Draw the Lines

Slowly but steadily, there are increasing sanctions on Israeli actors responsible for implementing human rights violations in occupied Palestinian territories. The UK just announced new sanctions against West Bank outposts. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned Israel that if it doesn't increase the flow of aid into the Gaza Strip, military aid might be cut off. And in one of the more symbolically (if probably not tangibly) impactful moves, Canada revoked the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund* due in part to its activities in the occupied West Bank.

Given the ubiquity in the diaspora Jewish imagination of JNF's little blue boxes, the Canadian decision was a bombshell, and the Canadian Jewish community is reportedly aghast, and claiming that it is being unfairly targeted by a biased organization. I'm not a Canadian lawyer, and so I won't comment on the underlying legal issues. Speaking broadly though, JNF's historical importance does not and should not give it any immunity to violate Canadian non-profit laws or to funnel "charitable" donations to projects that violate Canadian policy, which absolutely can include projects that retrench Israel's occupation of the West Bank and which stymie the project of Palestinian statehood. Blue box or no, there is no right to leverage Canada's tax code to flout Canada's foreign policy priorities regarding Israel and Palestine.

The one thing that does give me pause is the claim that the Canadian tax authorities have refused to tell JNF exactly which activities are out of compliance or how to get back into compliance. That seems troublesome. JNF absolutely should be given clear guidance about what it the tax authorities deem to be compliant and non-compliant activities, at which point JNF can decide whether it wants to come into compliance or not (and the public can decide whether the rules are or are not reasonable). Draw the lines clearly about what is and is not permissible, and let the chips fall where they may -- but secret rules smack of punitive targeting. Other than that, though, my general view is that it is up to Jewish charities to stay in compliance with the law, and it is entirely reasonable for the law to declare that aiding the occupation is not a charitable endeavor.

* The article on this story did give me one blast from the past moment. It extensively quoted Corey Balsam, head of Independent Jewish Voices, praising the decision to revoke JNF's charitable status. That name rang a bell -- Corey Balsam was who I cited in my White Jews: An Intersectional Approach paper arguing that even non-White Jews were functionally "whitened" by virtue of being Jewish. He made that argument in a graduate school thesis paper, so seeing his name pop up again was a fun "where are they now" moment.

Post-Thankful Roundup

I was thankful on Thanksgiving, but now the holiday is over and I'm back to being misanthropic.

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The Chronicle of Higher Education profiles Kate Manne (congrats on her baby, by the way!).

I'd find these complaints about how the right is rewriting Mizrahi history to suit its political agenda more compelling if the left hadn't completely abandoned this arena for years (with occasional exceptions for hopelessly idealized histories that are equally political, just with different motivations).

A new survey on British antisemitism is out and making waves. I think several of their methodological choices are questionable, to say the least, which prevents me from endorsing its conclusions without reservation. That's unfortunate because there is some interesting data in there, but it's occluded by the authors' own manifest ideological biases. I might write separately on this.

Shocking-not-shocking, part one: A Jewish member of the McGill student government was given an ultimatum to either withdraw from a trip to Israel or resign (she's doing neither, and daring the body to impeach her). Shocking-not-shocking, part two: A non-Jewish student government member going on the same trip was weirdly overlooked and given a pass.

Ohio legislators introduce bill threatening life imprisonment for any woman, girl, or doctor who has or performs an abortion. "Abortion", here, includes not reimplanting an ectopic pregnancy, which is currently not medically possible.

Anti-Vaxxers make headway in Samoa; dozens of people die of measles in Samoa.

Is there a word -- presumably, a German word that's four words smashed together -- for the distinct feeling of anger one gets at a person or object precisely because one knows one can't reasonably be angry at that person or object? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Quebec Set To Ban Public Employees from Wearing Religious Garb

The ban would apply to, among other apparel, hijabs and kippot.

The frenzy of concern regarding various head-coverings -- going way beyond objecting to making them mandatory (as they are in some Muslim-majority states), and instead casting them as inherently antithetical to the values of the liberal state -- leads precisely to this. And it should surprise nobody with a sense of history that this sort of illiberalism-disguised-as-liberalism is taking Jews and Muslims down together.

