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ISRANET DAILY BRIEFING ARCHIVE Volume VIII, No. 1,916 • Friday, August 29, 2008
Due to Labour Day (Canada), the next Daily Isranet Briefing will be issued on Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2008. THE JEWS & “EL LOCO” CHAVEZ THE YIDDISH DICTIONARY OF FOOLS …Yiddish-Yinglish Dictionary of Fools Bulvan: An ox, with no class. He’ll move your house on his back—without asking. Chaim Yankel: A mister nobody. His favorite color is beige. Chaleria: A shrew. If her pastrami’s fatty, she’ll make a federal case. Chazzer: A pig: He’ll take home the cheap wine he brought you for Passover. Draycup: She one not only forgot her address, she’s in the wrong city. Eingeshparht: He’s got a head like a rock. Gantseh Makher: He made a few bucks selling whoopie cushions, so suddenly he’s Trump. Synonym: K’nocker Gonif: Unscrupulous, a thief. His partner’s sent out an APB. Grubber yung: Crude. A big mouth who has dirt (from grabbing) under his fingernails. Klutz: Clumsy. She falls over her own sneakers- fastened with Velco. Kvetch: A whiner. The food’s salty, the place is chilly, eating out -who needs it? Luftmensch: A dreamer—who never wakes up. He could paint a masterpiece, if only he had an easel—and knew how. Meshugener: A loony. Whether he thinks his underwear is after him or barrels over Niagra Falls, he’s one letter short of an M&M. Moishe Kapoyr: Today he’d be called “oppositional.” The family votes to hold the reunion in Vegas. He votes for Vilna. Nar: He left his law practice to become a clown. Nayfish: A doormat. When he’s robbed, he apologizes for being short on cash. Nebekh: A hapless unfortunate. He gets stepped on by accident a lot. Nuchshlepper: A hanger-on. She shleps the 200 pound camping gear for the group. Nudnik: A persistent bore. She doesn’t stop with the talking, the asking, the annoying till you want to staple his lips together. Nudzh: A pesty badgerer. She tells you twelve times to check the locks. Unlike the nudnik, it could be an occasional occurrence. Ongeblussen: A self-involved blowhard. If his last name is Moses, he thinks the Bible gave him a mention. Oysvorf: Unpopular outcast. Think David Duke at a Hadassah meeting. Paskudnyak: A revolting, corrupt person. For him, there would be a very short funeral. Shikker: A drunk. She has a little chaser with her Cheerios. Shlemiel: A pathetic, clumsy loser. He drives over—through your living room. Shlimazel: An unlucky loser. He’s the one the shlemiel was visiting. Shlump: Unkempt, saggy. She shleps, stooped, with her hair in strings. Shmeggege: And idiotic doofus. Short of a “meshuganah,” he’s sure he’ll make a killing with his musical toilet seat ... and acts like a makher about it. Shmendrik: Nincompoop. A fraternal twin to a shlemiel, he’s thinner and weaker. Shnook: A likeable patsy. You could sell him a time-share in Area 51, and he’ll pay top dollar—for vacationing on an historical site. Shnorror: A beggar. He’s forever borrowing, taking advantage. Bad for a potluck party.
Trombenik: A lazy braggart. Not only does he blow his own horn, he doesn’t own one. Yuchna: A loud-mouthed, boorish female. In Loehmann’s dressing room she’ll yell “It would fit if you lost a few pounds!” Yutz: Socially inept. He takes you to a restaurant with a clown face and spends the evening discussing his train collection. Zshlub: Lazy slob. He shows up with schmutz on his untucked shirt. To Archie Bunker, “meathead” looked like a zshlub when he met him—although he’d never say it. (Marnie Winston-Macauley is the author of the award-winning A Little Joy, A Little Oy 2008 calendar.) HUGO
CHÁVEZ’S JEWISH PROBLEM …Venezuela’s Jewish community, amounting to less than 1 percent of the country’s total population of 26 million, is among the oldest in South America, dating back to the early 19th century.…Today, the majority of the country’s Jewish population is descended from an influx of European and North African immigrants who arrived during the years surrounding World War II. Most reside in the capital city of Caracas, comprising a tightly knit community made up of roughly equal numbers from Ashkenazi and Sephardi countries of origin.… Since Chávez took the oath of office at the beginning of 1999, there has been an unprecedented surge in anti-Semitism throughout Venezuela. Government-owned media outlets have published anti-Semitic tracts with increasing frequency. Pro-Chávez groups have publicly disseminated copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the early-20th-century czarist forgery outlining an alleged worldwide Jewish conspiracy to seize control of the world. Prominent Jewish figures have been publicly denounced for supposed disloyalty to the “Bolívarian” cause, and “Semitic banks” have been accused of plotting against the regime. Citing suspicions of such plots, Chávez’s government has gone so far as to stage raids on Jewish elementary schools and other places of meeting. The anti-Zionism expressed by the government is steadily spilling over into street-level anti-Semitism, in which synagogues are vandalized with a frequency and viciousness never before seen in the country. The details are arresting.
