The National Post and Canadian Jewish Congress attack Independent Jewish Voices (again)

Last week, the National Post published a screed yet again attacking Independent Jewish Voices and its former chair, Diana Ralph. Several years ago, prior to joining Independent Jewish Voices, Ralph wrote a chapter for a book called Hidden History of 9-11 in which her thesis was that the Bush Administration was using 9-11 as a pretext for an imperialist adventure in the Middle East and for Islamophobic measures at home.

Unfortunately, Ralph also made a few statements in passing that seemed to lend credibility to 9-11 conspiracy theories. The Post and the CJC have deliberately overstated this element of her writings in order to imply that Ralph herself is a conspiracy theorist and then tar Independent Jewish Voices by association despite the fact that IJV has never issued a single statement on 9-11 and despite the fact that an IJV spokesperson clearly told the Post that "The positions of Diana Ralph stated in those articles do not represent the positions of the IJV."

By challenging the monopoly uncritically Zionist groups such as the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith Canada have claimed over Jewish opinion in this country IJV has undermined both the myth that Canadian Jews are of one voice when it comes to Israel and challenged the slur that criticism of Israel is tantamount to anti-Semitism. As a result, the CJC in particular has pulled out the stops in its attempt to isolate, vilify and marginalize IJV and harass any organization, such as the United Church of Canada, that has dealings with the organization.

The National Post, accordingly, when referring to IJV makes sure to also refer to it as having been "recently chaired by 9/11 conspiracy theorist Diana Ralph." The Post also takes issue with the fact that as past-co-chair, Ralph remains on IJV's executive.

There is a searing double standard here. The co-president of the Canadian Jewish Congress from 2007 to 2009 was a man named Reuven Bulka. He remains a member of the CJC's Board of Directors as "immediate past president." Now, prior to becoming co-president of the CJC, Bulka wrote a book called One Man, One Woman, One Lifetime in which he described homosexuality as "abnormal" and called on lesbian and gay Jews to seek "the help of mental health professionals and spiritual advisors". Not only that but Bulka served for years on the "scientific advisory committee" of a group called the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality which views homosexuality as a "psychological condition" and "developmental disorder" and offers "conversion therapy" which it claims will "cure" homosexuality. Despite Bulka's clear and longstanding association with a crackpot, pseudoscientific homophobic organization the good people of the National Post never follow references to the Canadian Jewish Congress with a statement such as "recently led by homophobic pseudoscience advocate Reuven Bulka" or write anything that implies that the CJC shares Bulka's views. Of course, the reason for the Post's inconsistent treatment of two Jewish groups has everything with ideology and nothing to do with journalistic ethics. Jonathan Kay has gone to great lengths sifting through the writings of IJV's former leader in hopes of finding something he can trump up into scandal but he's never given Rabbi Bulka's writings a second glance. Why?

Prophit wrote:

It seems that AKAMycroft has a bit of a thing about Rabbi Bulka. He posted about this back in the summer. I found this with just a little digging

http://www.rabble.ca/comment/1028004/Seems-Rabbi-Bulka-sat

As well, Isn't Rabbi Bulka an orthodox Rabbi? Orthodox Judaism still sadly have biblical issues here. Yet while Bulka was co-President of CJC, the Congress marched in two gay pride parades and its CEO spoke at a Kulanu (Jewish LGBT group) event honouring the memory of those murdered at a Gay and Lesbian community centre in Tel Aviv.

Lots of contradictions here seems to me.

I first came across Bulka's ridiculous views when I was doing some digging around the time of CJC's attack on QuAIA last June. I was reminded of it last week as a result of the National Post and CJC's attack on IJV and Diana Ralph. If that means I have a "thing" for Rabbi Bulka, so be it. As for CJC marching in two gay pride parades I think you mean they've marched in two gay pride parades since the end of Bulka's term (this year in Toronto and Montreal). A number of people commented when Bernie Farber joined this year's parade that it was the first time anyone could recall the CJC in a pride parade. Indeed, it was interesting that Farber did not march in Pride either year that Bulka was co-president and only did so after his term had expired.

