By appointing Cotler, Canada pushes to chill freedom of expression while Israel enshrines segregation
Photo Credit: (Times of Israel/Google Images)
Written by: Khaled Mouammar
Canadians at home and internationally are in agreement with members of the Independent Jewish Voices. We too are “deeply troubled” by Irwin Cotler’s recent appointment as Special Envoy to advance the reckless implementation of International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism in its current form.
Fighting antisemitism should be part of the struggle against racism in all its forms instead of as a tool to selectively support it. The current IHRA definition shields an entire state from criticism even (and especially) when it engages in racist practices. As it stands, any criticism of Israel being anti-Arab, or anti-Palestinian, or even engaging in Islamophobia, cannot be made as that qualifies as being antisemitic. It is not racist to call out an individual on their own racist acts. The current IHRA definition does nothing other than privilege one group over others by giving them additional protections to act without being held to account. This can only further fuel racist flames, and divide minorities against one another.
Adopting this definition in Canada also allows supporters of Israel to misuse and “weaponize” it to shield Israel from legitimate criticism, labelling Canadians who support equal rights for the Palestinian people as antisemitic.
Cotler is a staunch supporter of Israel who views illegal Israeli colonies in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as “disputed territories” thus contradicting Canada’s official policy that does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 and Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Height, and considers Israeli settlements in the occupied territories a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Moreover, Cotler’s support for Israel is so unconditional that he even publicly rebuked in 2018 a Canadian Government statement criticizing Israeli snipers for killing and wounding thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of children and Canadian doctor and humanitarian Tarek Loubani, in Gaza.
As Canada appoints Cotler, poised to shield Israel from its crimes, Israel is intensifying its violation of Palestinian rights both in Israel and the occupied territories.
Israeli law since 2011 permits towns in the Galilee and Negev, which comprise two-thirds of the land in Israel, to maintain admissions committees that can reject applicants from living there for being “not suitable for the social life of the community” or for incompatibility with the “social-cultural fabric.”
In a 2015 study, Yosef Jabareen, a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, found that there are 940 Israeli towns which sit on 82 percent of Israel that can restrict who live there and these towns have no Palestinian citizens living in them and no Palestinian citizens own a home in them.
On November 30, Palestinian citizens of Israel lost a court case that demanded the government provide Arabic language schooling for residents of the city of Carmiel on grounds that the provision of welfare and services could be determined on one “appropriate, dominant" factor, namely, maintaining only the rights of the Jewish majority.
As reported by one MSNBC Daily writer: “This is the same sort of logic that divided America's cities with redlining, keeping white suburbs free of Black residents and preventing Black upward mobility. It's not a direct comparison, historically speaking — but in terms of the power dynamic, it's a valid one.”
The court based its ruling on the controversial Basic Law: Israel - the Nation-State of the Jewish People which holds self-determination 'unique to the Jewish people. It also relegates Christian and Muslim citizens, who make up a whopping 26% of Israel’s citizenry, to an inferior status.
This ruling is just one of many examples displaying Israel’s version of fake democracy. This Basic Law has now constitutionalized racism and Jewish supremacy, and the IHRA definition both internationally and in Canada, serves to vilify anyone that dares to say a thing about it.
Through numerous “examples” provided in the IHRA definition, Jewish people have become unjustly conflated with the state of Israel and its government. As a result, non-Jewish Arabs and Palestinians in and outside of Israel are unable to hold the government accountable without being branded as antisemitic.
To level the charge of antisemitism against anyone who regards the existing state of Israel as racist, notwithstanding the nation-state law upon which it is based, grants Israel absolute impunity for violating the rights of the Palestinian people.
As a proud Canadian who was forced to leave Palestine in 1948, I am anguished that two million citizens of Israel, including some of my family, are denied the same rights in their ancestral homeland that I am guaranteed in my adopted homeland of Canada.
This unjust and dangerous IHRA definition threatens both Palestinian rights and our Charter protected right to freedom of expression. Having Irwin Cotler implement the definition without amending it will allow Israel to continue advancing Jewish supremacy over Christian and Muslim Palestinians with impunity.
Instead of protecting Israel from criticism, Canada must demonstrate that human values and rights are indivisible. We must support the fight against antisemitism, and all forms of racism in Canada, hand in hand with the right of all Canadians to support the struggle for equality, emancipation and the end of dispossession for all, including both the Palestinian people and indigenous peoples of Canada.
Khaled Mouammar is a Christian Palestinian Canadian whose family was forced to flee his hometown Nazareth in 1948. He is a founding member of the Canadian Arab Federation and a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. He received the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Award from the Governor General of Canada in 1977.
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