designed to discredit it and cause it to fail.
We should recognize that similar tactics are used by Zionists and their supporters to try to discredit any action in support of the Palestinians, and such tactics should be exposed and condemned. The Zionist troll who started this thread-chunk is a case in point.
Text of the CUPE Ontario resolution passed in May, 2006:
1. With Palestine solidarity and human rights organizations, develop an education campaign about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and the political and economic support of Canada for these practices.
2. Support the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution194.
3. Call on CUPE National to commit to research into Canadian involvement in the occupation and call on the CLC to join us in lobbying against the apartheid-like practices of the Israeli state and call for the immediate dismantling of the wall.
BECAUSE:
The Israeli Apartheid Wall has been condemned and determined illegal under international law.
• Over 170 Palestinian political parties, unions and other organizations including the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions issued a call in July 2005 for a global campaign of boycotts and divestment against Israel similar to those imposed against South African Apartheid;
• CUPE BC has firmly and vocally condemned the occupation of Palestine and have initiated an education campaign about the apartheid-like practices of the Israeli state.
This individuals-versus-institutions distinction is horseshit spin-doctoring.
Academic institutions, like other institutions and corporations, operate through individuals. Individuals represent them; individuals do their bidding; individuals decide on their policies. And when an academic institution enters into an agreement for an exchange program or a visiting professorship, or sponsors a conference, or sends its own people to a conference, the individuals who are a part of that academic institution are at the interface with other academic institutions and indeed with the world in general. They bear the brunt of any actions directed against the institution they represent.
Absolutely. What is actually happening is that the keepers of ideological hegemony (the so called intelligencia) are rallying around to defend their own privilege, regardless of how they feel about Israel, or Gaza. Left or right.
The rest of us are open game for any kind of sanction or job action that directly impacts us as individuals, as far as they are concerned.
http://www.tadamon.ca/post/1140
If Israel is a racist and undemocratic state (which I think it is ) then is it even safe for Israeli academics to speak up?
It seems to me this boycott puts the onus to act on the vulnerable in Israel, and gives folks like Sid Ryan a way to be all self-righteous without really putting themselves on the line. So the institutional/individual distinction makes good sense to me. I could be wrong, but that's how it strikes me.
The difference between Chomsky and the Israeli apologists and most who would attack Ryan for daring to speak up while mouthing the words "academic freedom" is that Chomsky is principled. He supports full freedoms for everyone including himself, you, those who are the best among us and those who are the absolute worst among us. He isn't just trying to score cheap political and hypocritical points.
Naomi Klein:
1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called “constructive engagement.” It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures—quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non–Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel’s exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers “upgraded” the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.
It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don’t work, sticks are needed.
2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn’t. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes of South African apartheid in the occupied territories: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was “infinitely worse than apartheid.” That was in 2007, before Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza.
3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.
4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I’ll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, including the wonderful writer John Berger, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus’s work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.
I posted Chomsky just as someone who opposes the boycott of individual Israeli academics, I think rightly. Doesn't imply he's an apologist for power, of course he is not.
Nor, from what I've read, is Mr Moist. In fact, he seems to have a more nuanced and useful position than Sid Ryan. As a former CUPE member, I was glad to hear it.
Wow someones livid...
MSNBC...
TORONTO, ONTARIO - Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a UN-accredited NGO that works to improve Canadian society by countering hate and antisemitism, asks CUPE National President, Paul Moist and CUPE Ontario's membership, to call for the resignation of Ontario section president, Sid Ryan. This follows a series of blatantly antisemitic and discriminatory acts and comments by Mr. Ryan that cast doubt over his ability to lead the Ontario section of Canada's largest union. Mr. Ryan most recently issued a call to ban Israeli academics from Canadian universities.
Today, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center is issuing letters to Mr. Moist, national president of CUPE, select members of Government, CUPE Ontario leadership and the Center's more than 25,000 donors and supporters in an effort to encourage:
1. CUPE members to reflect on Mr. Ryan's recent behaviour, proposed academic censorship, blatant anti-Israel campaign and selective understanding of Middle East affairs and reconsider his ability to lead the union
dap('&PG=NBCMSB&AP=1089','300','250');
2.