Not only has Chávez repeatedly expressed support for Hizballah in general, but (according to Venezuelan newspapers) he paid $1 million to print posters of himself with Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah to be displayed at a Hizballah rally in Beirut. Insofar as there is a rationale behind any of this, it would seem to form a part of Chávez’s general view of the world. According to that view, the United States has coopted both Europe and Israel into a transnational enterprise whose purpose is to exploit and impoverish the world’s less developed but resource-rich countries.…In a July 2006 interview with the Arab TV network al-Jazeera, Chávez elaborated…: “The Secretary of State has said that that [the U.S.] will change the map of the Middle East. This plan was made in advance and in great detail in the Pentagon, except that Israel is the executor.…They want to transform the map of the Middle East in order to guarantee the dominance and control of the largest reserves of oil and energy in the world.” As an alleged oppressor of the Palestinian Arabs, Israel has its own place of special infamy in Chávez’s world view.…[D]uring a 2005 speech marking Columbus’s discovery of the Americas, Chávez likened the plight of Venezuela’s Indians to that of Palestinians. Reminding his listeners of how their ancestors had been “murdered in their land” by “governments, economic sectors, and great land estates,” he thundered: “You were expelled from your homeland, like the heroic Palestinian people.” All of these elements seem entirely derivative of Marxist-Leninist theorizing, with a strong admixture of post-colonialism à la Franz Fanon and Fidel Castro. But Chávez is not just another Latin American leftist on the Castro model. While the Cuban dictator may be his most important political influence, his greatest intellectual debt is to the Argentinian writer and thinker Norberto Ceresole: a man not of the Left but of the populist Right, a Holocaust denier, and a sworn enemy of Israel and the Jews.… The ingeniousness of Ceserole’s doctrine, as filtered through the sensibility of Hugo Chávez, resides in its blending of Marxist economics with two venerable anti-Semitic traditions. The first, still powerful in South America, derives from Catholic teachings about the historic Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. The second, encapsulated most notoriously in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has flourished in both rightist and leftist variations throughout modern European history, resurfacing in our own time in the fulminations of extreme anti-Zionists. Chávez drew on both traditions in an address he delivered on Christmas Eve in 2004. Here he spoke ominously of certain “minorities, the descendants of those who crucified Christ,” who had “taken possession of the riches of the world.” But there was an added element at play in this passage, which has to be quoted in full to be properly appreciated:
Like most of its South American neighbors, Venezuela is a nation of economic extremes. There are a small number of extraordinarily well-to-do families—the “white oligarchs”—and an enormously large population of very poor people, partly or wholly native-American, with few prospects of economic advancement [and] Chávez has been engaged in a policy of forcible redistribution, nationalizing industries and large farms and turning their proceeds over to social programs aimed ostensibly at ameliorating the condition of the poor…. [H]owever, this [policy] has been a grotesque failure.… And so the inequities persist, and with them the need to identify scapegoats that can divert attention from Chávez’s culpability…. One-third of Venezuela’s Jews have fled the country by now, and those who remain are in a state ranging from discomfiture to terror. [S]ome wealthier Jews say that the [reason they stay] is economic…and offers by the Israeli government to ease the process of aliyah have so far met with few takers.… History suggests that once anti-Semitism becomes an instrument of state policy, the possibility of violence can never be discounted. For centuries, moreover, anti-Semitism has waxed and waned with fluctuating business cycles. With both the ailing economy and Chávez’s social programs dependent almost entirely on oil revenues, a drop in prices could trigger widespread animosity against the “Semitic banks” that members of Chávez’s party have repeatedly denounced for every passing ill. A major event like a military strike on Iran by the United States or Israel might similarly serve as justification for seizing the assets of Venezuela’s Jewry. In the meantime, as the numbers dwindle, and many of the richest depart, it is becoming increasingly difficult to care for the Jewish poor, who make up a full 25 percent of the community. Caught in a vise between an all too realistic fear and a possibly illusory hope, one of South America’s most productive and peaceful minorities awaits the future in grim expectancy. WJC
EMBRACES AN ANTI-SEMITE World Jewish Congress officials allowed themselves to get carried away when they hailed a recent meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as having been “successful” and proclaimed that he had joined the global struggle against anti-Semitism.… The paeans of praise directed towards Chavez [for his condemnation of anti-Semitism] by [WJC secretary-general Michael] Schneider and his colleagues ignore the fact that this wretched hooligan has achieved the notoriety of being the most loathsome contemporary anti-Semitic head of state outside the Muslim world. This is the man who in a Christmas speech alleged that “the descendants of those who crucified Christ control the world’s wealth.” Chavez has also achieved international notoriety as one of Ahmadinejad’s closest allies. Both tyrants extol one another’s virtues and radiate hatred against the US and Israel. Chavez describes Ahmadinejad as “a fighter for just causes,” a “brother” and a “revolutionary.” Last year the Iranian president awarded Chavez Iran’s highest honor, the Islamic Republic Medal. Chavez boasts of his close ties with President Bashar Assad of Syria. At a joint press conference with Assad, Chavez said “We know how Israel was born. It is an annex of the North American empire in the Middle East. Israel is the cause of the conflict in the region. This territory 6,000 years ago belonged to the Canaanites and the Philistines. These lands belong to the Palestinians.” The Venezuelan president has also enthusiastically identified himself with Hizbullah and was widely displayed together with its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, in posters throughout Lebanon stating that “Israel needs to be judged for its crimes.” He also provides a haven in Venezuela for Hizbullah terrorists. During the Second Lebanon War, Chavez recalled the Venezuelan ambassador to Israel in response to what he described as a “new Holocaust” comparable to Hitler’s actions against the Jews being perpetrated with “gringo” planes provided by the US. Chavez also intimidated the 12,000 members of the Venezuelan Jewish community, 25 percent of whom have emigrated since he assumed power. His government sanctioned vicious anti-Semitic media campaigns and a proliferation of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic propaganda and graffiti at all levels. As recently as six months ago, Chavez authorized a police raid on the Caracas Club Hebraica on the spurious grounds that illegal weapons were being stored there. The synagogue has also been subject to repeated vandalism.… It is therefore mind-boggling that Schneider could blithely inform the media that “there may have been some differences on some issues such as Iran and also the Middle East,” but after Chavez had assured him “that he was certainly not an anti-Semite,” the meeting was a “success.” In effect, certain World Jewish Congress leaders are legitimizing the man who maintains warm relationships with Holocaust deniers and demonizers of Israel, enshrining him with a mantle of respectability in the struggle against anti-Semitism, when he merely paid lip service to the cause by saying that he “opposed anti-Semitism.”… To top off this Alice in Wonderland diplomacy, Chavez is also reported to have agreed to assist the WJC in its interfaith dialogue activities with Christians and Muslims. Last month, WJC representatives at King Abdullah’s interfaith conference in Madrid displayed their impotence by failing to raise the issue of Saudi anti-Semitism. But if their intention is to now coopt this loathsome tyrant to promote interfaith relations, they would be forfeiting any semblance of Jewish dignity and their groveling would have descended to an all-time low.… [T]he WJC leaders blundered in failing to make explicit representations concerning the global anti-Semitic and anti-Israel policies conducted by the Venezuelan regime. They were also premature in dispensing a clean bill of health to one of the key personalities leading the international anti-Jewish campaign. Worse, their failure to even relate to these issues in subsequent media interviews may transform this encounter into an utterly counterproductive exercise. In recent years, our greatest challenge has been to demonstrate that demonization and delegitimization of Israel is simply a new version of anti-Semitism—substituting hatred of the Jew as an individual with hatred of the Jewish state. Now we have the WJC secretary-general and some of his colleagues lauding Chavez and bestowing upon him the dubious distinction of being the first leader openly embracing Iranian Holocaust deniers and shamelessly indulging in demonization of Israel to be treated with deference and regarded as an ally by a body purporting to represent world Jewry. If any reputable non-Jewish organization or government behaved in such a manner, we Jews would be the first to protest. HUGO’S
ARMS SPREE While Colombia has gone great guns in quashing the narcoterrorist FARC insurgency here—including a daring July hostage-rescue raid—trouble is still brewing right next door in Venezuela. Just this week, Latin America’s troublemaker-in-chief, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, threatened the recently reactivated US Fourth Fleet with two squadrons of newly arrived Russian Su-30 fighter planes, part of a $3 billion arms package he bought in 2006.… Clearly not satisfied with the most recent arms delivery, Chavez isn’t wasting a minuto building the region’s most powerful military in a bid for hegemony, if his late-July visit to Moscow is any sign. Post-summit reports indicate there might be another $1 billion or so in advanced Russian Tor M-1 air defense systems, T-90 battle tanks and Kilo-class diesel submarines in the pipeline. But that’s only the tip of the arms iceberg: The Russian press is reporting that arms sales to Venezuela over the next 10 years may top another $5 billion, including heavy-lift air transport, air-air refueling tankers (for the fighters) and long-range air-defense systems. Naturally, Chavez insists the buildup is necessary to defend against the US invasion that he’s been saying is just around the corner for at least several years now. Russia is also working with Venezuela on energy projects as the Kremlin looks to gain control over an increasing share of global oil production. This, of course, could lead to a squeeze on the US market, which gets 10 to 15 percent of its oil from Venezuela. In addition to giving the Russians preferential treatment to explore Venezuela’s oil-rich Orinoco Belt, Caracas is also collaborating with Moscow to develop an OPEC-like, Russian-led natural-gas cartel. Venezuela-Iran relations are also troubling. Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are chummy—and relish the idea of giving US policymakers heartburn when they think of the two states cooperating on missiles or nukes. There are allegations of Venezuelan-Hezbollah ties, too, with Israel insisting that Venezuela has become the largest base for the Iran-backed terror group outside of the Middle East.
