The Real Masters of ‘Cancel Culture’ The Pro-Israel Lobby – The Bullet – Socialist Project

Anti-Racism July 7, 2020 Larry Haiven

When hockey broadcaster Sportsnet fired Canadian media personality Don Cherry in November 2019 for his bigoted remarks on Coachs Corner, we heard the usual right-wing complaint chorus about the suppression of free speech by the liberal/left. A favoured method of censor/censure nowadays is said to be de-platforming, i.e., denying those you disagree with a platform to speak. This is also called cancel culture.

But on the left, this is really, at best, a marginal activity. The left still believes in reasoned debate and, whats more, it lacks a secret powerful ingredient weaponized accusations of antisemitism.

This essay refers to the experience in Canada, but it has its counterpart in many other countries as well.

If we want to see real masters of Cancel Culture in action, we need to follow the modus operandi of the institutional pro-Israel bully-boys-and-girls, like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), Bnai Brith Canada (BBC), the Simon Wiesenthal Centre (SWC) and other organizations on the Jewish right. They can teach us a thing or two about how to kill free speech, indeed, to stop an utterance before it is even uttered.

Presumably, the reason to nip an Israel-critical event in the bud is that if it goes forward people might attend and learn something, especially from a rigorous debate. Even a picket-line outside the event or a disruption inside might draw attention to whats being said. And, for the avid intellectual protectors of Israel, that must be stopped at all costs.

A spate of examples will follow, but first, to summarize, here are what might be called the rules of engagement for the pro-Israel de-platformers. The minute you hear about an event featuring a critique of Israel, employ the following formula:

While pro-Israel Cancel Culture goes back a long way, the following are more than two dozen fairly recent examples of the playbook-in-action, taken from several Canadian cities.

The following are real examples of the playbook in action. They are taken mostly from published reports, but a few are taken from accounts by people involved.

In 2016, anti-Israeli-occupation activists were slated for a panel at a Simon Fraser University (SFU) conference on genocide. One presenter would argue that what had been done to the Palestinians constituted genocide. (The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide definition involves any of the following: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and/or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.)

Bnai Brith reached out to SFU to have the panel cancelled. Organizers pushed back, reaching out to a range of supporters at SFU. The panel and conference went ahead.

Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek is the leading and highly-respected voice of the Palestinian liberation theology movement. Co-founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre, he is a former Canon of St. Georges Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem. For three decades Rev. Ateek has inspired readers and audiences (including several times in Canada) with his ideas about justice and understanding in the Holy Land.

In April 2018, as he toured Canada, representatives of Bnai Brith contacted Canadian universities who were hosting him and demanded that they cancel his appearances. Bnai Brith concocted an accusation that Ateek had called for the killing of Jews.

What evidence was Bnai Brith using to denigrate Rev. Ateek? At a meeting in Winnipeg, a Bnai Brith operative in the audience photographed a single frame in Ateeks slideshow. In it, Ateek was pointing out that some prominent Israeli rabbis had justified the murder of Palestinians by referring to Halakha (Jewish religious law). These outrages are well-documented in the Israeli media and have been roundly condemned by Israelis, Palestinians and political leaders around the world, as well as some Jewish organizations. To our knowledge, Bnai Brith Canada is NOT one of the organizations that has ever condemned those rabbis statements.

Most of Ateeks hosts across the country refused to succumb to what amounts to Bnai Briths blood-libel-in-reverse. However, some sponsors, especially Christian organizations, balked. Waterloo Lutheran Seminary withdrew its backing from the meeting at Conrad Grebel College (a Mennonite institution), but the meeting continued. St. Michaels College at the University of Toronto also withdrew its venue for Rev. Ateek, forcing organizers to scramble for a new location.

For over 25 years, Hamilton has hosted the Gandhi Peace Festival. In 2019, Bnai Brith attempted to have two speakers kicked off the program, organized by McMaster Professor Rama Singh.