Government to study CUPE actions at home while continuing its
leadership abroad through calls for an end to Hamas rockets on Israeli
towns and terrorist activity
3. Canadian citizens to learn more about campaigns to attack Israeli towns, murder its citizens, boycott its companies and bring about the country's demise
Mr. Moist has already issued a public statement confirming his belief that such a resolution is "wrong and would violate the anti-discrimination standards set out in the CUPE Constitution" - http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2009/13/c7052.html
-------------
Point 3. makes me laugh, claiming Sid Ryan wants to destroy Israel.
sure looks like libel.
Nevermind they have about 12 groups attacking him on Facebook. The propoganda machine must not be slowed, not even for a whif od reality. All this after yesterdays fiasco with the UN school being blown up. That makes 3 by my count.
The last couple years I have had diffrences with chomsky on a number of issues. I still respect his overall record, But i think the fight is out of him. 77 years old, there isn't much more left he can say that he hasn't said before. You would think that would give him license to say what he feels but some of his comments are closely guarded as he doesn't want his impecable reputation tarnished at the end. Look at how despite Teslas brilliance he is seen as a crack pot.
I am 100% certain that Noam Chomsky is not pulling his punches. The guy didn't get to be America's leading voice of dissent by soft-pedalling, and in opposing a boycott of vulnerable Israeli academics, he merely repeats his longstanding position of many years.
God, the Israel apologists love this kind of non-controversy. Both CUPE National and CUPE Ontario have taken decent public stands on the current situation - and generally on demanding that Israel end the occupation - much more decent than most of civil and political society in Canada. Sid Ryan is incautious with his public statements, then has to make a public retraction. Paul Moist writes a good letter, then backs off somewhat. Now it's Moist vs. Ryan and we have to take sides.
I fully support the international call for a boycott and sanctions, and we must find ways to implement it throughout Canada and in our own spheres of work. If I have to spend time defending Sid Ryan's leadership style (a difficult challenge under the best of circumstances) or attacking Paul Moist (or defending him) in this squabble, then the Canada-Israel Committee and all the other usual suspects are happy.
Our passion should be to isolate and condemn this pariah state of Israel by all means necessary and achieve justice for the Palestinian people. Not this sideshow.
Paul Moist writes a good letter, then backs off somewhat. Now it's Moist vs. Ryan and we have to take sides.
As I pointed out at the time, I disagree with your characterization of Moist's letter.
And now we can see how Moist's public and quite unwarranted condemnation of Ryan has played into the hands of the Zionist witch-hunters.
Moist's role in this whole affair has been treacherous and counterproductive.
You're damn right we "have to take sides."
Wrong fight, M. Spector. The "sides" we should be taking are getting more unions onside. Anyway, I suppose we can do both, but I'm not sure what will be accomplished by attacking Paul Moist. Draw me a line between such attacks and getting CUPE National to adopt a stronger policy. I'm dense today. Or I've spent too much time trying to get my own union to even speak out. Have you seen Georgetti's horrendous useless statement? I rest my case for now.
The issue now is not attacking Moist, but defending Ryan against the scurrilous attacks of the Zionists, with whom Moist has sided against Ryan.
If you want to change the reactionary positions of most of the trade union bureaucracies, the pressure must come from their members. It is to them that the case for Palestine must be made, and it is to them that it must be shown that Ryan's position, and that of Denis Lemelin of CUPW, are the correct ones for the union movement to adopt.
Allowing Ryan to be demonized by his own national president will only demoralize the members of CUPE Ontario who fought for the adoption of the 2006 resolution and who are the only hope for spearheading a movement to get the national union onside.
Or, focus on defending Gaza, not on defending Sid Ryan.
The true supporters of the Palestinians owe a great debt to Sid Ryan and ought not to let him be hung out to dry on account of his advocacy for our cause.
It's a little thing I like to call solidarity.
Thank you for Naomi Klein piece above.
"True supporters"?
It is an excelent piece, I agree.
Paul Moist writes a good letter, then backs off somewhat. Now it's Moist vs. Ryan and we have to take sides.
As I pointed out at the time, I disagree with your characterization of Moist's letter.
I don't think I'll let this go, because I don't believe your words and characterizations serve to build unity in the cause of the Palestinian people.
You quoted selectively from Moist's letter, and concluded that: "This is a mealy-mouthed, pox-on-both-sides, NDP-type statement."
All right, let me quote selectively from his letter too - and find me any NDP-type statement that says these things:
Why did you ignore these passages, as well as the approving citations of Richard Falk's conclusions?
Also, where exactly did you see Paul Moist condemn the notion of boycotting Israel? Does everything hinge on this diversionary debate about excluding individual academics, which is frankly a huge gift that Ryan has delivered to the Zionist spin doctors? Show me where Moist has said, "we should not boycott Israel". Please.
