More About Justin Trudeau and Israel- Think He Is Any Different Than Harper?

For past posts on this topic, see here, here, here,  Also, see here for the Canadian government cracking down on criticism of Israel. See here for how supposedly "multicultural" Canada and Justin Trudeau supports an Israel that bans interracial marriage books. Also, see here for how Trudeau continues Harper’s policies on Israel.

Canadians Don’t Share Justin Trudeau’s
Pro-Israel Stance — Poll

A new survey has revealed a major disconnect between Canadians’ views of Israel and the policies of their government.

Large numbers of Canadians see Israel’s government negatively, and Canadians reject almost unanimously the view that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic.

The poll conducted by EKOS Research Associates from 25 January to 2 February was commissioned by Independent Jewish Voices, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East and journalists Dimitri Lascarisand Murray Dobbin.

According to the report accompanying the results, “no published survey has previously examined whether Canadians consider criticism of the Israeli government to be anti-Semitic.”

Overall, far more Canadians (46 percent) had a negative opinion of the Israeli government than a positive one (28 percent). Similar to trends noted in the US in recent years, there are sharp political and generational differences.

Among supporters of the governing Liberal Party, the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), Bloc Québécois and Greens – all of which are considered left of center in Canada – negative views of Israel’s government ranged from 55 to 78 percent.

As in the United States, where support for Israel is much more concentrated among Republicans, 58 percent of Canadians who identify with the right-wing opposition Conservative Party view Israel’s government positively.

More than half of Canadians under age 35 view the Israeli government negatively, compared with just 37 percent of those aged over 65 who tended to hold a negative view of the Israeli government.

Just 17 percent of Canadians aged under 35 view Israeli government policy positively.

The EKOS survey also found that in “all ethnic categories including ethnically identified Jews, more respondents held negative than positive opinions of the Israeli government.”

Overall, in the province of Quebec, whose own nationalist movement has traditionally expressed strong solidarity for Palestinians, 57 percent of residents held a negative view of the Israeli government – the highest proportion of any region.

Criticizing Israel not anti-Semitic

Canadians see their government as more biased toward Israel: 61 percent said the government is pro-Israel, while just 16 percent see it as pro-Palestinian.

Among those supporting the left of center parties, including the governing Liberals, the number who see a pro-Israel bias ranges from 70 to 77 percent.

And in sharp contrast to their government, Canadians overwhelmingly reject efforts to paint criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic.

The survey found that that 91 percent “accept the view that criticism of Israeli government policy [is] like criticism of any other country and is not necessarily anti-Semitic.”

This figure rose to 100 percent among supporters of the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, and 97 percent among supporters of the Liberals, the party led by Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister.

This is a stark contrast with efforts by the political class to stigmatize criticism of Israel and activism for Palestinian rights.

Last February, Trudeau’s government backed an opposition motion in the federal parliament condemning the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

In December 2016, the legislature in Ontario. Canada’s most populous province, passed a non-binding resolution tarring the BDS movement as racist.

The previous May, however, the Ontario legislature soundly rejected a bill that would have created a government blacklist of supporters of Palestinian rights.

“Historically, Canadian government policy has been staunchly pro-Israel, despite Israel’s decades-long construction of settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, which virtually the entire international community, including Canada, considers illegal,” the report states.

Canadian government policy formally “recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination and supports the creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, as part of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement.”

But the report notes that “successive Liberal and Conservative governments have emphasized their commitment to Israel and to protecting its security, while saying little if anything about the security of Palestinians. Under their watch, Canada created unprecedented trade and security pacts with Israel.”

This has not changed since the Liberals returned to power in November 2015. “In Trudeau’s brief time in office, Canada has voted against 16 motions critical of Israel in the [United Nations] General Assembly – the only major country, alongside the US, to do so,” the report states.

Scope for change

A major conclusion of the study is that the left of center and left parties – Liberals, NDP, Greens and Bloc Québécois – can afford to be much more bold on the question of Palestine without losing support.

