June 18, 2008

Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians

Statement on Durban II

The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC) endorses and supports the
call by the New Democratic Party for Canada to participate in the Durban
Review Conference. The NDP has adopted this position in response to
assurances by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights Louise Arbour that anti-Semitism will not be tolerated at the
conference.

It is crucially important for the world community to come together and fight
racism, hatred and oppression in all its forms and the opportunity "Durban
II" presents for making progress on these goals is too precious to pass up.
In the words of Ban Ki-Moon, it is a process that cannot be permitted to
fail.

We suspect that an alternate conference that the Harper government is
calling for will result in a formal attempt to conflate anti-Zionism and
anti-Semitism and attempt to tar any criticism of Israel with the brush of
anti-Semitism. This would be a grave mistake which would not only threaten
the peace process but would also put Jews in peril by debasing the concept
of anti-Semitism.

Those who are uncritical of Israel and cast a blind eye towards the issue of
Palestinian human rights have supported the boycott and attacked the NDP for
its principled position. This opposition is based on an ongoing
opportunistic attempt to label any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism.
This is a fundamentally unprincipled position and one which undermines the
concept of anti-Semitism by trivializing it and broadening it to such an
extent that it becomes meaningless. By devaluing the concept of
anti-Semitism and applying it in such a cynical fashion, right-wing
Zionists make it easier for actual anti-Semitism to manifest itself. As
philosophy professor Brian Klug of Independent Jewish Voices (UK) has
warned, "when anti-Semitism is everywhere, it is nowhere. And when every
anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no longer know how to recognize the real
thing--the concept of anti-Semitism loses its significance."

We agree that Durban II needs to condemn anti-Semitism as well as all forms
of racism but we disagree with the suggestion made by the WCAR's critics
that criticism of Zionism is anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism cannot be ended by
jingoistic support for Israel or by the subjugation of another people.
Rather, the way to end anti-Semitism is to oppose all racism and hatred. One
cannot oppose anti-Semitism without also opposing Islamophobia. One cannot
believe in democracy if one doesn't also oppose the suppression of democracy
and human rights by the Israeli government and one cannot fight
anti-Semitism by boycotting the world community's conference on combating
racism. If anti-Semitic ideas are raised, the way to combat them is through
debate and with facts, not by walking away.We regret that groups that claim
to speak for Jewish Canadians such as the Canadian Jewish Congress have
joined the call for a boycott and have condemned the NDP for its principled
stance. No group, neither the CJC nor the Canada-Israel Committee, can claim
to speak for Canadian Jews as a whole. We are a diverse community with
eclectic and varied opinions. A growing number of Jewish Canadians, and Jews
worldwide, are increasingly concerned about the actions of the Israeli
government and its treatment of the Palestinians. Many Jews are passionately
involved in the struggle for justice for our Palestinian sisters and
brothers. Groups like the CJC and CIC represent an increasingly narrow band
of opinion and should not be seen as representative of the broader Jewish
community.

The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC) is an umbrella group
consisting of 18 organizations opposed to the occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza and committed to universal human rights. We join a growing number
of groups throughout the Jewish Diaspora and within Israel in sharing these
values.

This Statement has been endorsed by the Interim Steering Committee of ACJC.

Diana Ralph, Ph.D

Coordinator Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians

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Originally published in http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/924561.html

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