Free speech at risk in Apartheid Week debacle?

I definitely agree.  What this government is missing is not only a critical approach to the policies of other countries but a long hard look at our own.

My own small thoughts are this; when free speech for social justice and inequality is being marketed as hate speech, we have a lot to think/worry about.  This country can't afford to censor the people any further than mainstream media already has.  The notion of what it means to be Canadian, for me at least, has drastically changed in the last 10 years.  

Thank you for writing out about this.

Excellent and timely article - thank you.

I appreciated the article.  I would have found it more useful, however, if it had provided information and thoughts on the questions of who spearheaded this vote, whether or not there was an internal debate in each of the party caucuses, what external pressures were brought to bear on the MPs and especially on the party whips and the party leaders, and so on.  In particular, the kow-towing of the provincial NDP representatives to this anti-liberal vote, their bovine submission to unanimity is a scandal and should have been more specifically analyzed and denounced.   

Great arcticle...It's been my experience that more and more people are waking up and looking at what's going on in Israel and being absolutely disgusted by it.

I can't speak for everybody but I can speak for myself...Comdemnation or even criminal legislation will NEVER silence my criticism and condemnation of the rogue,fascist,genocidal state of Israel.

I challenge the government to try and silence me.

It's not the mere criticism, but the singling-out of Israel, that has a human rights record that is better than any of its neighbours and whose treatment of its minorities is better than any other mid east country, that makes the "apartheid" slander highly suggestive of anti-semitism. Legislators have a right to exercise free speech and the claim that condemnation equals supressing free speech is simply ludicrous.

Many anti-Israel activists have made no secret of the fact that they want an end to a Jewish state in Israel but have voiced no objection to Muslim states in Saudi Arabia or the "Islamic Republics". This too is highly suggestive of some degree of bigotry. Are those who would condemn Israel allowed to make one-sided condemnations? Sure they are, but it is completely hypocritical to say that that is free speech but to condemn them for doing so is silencing free speech.

Why is it that politicians should be barred from criticising movements or what they see as unfair practices. It would be encouraged in this forum in a number of areas but not if they happen to disagree with McQuaig's position on Israel. McQuaig appears to have a highly selective and self-serving concept of what constitutes free speech.

I keep seeing you post all over Rabble, and there's no question that you can write well.  But what you gloss over in almost every instance, is the suffering of a large body of people.

Let's tell the parents of Rachel Corrie, a twenty-three-year-old student from Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago as she stood before a Palestinian home facing demolition, that Israel has a better human rights record. 

The people who are standing up for IAW/BDS are not attacking Israeli people, or culture.  They're attacking the government who are allowing, and have been allowing for 40+ years, the systematic destruction of a group of human beings who have a different belief system. 

Canadian legislation condoning Israel's aggression violates every Canadian's right to freely express their outrage in a peaceful way that has nothing to do with personal feelings about Judaism.

Furthermore, most Canadians don't realize that Canadian MPs (including Opposition) by supporting legislation to legitimize Israel's Ant-Semitic smokescreen, are crushing the ability of long-standing national institutions to enact Canadian values worldwide. These institutions can no longer help the people in other parts of the world who don't have the rights we are now losing. Canada's ability to foster democratic development and provide on-the-ground humanitarian support is now tied to each organization's willingness to remain silent on Israeli policy.

As a method of coercion to toe the Conservative line, Canadian social development and peace organizations are suddenly being "de-funded", through partisan interference in the priorities at CIDA, Foreign Affairs and other ministries. As well, the role of Canadian embassies has subtly been re-focused to promote unrestricted trade. This appears to be an an orchestrated campaign to undermine, or at least severely limit, the mandates of Canada-based service organizations who dare to question taboo topics like Israeli agression.

Coordinated de-funding is affecting so many agencies so dramatically, that staff and supporters at many of the institutions under attack are starting to come together to blow the same whistle. A prime example is the Rights and Democracy Movement (rightsanddemocracymovement.org) recently launched by a group of Canadian citizens to protest the Conservatives punishing citizens for speaking the obvious truth.

For insight into the kind of lobbying that may be driving this catastrophe, I suggest you read Ali Abunimah's article (www.zcommunications.org/israels-new-strategy-by-ali-abunimah) about an Israeli thinktank's advice in February that Israel should not just fight just a military war, but also "Focus on the hubs of delegitimization - such as London, Paris, Toronto, Madrid, and the Bay Area - and on undermining its catalysts." Is the Reut Institute publicly advocating a covert global assault on non-profits? What is going on here? Their report (online) actually recommends "focusing on non-governmental organizations, academia, grassroots movements, and the general public; using social networks over the internet" and other tactics to stop citizens of any nation from criticizing Israel's particular form of apartheid.