Shabbat Shalom to all our readers. Volume VIII, No. 1,915 • Thursday, August 28, 2008
POST-ZIONISM & APARTHEID POST-ZIONISM’S FATAL FLAW In my understanding, the
concept “Post Zionism” is—at the ideological level—a
demand for democratization of the state—i. e. a call for a liberal
democratic state in the Western mode. This quote from one of the leaders of the post-Zionist school in Israeli academia is representative of the moral hypocrisy, intellectual shallowness and pompousness, and grossly misplaced self-righteousness that characterize the adherents of this self- contradictory philosophy. For it takes only the most elementary analytical skill to identify the glaring flaw in the logic of post–Zionist positions which—allegedly in the name of enlightened liberal values—call for the conversion of Israel from a “Jewish State” to a “state of all its citizens.” It requires no extraordinary intellect to grasp the fact that should such a change indeed take place, the resulting realities would in fact be the exact antithesis of the values invoked for making it. Indeed, it is not difficult to foresee the inevitable chain of events that such a move would trigger. First, the significance of a simple but far-reaching truth must be recognized: If Israel is indeed defined as a “Jewish state,” there is a valid rationale and a viable justification for the existence of an entire range of elements that characterize the conduct of national and public life in the country, such as: the Star of David on the Flag; the “Menora” candelabrum as the state emblem; the words of the national anthem that refer to the “yearning of the Jewish soul”; and the status of Hebrew as the dominant vehicle of communication between the citizens of the state. The same is true for a considerable body of “Judeo-centric” legislation such as the Law of Return granting any Jew immediate citizenship on immigrating to Israel. However, should Israel be re-defined as a “state of all its citizens,” there will be no valid rationale or viable justification for any of these features. As an inevitable consequence, there will neither be rhyme nor reason why any Jew (apart from those ultra-devout few who regard living in the Holy Land a religious command) would choose to live their life in a “non-Jewish Israel” rather than in any other “state of all its citizens” where the rigors of daily life are less demanding and less stressful. No Jew (apart from the handful of ultra-pious souls who believe in the divine sanctity of the Land of Israel) would insist on living their life in a country, where instead of the blue Star of David, the national flag displays stripes—whether vertical or horizontal—of different colors even if these include nostalgic tinges of blue and white. Continual erosion of
Jewish population There would be no mass “aliyah” from lands where Jews were oppressed and sought safe haven in the Jewish state. Obviously the extraordinary phenomenon of the huge inflow of Jewry from the former USSR, with is huge contribution to every aspect of life in the country, would be inconceivable if Israel became just another “state of all its citizens” on the fringes of a desert at the gateway to the Levant. Moreover, if Israel became a state of all its citizens, there would be little grounds for preventing the massive influx of migrants from neighboring lands from pouring into the country—whether to fulfill the “right of return” or merely to make a better living—since, initially, the chances of finding a more lucrative livelihood would still be higher here rather than there. Inevitably, these processes will bring about a continual erosion of the Jewish population. As the composition of the population in the land becomes similar to that in the other states of the region, there is no reason to suppose that the realities that prevails in it will not also become similar to those prevailing in those states—including the level of economic development, standard of living and lifestyle, status of women, nature of the regime, and the liberties it allows those living under it. It is difficult to imagine that even the post-Zionists, with their bias and selective view of the world, are unaware of the fact that that in the entire Arab world—from Casablanca to Kuwait—there is no semblance of any “liberal democratic state in the Western mode” for which they allegedly yearn with such passion. Indeed, in view of the stark contrast between their declared objectives and the nature of the realities that the endeavor to achieve that objective is likely to create; in light of manifest contradiction between their purported aspirations and the consequences likely to result from the pursuit of those aspirations, it is difficult to determine whether the post-Zionists are motivated by nastiness or naiveté; whether they are being mean-spirited or only feeble-minded. However, whatever the explanation may be, all those genuinely desirous of “liberal democratic state in the Western mode” in this neck of the woods must recognize a basic inescapable truth: If Israel is not Zionist, it will not be Jewish; if it is not Jewish it will not be democratic. THIS
IS APARTHEID? Two weeks ago the editor of the largest newspaper in South Africa, the Sunday Times, wrote an article saying that Israel applies apartheid to Palestinian Arabs. In this scandalous accusation, he joins Jimmy Carter and others who have defamed the Jewish state. The apartheid label is very dangerous. If it sticks, Israel’s ability to defend itself diplomatically and militarily will be severely weakened. International pressure on South Africa’s apartheid government eventually played a major role in ending its power. The apartheid label is calculated to break the resolve of the Israeli people, who are called upon to make terrible sacrifices for our Jewish state. Who wants to die for apartheid? As Jews, we must fight this kind of mass defamation of our people. Israel’s security and Jewish lives all over the world depends on it, as well as our historic God-given mission of being “a light unto the nations.” To say that Israel is an apartheid state is as wildly outrageous as the blood libels of Europe. To answer the editor of South Africa’s Sunday Times, I wrote an article which he kindly published in last week’s newspaper. Here follow its arguments: To accuse Israel of apartheid is to diminish the victims of the real apartheid—the men, women and children of South Africa, who suffered for centuries under arrogant, heartless colonialism, and then for decades under the brutal policies of racial superiority, oppression and separation inflicted by the National Party. If everything is apartheid, then nothing is apartheid. In the State of Israel all citizens—Jew and Arab alike—are equal before the law. Israel has none of the apartheid legislative machinery devised to discriminate against and to separate people. It has no Population Registration Act, no Group Areas Act, no Mixed Marriages and Immorality Act, no Separate Representation of Voters Act, no Separate Amenities Act, no pass laws or any other of the myriad apartheid laws. On the contrary: Israel is a vibrant liberal democracy which accords full political, civil and other human rights to all its people, including its one million-plus Arab citizens, many of whom hold positions of authority throughout the Jewish state—including that of cabinet minister, Knesset member and judge at every level of the judiciary, the Supreme Court included. All citizens vote on the same voters’ roll in regular, multiparty elections, and there are Arab parties and Arab members of other parties in the Knesset. Due to Israel’s proportional representation system, Arab voters, although a minority, have often been partners in various coalition governments and influenced major