We should keep building unity on justice for the Palestinian people. We should not do our enemies any favours by screaming at and denouncing each other over difference in tactics. When the NDP comes on board to a CUPE-type statement, let me know - I'll open another bottle of champagne.
By the time you two finish laying all the blame on Ottawa's fourth political party for Harper's and Iggy's smearing of Israeli and US shit all over their moustaches in recent weeks, the hawks will probably be on to Lebanon or Syria, or maybe even Iran.
All right, let me quote selectively from his letter too - and find me any NDP-type statement that says these things:
Why did you ignore these passages, as well as the approving citations of Richard Falk's conclusions?
You embarrass yourself by your attempt to defend Moist's letter to Harper.
Moist's letter doesn't even call for an end to the Israeli occupation of Gaza (even though that is CUPE's position, adopted twice at national conventions) - just a "ceasefire and a renewed commitment to the pursuit of peace", a minimal demand which the Israelis have now effectively met, while their troops continue to occupy all of Gaza. He is careful to condemn both sides equally for "all acts of violence in the Middle East, including the Hamas rockets being launched into Israel and the Israeli offensive."
Contrast this with the principled position of Denis Lemelin of CUPW, who says:
Canada must also address the root cause of the violence: Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories....
The Israeli Government's siege and military incursions into Gaza are not isolated events. It is a direct result of Israel's ongoing occupation of Palestine and the refusal of the Israeli government to abide by numerous United Nations security council resolutions.
Therefore, as a longer term strategy, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers is asking your government to adopt a program of boycott, divestment and sanctions until Israel recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and complies with international law, including the rights of palestinian refugees to return to their homes as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
Yes, I "selectively quoted" Lemelin, to draw attention to the several places where he really challenges the legitimacy of Israel's position, rather than simply deploring the violence and making the pacifist call for a cease-fire. I didn't quote the part where he condemns the Hamas rocket attacks or the violence on "both sides" - because it isn't there! Unlike Moist, Lemelin does not attempt to be the honest neutral broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians, by prefacing his demands with tongue-clucking condemnations of Palestinian violence.
In stark contrast, Moist's letter does not call for an end to the siege of Gaza. Moist does not identify the occupation as the root cause of the current conflict. Moist does not call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions. Moist does not call for the right of return of the Palestinians and the enforcement of Resolution 194.
Nor does Jack Layton. Maybe you can find an NDP-type statement from someone else in that party that does.
Well, duh!
Moist makes his position perfectly clear in the mischievous and divisive media release he put out on January 13:
As the national president of Canada's largest union, with over 580,000 members, I can say that none of CUPE's over 2,000 chartered bodies - including CUPE Ontario - have adopted such a resolution. I believe such a resolution is wrong and would violate the anti-discrimination standards set out in the CUPE Constitution. I will be using my influence in any debates on such a resolution to oppose its adoption.
Note the sarcastic quotes around the words "assault on Gaza".
Then explain to me how a vehement opposition to banning Israeli academics from Ontario universities is consistent with support of the Israeli boycott, divestment, and sanctions program. While doing so, perhaps you could point out where CUPE national has supported the BDS campaign. I'll save you the trouble: it hasn't.
Apart from the fact that these are not mere "differences in tactics" but serious political differences, I agree entirely. That's why I condemn Moist for his very public denunciation of Sid Ryan, which just gives aid and comfort to the Zionists.
Break open the champagne. I'll save mine for when the NDP and CUPE-national grow a spine and support the cause of the Palestinians without pacifist equivocation.
All of this incessant whining and hand-wringing over Layton's and CUPE's demands for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid delivery to Gazans ignores the fact that nearly one-thousand corpses are being buried in Palestine.
Clearly what was needed all along first and foremost was a ceasefire and humanitarian aid delivered some time ago. Jack Layton and the NDP were absolutely right about that. And the hand-wringers wanting to score political points at the expense of the NDP now have the brass to suggest that it's the Israelis themselves whove saved the day. But that's only because vicious toadies like Steve "I grovel to Crazy George II, and that's what I do" Harper were hiding out at Tremblanc or the eagle's nest through it all, and he said and did absolutely nothing while men, women and children were being slaughtered in another country.