If Only The Holocaust Weren't So Jewy

First, an employee at the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam was told to stop wearing a kippah -- on the grounds that it might violate the museum's "neutrality" policy (neutrality as to what? Between having Jews and not having them?).

Then, a Quebec parliamentarian attacked a Jewish colleague for wearing (you guessed it) a kippah ... on Holocaust Remembrance Day (did you guess that part, wise guy?). The aggrieved legislator complained (I swear I'm not making this up) that it was unfair for the Jewish man to wear a kippah in session when he wasn't allowed to wear his political party's lapel pin.

#AllAccessoriesMatter

Toronto Prof. Accuses Prospective PhD Student of Being an Israeli Government Agent

A Jewish prospective Ph.D. student in Middle Eastern studies who was seeking informational meetings with professors at the University of Toronto was accused by one department member of being an agent of the Israeli government. The professor, who is active in BDS-linked causes, refused to even meet with the student on "ethical and academic grounds."

The accusation apparently stems from the student's prior status as a former "Hasbara Fellow", a New York-based fellowship organized by Aish HaTorah (in collaboration with Israel's foreign affairs ministry). Presumably, it's the latter connection that provides the foundation for the claim of being an "agent" -- though many governments fund many fellowships that at least partially are designed to serve the goal of public diplomacy, (usually) without their recipients being viewed as clandestine government operatives. There should be a name for the practice of taking relatively ordinary public, political, or social acts and treating them as uniquely nefarious and/or giving them scary names when Jews do them (see: "pinkwashing").*

The source is the Toronto Sun, so a grain of salt is advised (I'd love to see another newspaper pick the story up), but on face -- ugh.

* On this note, it's worth reflecting on how the word "Hasbara" -- which literally means "explanation" (albeit less in the "let me explain how a steam engine works" sense and more in the "let me explain why I'm out on the street at 3 AM, officer" sense -- frequently gets translated as "propaganda". There's something very revealing in that, no? If you're a Hebrew speaker and you try to explain your position, it is linguistically coded as propaganda. Fancy that!

"I'm in a Book -- No, Not Because of That!" Roundup

The political theory class moves onto its feminism unit. I thought about recommending my students read Kate Manne's fantastic book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny -- after all, I'm in it! Upon reflection, telling my students that I'm "in" a book about misogyny may be a bad idea unless I provide considerably more context about the nature of my inclusion (I was discussant when she presented a chapter of the book at a Berkeley workshop; she was also generous enough to cite to my "Playing with Cards" article).

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New Voices (a periodical promoting young Jewish writers) has a piece on Mizrahi Jews trying to find space for their stories in generally-Ashkenazi-dominated campus Jewish spaces.

Study: Middle School students (of all races) prefer teachers of color. Suggestive that implicit biases aren't as prevalent among tweens and young teens? Or that teachers of color who manage to overcome racialized barriers and mistrust to reach and keep their positions are particularly talented?

Oregon judge suspended after, among other things, putting up a picture of Hitler in his courthouse's "Hall of Heroes" (he also refused to marry same-sex couples, tried to use his judicial status to intimidate a youth soccer referee, and allowed a felon whose case he was adjudicating to handle a firearm in his presence).

BDS activists in Spain are suing an anti-BDS watchdog for "intimidation" stemming from the latter's successful legal efforts to overturn BDS ordinances passed in various Spanish municipalities. A judge is allowing the lawsuit to proceed. While there's something unnerving about a suit claiming that the counterparty winning discrimination suits constitutes a form of "discrimination", I try not to jump to conclusions about the meaning of pre-trial rulings in foreign legal cultures, because I have no idea what the relevant legal standards of review are in (in this case) Spain. So grain of salt.

Trump Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo is deeply tied to anti-Muslim bigots. There's a special place in hypocrisy hell for those in the Jewish community who went all-in on Tamika Mallory for her ties to Louis Farrakhan last week who back Pompeo this week (RJC, looking at you).

Professors in the Geography Department at the University of British Columbia successfully pressure their own students to cancel a gala that would've been held at the campus Hillel space. The gala would not (to my knowledge) have been Israel (or Jewish-related). Hey, I remember when we went through this at Brown!