long-term decisions affecting the country. Arabs and Jews live and work together, share all public facilities, including, importantly, hospitals and schools, and also malls, buses, cinemas and parks. Israel protects religious freedom and has been very sensitive and respectful in its management of the holy sites of all religions, granting easy access to everyone. Arab Israelis, like all their compatriots, can express themselves and act freely as members of a transparent and open, democratic society, where criticism of the government in an aggressively free press is the norm. In fact, Israeli Arabs enjoy more freedom and rights than do any other Arabs in the Middle East, where autocratic governments suppress democracy and freedoms, such as freedom of expression and of association, including outlawing labor unions. Israel is the only truly free democracy in the Middle East. If there is apartheid in the Middle East, then it is the apartheid in Arab states against Jews, Christians and women, who are all denied the most basic human rights and treated as second-class citizens. Most Arab governments do not even allow Jews to visit, let alone live. In fact, more than 800,000 Jews have been expelled from Arab countries over the last five decades, where they lived peacefully for centuries, albeit with inferior status. In 1967, as a result of a defensive war thrust upon it, Israel captured the territories known today as the West Bank and Gaza. Since then the status of these territories and their occupants has been unclear. It is incorrect legally, factually and even morally to speak of an occupation, which implies there was once a Palestinian entity in these territories, and that this is now occupied by Israeli forces. Before 1967 the West Bank was controlled by Jordan, and Gaza by Egypt. We should not speak of the “occupied territories,” but more accurately of “disputed territories.” There has never been a Palestinian state in all of history. By contrast, the State of Israel is the third Jewish state on the same land, the first dating back 3,280 years to when Joshua led the Jewish people into the land of Israel. Furthermore, Israel has strong claims to the West Bank, which is part of the biblical Israel that the Jews have always lived in. One of the holiest sites of Judaism is there—Hebron, where the founding fathers and mothers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah, are buried. Apart from the city of Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Jewish people from the times of King David, the West Bank and Gaza were never annexed, pending the resolution of their status. For decades Israel tried to negotiate with various parties to permanently resolve the future of the disputed territories, but is still in search of a genuine peace partner to represent the Palestinian Arabs. Yasser Arafat demonstrated his inability to relinquish his dream of destroying Israel when he rejected prime minister Ehud Barak’s incredibly generous offer at the Camp David talks in 2000—a rejection which even Prince Bandar, the official representative of Saudi Arabia at the talks, described as a crime. And now Hamas, which states in its founding constitution its aim of destroying Israel completely, is the democratically elected majority party of the Palestinian people.… Given Israel’s relatively small population, proportionately, such carnage in South Africa would mean more than 10,000 murdered and more than 80,000 injured. What would we South Africans do if so many of our fellow citizens were blown up by suicide bombers? Appreciate for the moment what this would mean in the context of the US, where the murder of about 3,000 people at the World Trade Center bombings led to the invasion of two countries. Proportionately, had the US sustained similar causalities to those suffered in Israel, almost 80,000 Americans would have been killed and about 600,000 injured. The trauma inflicted on the Israeli people from the relentless barrage unleashed by the Palestinian leadership, enjoying widespread support from its people, is indescribable. Israel erected a security fence to shield it from the attacks launched from the disputed territories across its internationally recognized borders. Every sovereign country is legally and morally entitled to erect a fence to defend its people from attacks launched from the outside. The fence has been remarkably successful and has reduced successful suicide bombings by up to 90 percent. Israel relies on the most fundamental moral and legal principle—the right to self-defense. Never before in recorded history has any nation endured such civilian casualties and responded with such restraint.… If there is an analogy to the South African situation, it is that Israel is like the African National Congress, which was forced into the armed struggle because it had no partner for peace. As soon as the National Party came around to wanting genuinely negotiations, the situation was resolved.… When the Arab world is ready to make peace, Israel will be there. Let us all pray to God that this happens soon so that the misery and suffering of all can be brought to an immediate end. (Warren Goldstein is chief rabbi of South Africa.) Volume VIII, No. 1,914 • Wednesday, August 27, 2008
CIJR CELEBRATES 20 YEARS—PART II LETTERS TO THE EDITOR I would like to commend you for the wonderful work that you do at CIJR. I have learnt a tremendous amount from the articles that are sent to me. It has truly been an education.…—Anne Klar, Toronto, ON, 2002 [I] receive your newsletter almost daily and can’t thank you enough for all the diligent work you and your team do. Your knowledge, thoroughness and witness to these times documents some of the most horrific things we do not hear about or have access to, presented in such a cogent manner. I use these Briefings to tell both my Jewish and non-Jewish friends about what is really happening in the Middle East and elsewhere.…—Evra Taylor, Montreal, QC, 2002 Are your Briefings sent to Editors at major U.S. newspapers and to U.S. & EU political leaders? If not, they should be. I read both the NY Times & Newsday…and the editorials in both papers show, too clearly, that the editors of these powerful papers do not “get” what has been happening in Israel and the Middle East; do not comprehend the threat of the Beilin-Rabbo Geneva Trojan Horse; and do not have a clue about the rising tide of antisemitism in the world—or choose to ignore it. Your posts might bring a few crucial rays of enlightenment to these media giants.—Dr. Charles Fishman, Farmingdale, New York, NY, 2003 I’m a 55 year old white, middle-class, protestant male living in central Illinois, USA. The rural high school I attended had a thousand kids, one of whom was Jewish. The world view I grew up with was not so much prejudiced as it was innocent, and certainly myopic. I read the Isranet Daily Briefing every single day. I am writing to say thank you for helping me be the informed world citizen I strive to be. I share your service with everyone I can. A sheynem dank.—Dane K. Henry, Decatur, Illinois, 2004 I read your pieces on e-mail without fail, finding them invariably both informative and inspirational. Since Israel is most important to me, there is no better such source for me. However, today’s issue was superlative, so I feel I must say so. Many thanks to Michael Oren as well. It has served as a shot in the arm of a most potent Zionist vaccine.—May Ladman, 2005 I wish to congratulate you for your very fine Canadian Institute for Jewish Research. It does much to keep Canadians informed about the real dangers to World Jewry generally and to Israel particularly.—Prof. Morris Givner, Halifax, NS, 2005 Thanks so much for keeping to send me these! Now after a month as Israel’s vice consul in San Francisco, I can tell you it’s very challenging!