I find it interesting that Kulanu had much to say about QuAIA but nothing to say about Bulka's abhorrent views while he was president. Indeed, you would have thought someone in CJC would have objected to a homophobe holding the group's highest office.

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Isn't Rabbi Bulka an orthodox Rabbi?

He's also a trained psychotherapist which makes his indulgence in pseudoscientific "cures" for homosexuality at best, scary, at worst, professional misconduct. I wonder how many lives he's destroyed with his hokum?

Here's another letter:

Re: United Church, Jewish Group Try To Reconcile, Jan. 29.

Kathryn Blaze Carlson reports on the attempt by the Canadian Jewish Congress to blackmail the United Church into abandoning its tradition of openness and "repent" for its support of the Independent Jewish Voices of Canada. No single organization can possibly represent the opinions of an entire community, whether Jewish, Greek or Arab. The establishment of the Independent Jewish Voices of Canada, inspired by a similar group in Britain, has brought diversity to the monolithic image of Canadian Jewry promoted by the Canadian Jewish Congress.

This is particularly grievous since the Congress creates a dangerous false impression, namely that Canadian Jews are united behind Israel and its military actions, even though many Jews have qualified these actions as crimes of war. It is this kind of misrepresentation that foments anti-Jewish sentiment in our country that the Independent Jewish Voices is trying to contest. The United Church has no reason to be ashamed of its help to the then-fledging organization.

It is the Canadian Jewish Congress that should be ashamed of its unconditional support for Israel, "my country right or wrong," and of its self-righteous arrogance in pressuring the United Church.

Yakov M. Rabkin, professor of History, University of Montreal.

Gus Williams wrote:

I found a good online discussion of the work CJC has done regarding the LGBT community here at the NOW site.

http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=170150

 

Both sides well represented...even Farber seems to have posted. In the end I think it tilts more positively towards CJC but that's just my view

Farber was taken to task for pandering by wearing a "Nobody knows I'm gay" t-shirt when not only is he not gay but hadn't been seen at a Pride parade until the Palestinian issue came up. Had Farber marched at Pride when Reuven Bulka was co-president it would have been more impressive. (Or are you suggesting that perhaps he did and wore a "Nobody tell Rabbi Bulka I'm here" t-shirt?)

Psychiatrists are regulated but, until recently, in Ontario anyone could call themselves a "psychotherapist" without necessarily having any credentials.

This changed in 2007 with the passage of the Psychotherapy Act and the creation of the College of Psychotherapists and Registered Mental Health Therapists of Ontario. I believe we are still in the transitional stage were regulation hasn't been fully implemented.

skdadl wrote:

I'm curious about the way the McCarthyite attack has ramped up fairly steeply just over the last year, even less than that. Am I wrong to sense that it has? Is that just in Canada, where there is a cabal within the government that actually has some power to do institutional damage and is intent on using it (the Kenney party)? Is it in reaction to the Goldstone report? Because people are saying and doing some extreme things, things with consequences.

For the first year or so of IJV's existence the CJC tried to ignore it. That didn't work so they've moved on to a campaign of vilification and attempted isoloation. One should ask why the CJC is so obsessed with IJV that they are making relations between IJV and UCC a major focus of their own discussions with UCC.

Goldstone is certainly part of it and there is, similarly, an international campaign of vilification aimed at the South African jurist and self-described Zionist. Related is the "new antisemitism" campaign which has recently been revived and attempts to smear virtually all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.

In regards to Goldstone, See for example this article from Ha'aretz:

Dershowitz: Goldstone is a traitor to the Jewish people

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Prominent political commentator Professor Alan Dershowitz slammed jurist Richard Goldstone, the architect of a UN report which accuses Israel of Gaza war crimes, saying he is a traitor to the Jewish people, Army Radio reported Sunday.

