Canada's support of Israel is dangerous

A great post from Robert Fisk.

This order of "you cannot criticize Israel", which the current government of Canada intends to enact, is nothing short of a dictatorial rule. Where's that freedom of speech & democracy, which Canadian governments, past & present, so much shout about all over the world?

Even if the government doesn't enact this law, it has already expanded the meaning of hate crime in Canada. So any vague reference towards criticism of a Canadian ally will definitely irk the government & the activist(s) can face jail time.

What happened to that peaceful, non-violent way of protesting against something wrong? When Mandela was imprisoned for decades by South African apartheid government, the Western governments were up in arms. Mandela was celebrated around the world for standing up against the South African apartheid regime until it gave in to his demands of granting freedom to South Africa. Western political & business leaders love to quote Gandhi that how he got India free from British colonialists without the use of violence. But nobody in the Western hemisphere says anything when Canadian government comes up with such a dictatorial law to love Israel.

Mr. Fisk ended the piece with a great advice for the Canadian, & in general, Western government leaders, that "boycotting a state for its crimes is a non-violent but potentially powerful way to express moral outrage at a time when political statements ... fail to represent the anger of voters or have any effect on a state that ignores international law. If you take that away, then the Boston bomber, now facing the execution chamber, can say that his was the only way." Criticizing a government is a peaceful way to express outrage. The other option for an activist is violence.

As I always say in my blog posts that democracy in the West, & all over the world, is a smoke-&-mirror game. It doesn't actually exist. Governments are run by career politicians who earn millions & give the ignorant public the illusion of "choosing" their leaders, even though, it has already been decided, long before the first ballot has cast, who will be the reigning king of the kingdom.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/robert-fisk-canadas-support-of-israel-is-dangerous-10256597.html

I’ve never been keen on boycotts. The one against Italy for invading Abyssinia didn’t work. Nor did the arms blockade on Spain. I’m still not sure that boycotting South Africa really brought down apartheid. I rather suspect that the old racists simply realised they were hopelessly outnumbered by the blacks of South Africa & that the game was up.

And I’m still unconvinced that boycotting Israel, even though it frightens the right-wing crazies in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, will achieve a two-state solution, human rights for Palestinians, etc. I’m free to refuse to buy products from Jewish colonies in occupied Arab land (I do not buy them), but, when I visit Israel, I stay at the King David Hotel in west Jerusalem, visit the Tel Aviv gallery of art & buy Israeli-published books. Some Israeli academics support a boycott of their own country. They may be right in doing so.

But in Canada – & I had to literally rub my eyes when I read this – the totally pro-Israeli Conservative government of Stephen Harper intends to list the boycotting of Israel as a “hate crime”. This is not only ludicrous, stupid, pointless & racist because it assumes that anyone opposed to Israel’s vicious & iniquitous policies of land-grabbing in the West Bank is an anti-Semite, but it is also anti-democratic. Those who believe in non-violence have always espoused boycott movements on the grounds that economic pressure rather than bombs is a moral way of putting pressure on a country that violates international law.

Yet Harper, who would surely be elected to the Knesset if he were an Israeli, went so far as to suggest on a recent visit to Jerusalem that merely to criticise Israel can be a form of anti-Semitism. The newly retired Canadian Foreign minister John Baird ... has described Canada’s Boycott Israel movement as “the new face of anti-Semitism”. In January, he actually signed an official agreement with Israel to fight the Boycott Israel organisation, known locally as the BDS (Boycott, Divest & Sanction) group. Steven Blaney, who rejoices in the title of Canada’s “Minister of Public Safety”, says that boycotts of Israel cannot be separated from anti-Semitic hate speech & the recent attacks against Jews in France.

This is preposterous. If I decline to buy Israeli-produced oranges at a British supermarket, this doesn’t make me a Nazi murderer. To criticise Israel doesn’t turn Canadians into Jew-haters. A number of liberal Jewish groups have protested against Harper’s proposed extension of existing ‘hate laws’ – far too many Jewish organisations have praised it – on the grounds that it assumes that all Jews support Israel or approve of its actions. And since Jews are also members of boycott-Israel groups, Harper’s expanded definition of the law would have to put Jews on trial in Canada for anti-Semitism.