—Ishmael Khalidi, Deputy Consul General, Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, CA, 2006 Thank you so much for sending this article. I was on a Kindertransport from Vienna and I met this wonderful gentleman at one of our reunions.—Lisl Schick, writing in response to Isranet Briefing 1524 on Sir Nicholas Winton’s rescue of children from Nazi concentration camps, January, 2007 Your newsletters have been especially entertaining, prescient and satisfying lately. And I thank you.—Michael Michaels, VT, 2007 Israel’s legacy is eternal. It will never be stamped out. God has imprinted Israel with His love, blessings, and protection. No matter what forces come against Israel, it will survive and prosper (Isaiah 54:17). Defeat only comes when it loses its commitment and faith in its Creator.—Nazario A. “Tito” Gonzales, CA, responding to Isranet Briefing 1840 “Israel @ 60—Part II”, 2008 It has been a constant thought to me that one day Israel will fulfill its prophesy to be a light unto the nations. If the world would choose to acknowledge the gift of the Jewish people and choose to emulate them rather than decimate them—then perhaps there would be peace on earth good will towards men.…—Victoria Kogan, responding to Isranet Briefing 1841 “Israel @ 60—Part III”, 2008 Greetings Baruch, I have been meaning to congratulate you repeatedly on your wonderful articles. Again and again I find myself so impressed by your knowledge and your language skills. Thank you Baruch for all your work on behalf of CIJR and the Jewish people. Kol Ha’kovode.—Sally Zerker, Professor Emeritus, York University, responding to Isranet Briefing 1855 “Yom Yerushalaim”, May, 2008 Thank you so much for your coverage of the Georgia situation. It is most complex, however your presentation of candid and varied viewpoints have enabled me to maintain my view of events. I appreciate the clarity of your contributors. Kohl ha kavod.—May D. Ladman, USA, 2008 INSTITUTE
CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF DEFENDING ISRAEL “If you ask me what I’m most proud of after 20 years, it’s that we have survived,” says Frederick Krantz, founder and director of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research (CIJR), an independent, pro-Israel, largely voluntary foundation. CIJR, which is guided by academics but geared to the needs of the community’s grassroots, publishes the daily ISRANET Briefing and the biweekly Israzine, among other online and print English and French publications intended to disseminate accurate information and fair comment about the Middle East and Jewish issues. It also maintains a huge physical and online archive of articles and papers on the same topics and runs programs for university students, including training in how to advocate for Israel on campus. Krantz is proud of the fact that CIJR is able to do so much with a small staff and a very tight budget. The institute has just two year-round staff members headed by Jacqueline Douek, three student interns (two of whom are working only through the summer), and an archivist, a six-month position made possible by a Quebec government grant. Otherwise, CIJR relies almost entirely on funding from individuals, and that amounts to just enough to get by annually, Krantz said. It receives no money from the organized Jewish community, a circumstance that Krantz still doesn’t understand after two decades. “What we are doing is unique in Canada. We are recognized internationally, but still there is no support.” CIJR celebrates its 20th anniversary with a formal gala dinner—the first in its history—Aug. 27 at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim at 6 p.m. The honorees are veteran international Jewish leader Isi Leibler and his wife Naomi Leibler, world president of Emunah, and Alan Baker, who is shortly leaving his position as Israeli ambassador to Canada after four years. They will receive CIJR’s Lion of Judah award. Theo Caldwell, president of Caldwell Asset Management Inc. and a current affairs columnist for the National Post and Toronto Sun, who has frequently defended Israel, will be recognized as CIJR’s Golden Magen David honoree for outstanding person of the year. Isi Leibler is a former senior leader of World Jewish Congress who was forced to leave the organization a few years ago, when he called for an investigation into alleged financial irregularities that eventually proved to be justified. The Australian businessman and prolific writer now lives in Israel, where he chairs the Israel-Diaspora committee of the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs. Krantz, a New York-born, Concordia University professor of the history of the Renaissance, who spends more time in Italy than in Israel, did not set out to create a think-tank or a lobby group. But he was incensed by what he saw as biased media coverage against Israel during the first intifadah in the late ‘80s. He was convinced that the Arabs were waging a campaign to divide Diaspora Jewry and that the community needed to put up a united public front. Krantz felt that leadership was not coming from the organized Jewish community. He started to write letters and articles to the Gazette and other papers. He noticed some fellow academics, notably Harold Waller and Julien Bauer, were taking similar action, and suggested they co-ordinate their activities. Soon, the professors were being invited to speak at synagogues and community groups, and Krantz became aware of the hunger for information in the Jewish community about what was going on in the Middle East. The professors launched a daily newsletter call Responsa, which was sent by fax connected to a computer, the leading technology of the day. “We spent $800 on that machine, which was a lot of money at the time,” Krantz recalled. For the first couple of years, CIJR operated out of Krantz’s basement as a volunteer effort. Responsa soon became Israfax, which continues to be published today as a quarterly digest. One of the first non-academics attracted to CIJR was Baruch Cohen, who at 88, continues to come into work as the organization’s volunteer research chair. The Romanian-born Holocaust survivor saw in CIJR a means of concretely expressing his passionate devotion to the continuity of the Jewish people. “CIJR is a gem,” he said. “A powerful voice against ‘shtadlanut’ [appeasement], an uncompromising defender of the rights of the Jewish people and the rights of the State of Israel. CIJR plays an essential role on the international political landscape by offering consistent, valuable and clear analysis of the Jewish world, the Middle East and Israel.” Cohen and Krantz found each other after a letter by the former was published in The Canadian Jewish News in August 1988, expressing his concerns about a federal government-sponsored symposium that brought together a select group of Arab and Jewish Canadians at Montebello, Que. Krantz also opposed the clandestine meeting. The CIJR’s first “office” was a room at the Canadian Zionist Federation’s headquarters, then on Décarie Boulevard. “I chain-smoked a pipe at that time, and Baruch threatened to leave if I didn’t quit. I said I need nicotine to write, but I did quit. Baruch was just too valuable to us,” Krantz said. Although his personal views are hawkish, Krantz has always insisted that CIJR be open to a broad spectrum of opinion on Israel, but he draws the line at Peace Now, whose open criticism, he feels, is detrimental. “Jewish unity has always been our key value. And that means not criticizing Israel publicly. Internal debate in the community is all right, but we should not be publicly questioning the legitimacy of its democratically elected government,” Krantz said. CANADIAN
INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH RESEARCH As the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research (CIJR) gets set to mark its 20th anniversary with a gala event here at the Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue Aug. 27, the organization’s founding director is especially proud of what has been achieved. “How have we survived? The answer is with difficulty,” said Professor Frederick Krantz to a question from the Jewish Tribune. “From the beginning we had to generate our own fiscal resources—bereft of any sustained support from the organized community and/or its ‘Israel activism’ agencies. We have always survived primarily on small contributions from amcha, ordinary people.” The creation of a supportive board of governors was key, said Krantz, who has never collected a salary for his work. “We have been blessed to have a real community leader in Irwin Beutel as our board chairman,” he said. “We apply for modest government and private grants and our annual August fundraiser is a key event. But small tax-free donations, amplified by appeals via our publications and briefing series remain fundamental. We are, in this sense, a true community organization, one speaking directly to and supported directly by the myriad individuals who constitute the Jewish community, and we are very proud of this.” The CIJR focuses its attention at fighting back against the unprecedented assault on Israel and growing anti-Zionism in politics, in the media and on campuses. It could be said that there is a certain synergy between the CIJR and B’nai Brith Canada. “We have always admired, and worked closely, with B’nai Brith Canada, which is a true grassroots community organization,” said Krantz. “B’nai Brith’s advocacy programs, its excellent Jewish Tribune newspaper and, generally its intelligent and persistent political work federally and provincially, represent and strengthen Canada’s Jewish community. For us, B’nai Brith is an important source of consciously Israel-oriented, Zionist community leadership, and our own values and academic-research-publication-student activism strengths constitute a natural complementarity with it.” Krantz launched the CIJR in 1988 at the time of Israel’s first intifada. Last week he spoke proudly about what his organization has been able to accomplish, pointing to the work on Canadian university campuses as one of the most important goals. In the fall of 2000, the CIJR inaugurated its daily Isranet briefing e-mail service to counter anti-Israel propaganda, and to keep the public and subscribers informed of daily issues affecting the Jewish people. Each daily briefing—now nearing the 2,000th issue and read by more than 60,000 people worldwide—consists of multiple opinion pieces, articles, or documents, on current issues. A weekly French-language CommuniquÈ Isranet bulletin is also available. The Institute’s regular insider briefing seminars and community colloquia feature its own and other experts on Israel, Middle East and Jewish-world issues. “The CIJR is a world-class, Israel-related think tank, a unique, powerful, responsive resource speaking directly to the community on issues of concern to Israel and the Jewish people,” said Krantz. The CIJR has come up with a unique way in which to attract sponsors for its gala. Sponsored “cities” such as Jerusalem, Sderot and Safed are available for the evening, with all proceeds going directly to fund the new highly-successful Student Israel-Advocacy Program (SIAP) for 2008-09. All sponsors will have their family and/or company name prominently featured in the Isranet briefing and in the event’s commemorative program book. The sponsor’s name will also be displayed on the Donor Wall at the CIJR’s downtown office. Sponsors will meet their individual SIAP scholars at a special cocktail reception marking the inception of the new academic year. This year Krantz said the CIJR has set a goal for the August fundraising campaign of $250,000, which would enable it to strengthen key programs and begin to build a much-needed endowment. “We have been called the most efficient Jewish community organization in North America, if not the world, and we couldn’t do what we do with so comparatively small a budget if our director and research chairman were not voluntary, unpaid positions (just as our faculty Fellows are unpaid volunteers), with the work of CIJR aided by several outstanding unpaid lay volunteers, as well as several student Israel interns.” At this year’s gala, Lion of Judah honourees will be Israel Ambassador to Canada Alan Baker and Israel Diaspora Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Chair Isi Leibler of Australia. Theo Caldwell, president of Caldwell Asset Management, Inc., and a pro-Israel columnist in Canadian media, will receive the Golden Magen David Award as the outstanding person of the year. While Krantz has many objectives in the coming years, he noted, “I guess I could add the hope of attracting an enlightened, Zionist millionaire or two, after whom the Institute could be renamed. If you know anyone, please let me know.” Log on to www.isranet.org to learn more about the organization. Volume VIII, No. 1,913 • Tuesday, August 26, 2008
CIJR CELEBRATES 20 YEARS—PART I CELEBRATING CIJR—BIS ZU
[HUNERT UN] ZWANZIG! Anniversaries can be surprising. When they arrive, the passage of time they embody, and about which one is usually unaware, is erased, and the past suddenly snaps back into focus. So it is with the twentieth anniversary of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, which we will be celebrating with many invited dignitaries and guests at our August 27th Gala. Thinking about it, the years drop away and one is swept back in time to earlier days, to 1987-88. CIJR today is an internationally-respected pro-Israel think-tank, a unique structure doing creative work with students and bringing objective academic analysis of Israel, Middle East, and Jewish-world issues quickly and effectively to the public, Jewish and non-Jewish. But twenty years ago, what would become CIJR was a small group of academics and laymen, concerned by the sudden anti-Israel media of the first, violent Palestinian Arab intifada, meeting informally in my home. The “organized community” then was paralyzed by the new Arab “propaganda inversion” which, uncritically mirrored by the media, turned the Palestinians into David, and Israelis into Goliath, grotesquely portraying Arabs as an innocent, oppressed minority, “Jews”, and Israelis as powerful, and vicious aggressors, “Nazis”. The handful of like-minded people I was privileged to bring together—primarily pro-Israel academics used to writing and speaking publicly—began responding to the newspapers and radio-tv stations, to counter the anti-Israel wave. My basement became our “office”—and as our letters and articles brought us to public attention, synagogues and community groups began inviting us to speak to their confused and leader-less members. And as we spoke, people rallied, and began writing checks to support our work, and several lay people came forward to help in any relevant way. When we sought support from the organized community—nothing big, just access to a room with a Xerox machine and a secretary—we were—and still are, to this day, unaccountably—universally turned down. At any rate, at a certain point, we had to decide—disband, or incorporate and try to raise enough money to form our own supportive office and organization. We discussed the alternatives, and, unanimously, decided that morally, as well as politically, we had no option but to take the latter course. We didn’t know it then, but—as a result of much toil and sacrifice—CIJR would indeed not only survive, but flourish. Today, twenty years