Goys Tell Jews How To Fix Passover

When I first started reading this story about a "Passover Against Apartheid" event at Canada's Concordia University, I figured it was about an anti-Zionist Jewish group doing an alternative seder that emphasized various left/liberatory themes and de-emphasizes/degrades Jewish connections to Israel (my understanding is that Jewish Voice for Peace publishes a haggadah for precisely this purpose). And while I'm obviously no fan of such activity on the substance, procedurally speaking I'd have no objection. Jews-not-me are allowed to practice Jewishness in ways I don't like or approve of; the fact that they take a message from Passover that I find distasteful is their prerogative.

But it turns out that the folks reinterpreting Passover as a critique of "Israel's apartheid state" and suggesting alternatives to "Next Year in Jerusalem" were not exactly who I thought:

“Passover Against Apartheid” - put together by the Concordia Student Union, the Fine Arts Student Alliance and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights groups - included sponsorship from no Jewish organizations.

So basically, this was a bunch of non-Jews coming in to explain Jews how to do Passover right. Indeed, the manner in which the flyers were distributed suggests that they wanted to avoid substantive Jewish presence at all.  And that I think I am justified in finding extra-special gross.

The term that's being used in a lot of the stuff I'm reading on this is "cultural appropriation", and while for me that concept has quite a bit of baggage (see here for a bit on why) I wouldn't necessarily object to its deployment here. That said, I'd rather just talk of it as part of a perceived entitlement by non-Jews to dictate to Jews the contours of our identity, culture, practices and beliefs. We saw similar behavior out of the Church of Scotland a few years ago, and from the UK's Methodist Church a few years before that. It is among the most central elements of what might be called global antisemitic patrimony: the authority, indeed the right, held by non-Jews to define the Jew. This entitlement, borne initially out of Christian and Muslim domination of Jewish bodies, is deeply embedded into modernity -- hence why it is seen as an entitlement, something non-Jews are simply owed, something that counts as an outrageous loss when it is challenged or stripped.

For thousands of years, for much of the world, part of the cultural patrimony enjoyed by all non-Jews—spiritual and secular, Church and Mosque, enlightenment and romantic, European and Middle Eastern—was the unquestionable right to stand superior over Jews. It was that right which the Holocaust took away, or at least called into question: the unthinking faith of knowing you were the more enlightened one, the spiritually purer one, the more rational one, the dispenser of morality rather than the object of it. To be sure, some people were better positioned to enjoy this right than others. And some people arrived onto the scene late in the game, only to discover that part of the bounty they were promised may no longer be on the table. Of course they’re aggrieved! The European immigrant who never owned a slave but was at least promised racial superiority is quite resentful when the wages of Whiteness stop being what they once were. Similarly, persons who lived far from the centers of Christian or Muslim power where Jewish subordination was forged are nonetheless well aware of what was supposed to be included in modernity’s gift basket. They recognize what they’ve “lost” as acutely as anyone else.

“The Germans,” the old saying goes, “will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.” And not just the Germans. Many people deeply resent the Jews for what Auschwitz took away from them—the easy knowledge that their vantage point was elevated over and superior to that of the Jews, the entitlement to be able to talk about Jews without having to listen to Jews.

This is what is happening at Concordia. It is yet another manifestation of  the "willful refusal on the part of the global left to adopt any other position other than teacher/master to Jewish servant/children. To borrow from George Yancy, they 'admit[] of no ignorance vis-à-vis the [Jew]. Hence, there is no need for ... silence, a moment of quietude that encourages listening to the [Jew].'" It is a practice and behavior that is pervasive, is systemic, and is antisemitic root-to-branch. It needs to be rooted out.

Canadian Trade School Announces, Retracts Ban on Israeli Students

The Island School of Building Arts in British Columbia rejected the application of an Israeli student who wished study woodworking at the school.

According to emails obtained by the Jerusalem Post, the school says flatly that it was "not accepting applications from Israel" "due to the conflict and illegal settlement activity." In further correspondence, a school official expressed regret but contended that "This is a question of staying in line with our moral compass, which will always be important to us. We are still inclusive and cannot support that which is not inclusive."

After the story became known, B'nai Brith Canada interceded and the school backed off with apologies. As B'nai Brith observes, it is illegal in BC to discriminate on basis of national origin.

In conclusion, the BDS movement targets institutions, not individuals.