“In Canada, political elites cling to the view that a vigorous defense of Palestinians rights would erode support for their parties,” the report states. “The results of this survey strongly suggest that the opposite is true, that demanding Israel’s respect for Palestinian rights will attract support from centrist and left-leaning voters.”

The survey also sends a message to members of these parties that they can “more confidently” push for policy changes.

Lascaris, a lawyer, journalist and former justice spokesperson for the Green Party, told The Electronic Intifada that the survey holds profound messages for Canadian leaders, including that they would likely find broad public support if they were to impose sanctions on Israel, for example over settlements.

“There is clearly a very negative view of the Israeli government in Canada, including a substantial majority of Liberal supporters,” Lascaris said. “If the political class in Canada pay attention to this poll, they should profoundly rethink their approach to sanctions.”

Lascaris noted that Canadians are highly skeptical of Israeli government policy despite the fact that Canadian media – like their counterparts in the United States – scarcely report on Israel’s human rights abuses.

“The Israeli government’s behavior has become so brazen and so inconsistent with a just and lasting peace, that even the mainstream media can’t prevent a significant section of the Canadian public from holding a negative view about the Israeli government,” he added. “If the media were being balanced and telling Canadians what is happening to Palestinians – and they are not – support for Palestinians would be stratospheric.”

Hey, Multicultural Canada... This is What Your Prime Minister Supports! Israel Bans Interracial Marriage Book

Yes, nothing has changed Canadians! Did you honestly think Justin Trudeau would change a thing? Did you honestly think that your vote actually counts?

Before you read the article below... please see here, here, here, here, here and here to understand the context better. Israel is an ethnocentric, racist apartheid state that must be dismantled. If there was anything like this in Canada, we would not tolerate it.
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Israel’s Education Ministry has formally banned a book about an interracial affair between a Jew and a Gentile because, the Jewish state’s government says, the book “threatens Jewish identity” and does not deal with the “significance of miscegenation” between “Jews and non-Jews.”

At the same time, the organized Jewish lobby in America and Europe —which fanatically supports Israel—demands of Europeans that they accept miscegenation and mixed marriages in order not to be “racist.”

According to an article in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, titled “Israel Bans Novel on Arab-Jewish Romance From Schools for Threatening Jewish Identity” (December 31, 2015), Israel’s Education Ministry has “disqualified a novel (called “Gader Haya,” or “Borderlife”) that describes a love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man from use by high schools around the country.”

An official statement released by the ministry said that the book had been banned from schools because of the “need to maintain the identity and the heritage of students in every sector,” and that “intimate relations between Jews and non-Jews threatens our separate identity.”

The Education Ministry added that “young people of adolescent age don’t have the systemic view that includes considerations involving maintaining the national-ethnic identity of the people and the significance of miscegenation.”

The book tells the story of Liat, an Israeli translator, and Hilmi, a Palestinian artist, who meet and fall in love in New York, until they part ways for her to return to Tel Aviv and he to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where Israel’s racial segregation laws force them apart.

The decision to ban the book was endorsed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett’s office, which issued a statement saying “The minister backs the decision made by the professionals.”

In a separate article, Haaretz columnist Alon Idan frankly admitted that the reason why the book was banned was so that Israel could “maintain purity of blood.”

Alon said that the decision meant simply that “Jews and Arabs are forbidden to have sex with one another; Jews and Arabs are forbidden to love one another; Jews and Arabs are forbidden to marry one another; Jews and Arabs are forbidden to have families with one another; Jews and Arabs are forbidden to live together.”

The organized Jewish lobby in America and Europe—which is one of Israel’s strongest supporters—demands of Europeans that they adopt exactly the opposite policy to that which they support in the Jewish state.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), for example, which describes itself as “the worlds leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice, and bigotry,” has an entire section of its website devoted to boasting about the Jewish role in dismantling anti-miscegenation and anti-mixed marriage laws in America.

For example, an ADL press release from March 2015, dealing with the promotion of homosexual marriage (something else which is illegal in Israel), titled “ADL Urges Supreme Court to Overturn State Marriage Bans” quotes Christopher Wolf, ADL Civil Rights Chair, as saying that “Marriage bans unconstitutionally enshrine one particular religious view of marriage into law.”