Dershowitz and Goldstone have been colleagues and close friends for many years before the UN Gaza probe, but once Goldstone published his report the ties between the two were severed. "The Goldstone report is a defamation written by an evil, evil man," Dershowitz said.

In an interview with Army Radio, Dershowitz said he is appalled by the report and can't fathom how it could have been written by a Jew. He said it is as if a Jew would have written the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and that the jurist is using the fact that his last name is 'Goldstone' to substantiate the report's defamation against the Jewish people.

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Former minister and Meretz chairwoman Shulamit Aloni responded to Dershowitz's comments, saying that Goldstone is far from a traitor. "Dershowitz's statements border on hate. Goldstone is a Zionist Jew who was simply doing his job," Aloni told Army Radio.

Aloni further went on to say that Dershowitz is a despicable man who opposes the left and supports the settlers. "His opinion doesn't count in my eyes, and the way he speaks of Goldstone is disgraceful," Aloni said.

"The Goldstone report isn't entirely accurate, though we cannot ignore the fact that we did violate international law - the IDF used phosphorus and bombed schools and hospitals," said Aloni.

Meanwhile, despite the throroughgoing thrashing Goldstone has received, the government of Israel has been forced to admit backhandedly that he is on to something.

Israel reprimands top officers over UN compound strike

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Buried in paragraph 108 of the Israeli report to the UN is the key fact of the document. Two senior officers were reprimanded for failing to follow their own rules of engagement.

This is an explosive admission, especially as this is about an incident involving white phosphorus and Israel had always maintained that this was not misused in Gaza.

This is the first time that Israel has acknowledged, at least in part, allegations that civilians were jeopardised by the misuse of artillery at the main UN warehouse in Gaza City.

The officers will not face criminal prosecution. That is something the Israeli political-military establishment is desperate to avoid. They fear it would be disastrous for morale and would damage the ability of Israel's army to fight the next war.

However, Israel's problem is that if its own investigations appear to the outside world to be a whitewash, the UN is all the more likely to order a special tribunal at The Hague.

You're right Unionist; let's focus on the essential issue here: Israel's hasbara machine has gone into superdrive in an effort to vilify any criticism from Israel as witnessed by this new attack by Dershowitz on Judge Goldstone calling him "evil" and a traitor. Groups like the CJC are doing their part by vilifying Jewish critics in Canada, in particular IJV. Where once CJC could claim to be the "parliament of Canadian Jews" today they act like thought police within the Jewish community - hunting down heretics, casting them out, and ostracising them to the extent of even attacking the United Church for daring to associate with Jewish dissidents.

Israel once claimed to be a democratic state, however, that illusion is evaporating as the state ramps up repression not only against vocal Palestinian citizens of Israel, termed "Israel Arabs" but against NGOs and even the Jewish left. According to one report I've received:

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16 of the organisations funded by the New Israel Fund testified before Goldstone or provided information to his team, and are now being attacked for this in a concerted PR campaign as "threatening Israel". The targeted organisations include the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, B'Tselem, PHR-Israel, HaMoked, Breaking the Silence, New Profile (not funded by NIF but cited as such by the campaign), Coalition of Women for Peace, Who Profits?, Gisha, Yesh Din, Adalah, and several others. A governmental discussion of the subject was held by the Israeli Political-Security cabinet this morning [Sunday]. Apparently the IDF and GSS are "collecting information" about the organisations. For more in English on the initiators of the campaign see http://imti.org.il/en/about_us.html[/quote]

 

And from the Jerusalem Post article linked to above about the attacks on the Israeli Jewish left:

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A soon-to-be-released report by the Zionist student group Im Tirtzu, which accuses the New Israel Fund of direct responsibility for the UN's Goldstone Report on the IDF's Gaza offensive last winter, is "just another in a series of attempts to quash freedom of speech in the human rights and civil rights community in Israel," the NIF's CEO Daniel Sokatch told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

According to the Im Tirtzu report, 92 percent of the Goldstone document's allegations criticizing the IDF's conduct came from 16 Israeli NGOs that received some $7.8 million from the NIF in 2008-2009 alone.