The Train Has No Brakes: Ryerson University Edition

One of the main bases for my objections to the BDS movement is that the "train has no brakes." It might start with something facially defensible -- a targeted divestment from a firm that directly supplies occupation-supporting infrastructure, a narrow sanction directly attached to the settlements -- but almost never stays there. It keeps rolling, until it reaches flat bans on collaborating with Jews (Sydney, Australia), or open calls for the expulsion of all Jews (Durban University of Technology).

Ryerson University, Toronto, has been a center of BDS activity in Canada. Earlier this week, their student council was scheduled to vote on a resolution commemorating Holocaust Education Week. The resolution did not mention Israel. It was also never voted on. A walkout led Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Students Association deprived the meeting of a quorum, preventing the voted from occurring.

“What starts with BDS does not end with BDS,” said Amanda Hohmann, national director of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights. “More often than not, BDS is simply a gateway drug to more blatant forms of anti-Semitism.”

And let's be clear: The reaction against commemorating the Holocaust is not isolated to Ryerson. It is part of a larger pattern whereby some see "the Holocaust not as a source of trauma but as a source of privilege, and an unjust privilege at that." When it comes to Jewish access to progressive discourses around equality and non-discrimination, the Holocaust "is the last firewall left standing; the last citadel the forces of Gentile Supremacy have not yet been able to overrun."

The train has no brakes. It doesn't stop at BDS, and it won't stop at a "mere" walkout protesting Holocaust commemoration either. Board at your -- or more accurately, my -- peril.

Back in Black Roundup: 2/24/16

I've returned from a very pleasant vacation in Las Vegas. If my gambling record is any omen about how my thirties will proceed, I'm in good shape -- I actually finished up on the trip. The New Jersey Devils, by contrast, will never win another hockey game. Other highlights of the trip include eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant, watching Cirque du Soleil Zarkana before it closed, and reading "The Communist Manifesto" at the Bellagio Hotel (a decision which seemed insulting to both Marx and the Bellagio).

* * *

A Rabbi wins a parliamentary seat ... in Uganda. Putting aside the important symbolism for Uganda's tiny Jewish community, the Rabbi in question has stood out for being openly favorable towards gay rights.

A bizarre story out of Canada got an even stranger (but happier) ending. The Jewish National Fund of Canada pulled its sponsorship of the Jewish Federation of Vancouver's Israeli Independence Day celebration, citing the participation of Israeli singer Noa. JNF-Canada (wrongly) alleged that Noa was a supporter of the BDS movement. JF-Vancouver refused to budge, and guess who stepped in to replace the JNF as sponsor: the Israeli embassy! I hope the folks at JNF-Canada are duly humiliated, and have learned a valuable lesson about listening to right-wing trolls.

Protesters disrupted planned speeches by Palestinian human rights activist Bassam Eid at several Chicago-area universities. The protesters objected to Eid's opposition to BDS and his focus on both Israeli and Palestinian rights violations, and questioned his legitimacy as a Palestinian voice. Remember, though, BDS targets institutions, not individuals.

On the one hand, I find the argument that "I'm not voting for either Clinton or Sanders because neither one of them makes feel fuzzy about myself" to be ludicrously self-indulgent. On the other hand, if someone really is far "left" enough such that neither Sanders nor Clinton is more meaningfully attractive than Trump or Cruz, I can't really object to not voting for them. Merging those two arguments together, though, I think people who style themselves so far left that there's no meaningful difference between Sanders or Clinton versus Trump or Cruz are ludicrously self-indulgent.

I'm always interested in legal interpretations which (properly, in my view) cast blanked boycotts against Israel (or any other country, for that matter) as a form of national origin discrimination.

Intersectional discourse has its failings when it comes to Jews (stayed tuned for more exciting information on this!), but James Kirchick really needs to stop writing on a topic he knows nothing about.

The Best of the 2015 AJC Poll of the Jews

The AJC has released its 2015 poll of Jewish political attitudes. There's a lot to unpack here.

Some of it is very topical and gotten a lot of coverage, like the fact that a narrow plurality of Jews support the Iran Deal.

Some of it is very unremarkable, such as the finding that -- as is always the case -- the most important political issue for Jews is the economy (41.7%), not U.S.-Israel Relations (7.2%).