The ADL goes on to quote Deborah M. Lauter, ADL Civil Rights Director, as saying that “Discriminatory laws targeting disadvantaged groups have long been justified by religious and moral disapproval, but time and time again, the Supreme Court has rejected these arguments. The Court needs only to look at its decisions ending slavery, segregation, interracial marriage bans, and laws restricting women’s roles in public life to reach the right conclusion.”

The ADL was joined in this demand by The American Jewish Committee; Bend the Arc — A Jewish Partnership for Justice; The Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Women of Reform Judaism; Global Justice Institute; Hadassah — The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc.; Jewish Social Policy Action Network (JSPAN); Keshet; The National Council of Jewish Women; Nehirim; Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Jewish Reconstructionist Communities; Society for Humanistic Judaism; T’ruah: Rabbis for Human Rights-North America; and Women’s League for Conservative Judaism.

In addition, the ADL was joined by a host of Christian, Asian, and Sikh organizations—but none of them were being hypocritical about their public stance, unlike the Israel-supporting Jewish groups.

The ADL has a special section of its website devoted to explaining to its supporters how to defend Israel. Titled “Israel: A Guide for Activists,” the ADL page provides detailed instructions on every aspect of the Jewish state, and how to answer accusations made against it.

In addition, the ADL—and all the other organized Jewish organizations—set up formal visits to Israel, engage in lobbying on behalf of the Jewish state, and ensure that their controlled media never reports negatively on Jewish political manipulations or their control of Western governments.

It is clear that the Jews know and understand perfectly the principles of race and the need to preserve racial homogeneity in order to maintain Jewish cultural identity.

In Israel, this understanding takes practical effect through the banning of mixed marriages, the outlawing of non-Jewish immigration, racial segregation in schools and living areas, and their ultimate goal—a separate Jews-only state.

Yet, in America, Europe, and anywhere else where there are large numbers of Europeans, the Israel-supporting Jewish lobby actively promotes policies which are the diametric opposite to the policies which their state enforces.

The facts are inescapable:  the Jewish lobby seems to think they know that miscegenation and mixed marriages will lead to the destruction of Jewish identity and the Jewish nation-state.

Do they also believe that promoting miscegenation and mixed marriages among non-Jews will lead to the destruction of European identity, and the destruction of European nation-states? What do they believe? 

This “hypocrisy” is too obvious to be an accident: why are they such hypocrites? Do you not remember what Jesus charged the Pharisees with being? HYPOCRITES!

This is All You Need To Know About What is Happening in Canada and the United States

This tells you everything you need to know about what is happening in Canada and the United States. REMEMBER, Ariel Sharon used to be the Prime Minister of Israel! Canada supports Israel. Some of these people are utter psychopaths. They are applying this mentality in our own countries with Homeland Security and Bill C-51 laws that allow the intelligence agencies to do whatever they want. Read below! Is this something Trudeau would say? Hitler didn't even say things like this. I wonder where the crazy people I am dealing with get their mentality?

“Tell me, do the evil men of this world have a bad time? They hunt and catch whatever they feel like eating. They don’t suffer from indigestion and are not punished by Heaven. I want Israel to join that club. Maybe the world will then at last begin to fear us instead of feeling sorry. Maybe they will start to tremble, to fear our madness instead of admiring our nobility. Let them tremble, let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a savage country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go wild, that we might start World War Three just like that, or that we might one day go crazy and burn all the oil fields in the Middle East. Personally, I don’t want to be any better than Harry Truman who snuffed out half a million Japanese with two fine bombs.” —Ariel Sharon, 1982

OR THIS:

“We are Judeo-Nazis, and why not? If you're nice, civilized parents, rather than writing books about their love for humanity had instead come to Israel and killed six million Arabs, what would have happened? Sure, two or three nasty pages would have been written in the history books, and we would have been called all sorts of names, but we would be here today as a people of 25 million! What you don’t seem to understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it.” —Ariel Sharon, 1982

OR THIS:

“Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves.” - Menaheim Begin, 6th Prime Minister of Israel. speech to the Knesset (24 June 1982), quoted in “Begin and the ‘Beasts” Amnon Kapeliouk, in The New Statesman (25 June 1982);

OR THIS:

“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,” “In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money. This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew. Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world; only to serve the People of Israel. Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat,” -Rabbi Ovadia Yosef October-18-2010 during his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat. 

