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Ontario MPPs - including NDP - condemn Israeli Apartheid Week in Legislature
February 25, 2010 - 7:39pm
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/771524--mpps-unite-to-condemn...
Quote:
In a rare show of unanimity, Ontario MPPs of all political stripes have banded together to condemn “Israeli Apartheid Week.”
Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill) tabled the motion Thursday to denounce the sixth annual provocative campus event that kicks off next week at universities and colleges in 35 cities around the world.
“Resolutions in the Ontario Legislature send a message. They are about moral suasion,” said Shurman, adding “it is close to hate speech” to liken democratic Israel to apartheid-era South Africa.
“I want the name changed, it’s just wrong,” he said, emphasizing that “respectful” debate about the Middle East is much more constructive than slinging slurs.
“Israeli Apartheid Week is not a dialogue, it’s a monologue and it is an imposition of a view by the name itself—the name is hateful, it is odious,” he said, adding it is also offensive to the millions of black South Africans oppressed by a racist white regime until the early 1990s.
New Democratic MPP Cheri DiNovo (Parkdale-High Park) said while the motion, which passed with a unanimous voice vote at 4 p.m., was “symbolic,” it sent a signal that parliamentarians want to promote positive debate.
“What we need to build peace … are not inflammatory words like ‘apartheid,’ particularly used inappropriately in the case of Israel,” said DiNovo, who was among the 30 MPPs in the 107-seat Legislature for the vote.
But she's just a-okay with Christian supremacy in the Legislature, isn't she? Fought tooth and nail to ensure that the Lord's Prayer continues to be said every day in the Legislature, while "lesser" religions have their prayers recited on a rotating basis afterwards.
Another example of how every time I think the ONDP are not so bad (e.g. running an amazing candidate like Cathy Crowe), they pull stupid shit like this.
Stephen Harper will be happy. The Supreme Court said it couldn't interfere in foreign policy, but apparently the Ontario Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP are free to do so as long as they are attacking Canadians who expose Israeli crimes.
It is to be hoped that one day, all of them will face justice.
Well, as a minister of the United Church, it's only natural that DiNovo would stick up for Christianity and Israel. The other religions can elect their own MPPs to lobby for their own prayers.
Oh boy.
Mayse, Oldgoat, this seems to be as good a time as ever to let you know I'm going skiing next week, so I won't be doing much moderating while I'm gone. :)
I don't agree with Dinovo that it's not apartheid. It is. She herself is giving away her biased opinion on the matter. How can there be the peace process she mentions when such a lopsided situation exists?
And I must say that although I disagree with Chomsky on recent 9/11 history and that I think it is a very important case against the global war on terror, I agree with Noam that an embargo of Israel would be futile. The Yanks are not ready to give up Israel as its premier frontline state in the Middle East. Not until such time as countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and perhaps Iran in the near future are fully under US control and subserviant to US and British energy and geostrategic interests in this colder war period of US-led NATO military aggression around the world. And at that point, Israel would be thrown to the wolves and neglected once the empire is firmly established in Central Asia and other Middle Eastern countries after arming Israel's arch enemies as well as Israel to the eye teeth for many years. Giving attention to Israel would be like focussing on the bully's capos and lesser minions of doom when the bully's back is turned. There is only one way to deal with bullies, and that is to confront the bully directly.
Thanks for that, Fidel.
I think, rather than discussing Middle East politics again, this thread could usefully treat the question of how a provincial assembly could unanimously condemn Canadians organizing for justice in the Middle East. Why would such a motion be entertained, and why would it receive all-party support?
Fuck all of the other parties, and fuck the NDP.
This is something I've worked my ass off to bring to Winnipeg for the first time this year. The NDP will never get a dime or a minute of work from me ever again. It's perfectly clear that the NDP isn't and doesn't want to be a party of the left, or a party representing protest movements. They just want to shut us up.
These people don't recognize that the state of Israel is not a person, it is a political entity, and one can criticize it. Especially if it conforms to all the legal definitions of apartheid established in international law.
Cheri DiNovo doesn't get it. We call it apartheid because it is apartheid. So, we tell it like it is and try to build movements against apartheid like the BDS movement. We can't pretend that all we need to do is have some dialogue in toronto and have falafel with Zionists and there will magically be peace and justice. The conflict is driven not by irrational hatred, but by systems of Israeli apartheid need to be dismantled, that's the only thing that will do it.
Fuck, I'm so pissed off. If this shit happens in Manitoba...