Some of it reflects the positions I hold, like that anti-Semitism is "somewhat of a problem" in the United States (64.2%).

Some of it does not reflect the positions I hold, like that more people approve of how Netanyahu is handling the US/Israel relationship (55.4%) than of how Obama is handling it (48.9%).

Some of it is reassuring, like that 58.9% of American Jews would support dismantling some or all West Bank settlements as "part of a permanent settlement with the Palestinians".

Some of it is deeply alarming, like that 39.2% of American Jews would not support dismantling any settlements as part of a permanent agreement.

But by far the most important finding comes in the "temperature" question that rates countries on a 0-100 scale of "cold" versus "warm" sentiment. As it turns out, while America receives a stellar 84.64 rating, it is not the country American Jews feel most warmly towards. Beating it out with a 84.73 -- less than .1 degrees! -- is, of course, Canada.

Frankly, I think we all knew that even the most patriotic-seeming American Jew secretly bleeds maple syrup. Is it any wonder that Ottawa effectively pulls all the strings in Washington?

Quote of the Day: Liberalism and Neutrality

Liberalism need not be defined by neutrality, nor by an unchanging list of individual rights which always and everywhere trump collective goals.... What keeps a society liberal is not that it retreats from any pronouncements on what constitutes the good life, but that, in pursuing its own conception of the good, it none the less respects those who disagree. 'A society with strong collective goals can be liberal, on this view, provided it is also capable of respecting diversity, especially when it concerns those who do not share its goals; and provided it can offer adequate safeguards for fundamental rights.'

Anne Phillips, The Politics of Presence (Oxford UP 1995), pp. 133 (quoting Charles Taylor, "Shared and Divergent Values," in Ronald L. Watts & Douglas M Brown, eds., Options for a New Canada (Toronto UP, 1991), pp. 71).

Agency

A York University (Canada -- good to see them again) professor, apparently somewhat infamous for decrying Jewish influence on, well, life, has alleged in a letter to the university president that York's Hillel is serving as an "agent of a foreign government" and should be disbanded. While Hillel does do advocacy work to prevent Israel from being demonized on campuses, it isn't Israel's "agent". Insofar as Jews have widely divergent views on what Israel should or shouldn't be doing, I suspect that many of Hillel's members oppose Israeli policies on a regular basis. Consequently, it would be highly surprising if Hillel's pro-Israel advocacy extended beyond a few "red-lines" that tend to unify the Jewish community.

And that gets to what this is really about -- the view that Jewish political agency (of which Israel, of course, is the preeminent example) is something dangerous, aberrational, and illegitimate. Suppose that our dear Professor was correct and Hillel did come to the conclusion that virtually all decisions made by the Israeli government were right, proper, and worthy of praise. Why isn't it their right to advocate it?

"Agent", of course, implies a form of bad faith -- that the group is bought and paid for, rather than "honestly" engaging in the deliberative project. As is usually the case in these sorts of allegations, there is really no way to prove this is the case, so it is deployed more as a rhetorical trope -- a discursive shunt which enables the speaker to preemptively discount whatever her interlocutor is saying as unworthy of consideration (regardless of its facial content). When Jews speak, we can't take what they say at face value -- there's always a deeper game at work, and that's what we need to be on the lookout for. Not listening with open ears and a critical eye, but furtively scrambling for the hidden agenda. It's an outlook that's fundamentally incompatible with respecting Jews as political subjects. Which, alas, many do not.

The Pendulum Swings

Some folks were very excited the other day when Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, a radically anti-Israel group which supports the BDS campaign against the people of Israel (I reject categorizing BDS as anything but a campaign against the people of Israel -- indeed, as anything but a campaign against peaceful coexistence), was allowed to march at a Toronto Pride festival. Organizers (and the Toronto city government, which had provided funding to the march) had previously worried that the group's positions were incompatible with city anti-discrimination ordinances.