Cloaked as usual in the kind of Blairite (& Cameronite) clichés that all law-&-order politicians adopt, Canadians are told that their government will show “zero tolerance” towards groups advocating a boycott of Israel. Of course, we show “zero tolerance” on the streets towards theft, mugging & gangland thuggery. But “zero tolerance” against those who wish to boycott a nation whose army slaughtered more than 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza last year, more than half of them civilians? Really? It was significant, I thought, that, after the killing of a Canadian soldier outside the Ottawa parliament by a Muslim last year & a murderous attack on Canadian servicemen, Harper publicised the message of condolence he had received from Netanyahu, as if the commiserations of a man who ordered the bombardment of Gaza were something to be proud of.

The dark little catch in all this is that last year Canada changed its definition of hate speech to include statements made against “national origin”, not just race & religion. Thus statements or speeches critical of Israel – like a number of public lectures I have given in Canada – may now be classed as statements against Jews (even though Jews are often among the organisers of my own speaking engagements in America). And, in due course, editorials in papers such as the Toronto Star can be deemed anti-Semitic & thus worthy of being denounced as a “hate-crime”.

This extended definition of 'hate crime' will put a lot of civil society groups under the cosh. The United Church of Canada & Canadian Quakers could find themselves in court & judges, however much they personally recoiled from Israel’s abuse of Palestinians, would have to abide by this outrageous piece of legislation & exercise “zero tolerance” against the free speech of those who condemn war crimes by Israel in the Middle East.

It is worth remembering that tens of thousands of Jews throughout the world, & especially in America & Poland, called for a boycott of Nazi Germany in 1933 for the very anti-Semitic acts that led directly to the Holocaust. American diplomats were critical, lest it provoked Hitler to even crueller deeds. But they didn’t threaten the protesters with “zero tolerance” of “hate crimes” because of the “national origin” of the Germans they proposed to boycott.

In the end, of course, it’s quite simple. Boycotting a state for its crimes is a non-violent but potentially powerful way to express moral outrage at a time when political statements – or cowardly governments like that of Stephen Harper – fail to represent the anger of voters or have any effect on a state that ignores international law. If you take that away, then the Boston bomber, now facing the execution chamber, can say that his was the only way.

"Mad Man" by Steve Nease

"Mad Man" - Steve Nease, Oakville, ON, Canada

If Stephen Harper is serious about criminalizing 'barbaric cultural practices', ...

Robert Fisk always hits the nail on the head. Another great op-ed piece on Canadian Bill S-7, "Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act." This act apparently makes all those things illegal which are already illegal in Canada, anyways; forced marriages, honour killings, polygamy, & family violence.

Apparently, Harper government has lots of time on its hand to bring useless acts & make useless, inefficient, redundant, & ineffective laws. Primary reason is the fear mongering to the max (because we all know which minority this act is targeting.).

Conservatives' party motto for this upcoming 2015 federal election is: "Run for your life, Canadians. Sky is falling. Muslims are coming to get you. Muslims will take over Canada & ruin your life."
 
I always wonder about the mental health of Canadians who so wholeheartedly support Conservatives on the federal & provincial levels.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/if-stephen-harper-is-serious-about-criminalising-barbaric-cultural-practices-then-he-should-arrest-himself-for-even-suggesting-it-10126055.html 

Is Stephen Harper off his rocker? Forget his trip to Jerusalem last year when the Canadian prime minister said that criticism of Israel was a “mask” for anti-Semitism.
 
Ignore his utter failure to bring home to Canada al-Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy, whose retrial was staged by the Egyptian government to give him the chance to leave for his country of adoption. Cast aside Harper’s Blair-like contention that the Islamist murders of Canadian soldiers had nothing – absolutely zilch – to do with his decision to send Canada’s F-18 jets against Isis.
 
Now Harper, the man with the choir-boy good looks whose pro-Israeli policies might win him a seat in the Knesset, is about to push a truly eccentric piece of legislation through parliament in Ottawa. It’s called – and I urge readers to repeat the words lest they think it’s already April Fool’s Day – the “Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act”. Yup, when I first read the phrase “Barbaric Cultural Practices Act”, I felt sure it was a joke, a line from the “Big Bang Theory” or a Channel 4 mockudrama about Nigel Farage’s first premiership.
 
Nope. It’s all real. But let me quickly explain that the “Barbaric Cultural Practices” in question are polygamy, “gender-based” family violence, “honour-killing” & forcing children under 16 to leave Canada for marriages abroad. I’ve no problem with legislation against this, of course. Nor have most Canadians.
 