later, we have supportive National and International Boards of Governors, a distinguished Academic Council grouping outstanding Canadian, American and Israeli professors and intellectuals, and talented student Interns and trainees. Yet we remain unsupported by the organized community, are still without an endowment, and still must raise funds ourselves, directly from the public. Nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, we are also still independent, still hard-hitting and un-bureaucratic, still close to students, and still doing everything we can to defend our beloved Jewish democratic State, and the Jewish People, of which Israel is the vital, and indispensable, core. And the need for CIJR is, if anything, even greater today than it was twenty years ago. The last twenty years have seen 9/11 and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, the rise of the new global antisemitism, and of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. Given the ongoing negative representation of Israel in the media and on campuses (as well as new sources of anti-Israel propaganda like the internet and blogosphere, and new, hostile Arab media like Al-Jazeera), a constant, informed, effective, and up-to-date truth-telling voice addressing the public remains of crucial importance. Finally, our tradition enjoins us to zakhor, to remember. Allow me then to remember some of the many people, some sadly now gone, and many thankfully still active and with us, who from early days have helped make CIJR possible: First, the remarkable Clara Balinsky z”l, without whose sage advice and admonition we would not have a Board of Governors and, quite possibly, an Institute; Charles Lazarus, who graciously agreed to be our first Chairman, and was succeeded by a true community neshumah, Irwin Beutel, still CIJR Chairman, Richard Golick z”l, in whose kitchen (with Eddie Winant, and Richard’s wife Hilda Golick z”l present) the idea of a formal research institute was first conceived; and Irving “Bob” Levitt, our first Honorary Treasurer. Among many of our first National Board members were polymath Aaron Remer and fine community leaders like Thomas Hecht and Evelyn Schachter. Still among our active Academic Council Fellows are the unique Baruch Cohen, our indefatigable Research Chair, 88 this year; founding Fellows Profs. Julien Bauer and Hal Waller; and other initial Academic Council members were Rabbi Reuben J. Poupko, and Dr. Bill Bilek (now representing CIJR in Atlanta). And I would be remiss in not recalling the remarkable Karen Lazar, our first Assistant Director (and first full-time employee!), and volunteers like Alan Scholnikov, the Kons, Abraham, Marion, and George, and Inessa Golod. We were graced in early years, as today, by remarkable students, like Hillel Neuer, Elliot Kramer, Doron Goldstein, and Zev Gewurz, many of whom have gone on not only to important careers, but to leadership positions in the Jewish world. And let me record here the unfailing support of my wife, Lenore Hammel Krantz, who for two decades has put with what she calls my “second, full-time non-paying job”. Without her steadfast support and wise counsel, none of this could have happened. All of these people are emblematic of the many early Board members, students, volunteers, and staff—too many, indeed, to name individually here—without whom, past and present, the Institute could neither have survived nor flourished. Remembering the past, and looking forward to the future, it is my privilege, and my duty, to pledge in their names that, twenty years from today, the proudly Zionist Canadian Institute for Jewish Research will still fearlessly, determinedly, and effectively be continuing its unique pro-Israel work. (Prof. Frederick Krantz
is Director of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, CIJR
AT 20: In loving memory of Malca z”l Then Pinhas stood up and
interceded, Twenty years! The Canadian Institute for Jewish Research is a gem, with which the entire Canadian Jewish community is proud to be associated. A powerful voice against anti-Zionism, antisemitism, racism and xenophobia. A powerful voice against shtadlanut (appeasement). An uncompromising defender of the rights of the Jewish people and the rights of the State of Israel, CIJR plays an essential role on the international political landscape by offering consistent, valuable and clear analysis of the Jewish world, the Middle East, and Israel. The tireless effort of Professor Frederick (Pinhas) Krantz—a visionary enthusiast and dreamer—as well as his knowledge of and love for Am Yisrael, has ensured, against powerful odds, the creation and continuing high quality of all of CIJR’s publications—ISRAFAX, Daily Isranet Briefing, the new Israzine (with excellent associate editor Machla Abramovitz), and CIJR’s website (www.isranet.org, under Aaron Muscott’s fine supervision) —publications read world-wide in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, South Africa, and the U.S.A. In addition to our much-appreciated weekly French-language Communiqué Isranet is the weekly Friday Briefing, a literary, historical, and cultural issue. CIJR is proud to have been the Beth Hamidrash (home) of Hillel Neuer (Executive Director, United Nations Watch, Geneva, Switzerland), Karen Lazar (Director, Communications, B’nai Brith Canada), accomplished journalist Miriam Shaviv, and many more fine students (Elliot Kramer, Dov Smith, Meirav Fima, and most recently of, Heather Stein, Eric Adler, Alan Herman, Rebecca Katz, Oliver Moore, and the list continues…). Over these twenty years, I was proud to work at CIJR with, and to learn from, Guy Mizrahi, Dr. Miriam Taylor, Karen Lazar, Kelly Menchick, Dr. Catherine Chatterly, and, last but not least, Dr. Joyce Rappaport (one of the editors of the recent YIVO Eastern Jewish Encyclopedia). These days, I can hardly keep up with our very talented and dynamic Assistant Director Jacqueline Douek, and with our Executive Secretary Leah Tobin, who blesses us all with daily motherly care. One of CIJR’s most recent and successful accomplishments is its ongoing Student Israel-Advocacy Program (SIAP), training students to respond to anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism, offering the highest level of academic excellence in a Middle East and Israel program, and taught by CIJR’s unique Academic Council Fellows and volunteer specialists. Twenty years ago, on August 4th 1988, the Canadian Jewish News published my letter of support for the strong position taken by Prof. Krantz against appeasement at the infamous secret Arab-Jewish “dialogue” conference (opposed by the State of Israel) in Montebello. I learned of Prof. Krantz’s new initiative, CIJR, after obtaining an introductory issue of his Response magazine (today, the internationally acclaimed ISRAFAX). Following the publication of my letter, I was invited to the home of the charming Lenore and Frederick Krantz. There, I was engulfed by the enthusiasm of Zelda Gold and an army of volunteers (Alfred Noodelman, Marion, George, and Abraham Kon, and Inessa Golod, to name a few). In the cramped room which was the first office at our disposal, I started what today we proudly call the Databank. CIJR’s Middle East & Jewish World Databank and library, including up-to-date material on the Jewish world, Israel and the Middle East, are comprehensive learning sources, available now online (www.isranet.org) of which I am very proud. Since its establishment by Prof. Krantz two decades ago, CIJR has played, and will continue to play, an essential role on the Canadian and international scenes. Given the recent, troubling developments in the Middle East, support for CIJR remains crucial. Your help directly enables us to continue to provide objective analysis to the community, and, through the SIAP, to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to combat the growing anti-Israel bias on their campuses. Now more than ever, it is time to heed CIJR’s motto, the words of our prophet, Theodor Herzl: “If you will it, it is no dream”. Looking forward to seeing you at CIJR’s 25th anniversary! HAZAK, HAZAK, V’NITHAZEK! Strong, Strong, but Stronger Together! (Baruch Cohen is Research Chairman of CIJR.) A