OR THIS: https://exposeintelligence.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-hidden-history-of-zionism-ralph.html

This should begin to wake people up.  Now, when you have the current Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu speaking in front of the United States congress, (no other country has ever done this,) what does that say about the United States and who runs it? See here for more about Netanyahu speaking in front of congress.

The Zionist Takeover Of Canada

Besides the article below, see here for more about the Bronfman family. They have played a strong role in Canadian politics. Also, see here to see the unbelievable control of the media in Canada and to learn about the fight for the control of the Bank of Canada.

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IT ALL BEGAN with Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who ruled as Prime Minister of Canada from 1968 to 1984. The year “1984″ which saw the summation of Trudeau’s policies—namely the Zionification of Canada—is an apt metaphor for the police-state grip that Jewry now wields on the once sovereign nation of Canada, currently a vassal of the global Zionist beast.

Although some argue that Pierre Trudeau showed himself as an anti-Semite and pro-Palestinian, in reality, he bowed to Zionist pressure both from American and Canadian Jewry. With the rise of the Jewish Lobby in Canada after Israel’s Six Day War, it was the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canadian Zionist Organization, and B’nai B’rith, that established the Canada-Israel Committee (CIC) to act on behalf of Jewish interests in all of Canada’s domestic and foreign affairs.

Today under the Justin Trudeau administration, the Jewish Lobby has expanded its influence which enjoys almost complete control over the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, through the intelligence agencies of Canada. CSIS was started in 1984 by a Zionist Jew, and nothing has changed since then. If anything it has only become worse. The CSE is no better. These organizations are literally above the law and it is through them that the RCMP receives their intelligence information.

This is why you have activities like this happening and the strong connections between Israel and Homeland Security. See here for the Canada-Israel “Public Security” agreement. See here for a collection of posts about the connections between Homeland Security and Zionism.

Whatever Justin Trudeau says about Israel, actions speak louder than words, and when he takes actions such as this and this, it shows what he truly believes and who he is taking orders from.

Trudeau’s “moral” fixation on Israel and disregard of Israel’s “immoral” genocide of the Palestinians notwithstanding, one is inclined to believe that Jewish money and votes are the “obliging” motive behind Trudeau’s avowals to his most favored constituency.

And with such groups as the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee; the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (Canada’s counterpart to America’s AIPAC); the Jewish Federations of North America; and the Jewish Defense League, (see here for more about the JDL,) the stranglehold of Jewry on Canada’s national policies is secure. View here and here.

BEATING TRUDEAU INTO SUBMISSION

BOWING TO THE THREAT to cut off funding to Trudeau’s Liberal Party by Canadian Jewry, the former Prime Minister found himself in a position of humiliation and political compromise.

Due to his sympathies for the plight of the Palestinians after the Six-Day War, the Jewish Lobby reacted by pressing Trudeau into departing from the policies of his predecessor, Lester Pearson, who was averse to supporting Jewish causes so strongly in the government.

Trudeau now entered into a new realm of Canadian politics, namely, catering to Jewish interests over popular sentiment.

During this period, Trudeau appointed the first Jewish Cabinet minister (Herbert Gray), the first Jewish Supreme Court Judge (Bora Laskin), the first Jewish Secretary to the Prime Minister (Jack Austin), the first Jewish Envoy to the Hague Court of Justice (Maxwell Cohen), and the first Jewish Under Secretary of External Affairs from 1977 to 1981 – Alan Gotlieb - who then became Canada’s first Jewish Ambassador to Washington.

A swarm of Zionist Jews, who were incredibly biased toward Israel and the Zionist cause, soon infested Trudeau’s personal staff with high profile names such as H. Carl Goldenberg, Simon Reisman, Bernard and Sylvia Ostrey, Jerry Grafstein, and Mickey Cohen.