Canadian free speech norms are considerably different than American ones, but nonetheless there is a fair case to be made that QuAIA should be allowed to march, and that the proper response to their repulsive, hateful speech would be more speech -- speech that mobilizes the progressive, pro-peace community and demonstrates strong support for both Israeli and Palestinian rights. I do find it disconcerting that some folks seemed excited that QuAIA could march not on free speech principles, but because they sympathized with the particular message QuAIA represents. Nonetheless, that people with hateful views, or people sympathetic to hateful views, happen to line up on the side of an otherwise good principle does not necessarily mean that the principle is worth abandoning -- even where, as here, the group that cries for open speech for itself simultaneously seeks to silence, through the BDS campaign, the voices of those whom it seeks to crush.

But it would be nice to see the principle enforced universally. Fresh off the banning of an Israeli gay organization marching in the Madrid gay pride parade, another pro-Israel gay rights group, StandWithUs, has just been expelled from the U.S. Social Forum under pressure from anti-Zionist groups (StandWithUs's press release is here). The "more speech" element isn't at issue here -- USSF already is marketing itself as a meeting point for anti-Zionist Jews promoting a BDS agenda (once again, the irony). And compounding said irony, the USSF justified its exclusion on the grounds that SWU tries to "censor" pro-Palestinian viewpoints. Alas, it does not seem like, in the queer community, this is the primary problem that needs to be dealt with.

I should add that, like with QuAIA, I don't need to agree with SWU to support a principled free speech position. My brief perusal indicates a lot to dislike -- such as their hit piece on J Street. They are at least marginally better than groups like QuAIA and IJAN insofar as their stated end goal isn't to my eyes facially unjust, although one questions how sincere their devotion is to a two-state solution. But certainly, if we can excuse QuAIA's one-sided and obsessive focus on Israeli wrongs, we can likewise excuse StandWithUs' overwhelming focus on Palestinian wrongs. And at an event like the USSF, it seems like SWU would have provided at least a counterweight to an environment overwhelmingly hostile to Israel and to equal treatment in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Pro-Israel Students Attacked with a Machete

Two students at Carleton University (no relation to my alma mater) have reportedly been the victim of an attack, with the perpetrators targeting them because of the pro-Israel views. One of the students was an Israeli, the other was well-known on-campus for his pro-Israel views:

Nick Bergamini, 22, says he believes he and his roommate Mark Klibanov were targeted for their political and religious beliefs when they were confronted by a group of men outside a Gatineau bar early Monday morning.

"We were just walking, minding our business and they said ‘Zionists' and they went after us because of our political beliefs and his religion," Bergamini told CTV Ottawa on Tuesday.

During the confrontation, Bergamini was punched in the back of the head. As the pair walked along Promenade du Portage towards Ottawa, they were harassed by the same group again. This time the men were allegedly armed with a machete.

"The guy opened up the window and said, ‘I'm the one who hit you, you effing Jew,'" Bergamini recalled. "They got out and kind of charged at my roommate, backed off and I heard ‘open the trunk,' so I looked right at the trunk to see what was coming out and I saw a big machete."

The pair ran and managed to escape unharmed.

Other reports say that attackers threw the machete at the pair, transitioning this from assault to attempted murder. The Canadian Jewish community, for its part, sees this sort of attack as being directly correlated with increased demonization of Israel in certain academic communities:

Len Rudner, director of the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said being a Jew or Zionist in Canada should not prompt such an attack.

"Maybe we should consider the impact that words can have in accelerating the argument to the point where people feel that this kind of behaviour is acceptable," Rudner said.

"If you permit a constant invective and demonization of the Jewish state and people who support the Jewish state, some people will feel that this gives them the permission or responsibility to carry out this kind of attack."

Canadian police are investigating the incident.

Ed Cite Roundup

My weekend begins whenever law review says it begins.

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We've heard this refrain before: It is such a grave injustice when "anti-Israel" rioters are punished for violating the law.

Maryland set to recognize out-of-state gay marriages. The state Attorney General held that the prohibition on gay marriage did not constitute a strong public policy, meaning that gay marriages ought to be placed in the same category as other marriages that Maryland does not perform in-state but recognizes when done out-of-state (such as common law marriages).

If only Blackwater did something really heinous, like registering Black people to vote! Then we'd have 'em!

Some Jewish and Christian organizations were organizing against "Israel Apartheid Week" at York University. Until the school decided to cancel all their events due to "security" concerns. It's nice to see that York cares so much about the safety of its Jewish students.