I’m also against illegally invading foreign countries, colonising other people’s land, “waterboarding” & bombing wedding parties, or firing drone missiles into Waziristan villages. But these aren’t quite the “barbaric cultural practices” Mr. Harper has in mind.
 
What’s odd about the “barbarism” he’s thinking about ... is that these “practices” are already forbidden by Canadian law.
 
Polygamy is illegal in Canada – although Mormon polygamists in British Columbia appear strangely untouched by the new legislation – & Canadians were a bit non-plussed to learn from their government last week that there are “hundreds” of polygamists in their country. As for “honour-killing”, murder is murder is murder, in Canada as in Britain & in the US & in almost every other country in the world.
 
No, the catch is that this unique legislation ... is that it doesn’t come from Canada’s perfectly capable minister of justice Peter MacKay, but from the Canadian minister of – you guessed it – Citizenship & Immigration. Now isn’t that odd?
 
The chap in charge of Canada’s immigration policies is Christopher Alexander, who is himself a pretty “cultured” politician, a McGill & Balliol man, a former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan, where there’s plenty of polygamy & “honour-killing” & child marriage, &, well, let’s not go into Afghan government corruption, Afghan police torture, drones & the rest.
 
Because in truth, the new Canadian legislation is about foreigners or – more to the point – Muslims. Hence the BC Mormons have nothing to worry about. Because the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act (Bill S-7) – let us keep repeating this weird name – is playing what Toronto Star columnist Thomas Walkom calls the “foreign barbarian card”.

It foregrounds not crime per se but crime specifically associated with Muslims - hence the Canadian government’s legislative gloss that the act is against barbaric “traditions”. And Muslims, as we know, have for centuries been famous in Western song & legend for harems, multiple wives & disrespect for women.
 
There are indeed plenty of things wrong with Muslim societies. I’ve written extensively in The Independent about the scourge of “honour killings” – the slaughter of young women for refusing arranged marriages or adultery or who were merely rumoured to have behaved “immorally” (like calling a man on a mobile phone) in Kurdistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, “Palestine”, Jordan & Egypt.
 
We’ll forget for a moment that NGOs also told me that per head of population, “honour-killing” may be practised even more widely among Egyptian & Jordanian Christian communities. For the Christians, be sure, are not among Christopher Alexander’s targets.
 
It’s odd too, that “barbaric” is part of the Isis vocabulary for foreigners who bomb predominantly Muslim countries – America’s bombing of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Yemen & Libya come to mind over the past 42 years – & collude with the occupation & theft of land from Arab Muslims by the very same country whose critics are in danger of being called “anti-Semitic” by Stephen Harper.
 
And you can be sure that this same prime minister, in his outrage at the barbaric practices of Isis – & Canadian Muslims – will understandably now be avoiding all talk of a little scandal that must be bothering him quite a bit in private: the Turkish accusation that a Syrian intelligence operative who allegedly helped 3 British girls cross into Isis-held Syria was also working for Canadian intelligence employees. According to Turkey, these agents operated from the Canadian embassy in Amman – where the Canadian ambassador was handpicked by the aforementioned Stephen Harper after being the prime minister’s top bodyguard in Ottawa.
 
Now I’m not going to take the side of the Turkish police – they deported me from their country in 1991 after I found Turkish troops stealing blankets & food from Iraqi refugees. But their computer records reportedly show that the supposed spy for Canada, a certain Mr Rashed, entered Turkey 33 times on a Syrian passport & had also travelled to Canada.
 
The man does not work for CSIS, Canada’s spy outfit, according to Ottawa government “sources”. But officially, CSIS, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ... & Harper’s office have all refused to comment. The Ottawa Citizen has been highlighting another new bit of Harper legislation, Bill C-44 this time, which would allow Canadian judges to authorise CSIS activities abroad “to investigate a threat to the security” of Canada, “without regard to any other law, including that of any foreign state...”

Plenty to think about there. But no, it’s those pesky Canadian Muslims – or Muslim residents of Canada – who are the guilty ones, those who engage in “barbaric cultural practices”. It certainly says an awful lot about Harper’s Canadian political cultural practices.

Stephen Harper & the niqab gambit

It's funny how politicians / leaders everywhere around the world play upon one & only one emotion of public: fear. Politicians, essentially, treat the general public as little children. Just like parents make up scary stories to make their kids to do something, e.g. eat their veggies, politicians take a small incident, blow it up a thousand times, & scare people to do their own bidding.