And ever since, Canada has been under the tyranny of Zionist rule. (Here I define Zionism as it traditionally is, those who support the cause for a "so-called Jewish" state in the middle east called Israel.) To learn more, view this book here, See this article and this newspaper article.

JEWRY SOUNDED THE DEATH KNELL
of free speech in Canada in 1975

When Trudeau’s invitation for a UN conference on international crime with PLO participation (holding observer status at the UN) to be held in Toronto was opposed by the Canadian Jewish Lobby, Trudeau caved into the intense pressure. (See here for how Zionism went against the UN.)

This was against the advice of his then Secretary of External Affairs, Allan McEachen, who wished to separate Canadian interests from Israel’s.

The Toronto Star, then under the auspices of the Joseph Atkinson Foundation, a Gentile entity, decried the cancellation as a “humiliation” to Canada in “abandoning” principle and “giving into” threats.

The Zionist issue came to a boil when Israel’s Prime Minister, Menachim Begin, was invited by the Canada-Israel Committee to speak at Toronto’s Beth Zedek Synagogue.

In a provocative speech, Begin called on Canadian Jews to press Trudeau to move the Canadian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. If Trudeau refused, Begin urged his fellow Jews that they were to deny Trudeau’s Liberal Party their votes and support the Conservative Party instead.

Trudeau did refuse, noting that Jerusalem was “defined by the United Nations as one of the occupied territories.” As far as Trudeau was concerned, Begin’s visit amounted to an interference in Canada’s domestic affairs, resulting, (in what one minister observed), Trudeau harboring a “passionate hatred” for Begin and undergoing a “thorough exasperation” with “Zionist pressure groups.”

But Jewry’s interference with Canada’s policies and its threat to free speech was not to be stopped. Since 2003, Izzy’s son, Leonard Asper, has been running the show, (literally), in Canada’s propaganda dissemination, in which all budding journalists’ attempts to present a balanced view of Israel’s activities and policies were censured.

With Canada’s Press and its most popular Television Network, Global, then owned and controlled by the Jewish “Izzy” Asper family, (fierce Zionists, whose media empire began in 1975), any exposure of views critical of Jewish interests at the expense of Canada’s, was not permitted. (Today it is owned by the conglomerate Corus, and absolutely nothing has changed as Canadian media has become more and more centralized and biased towards the cause of Zionism. See here for more about the concentration of power and centralization of media in Canada.)

THE FINAL BLOW

FREE SPEECH IN CANADA received its final blow in 1977, when, via fervent lobbying by the Canadian Jewish Congress and efforts by Toronto Jewish lawyer, Mark Freiman, the Canadian Human Rights Act was enacted into law.

The Canadian Human Rights Act made it a criminal offense to communicate by phone or via the internet any material that “exposes a person or persons to hatred or contempt.”

The Canadian Jewish thought police, led by the Bnai Brith (who the ADL is a part of,) and the Canadian Jewish Congress, have enforced this law through various harassments, prosecutions. and lately, assaults on academic freedom and YouTube videos. This also happens because of the strong links between the intelligence community and Silicon Valley companies like Microsoft, Skype, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, and Yahoo.

Take this along with Bill C-51 and the other information I am talking about. All of this is information that is very relevant for Canadians who think they are living in a "free country."

Justin Trudeau’s Shame: Extending Carte Blanche to Israel

In addition to the article below, see here, here and here.  

Here’s a Middle-East multiple choice question for you (warning: one of these will get you condemned by the government of Justin Trudeau).

Would you rather that the Palestinian people 1) once again take up armed struggle in order to end Israeli occupation of their land or 2) pursue a non-violent strategy of Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions (BDS) until such time as Israel recognizes the rights of the Palestinian people?

Advocating a return to the use of violence against Israel may or may not get you condemned by the Prime Minister. But it is definitely not okay to advocate for the non-violent BDS campaign. This was made clear by the government’s support of a Conservative resolution opposing the campaign “which promotes the demonization and de-legitimization of the State of Israel,” and called upon the government “to condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.”