UNGA poised to urge Israel and Hamas to conduct investigations into the Goldstone allegations, even though Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon already noted that Israel has followed up on every allegation through processes which are identical to those by other Western countries. Whose surprised that the UNGA doesn't care?

It's tough to not sound condescending when your interlocutor a) knows less than you and b) takes great offense at the insinuation that he could stand to learn more.

Reprimand at York

Engage is reporting that York University has officially fined and reprimanded the ringleaders of the student mob which created a hostage scene in which Jewish students were forced to barricade themselves in the campus Hillel for their own safety. Jewlicious has more background.

I noted at the time that, while the putative dispute had nothing to do with Israel (instead focusing on the York Federation of Students support for an on-campus strike), the ringleaders nonetheless tried to argue that the Jewish membership of the anti-YFS contingent was solely motivated by a desire to oppose pro-Palestinian groups on campus -- one advocate bluntly stated that "The public positions put forward by this campaign cannot be taken at face value." This, of course, justified an angry mob chasing a largely Jewish group across campus with cries of "die, bitch, go back to Israel" and "die, Jew, get the hell off campus."

The assertion that any and all Jewish political agency is a facade for "Zionist" ends is hardly isolated. We've all heard how the (Jewish) neoconservatives' pressed to invade Iraq for the benefit of Israel (whether Israel actually benefited is, of course, left unclear). Most conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the media/banks/financial markets/entertainment industry assume that these are subject to Zionist manipulations. The very statement which spawned the Livingstone formulation was likewise over a controversy that had nothing to do with Israel, until Mayor Livingstone declared that "I don’t believe a word of it" -- it being the possibility that Jewish groups would oppose an anti-Semitic statement directed at a Jewish reporter for reasons independent of one's position on Israel. The idea that Jews might have additional reasons for being uncomfortable with the Chas Freeman nomination was treated as being an utter absurdity. "Anti-Zionist Zionist" Steve Cohen wryly noted that simply noting the existence of anti-Semitism on the left rendered nullities all his public statements opposing Zionism as "platitudes". I could go on, and on.

This assumption is utterly lethal to Jewish participation in the political sphere. When tied in this way to presumed Jewish deception and malfeasance, there is literally no way for Jews to assert political opinions without watching them be pre-emptively dismissed as "Zionist". Cohen demonstrates that even opposing Zionism doesn't immunize from this treatment, but conditioning Jewish political participation on them disavowing Zionist ideas (as we saw in Venezuela and South Africa) would be anti-Semitic in of itself (the mid-century National Review did not cease to be racist just because it found George Schuyler).

The ringleaders of the York riot are, predictably, crying about how they are being victimized for "stand[ing] up against racism." They show virtually no awareness of how deeply their actions re-entrenched it. A violent mob organized around the fundamentally anti-Semitic idea that Jewish activists don't have any beliefs but Zionism (and if they say otherwise, they're lying)? That's the core of racism, staring you in the face.

Picture, Meet Lead

CNN has an article up on Saskatchewan's status as a jobs "hot spot".

Normally, "hot spot" isn't the first phrase that comes to mind when talking about Saskatchewan. But with most of Canada suffering from devastating job losses, this cold province is becoming exactly that. Premier Brad Wall encourages people not to count out a move to the area based on stereotypes that it is "only winter here," and "all of the land is just rolling hills." full story

If Mr. Wall is hoping the stereotype that his province is an isolated arctic outpost would be dispelled by this article, he probably was hoping for a different picture to go along with it:

Fun? Yes. Height of civilization? Not quite.

Poster Session

Ha'aretz reports on a story that Paul Horwitz had previously picked up on: namely, the decision by two Canadian universities (Carleton University -- no relation to my alma mater -- and University of Ottawa) to ban certain allegedly inflammatory posters advertising "Israel Apartheid Week". The posters showcase an Israeli helicopter firing a missile at a Palestinian child; a statement from Ottawa University said that "All posters approved must promote a campus culture where all members of the community can play a part in a declaration of human rights." The Ha'aretz article indicates that part of the university's misgivings stem from the evocation the poster makes of the old anti-Semitic canard of Jews as child-killers.