So I say let's get past the bigotry debate and get right down to Israel's flagrant violation of international law. Let's worry instead about the indication that they might be taking covert action to keep their crimes hidden - especially since stifling debate through lobbying our government directly threatens our ability as Canadians to stand on guard for our own rights.

Excellent points,Mr.Benedetti...The fact is that exposing the obvious truth of Israeli policies and criticizing the state of Israel has absolutely NOTHING to do with judaism.

That 'new anti-semitism' approach truly is smoke and mirrors.Thank you for your well written post.

I am not denying the suffering of the Palestinians. Let me be more explicit. The Palestinians are subject to collective punishment. This is for a variety of reasons.

- Israel is grouping them together, often unfairly, because of security concerns.

-There are settlements in the West Bank that are counterproductive to any peace settlement and their security is being accredited more importance than Palestinian rights.

-The Palestinians are victims of bad leadership that incites hatred and encourages violence, resulting in retaliatory violence and confinement.

-Lots more on both sides.

These are all very unfortunate things but they aren't aren't apartheid and it is unjust and simply false to say that it is and that's really the issue as far as the validity of IAW goes. I deplore what the National Guard did at Kent State but that doesn't mean that the entire US is a fascist police state because of what happened and I'd be lying if I said a country with free speech, democratic elections and an independent judicial system was.

Rachel Corrie chose to put herself in harms way and miscalculated the result. Whether the bulldozer driver saw her clearly of not or heard her over the sound of the engine in unknown, but even assuming he did, yes, Israel still has a better human rights record than any other country in the middle east. The fact that Rachel Corrie's parents are currently suing the Israeli government in Israel proves that. I doubt they would feel safe enough, let alone have a chance of justice before an independent judiciary, to be able to do the same in Syria, Iran, Libya, Egypt, etc.

I sense a feeling of compassion from you, Pensive, which is commendable, but compassion for one side without striving to understand the genuine and valid concerns of the other isn't going to get any progress. There seems to be virtually no recognition that the countries surrounding Israel, with the exception of Jordan and Egypt are committed to Israel's destruction and are still in a formal state of war with it. There is no recognition of the ongoing incitement by Palestinian authorities towards violence towards Israelis. An incitement, by the way, that doesn't make any distinction between civillians and soldiers or children and adults. The Israelis may be able to do more damage with their weapons than the Palestinians can with theirs, but the intent of the Palestinians, with thousands of rockets shot indiscriminantly at a civillian population, is far more murderous that the intent of the Israelis that have demonstrably tried to minimize Palestinian civillian casualties and have verifiably called off attacks when they believed to many civillian casualties would occur.

Hamas actively solicits human shields becuase they know Israel will not attack if too many civillians will be hurt. Do you believe for a moment that the Palestinians in Gaza would be anything but proud of inflicting as many civillian casualties on Israelis as they could. 

That is by no means saying that Israel doesn't bear any blame in the matter.

The Israelis aren't doing enough to work towards showing that they care about the Palestinians' concerns.  But the Palestinians, by not renouncing the anti-Semitic Hamas Charter which explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel, aside from some hateful references to Jews, only ensure their own continued suffering. How can they expect the Israelis to trust a party that is calling for their destruction? 

Israel, for all its wrongs, is not calling for the destruction of the West Bank or Gaza as Palestinian homelands. A question that is often put by the supporters of Israel and is valid, is that if the Palestinians had the means to destroy Israel, do you doubt they would? Israel has the means to destroy Gaza, yet it does not. It is calling for verifiable security measures to be in place, for actual recognition of Isreal, which includes a cesation of incitement to violence and officially sanctioned antisenitism, which is prevellent in their media, and for commitments to non-violence.

Again, there is a lot of blame to go around, but by its nature and very name, the IAW aside from the false apartheid label which undermines its credibility, attributes blame to only one side in a situation where both sides have obviously done wrong, and that undermines any possibility of a productive outcome.

The formula is simple: Blame the victim for the crime; invent fanciful scenarios to justify it; then attempt to minimize the crime by saying at least the victim's family are allowed to pursue a fruitless lawsuit; and confirm your own prejudices by suggesting that Israel is not the worst of human rights offenders.

Yep, all the talking points are covered.

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Clearly Israel suffers from Stockholm Syndrome..They identify with their oppressors and model themselves after them.