This is a sickening violation of Canadians’ basic rights enshrined by Justin’s father 35 years ago. As the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair (who once described himself as an “ardent supporter of Israel”) said, the resolution “makes it a thought crime to express an opinion.” The NDP and the Bloc, joined by three Liberals, voted against the resolution.

That the Liberal government is so in alignment with Israel lobby groups raises a number of questions: Just who actually makes Canadian policy towards Israel? Did Trudeau think this through at all – such as, is this in Canada’s interests? But perhaps more to the point, is it even in Israel’s interests? Does the Trudeau government have some brilliant ideas about how to get Israel to the bargaining table? Or does it believe the current situation doesn’t need resolving? It smacks of political cowardice. It’s as if Stephen Harper still rules the day on this critical foreign policy issue. Indeed the resolution reflects Harper’s declaration that criticism of Israel’s government is the “new anti-Semitism.”

We are left to wonder whether the Trudeau government can imagine any action by Israel that would cause it to “condemn” its government rather than its critics. And to wonder whether it seeks to further polarize the region or help cooler heads prevail. Giving carte blanche to the actions of Israel’s increasingly extremist government simply reinforces its determination to never negotiate and to keep pushing the envelope, whether it’s building new settlements or slaughtering civilians in Gaza.

Against that prospect, how many Parliamentarians have even the slightest clue what the Palestinians are seeking through the BDS campaign? Do they know its origins?

As stated by movement leaders, Israel must: “End its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantle the Wall; Recognize the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and Respect, protect, and promote the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties, as stipulated in UN resolution 194.” This latter demand is hotly rejected by Israel even though Jews from literally anywhere in the world have, through the 1950 Law of Return (to Israel and now the occupied territories) the same right.  

The BDS campaign was inspired by the successful boycott and sanctions campaign that finally brought an end to South African apartheid — a campaign, incidentally, given a major boost by none other than then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The BDS campaign was launched in 2005 by 170 Palestinian civil society groups representing virtually every sector of Palestinian society “including all political parties, unions, refugee networks, NGOs, and organizations representing Palestinians living under occupation, in Israel, and in exile.”  The decision was rooted firmly in a commitment to non-violence and in international law regarding the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

Israel’s occupation is routinely compared to apartheid by Israelis – and not just critics of the government. Michael Ben-Yair, Israel’s attorney general from 1993 to 1996, wrote:

“We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories …. We developed two judicial systems: one — progressive, liberal in Israel. The other — cruel, injurious in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture.”

Other senior Israeli political figures agreed. Shulamit Aloni, education minister under Yitzhak Rabin, and former prime minister Ehud Barak both made the comparison. Ehud Olmert, another former PM, declared: “If the day comes when the two state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights…the State of Israel is finished.” With the two-state solution on life-support — and no pressure on Israel from the West to revive it — the situation so feared by Olmert is arguably already here.

In fact, the BDS campaign may be Israel’s best hope to avoid Ehud Olmert’s nightmare. Perhaps that is why Israel’s extremist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is so determined to fight BDS. In a 2014 speech to the powerful pro-Israeli US lobby group AIPAC, he referred to the BDS campaign 18 times, calling on American Zionists to “fight back” against BDS advocates.

The BDS campaign might not worry Netanyahu so much if it weren’t for the fact that Israel now ranks near the bottom of pile when it comes to world opinion. A BBC poll  in 2013 interviewed more than 26,000 people in 25 countries and found only 21 per cent of participants had a positive view of Israel, while 52 per cent viewed the country unfavorably. Only Iran, Pakistan and North Korea fared worse. In just the last year, the percentage of Americans viewing Israel favourably dropped dramatically from 70 percent to 59 percent while positive attitudes towards Palestinians jumped from 17 percent to 24 percent.

Justin Trudeau and his government could not be more mistaken if they believe they are doing Israel a favour by supporting the repugnant Conservative thought crime resolution. Every time a Western government turns a blind eye to Israeli apartheid it reinforces that system by signaling to Netanyahu that he can do whatever he pleases.