Canada does not have as robust a free speech ethos as the United States, though in general I prefer our system to theirs. As Prof. Horwitz notes, furthermore, the students are not protesting the human rights standards which lead to the university's ban -- merely their application to this case.

In the comments of Prof. Horwitz's post, I noted that the administrators may have been spooked by recent events at York University. The University of Ottawa had its own incident recently when their branch of PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) refused to work with Hillel to help fund a speaker from the African Jewish community coming to talk about sustainable development projects and interfaith schooling for Jewish, Muslim, and Christian children. OPIRG said its decision was "because your organization (Hillel) and its relationship to apartheid Israel." In general, the anti-Israel community at Canadian universities has shown a disturbing tendency to attack Jews qua Jews, which of course amplifies the "cultural meaning" of their poster as making a statement about Jews, rather than just Israel.

I don't support banning these posters (particularly from within my American free speech ethos), but I understand why the administrators may have been nervous. Anti-Israel discourse at Canadian universities has been teetering on the precipice for quite some time. Inflammatory incitement is the last thing the academic community needs right now. I would rather the university meet the rhetoric of these students with more speech rather than an enforced silence -- the route the university appears to have taken, incidentally, with reference to the proposed academic boycott of Israel, condemning it as in violation of norms of academic freedom.

Hostage Scene

A group of Jewish students were forced to barricade themselves inside York University's Hillel in what the Jerusalem Post called a "hostage" situation.

Jewish students at York University in Toronto were forced to take refuge in the Hillel office last Wednesday night as anti-Israel protesters banged on the glass doors, chanting, "Die, bitch, go back to Israel," and "Die, Jew, get the hell off campus."
[...]
During the clash in the hallway, Jewish students were singled out and pursued by a mob of more than 100 students. Tepper and the 15-20 other Jewish students escaped upstairs to Hillel's offices, where the situation worsened.

While students sat in the shelter of the Hillel office, listening to the "pounding" from the York Federation of Students office below, demonstrators reached the Hillel office, banging on the glass doors and made it impossible for students to leave.

Campus security personnel arrived and advised the Jewish students to stay in the Hillel office.

The police arrived almost an hour after the incident had begun and tried to "remain neutral," Tepper wrote.

The students in the Hillel office were evacuated soon after by police escort, amid cries of "Get off our campus" and "Shame on Hillel."

"I have never in my life felt threatened and hated like I did that night," Tepper said.

Ferman, the Hillel president, who was called a "f*****g Jew" and a "dirty Jew" by the protesters, said, "We were basically being held hostage in our own space."

The incident was somewhat "ironic," Ferman said, because 45 minutes before the press conference, members of Hillel and the Hasbara student organization had met with members of Students Against Israeli Apartheid, in an attempt to "decrease tensions" between the groups.

Ultimately, the students had to leave Hillel under police protection. You can get an eye-witness account by one of the Jewish students here.

The event that precipitated the scenario actually had nothing to do with Israel at all, though the mob besieging the Jewish students nonetheless yelled "Zionism equals racism!", "Viva, viva Palestine" and one student declared "Zionism does not speak for Jews. Zionism is an embarrassment. Shame on the Zionists." Rather, the situation flowed out of a press conference Hillel students participated in support of impeaching the York University student government for its support of a TA strike which had crippled the university for months.

I know nothing about the specifics of the labor dispute, and thus take no position as to what position on the matter is correct. I do know that it is distressing that (a) Jewish political advocacy on a topic of general concern immediately manifested itself into hatred and threats towards Jews qua Jews and (b) those threats manifested themselves in the guise of anti-Zionist talk, even though Zionism had nothing to do with the putative controversy.

This piece from the National Post is reporting a lot of rumor, so take it with some salt, but one thing he mentions is the possibility that the York Federation of Students is trying to change the subject from its support of the strike to the question of Israel and the Gaza operation. That would help explain how a move by Hillel to support an end to the strike was transformed into an opportunity to threaten Jews, and would also explain why Israel was used (as usual) as the "hook" in order to do so. It would be the same thing we're seeing in Venezuela: drumming up rage against Jews to cement shaky political support.

Unfortunately, this event was not isolated. Police already had to be called after death threats were made against a Jewish student earlier in the week. In general, Jewish students have been alleging a rapid deterioration in the security of their environment at the school over the last several years.