I guess the one thing I can take satisfaction in is that when the movement grows and when the wall falls, history will absolve us. These days, even the bourgiest of bourgie liberals is against South African apartheid 15 years too late
Apparently they are trying to prevent university groups from using campuses for their anti-Israeli political agendas? [drift] This seems to me to that this is a similar situation mentioned by Chomsky wrt 9/11 - that the 9/11 truth movement is a distraction from larger political issues and from where progressive people should be focussing their attentions, which according to Chomsky, should be directed toward activism against real crimes of the state. And for Chomsky, crimies of the state emanate from the source country enabling client states such as Israel and dozens more where basic human rights are trampled. And imo, South Africa is better today only in the sense that a racist apartheid regime is not still firmly in control of things in that country. According to Naomi Klein and others, S. Africans themselves are not better off economically under the neoliberal regime of things in Africa though. The neocolonialism has simply mutated, moved into surrounding African countries and murdering even more Africans at a frenzied pace today. The root source of the problem of neocolonialism still exists today in Africa with the same western countries that supported Pic Botha's South Africa during the cold war. Picking on Israel similarly will do nothing to abate the problem of neocolonialism and Anglo-American -sponsored oppression at its source.
Well, out of the three NDP MPs in my city, there is one I don't know about and two which are loud Zionists on the CPCCA.
And the Manitoba NDP isn't that great on this issue either.
So, I would be stupid not to expect this to happen again in Manitoba.
Are you seriously trying to compare IAW organizers to 9/11 truth nutters?
Are you seriously trying to defend the NDP's vote in favour of this motion, based on Chomsky and Naomi Klein who spoke at last year's IAW?
I don't know, sticking up for your friends by not showing up? They could have just voted no.
You can find the motion near the bottom of the page at this link.
http://tinyurl.com/ycstfox
Anyway, I condemn the condemners.
I spent some time in Israel and the West Bank last May.
I must confess that prior to my visit I had some reservations about using the term "apartheid" to describe the Israeli state. Although I always supported the Palestinian cause, I wondered whether some folks on the left might sometimes be a bit "over the top" and I worried about the use of the term alienating progressive members of the Jewish community.
But, after my visit...going through the checkpoints, seeing Palestinians being "hassled" by the Israelis for documents, travelling on "Israeli only" highways in the West Bank, seeing "the wall" first hand, meeting Israeli military resisters, hearing the stories of the Palestinians from all walks of life, visiting refugee camps and seeing what living hell Palestinians lives are, I have no reservations whatsoever in labelling Israel an apartheid state.
There is no other way I can in all good conscience describe it. Palestinians are in all manner of their lives, treated collectively as inferior human beings.
And I'm in good company.
Here's a memo that Nelson Mandela wrote to Thomas Friedman of the "New York Times" back in 2001. I think Nelson Mandela is to say the least an expert on apartheid.
Mandela very clearly describes Israeli policy towards the Palestinians as one of apartheid. I will take my own observations and those of Nelson Mandela's over any Ontario MPP.
even if you think the term apartheid is over the top, people shouldn't join with the opposition to condemn their allies because you don't approve of their messaging. Such people aren't really allies. If I don't like the slogan that my student union uses, I don't go running off to join forces with their political opponents to pass motions in the legislature condemning them.
And of course, this isn't the first time that Shurman has been butting in to student politics. Wasn't he the one who demanded that York overturn their election results because the leftie slate won?
I e-mailed Cheri DiNovo and received this response, which just demonstrates that she is poorly educated on the issue, if she thinks this is about religion:
Whether you agree with the apartheid analogy or not, most progressives support the freedom of students to organise events discussing this topic.
If Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein can make the comparison, why can't students at Canadian universities do so without facing harassment from university administrations?
An NDP MPP joining in this chorus of condemnation and repression against student activists and the trade union movement (based on consultations with 'faith communities') is an embarrassment to the party.
Hey radiorahim - I am almost postive that memo was a piece of satire written in response to the column it references. I will have to check, but I am sure it wasn't actually written by Mandela.
Maybe my problem is I actually know South Africans who lost people close to them and body parts to the struggle and see the use of this term differently than a new generation of activists who are more focused on the Israeli occupation.
Israel is a occupying force, it has much blood on its hands, using a term like aparthied underminese the legitimate struggle for human rights and peace to me and devalues those South Africans who fought for generations against the Afrikaaner regime. But younger generations not so steeped in that struggle may only see the parallels and not the significant difference that make it inappropriate.
Edited to add
Yah here's a link about it
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&fo...