This is our highest ranking ambassador for the country who was and still is derelict of his duties. And that's because Steve "I've got my head sssso far up Prescott Bush's grandson's big brown asshole that I have to have air pumped to me" Harper was afraid to show up for work! That's pretty sad and disgusting when you think about it.
[Fidel: please. On topic, just for one second.]
The Palestinians who died could have used a lot less analysis and more action from our so-called world leaders, especially "G8" leaders. When someone is down on the sidewalk and being beaten within an inch of their life, they need help.
Let's pretend for a minute that it wasnt Jack Layton calling for immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid delivered to Gazans. And really, for someone with the proper Canadian authority and diplomatic channels there to be used to do something more than nothing. Imagine it was your favourite politician who said those things while Gazans were down and out and breathing their last breaths and wondering why no one in the world was coming to their aid?
M. Spector, I'm having trouble understanding you.
I asked you to show me a statement where Moist condemns the notion of boycotting Israel. You didn't. You showed me where he rejected the tactic of boycotting individual academics unless they publicly declare opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza. I disagree with Moist (as is obvious from my posts on the issue). Bit the debate on that particular tactic has successfully diverted and postponed all other discussion on BDS. That's why I said Ryan had given the Zionists a gift.
I asked you to show me an NDP statement expressing the condemnation of Israel, accusation of violation of international law, war crimes, etc. Most importantly, an NDP statement demanding that Canada condemn Israel publicly for its actions. You got rather sarcastic, but you couldn't point to one. That's because there aren't any (unfortunately) that I've seen.
Finally, your main complaint appears to be that Moist's letter - designed for the narrow purpose of calling on Harper to speak out against the Israeli attack (and calling it "shameful" that Harper had touted Israel's "right" to self-defence), doesn't provide a full analysis of the Occupation, the right of return, etc. - even though there are other CUPE documents which provide masses of such analysis.
So, as I pointed out, you seem less interested in building unity to isolate Israel as a pariah state, an aggressor, a war criminal - than in ensuring that any letter written for a specific purpose is not only dogmatically "correct", but theoretically "complete".
Let me assure you, from my own experience in dealing with people that are far less knowledgeable than you are (i.e. workers), that no unity I know has ever been built by using a microscope.
I asked you to show me a statement where Moist condemns the notion of boycotting Israel. You didn't. You showed me where he rejected the tactic of boycotting individual academics unless they publicly declare opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza. I disagree with Moist (as is obvious from my posts on the issue). Bit the debate on that particular tactic has successfully diverted and postponed all other discussion on BDS. That's why I said Ryan had given the Zionists a gift.
I've explained above, in post #3 of this thread-chunk, how the supposed distinction between boycotting Israeli academic institutions and boycotting Israeli academic individuals is a phony one. It was a distinction invented by people like Moist who don't understand how boycotts work in general (individuals often suffer as a consequence) and how the proposed Israeli academic boycott would work in particular. Moist (on the rather large assumption that he supports the BDS at all) wants to have a boycott of Israel that won't interfere with the "human rights" of Israeli academics who want to come to Canada to ply their trade. Such a boycott does not exist, and has not been proposed, even by Moist.
The fact that neither Moist nor CUPE-national has come out in favour of the Israeli boycott movement, combined with his unwarranted public attack on Sid Ryan, whose provincial section unanimously adopted a resolution in favour of the boycott, is to me ample evidence that Moist does not support the call for BDS. If he did, he would have kept his big mouth shut, or better yet, defended Ryan and the Ontario section from the slanders of the Zionists.
No, the NDP goes along with the big labour brass on this issue, so Moist and Layton see pretty much eye-to-eye.
You asked me to let you know "when the NDP comes on board to a CUPE-type statement". I assumed you meant a Moist-CUPE-type statement, since you seemed to have higher regard for his position than for Layton's. In my view, they are very similar, and far behind the positions of Ontario CUPE or CUPW.
I don't know why Moist would be shy about laying his cards on the table in a public letter to Harper (which after all is intended more for the consumption of the public and CUPE membership than for Harper, who I am sure has never read it). Nevertheless, I am pleased that you have now backed away from your initial fulsome praise for Moist's letter, which I objected to, and you now qualify that by saying that the real CUPE-national position is actually better articulated elsewhere.
Perhaps Moist should hire Denis Lemelin to write his public letters for him, if he has trouble getting the real pro-Palestinian position across.