Im Tirtzu members have begun a protest campaign to coincide with the release of the report, and on Saturday night they staged a mock rally of Hamas members outside the Jerusalem home of NIF chairwoman Naomi Chazan, a former Meretz MK.

Im Tirtzu has also sparked outrage - both in Israel and the US - with a full-page ad it took out in the Post's Sunday edition that featured a caricature of Chazan with a rhinoceros horn bearing the letters "NIF" tied to her forehead.

"It's an attack on the fiber of Israeli democracy," Sokatch said of the report and the accompanying campaign. "And part of an increasing drumbeat of incredibly heavy-handed tactics being used by authorities and others to silence human rights and civil rights organizations in Israel."

He pointed to the interrogation by police in early January of Women of the Wall chairwoman Anat Hoffman, who is also director of the Reform Movement's Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), as a recent example of such tactics.

Hoffman was questioned by police after taking part in an all-female prayer session at the Western Wall in December, and was subsequently fingerprinted before being released to go home.

"A week later, Hagai El-Ad [director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel] was arrested while monitoring a protest in [the east Jerusalem neighborhood of] Sheikh Jarrah," Sokatch continued. "So first it was IRAC, then it was ACRI and now they're going after the NIF.

"The kinds of societies and countries that try to intimidate and quash freedom of speech are not the kinds of countries we want to emulate or that I think Israelis want to emulate," he said. "And while we're quite cognizant of the fact that people who don't have Israel's best interests in mind could use the material provided by human rights and civil rights organizations to damage Israel, the democratic identity of Israel and the values we stand for are far more important than what our enemies might do with these reports."

 

Israeli left needs to wake up before it's too late

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Looking at the way the right acts makes one go green with envy and want to learn from them. Four hundred criminal cases opened against opponents of the 2005 Gaza Strip disengagement, people who threw oil, acid, garbage and stones at soldiers and police, were closed last week and their criminal record expunged. Fifty-one MKs voted in favor of the closure, nine against. That is the true map of Israeli politics (and society). Only about seven percent of the lawmakers believed that this was a worthless and dangerous decision. All the rest agreed with it, or did not bother to vote or take an interest.

Neither did anyone think to apply a similar rule to 800 protesters against Operation Cast Lead, who were arrested and charged, perhaps because they are Arabs, nor to the dozens arrested for protesting in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, perhaps because they are leftists. Left-wing demonstrators never acted as violently as the settlers do, but no one thinks about pardoning them. Not even a semblance of equality before the law, not even the appearance of justice for all - that is unnecessary in a place where public shame no longer exists.

This scandalous decision did not appear out of nowhere. It is the fruit of a campaign of pressure and solicitation, bullying and extortion. From now on, settlers and Israeli society will know that they can go as wild as they want: Even if someone dares charge them - another will arise who will know how to extricate them from trouble and penalty. In contrast, left-wing protesters are orphans. They have no public or parliamentary support. Protesters against disengagement and pogromists in Palestinian villages know they will be cleared, while leftist protesters are abandoned to their fate.

From now on the left will know that as long as it continues its winter (and summer) hibernation, its protesters will be thrown into jail and no one will spring them. From now on, Israel will know that its legal system discriminates between right and left - a strong, aggressive and violent right and a left deep in hibernation. That is the way it is when the leftovers of the left are busy with wages for authors, animal rights and useless organizing against Ehud Barak, with exemption from municipal taxes for synagogues and maternity leave for men. Meretz MKs do not even have time for Sheikh Jarrah. That is the way it is when the left wing of the Zionist establishment is dead.