By steadfastly denying the apartheid reality in Israel successive Canadian governments in fact betray the long term of interests of that country — not to mention, of course, those of millions of Palestinians.

MURRAY DOBBIN, now living in Powell River, BC has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for over forty years.  He now writes a bi-weekly column for the on-line journals the Tyee and rabble.ca. He can be reached at murraydobbin@shaw.ca

Thought Crimes in Trudeau’s Canada

In addition to the article below, I suggest that you read this and this. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris in November 2015. (Amos Ben Gershom.)

By Davide Mastracci

The Liberal Party of Canada, which is led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and came to power in October 2015, brands itself as a progressive alternative to the Conservatives.

When it comes to Israel and the Palestinian-led campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), however, the Liberals have continued down the Conservatives’ troubling path, violating Canadians’ wishes and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms along the way.

On 22 February the House of Commons passed a motion by an overwhelming margin of 229-51 votes in condemnation of the BDS movement.

The Liberals have a majority in the House of Commons and the motion, introduced by two Conservative members of parliament, would not have passed without them. Only two of 184 Liberal MPs voted against the motion.

The motion emphasizes the “friendship,” economic and diplomatic relations between Canada and Israel and claims that the BDS movement “promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel.”

Expanded political ties

Canada certainly does have a deep relationship with Israel, both politically and economically, which was significantly expanded when Stephen Harper was prime minister.

The Harper government isolated Canada from the the world when it came to Israel. His government voted against United Nations motions for Palestinian statehood, opposed UN motions demanding that Israeli nuclear facilities be opened for inspection, and cracked down on charities providing relief to Palestinians.

Lauding Israel as a “priority market” for Canada, Harper updated the free trade agreement between Israel and Canada in July 2015 to reduce tariffs and broaden investment links with Israeli businesses, including allowing goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank to be exported to Canada duty free.

The two-way trade relationship between Canada and Israel now amounts to at least $1.6 billion.

Boycott as threat

The recent motion, then, is clearly a step toward crushing BDS, a movement that could threaten Israel’s status as a “priority market” for Canada. This goal has existed for years but has recently been intensified, and the Liberals aren’t willing to reverse the trend.

In 2014, the Canadian government added “national origin” into the list of identifiers covered by hate speech laws, in order to criminalize those advocating boycotts against the state of Israel.

Then, in January 2015, the Canadian government agreed to strengthen ties with Israel even further. At the announcement, then foreign affairs minister John Baird said the country would “fight any efforts internationally to delegitimize the State of Israel, including the disturbing BDS Movement.”

This message was reinforced shortly afterwards at a United Nations General Assembly meeting when then public safety minister Stephen Blaney said that Canada takes a “zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism,” listing the BDS movement as a form of discrimination, borrowing the tactic used by Israeli government and Israel advocacy groups to undermine BDS by portraying it as being motivated by anti-Semitism.

The effort to combat BDS became more explicit by May 2015, when a government spokesperson responded to a journalist’s questions on what the government’s zero-tolerance policy response would entail by stating that “hate crimes” would not be allowed to undermine the Canadian way of life, explicitly equating human rights-based Palestine solidarity activism to criminal acts.

No divergence

These events, which have led some to fear the government will eventually move to ban BDS, took place under Conservative rule. Still, the Liberal Party’s recent vote in support of condemning BDS shouldn’t come as a surprise.

An early indicator for the Trudeau-ruled Liberals’ uncritical support of Israel came in July 2014, during Israel’s 51-day attack on Gaza, when the party released a statement claiming that “Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Hamas is a terrorist organization and must cease its rocket attacks immediately.”

The statement failed to criticize Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians.

BDS specifically came under fire shortly thereafter. In March 2015, Trudeau tweeted in response to an upcoming vote to support BDS at McGill University that “The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses. As a @McGillU alum, I’m disappointed. #EnoughIsEnough.”

Rejecting rights

Trudeau became prime minister on 19 October. Within a week, he called Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, giving an assurance that Canada would continue to be a good ally. Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Rafael Barak, said the call “left his country assured that relations between Canada and the Jewish state will remain strong” since Trudeau had been consistent in supporting Israel throughout his campaign.