An NDP MPP joining in this chorus of condemnation and repression against student activists and the trade union movement (based on consultations with 'faith communities') is an embarrassment to the party.
------------------ That's for sure. It's a complete stab in the back, and so unnecessary. The NDP could have said something like, "Whether we personally think "apartheid" is an appropriate word or not is irrelevant - this motion goes against activist and academic freedom to engage in debate on campus, and therefore we can't support this motion." Bookish, Nelson Mandela calls it apartheid. And so do a number of activists who were involved in anti-South African apartheid activism back then and are involved in anti-Israeli apartheid activism now. A few of whom spoke at last year's Israeli Apartheid Week events. I'll take their word over yours and Cheri Di Novo's. Another stab in the back from the ONDP, selling out the progressives in their ranks yet again. How not surprising.You got that the memo was not in fact from Mandela?
And I was only expressing my personal opinion. I also know former anti-aparthied activists who find the use of the word really offensive. And you will see if you re-read my post I condemned no one. I simply think that this younger generation just doesn't get it. Personally I would like to see an approach that helps them understand the differences instead of using a shock word to get a reaction. To me the historically correct term of occupation is strong enough and also much more accurate.
Michelle, do you have a link regarding Mandela?
Desmond Tutu, whose moral authority rivals Mandela's, and who certainly can't be called a young South African activist, has compared the situation in Israel/Palestine to Apartheid South Africa:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/29/comment
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020715/tutu
Palestinians have been fighting for 60 years against this outrage that just gets more brutal and institutionalized. Seems like they have fulfilled your generational test.
So what should one call a system with two classes of citizens with distinctly different rights including the right to security of the person and home? Is there an "acceptable" word that conveys the everyday humiliation and fear and resistance that this system instills in the people living under the yoke of the Israeli government.
I also think it is wrong to question the motives of someone like Cheri Di Novo. You can question her conclusion and her vote, but someone like her is doing it because she feels it is the right and proper approach.
If I were in the Leg I wouldn't have voted for such a motion, but I think someone like Di Novo is sincere when she says she doesn't favour that approach.
ETA
Looks like we crossed posted. First of all it isn't 'my party'. I have one vote on election day and cast it for the best person in my riding. That has mostly been a New Democrat, but I have also just not voted. Nor do I have any standing of note in any political party and work closely with politiicans from every party.
Secondly I disagree with the votes. I also won't condemn a party, as I would not have condemned students, because this was, as far as I can tell, MPPs acting as private members, not voting in a block as a party. You might think that is splitting hairs, but I see MPPs when they are acting as independent agents in these kinds of situations, as acting in their own conscience and hopefully their constituents (although I am not so naive as to think this is always or even often the case), not as acting as agents of a party. But then I am a technocrat
Then she needs to educate herself if she wants to be a progressive voice. Ignorance is no excuse for siding with the right wing against activists fighting for justice.
I don't care about her motive I care about her actions and her actions leave a lot to be desired.
That is fair comment to me. What I object to is ascribing motive to someone who thinks they are doing the right thing. Questioning whether they are right or wrong, that's a different matter all together.
To paraphrase "Humphrey" in the sit com "Yes, Minister", voting against the resolution would have been the courageous thing to do.
Politics is for the faint of heart.
No but if you can afford to pay attention for a few seconds, the left all over North America is somewhat divided right now on 9/11 as are the American ruling class and ruling elite in America. Otoh and simultaneously opposing a 9/11 Truth movement as a waste of time and resources, Chomsky says that focussing on Israel is also a waste of time and resources for the left. Chomsky says activists should concentrate efforts on activism and opposing the crimes of the state - as in crimes of the vicious empire at its source(ie. not Gary Doer, not Darrell Dexter, and not even the NDP but the imperial-master nation itself, and that'd be the Upside-down Socialist States of America proper) Capiche?
I added this to my post, which I think addresses much of what you posted after me
"Looks like we crossed posted. First of all it isn't 'my party'. I have one vote on election day and cast it for the best person in my riding. That has mostly been a New Democrat, but I have also just not voted. Nor do I have any standing of note in any political party and work closely with politiicans from every party. Secondly I disagree with the votes. I also won't condemn a party, as I would not have condemned students, because this was, as far as I can tell, MPPs acting as private members, not voting in a block as a party. You might think that is splitting hairs, but I see MPPs when they are acting as independent agents in these kinds of situations, as acting in their own conscience and hopefully their constituents (although I am not so naive as to think this is always or even often the case), not as acting as agents of a party. But then I am a technocrat"