One of the speakers targeted was Azeezah Kanji, an Islamic law scholar and director of programming at the Toronto-based Noor Cultural Centre. The other was McMaster Professor Emeritus Dr. Atif Kubursi, an economist specializing in oil and the Middle East and former Acting Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. He is the recipient of the Canadian Centennial Medal for his outstanding academic contributions. Neither of them was expected to even speak about Palestine at the event, but both had made statements critical of Israel in the past and thus were accused of guilt by association. At Bnai Briths urging, the Hamilton Jewish Federation withdrew its participation. The event went on without the Federations participation but with those two speakers presenting.

Institutional Jewish organizations have tried for many years to get university presidents across the country to ban Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). One of the more aggressive campaigns against IAW has been at McMaster University. In 2020, several groups, including the Jewish Defence League and Hillel Ontario asked McMaster University to outlaw the annual event, claiming it makes Jewish students on campus uncomfortable and unsafe.

The university declined to comply with the blanket request to shut down the activities. A spokesperson insisted that The group organizing the event in question is a student group registered with the McMaster Students Union All such groups are governed by McMasters Student Code of Conduct, which promotes the safety and security of all students and encourages respect for others.

The university also provides guidance to all event organizers, which clearly outlines the universitys commitment to free expression and lays out what behavior is deemed unacceptable.

Rehab Nazzal is a multidisciplinary artist of Palestinian origin based in Toronto, some of whose work deals with the harsh treatment of Palestinians by Israel. Nazzals 2014 exhibition Invisible at the Karsh-Masson Art Gallery on the ground floor of city hall in Ottawa was publicly condemned by Israels ambassador to Canada, and several pro-Israel groups, including Bnai Brith Canada demanded that the mayor cancel the exhibition. The mayor refused, citing freedom of expression. But the city posted a disclaimer outside. The groups also protested the fact that Nazzal had received a financial award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Nazzal later spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in Ottawa and received a standing ovation.

In 2015, an Israeli sniper shot Nazzal in the leg while she was photographing a confrontation in Bethlehem. According to the Ottawa Citizen, Israeli spokesperson Eitan Weiss commented, Its very difficult to ascertain what happens during a riot, because you have to imagine hundreds of people throwing rocks, Molotov cocktails, using live firearms,its very difficult to prove that it ever happened, and its very difficult to prove that it didnt happen.

All of the above de-platforming takes a lot of work. And it makes the pro-Israel lobby look like the bullies they are. Right now, there is altogether too much messy debate. Consequently, the lobby wants to build a better mousetrap, a mousetrap that will alleviate the need to intervene each and every time there is an event or activity criticizing Israel. How much easier if the better mousetrap operates to slam shut automatically, breaking the mouses neck without untidy arguments and recrimination.

Such a better mousetrap is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism (IHRA-WDA). As Independent Jewish Voices has pointed out, the IHRA definition is remarkably sloppy and vague. But it does contain eleven examples of antisemitism, seven of which involve criticism of Israel.

The lobby is trying to get the IHRA-WDA adopted by legislatures, city councils, non-governmental organizations, student unions, human rights bodies, police departments, universities, any forum that could possibly be in a position to shut down or sanction activity critical of Israel. We do not know whether or how the adoption of the IHRA-WDA by these bodies could actually criminalize criticism of Israel. After all, we still have freedom of expression under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

However, we have seen how the mere accusation of antisemitism, accurate and deserved or entirely bogus, has been used to hobble political and other types of careers.

We have also seen, how the IHRA-WDA has been used to punish people and organizations who have run afoul of it. The case of the University of Winnipeg cited above is one example. Claiming to have employed the IHRA-WDA definition, the universitys diversity officer declared the meeting antisemitic, and the university apologized for allowing the meeting to take place.

We have seen that Bnai Brith Canada employs the IHRA-WDA to decide which occurences should be added to their audit of antisemitic incidents.

Finally, we have seen that the increasingly open use of the term antisemite to label those who criticize Israel could encumber legitimate lawsuits for defamation by victims of that slur.

That is why defenders of Palestinian human rights and proponents of peace and justice in the Middle East need to double our vigilance to ensure that the IHRA-WDA goes no further and that freedom of expression and sanity returns.

Larry Haiven is a member of the steering committee of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, professor emeritus at Saint Marys University in Halifax and a research associate of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Nova Scotia.

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The Real Masters of 'Cancel Culture' The Pro-Israel Lobby - The Bullet - Socialist Project