ETA, March 5, 2009: Michael Ignatieff certainly recognizes Paul Moist as an ally in his pro-Israel anti-Palestinian campaign:
The Liberal Party of Canada condemns the CUPE resolution in the strongest possible terms. I salute the others who have spoken out against the resolution, including my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the House of Commons, and CUPE’s national president, Paul Moist, who has refused to support the resolution.
National Pest
I asked you to show me an NDP statement expressing the condemnation of Israel, accusation of violation of international law, war crimes, etc. Most importantly, an NDP statement demanding that Canada condemn Israel publicly for its actions.
The NDP didnt have time to write up your opus on the conflict and long term resolutions.
And it's because people were dying and needed help asap.
What was actually needed at the time was an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid delivered to Gazans.
Layton and the NDP said that's exactly what was needed and when it would have counted for something had it actually been put into action. But it wasnt.
You and Spector are scrambling for leftover political crumbs after the fact, like ravens and crows to a dead deer in the middle of no man's land.
All of this politically motivated hand-wringing and persuasion after the fact on what should or should not have been said is neither here nor there now. Same set of problems exist except that about a thousand or so strangers in a far away land are no longer breathing.
Well, now that there is a cease-fire maybe the NDP will "have time" to grab a clue about the root causes of the conflict and demand that Canada support the BDS campaign until Israel withdraws from the Occupied Territories.
Or is that too much to hope for?
Well, now that there is a cease-fire maybe the NDP will "have time" to grab a clue about the root causes of the conflict and demand that Canada support the BDS campaign until Israel withdraws from the Occupied Territories.
Or is that too much to hope for?
There is no ceasefire. You should quit listening to and trusting the inquisitors. Because they still maintain the "right to defend" themselves as our two biggest suckholes and arsehole creepers in Ottawa have said they have the right to, period. That'd be the Harpers, who are still in hiding - and that other most forgettable politician in the making heading up the old Whig Party made new again under Iggy.
Yes, the inquisitors have murdered at least one Palestinian since Israeli hawks were so gracious as to feign into action what our nauseatingly compliant stooges in power and official opposition failed to suggest to anyone should happen.
You two should go now and do verbal battle with the inquisitors yourselves. Meanwhile, there is no fucking ceasefire or UN aid teams guaranteed passage into Gaza. You're full of shit.
Aid doctors can't reach Gaza victims-MSF
Please find below an excerpt from an article dated February 2007 indicating that the rival party Fatah wrecked havoc on the Islamic University. I did not hear Sid Ryan advocate a boycott, sanctions, and divestment against the Palestinians. Should Palestinians hold not to the same standard as the Israelis. If not, why?
Also how many 10's of thousand of Iraqis civilians have died. Why has not CUPE issued the same boycott for U.S. academics?
Also in the 1,200 or so that have died in the current conflict in Gaza how many Fatah members been killed by Hamas because they are so called suspected collaborators with Israel, or how many have been wounded under so called house arrest, by shooting Fatah members in their legs to render them imobile?
Please review the article below.
The Islamic University, Gaza's largest higher education institution, shows the deep scars and intensity of the recent Fatah-Hamas clashes. Wednesday, thousands of shocked and curious students toured the devastation. Late last week, Fatah gunmen stormed the 25-acre campus, and set fire and bombed almost every building here — classrooms, offices and large parts of the library are in ruins. The walls are charred. Burnt computers and broken glass litter hallways.
RiHam Rihaan, 20, was snapping pictures with her cell phone in stunned disbelief at the massive damage. She said through a translator: "To know how it was and to see how it is now, I cannot recognize it. It's totally destroyed."
Rihaan, like most here, is keeping a close eye on the crisis talks in Mecca aimed at forging a unity government and averting more internal violence. But she says the destruction of her school leaves her distrustful there will be a lasting breakthrough.
"I'm not very optimistic," she said. "I hope they'll be able to agree, but I don't think so because this shows that some people in Fatah want to destroy any kind of agreement!"
The University has strong ties to Hamas, the militant Islamist movement now in power here. But the school serves 17,000 students, secular and religious — a majority of them women. Witnesses say members of Mahmoud Abbas's Presidential Guard did the damage. The Guard claimed the Presidential compound was taking mortar fire from the campus. But there are no signs of firefights here: witnesses say Fatah men simply went on an arson and bombing rampage.
And if there was not both tacit and overt US and Israeli interference in Palestine's sovereign democratic affairs, Hamas wouldnt even be at the forefront of politics today after winning a phony majority in the last election.