YEAR IN REVIEW We hit the ground running this fall with no less than five seminars given at CIJR by visiting experts. Prof. Ted Friedgut of Hebrew University was the first to visit CIJR with a truly unique subject: Jewish pioneer farmers on the Canadian Prairies. Not two weeks later Dr. Asher Susser, Director of Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center and a frequent CIJR guest speaker, brought with him an assessment of Israel-Palestinian relations. He counseled that there is no conflict resolution to the Arab-Israeli dispute, only conflict management. Another well-known Middle East political scientist, Efraim Inbar, Director of the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar Ilan University, gave us his analysis of the Iranian nuclear challenge. The subject of Iran was further explored by Dr. David Menashrie, an Iranian expert from the Moshe Dayan Center, who presented an informative and original analysis on the structure of Iranian society. CIJR’s seminars continued into the spring and summer when we had the opportunity to present the talented French writer and philosopher Mourad El Hattab. Later, former Montrealer Dr. Mordechai Nisan of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, provided an extraordinary examination of how the strength of Shiite Islam may affect Israel and the West. During CIJR’s remarkable lecture-series (which, given the requisite support, could be compiled into an exquisite and informative book of essays) CIJR planned and launched a new student pilot-project: The Student Israel-Advocacy Program. The eight-month course—developed to respond to the increasing anti-Israel propaganda on campuses and often biased attitude against Israel in the media—was designed by CIJR’s Academic Council. The students, along with members of the Montreal community, also participated in special colloquia given by visiting experts. The first such specialist was Gabriel Schoenfeld, Senior Editor of Commentary magazine, who spoke on his seminal work The Return of Antisemitism. The second colloquium featured a panel of authorities on the media and propaganda including CIJR Director Prof. Fred Krantz, noted National Post columnist Barbara Kay, and Boston University’s Richard Landes. Landes’ discussion of “Pallywood”, Palestinian-created anti-Israel fabrications dressed up as news, helped students to fight back against the factually-distorted Palestinian narrative that they were subjected to at this year’s “Israel Apartheid Week” at Concordia. Today, one of these bright Scholars is working in Israel at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Another Scholar recently found employment in JPPS/Bialik administration and is hopeful about getting CIJR-programming into the classroom. Website visitors have responded positively to our newly-redesigned website, created by CIJR’s able part-time webmaster Aaron Muscott. Also, our new bi-weekly web-magazine, Israzine, edited by the very talented Machla Abramovitz, is very popular. This spectacular Gala evening [August 27, 2008], celebrating CIJR Twentieth Anniversary, and Commemorative Program Book would not have been possible without the indispensable help of our interns: Summer students Eric Adler, a CIJR veteran, and Rebecca Katz, (hopefully the next editor of CIJR’s student magazine Dateline: Middle East), our wonderful year-long Academic Intern Alan Herman, and Josh Peters, who comes to us with an MA in military history, as our government-subsidized Archivist. Of course, CIJR’s twenty-year achievement is inconceivable without the indefatigable Baruch Cohen, whose strength and passion continue to amaze me, and the inspiring knowledge and leadership of Prof. Fred Krantz. As we rejoice over CIJR’s twenty-year history, let’s also celebrate the achievements of this great year. Happy Anniversary CIJR… until 120! (Jacqueline Douek, is Assistant Director of CIJR and Associate Editor of ISRAFAX.) Volume VIII, No. 1,912 • Monday, August 25, 2008
“HUMAN RIGHTS” COMMISSIONS A HOLLOW VICTORY Some 900 days ago, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities launched a human rights complaint in Alberta against me because I reprinted of a series of Muhammad cartoons—the same cartoons that several winters ago set off an orgy of outrage in the Muslim world—in the now-defunct Western Standard magazine. Now, the government has finally acquitted me of illegal “discrimination.” Taxpayers are out more than $500,000 for an investigation that involved 15 bureaucrats at the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The legal cost to me and the former magazine is $100,000. The case would have been thrown out long ago if I had been charged in a criminal court, instead of a human rights commission. That’s because accused criminals have the right to a speedy trial. Accused publishers at human rights commissions do not. And if I had been a defendant in a civil court, the judge would now order the losing parties to pay my legal bills. Instead, the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities won’t have to pay me a dime. Neither will Syed Soharwardy, the Calgary imam who abandoned his identical complaint against me this spring. Both managed to hijack a secular government agency to prosecute their radical Islamic fatwa against me—the first blasphemy case in Canada in over 80 years. Their complaints were dismissed, but it is inaccurate to say that they lost: They got the government to rough me up for nearly three years, at no cost to them. The process I was put through was a punishment in itself—and a warning to any other journalists who would defy radical slam.
The 11-page government report into my activities is a breathtakingly arrogant document. In it, Pardeep Gundara, a low-level bureaucrat, assumes the role of editor-in-chief for the entire province of Alberta. He went through our magazine article and gave his own thoughts on the cartoons, and pronounced on our magazine’s decision to publish them. The government’s wannabe journalist gets facts wrong and he’s obviously not good with deadlines. We’d never have hired him at our magazine. But the laugh is on us—he’s apparently our boss, and the boss of all journalists in Alberta. In his report, Gundara presents as “fact” his personal opinion of the Muhammad cartoons. He says they’re “stereotypical, negative and offensive.” That’s one viewpoint. Others have a different view. Why should anyone care about Gundara’s personal opinion? Do I need permission from him—or anyone other than my conscience—before I publish things in the future? Is this column OK by him? Gundara forgave me and the Western Standard our sins because, according to him, the offensiveness of the cartoons was “muted by the context of the accompanying article” and we ran letters both for and against the cartoons in our subsequent issue. He also acquitted us because “the cartoons were not simply stuck in the middle of the magazine with no purpose or related story.” Let me translate: You’d better be “reasonable” in how you use your freedoms, or you won’t be allowed to keep them. You’d better not run political cartoons “simply stuck in the middle” of a magazine. You’d better have a “purpose” for being “negative” that is approved by a bureaucrat, when he finally gets around to it three years later. That is not acceptable to me. |