“I’m sure maybe the style will change,” the envoy added. “But I don’t feel there will be a change on the substance. I’m really reassured.”

This has been exactly the case as Trudeau has continued to offer Israel uncritical support. At the November 2015 UN General Assembly, a month after Trudeau had come to power, the Canadian government voted against all proposed resolutions supporting the rights of Palestinians.

The vote, which saw Canada reject 16 resolutions, was the exact same as the vote a year earlier when the Conservatives were ruling. The recent vote condemning BDS appears to be an extension of this willingness to support Israel.

Out of touch

The Liberals portrayed the vote as a necessary step in combating anti-Semitism and furthering the economic relationship with Israel, as well as a reflection of Canadian values. The reality is, however, that when it comes to BDS the Canadian government is out of touch with the people it represents.

BDS has been widely supported at Canadian universities. The undergraduate student society at McGill University, representing approximately 30,000 students, passed a motion to support BDS on 22 February, the same day the government condemned the movement (though the McGill vote ultimately failed to be ratified through an online process).

The vote at McGill was a first for the university, but only the latest in a wave of BDS votes on campus throughout the country. In the last three years alone, undergraduate student unions at McMaster University, theUniversity of Windsor, Ryerson University, York University and the University of Toronto Scarborough all passed votes endorsing BDS.

Several graduate student unions have also done the same. University students, as represented by their student societies, hold different views of Israel than the government, seeing the state as a force of oppression in the world as opposed to a friend for Canada.

The Canadian populace at large is also less supportive of Israel than the government would like to acknowledge. No polls specifically measuring support for BDS in Canada have been conducted, but there are several other indicators that Canadians are at least split on the issue at large.

A May 2014 Forum poll found that Canadians are evenly split on who is responsible for the hostilities between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. A 2011 BBC World Service poll, meanwhile, found that 46 percent of Canadians surveyed support the recognition of a Palestinian state, with only 25 percent opposed.

Free speech violation

Regardless of public opinion, however, the recent string of anti-BDS motions appears to violate the enshrined Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada. The National Council on Canada-Arab Relations issued a statementnoting that the suppression of BDS activism violates freedom of speech.

The leader of the New Democratic Party, the third major party in Canada, also expressed shock with the motion, and most of his party’s MPs voted against it (though the NDP has also cracked down on pro-Palestinian protesters in the past).

Tom Mulcair, the NDP’s leader, said “This goes against the freedom of expression we hold so dear in our society,” adding that BDS can be opposed. “But to call upon the government to condemn someone for having that opinion, that’s unheard of.”

Mulcair said the motion “makes it a thought crime to express an opinion.”

It’s a shame that the Canadian government, whether Liberal or Conservative ruled, is insistent on uncritically supporting Israel. The Liberals could have taken a strong stance against Israel’s human rights violations when they got into power, as they won by a wide enough margin to throw their weight around. Instead, they’ve prioritized perceived economic and political benefits over justice, thereby undermining their claim to be more progressive than the Conservatives.

Davide Mastracci is an associate editor at the Islamic Monthly. He has written for a range of publications including Al Jazeera America, Alternet’s Grayzone Project, The Globe and Mail, and the National Post. Website: davidemastracci.com.

Justin Trudeau - No Better Than Stephen Harper With the State of Israel?

I have written numerous times on this blog about the insane relationship between Canada and the ethnocentric, racist state of Israel under the supposed leadership of Stephen Harper. See here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Do you think anything will change under the guidance of our new "Hipster"  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?

If you think so, maybe you should think again. See the articles and the videos below:

1. Israel need not worry about Justin Trudeau

2. Trudeau Reaches Out To CIJA To Affirm Support For Israel

3. Trudeau Government Votes Against UN Anti-Israel Resolutions

4. Canada's new PM supports Israel at UN

5. Will Justin Trudeau win erode Canada’s support for Israel?

6. New Canadian PM Trudeau Votes No on 16 Anti-Israel U.N. Resolutions