Hamas is deemed a terrorist organization in Canada, the U.S. and much of Europe. Google their charter. They state in one of their mandates is to kill Jews worldwide. This incites hatered and genocide. Hamas won the so called election because of brutality. Examples of this is that they threw the opposition party (Fatah) off roof tops to their death. The Palestinian people were physically intimidated, and also they were voting against the corrupt regime (Fatah) that left their people poor. Unfortunately the Palestinian people had little choice, and they voted for Hamas hoping things would get better. One can alway blame the U.S. or Israel, but at some point they have to take responsibility for themselves. When they learn to love their children more than they hate Israel maybe we can move a step closer to peace.
May we please have this hateful racist banned? Thanks.
And here is another angle on Hamas
America's Hidden Role in Hamas's Rise to Power
"The United States bears much of the blame for the ongoing bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and nearby parts of Israel. Indeed, were it not for misguided Israeli and American policies, Hamas would not be in control of the territory in the first place.
Israel initially encouraged the rise of the Palestinian Islamist movement as a counter to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the secular coalition composed of Fatah and various leftist and other nationalist movements" ... read on
May we please have this hateful racist banned? Thanks.
Works for me. Consider Mr. Racist Jerk gone.
Authoritarnism is alive and well on Babble. Ralph G is a moron and certainly ignorant, but I don't see how his comment about Hamas hating Israel more than loving their children is racist and merits a ban. Misguided? yes. Idiotic? Yes. Racist? No. Unless criticizing a political group is racist. If this is the case, then when we'd have to accept the claims of Zionists calling us anti-Semites for criticizing their fascist mentality.
I think it's fitting that this occured on a thread regarding the boycott of Israeli academics. As Noam Chomsky said in 2003: "I think the action is wrong in principle". Of course, Professor Chomsky is a libertarian, not an authoritarian, so it was no surprise that he opposed the movement. And while I will also sympathize with the motives of the movement, I also can't support actions that will probably only divert from the issue and feed into more Zionist propaganda.
What's not Fascist and racist about saying that Arabs don't love their children. Yeah, I know, its just a turn of phrase dredged up from the era of Golda Meir. So what?
Let's try it out the other way, shall we and see what happens then: "When the Jews learn to love their children more than they hate Palestinians maybe we can move a step closer to peace."
Mere "ignorance" nothing worse than that.
I don't see how his comment about Hamas hating Israel more than loving their children is racist and merits a ban.
Read it again, coeus:
Not Hamas. The Palestinian people. They don't care about human life, you see? They're inferior to us. They don't even care about their children.
This racist shit is the very basis of justifying imperialist intervention, aggression, and mass murder of peoples around the world. We need to bring them up to our moral level.
Why am I actually explaining this?
Thank you, Michelle, for your swift action.
"What's not Fascist and racist about saying that Arabs don't love their children."
He didn't say that Arabs don't love their children. He said that Palestinians hate Israel MORE than they love their children. Maybe some of them do. There are probably also Israelis who hate Palestinians more than they love their children.
If everyone loved their children more than they hated other peoples - there would be no wars in ther world!
@Cueball and Unionist:
Maybe I misread it, but I simply took it as him suggestig that the Hamas don't love their children as much as they hate Israel. I don't see how he was blaming the Palestinian people when he said they had little choice.
Nonetheless, I don't feel like further trying to parse his words to determine who he was referring to. He wasn't given a chance to clarify his statement because he was banned. The authoritarianism comes in when certain interpretations override the posters chance to clarify.
Warren "Gimme War-Crimes" Kinsella has new post up trying to paint all the NDP as anti-semetic, because of the CUPE Stuff. Anyway, noticing the Chomsky article on the rabble homepage, I'll point him towards these paragraphs from it.
------------
One of the wisest voices in Israel, Uri Avnery, writes that after an Israeli military victory, "What will be seared into the consciousness of the world will be the image of Israel as a blood-stained monster, ready at any moment to commit war crimes and not prepared to abide by any moral restraints. This will have severe consequences for our long-term future, our standing in the world, our chance of achieving peace and quiet. In the end, this war is a crime against ourselves too, a crime against the State of Israel."
There is good reason to believe that he is right. Israel is deliberately turning itself into perhaps the most hated country in the world, and is also losing the allegiance of the population of the West, including younger American Jews, who are unlikely to tolerate its persistent shocking crimes for long. Decades ago, I wrote that those who call themselves "supporters of Israel" are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction. Regrettably, that judgment looks more and more plausible.