*Memo to Minister Kenney : Criticism of Israel is not Anti-Semitic*
*by Judy Rebick and Alan Sears (March 1, 2009)*
**
As Israeli Apartheid Week gets underway, there is a major campaign currently
underway to deny freedom of expression on campus to those in solidarity with
Palestine on the basis of alleged anti-Semitism.

The Equity Office at Carleton University banned the Israeli Apartheid Week
poster and the Provost issued a statement that threatened students with
expulsion. B'nai Brith took out newspaper ads calling on University
Presidents to "prevent Israeli apartheid week" in order to "take a stand
against anti-Semitism on campus." This builds on a pattern established last
year, when McMaster University banned the use of the term "Israeli
apartheid" (eventually rescinding the ban) and the University of Toronto
cancelled room bookings for a Palestine solidarity student conference.

The argument that criticism of Israel is inherently anti-Semitic rests on
the notion that Israel is singled out for undue criticism because it is a
Jewish state. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney used this logic when he said
recently, "We do see the growth of a new anti-Semitism predicated on the
notion that the Jews alone have no right to a homeland."

This statement is only legitimate if we completely ignore the situation of
the Palestinians, the residents of the land Israel claimed as a "Jewish
homeland." The recent assault on Gaza, in which more than 1,300 Palestinians
were killed, including at least 346 children, is just the latest in an
ongoing saga of displacement, occupation and dehumanization dating back to
1948. Critics of Israel are not singling it out for undue criticism, but
merely holding it to the same standards as all other nations in such areas
as respect for human rights and international law.

Defenders of Israeli policy routinely attempt to direct our attention to
abuses happening in other places and insist that a hidden agenda must
underlie any focus on Israeli brutality in this unjust world. This argument
would lead to paralysis in human rights activism by claiming that one must
address all cases at once, or only the "worst" cases. Should we have told
Rosa Parks, who refused to go the back of a segregated bus in Alabama in
1955, to quit whining as conditions were even worse in South Africa, or
colonized Kenya, or for that matter for Palestinians in refugee camps?

The deployment of anti-Semitism as an accusation to silence criticism of
Israel is also a serious setback in genuine struggles against anti-Semitism
and other forms of discrimination. It is based on a claim that the State of
Israel is the single outcome of the history of the Jewish people, the final
end of generations of diasporic existence. It attempts to make the Zionist
project of a Jewish nation the only legitimate project for all Jews.

This nationalist project has largely marginalized Jewish universalism, which
argued that the future of a minority, diasporic community depended on
winning widespread freedoms that applied to all members of society. That
meant that in Canada, for example, the Jewish population was historically
very active in struggles for a wide range of social rights and against the
idea of Canada as a Christian nation.

The misuse of equity claims to silence Palestinian voices is a setback in
the advancement of a human rights agenda. Further, it is a dangerous
strategy that makes critics of the State of Israel into enemies of the
Jewish people despite themselves. It even casts those of us who are Jewish
allies of Palestinian rights as enemies in the battle against anti-Semitism.
Further, it disarms us in the face of anti-Semitic incidents, weakening the
credibility of organizations that have used the term too broadly and blurred
the line between opposition to the State of Israel and anti-Jewish
prejudice.

Anti-Semitism has no place in the Palestine solidarity movement and as Jews
in that movement we can attest to the fact that the leadership of the
Palestinian rights movement and many Arab and Muslim communities are
actively addressing anti-Semitism wherever it raises its ugly head. On the
other hand, false claims of anti-Semitism from pro-Israeli groups undermines
their cause and creates more polarization, fear and anger around these
issues than there needs to be.

*Judy Rebick and Alan Sears are both university professors and Jews in
solidarity with Palestine.*

http://rabble.ca/news/memo-minister-kenney-criticism-israel-not-anti-semitism

IAW schedule and list of events: http://apartheidweek.org/