So be it the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ("North America is against the development of South America") or the Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini ("immigrants are to blame for the poverty of South Africans") or Mr. Nigel Farage of UKIP blaming Islam & Muslims (behind the cover of anti-immigration) for economic woes of UK or Mr. Stephen Harper preaching Islamophobia to the Canadian crowds. What they all forget are the consequences of their statements? We can see the dire consequences of King Goodwill's statements in South Africa right now. Now, Mr. Zwelithini is asking for calm & blaming the media for misinterpreting his statements but the damage is already done. People are dead. Families are destroyed. Livelihoods are stolen. Those people who lost their lives won't come back now.
 
Since, the current government of Canada can't exactly win on job creation or economy, let's scare people about Islam & Muslims. Will Mr. Harper take responsibility when a Muslim woman, who is veiled or even simply wearing a hijab, is assaulted on the streets of Toronto? Will Quebecers come out in the support of Muslims when a Muslim woman is assaulted on the streets of Montreal?

After all, the general public keeps proving itself gullible, naïve,  & a fine example in idiocy; they will believe anything & will diligently act upon it, too.
 
Majority of general public (all over world) = sheep = zombies ... all follow one without thinking.
 
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One recent poll put the Conservatives in first place in Quebec City, with similar results in the swath of mostly rural regions west of the province’s capital city.
 
... by coming out against the wearing of the face-covering niqab during a citizenship oath, which was the subject of a recent court decision, & the threat of another terrorist attack on Canadian soil, Harper hit upon a strain of collective fear in the province—where, as another recent poll suggests, nearly 80% of people are worried about a terrorist attack & the indoctrination of young Quebecers by Islamist extremists.
 
And what goes for Quebec goes for the country as a whole. The recent threat of an attack ... has only underscored the Canada-wide support for the government’s new anti-terrorism bill, which, according to recent polling numbers, is at nearly 85%.
 
Since the terrorist attacks in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, the Prime Minister has taken to peppering his speeches with the words “jihad” & “terrorism,” whether speaking in Montreal or British Columbia or Brisbane, Australia. His national poll numbers have trended steadily upward, while the two opposition parties, the NDP & Liberals, have seen a corresponding decrease, according to poll aggregator Éric Grenier. “Jihadi terrorism, as it is evolving, is one of the most dangerous enemies our world has ever faced,” Harper said in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill recently. “We will not be intimidated by jihadist terrorists,” he said in Delta, B.C., in a speech otherwise devoted to infrastructure spending.
The message seems clear: Appealing to Canadians’ baser fears doesn’t only work—it’s also a rare source of national unity.
 
Quebec’s Muslim population more than doubled between 2001 & 2011, in large part because of Quebec’s immigration policy favouring new arrivals from French-speaking countries. This influx of French-speakers, primarily from North Africa, were decidedly different in appearance & in their religious practices, spurring the so-called “reasonable accommodations” debate.
 
Fear of Muslims erupted in Quebec’s overwhelmingly white hinterland (the very area Harper covets today) over the spectre of mosques on their skylines & pork-free fèves au lard at the sugar shack. The town of Hérouxville, home to exactly zero Muslims, banned public stonings.
 
Then the attacks started. Certainly, Quebecers were as aghast as the rest of the world at the various terrorist attacks against Western targets. Yet the attacks against soldiers in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu & on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill were a special kind of horror: Both perpetrators were pure laine francophone, born-&-bred Quebecers ostensibly radicalized by fundamentalist imams & the outer margins of the Internet.
“The fact that these 2 guys were from Quebec was a wake-up call,” says Quebec MNA Nathalie Roy, the critic for secular matters for the right-of-centre Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ). “It’s unthinkable that Quebec citizens would go so far as to renounce our values & our rights.” The attack on Charlie Hebdo, in which Islamist gunmen killed 12 in & around the office of the Paris-based satirical magazine in January, had particular resonance in Quebec. Proportionally, it received nearly 3 times the media coverage in the province than elsewhere in the country, according to Influence Communication, a Montreal-based media-monitoring company.
 
The issue of Muslim & societal values came up yet again with a recent Federal Court decision that struck down a prohibition on the wearing of the niqab while taking the public citizenship oath. Like most court decisions, there are nuances to what Federal Court Judge Keith Boswell wrote. The issue wasn’t about identification, since the woman in question, Zunera Ishaq, had already shown her face to citizenship authorities.
 
Nor did Boswell’s decision outright allow for the wearing of the niqab during the oath. It only quashed a 2011 government directive barring the Muslim face-covering during the ceremony because it prevented citizenship judges from “allowing the greatest possible freedom in the religious solemnization,” as outlined in the citizenship regulations.
 
These nuances were mostly overlooked in the ensuing outrage over the Federal Court decision. This outrage was at a full boil when the Prime Minister first announced his government’s intention to appeal Boswell’s decision during a stop in Victoriaville, Que.
 
... Harper’s statement, uttered in both official languages, was a master stroke of quotable outrage. “I believe, & I think most Canadians believe, that it is offensive that someone would hide their identity at the very moment where they are committing to joining the Canadian family,” he said. “This is a society that is transparent, open, & where people are equal. And that is just . . . I think we find that offensive.”

Among those who listened at Harper’s side was Victoriaville Mayor Alain Rayes. Born of Egyptian immigrants, Rayes has been mayor of the city of 45,000 since 2009. A fit 43-year-old with a ready smile & an informal way about him, Rayes is being heavily courted to run for the Conservatives in the next election. He says the vast majority of his constituents see eye-to-eye with Harper on the topics of terrorism & societal norms.

“It’s an aberration to hear [NDP Leader] Thomas Mulcair say he is against the anti-terror bill, or to hear [Liberal Leader] Justin Trudeau say he finds it normal that a person doesn’t remove her niqab during a citizenship oath. I’m not against the veil or freedom of religion, but there is a limit,” Rayes says.
 
The CAQ, meanwhile, proposed a motion to perform background checks on anyone requesting a permit to build a mosque in Quebec, as well as a law banning any form of speech that “goes against the values inscribed in Quebec’s charter of rights.” It was voted down in Quebec’s National Assembly.
 
This makes for fertile political ground for the Conservatives, says Quebecer Stephen Brown. “In Quebec, if a deeply unpopular prime minister comes & says, ‘I want to protect you & your culture,’ he’s going to have an immediate audience. The fear of extremist Islam, which is justified, is like political catnip,” says the 28-year-old volunteer with the Quebec-based Canadian Muslim Forum.
 
The Tories may find this a winning strategy outside of Quebec, as well. An Angus-Reid poll published in mid-February suggested that 82% of Canadians support Bill C-51, the Conservative government’s anti-terrorism legislation. An earlier Angus-Reid poll, published about a month after the attacks in Saint-Jean-Sur-Richelieu & Parliament Hill, suggests why this support is so high. 62% of Canadians (including 60% of Quebecers) believe homegrown terrorism is a serious threat.
 
The terrorist attacks in Canada in 2014 have had a similar effect on public opinion as the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, says University of Toronto professor & terrorism law expert Kent Roach. In both cases, politicians leveraged the collective fear of terrorism to pass more stringent laws. “Like the Anti-Terrorism Act enacted after the 9/11 attacks, Bill C-51 is an omnibus bill that is being enacted amid fears of additional terrorist attacks. In both cases, there are almost daily media accounts of terrorist threats to Canada,” Roach says ... .
 
Citizenship & Immigration Minister Chris Alexander sent out a note to supporters criticizing the Federal Court for its stance on the niqab. He also noted his government’s intention to appeal the decision “allowing people to wear the hijab,” thus, knowingly or not, conflating the niqab & the hijab, 2 very different articles of clothing. (The term hijab is widely used to describe a head scarf that doesn’t cover the face.) ... And it took just over a week into his tenure as Canada’s new defence minister for Jason Kenney to proclaim the “high probability of future jihadist attacks from within”—a contention, coincidentally or not, that 62% of Canadians believe, according to the Angus-Reid poll. (A bit of perspective: Canadian-born terrorists were responsible for the deaths of 2 people in 2014; in 2011, according to the most recent Statistics Canada data, 2,158 Canadians died in motor vehicle accidents.)
 
As the Conservatives have shown across the country, fear of jihadists & face-coverings alike is a far more exploitable subject that also happens to dovetail with the government’s tough-on-crime agenda. “If I were Stephen Harper’s political adviser, I’d tell him to do exactly what he’s doing,” says Brown of the Canadian Muslim Forum. “Fear is the most powerful human emotion &, if people are afraid, they will be willing to give you more power in the name of protecting them.” In promoting this fear in Quebec & beyond, perhaps Stephen Harper has found the key to national unity after all.

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-niqab-gambit/