Tag Archives: human rights

Islamophobia in Canada

Islamophobia in Canada

by

Howard Adelman

According to Amira Elghawaby, spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the term “Islamophobia” as used in Canada describes the irrational fear or hatred of Muslims that leads to discrimination or acts of harassment or violence. One week after Trump’s rant, on 23 February 2017 in Ontario, Canada, the legislature passed a unanimous motion condemning Islamophobia. The motion was spurred by the shooting deaths of six worshippers and wounding 19 others in a mosque in Quebec. But it was also a response to local incidents in Ottawa (anti-Muslim graffiti, and the spitting at young women wearing hijabs). The Ontario legislature motion was introduced by Liberal backbencher Nathalie Des Rosiers from the Ottawa riding of Ottawa-Vanier. It called on the legislature to “stand against all forms of hatred, hostility, prejudice, racism and intolerance,” and to rebuke a “growing tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric and sentiments.” The motion called for a condemnation of “all forms of Islamophobia.”

Canadians across the country had rallied to demonstrate their support for besieged Muslims. Flowers and several hand-made signs were placed outside Masjid Al-Iman mosque in Victoria in the wake of the deadly shooting in Quebec on 30 January. My own rabbi was one of leaders who helped form a circle of peace around a mosque in Toronto.

The Muslim community in Canada, feeling singled out as never before, felt justified in wanting the legislatures across Canada, especially the federal parliament, to go further. Amira Elghawaby asked the federal government not only to take steps to combat Islamophobia and support M-103, a federal parliamentary motion to condemn Islamophobia, but to declare 29 January, the date of the Quebec shooting, a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia.

In the federal legislature, the debate has been different than the one in Ontario. The motion was similar and the non-binding motion M-103 called on the government to “recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear,” The full private member’s motion read as follows:

In the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear; (b) condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination and take note of House of Commons’ petition e-411 and the issues raised by it; and (c) request that the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage undertake a study on how the government could (i) develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia, in Canada, while ensuring a community-centered focus with a holistic response through evidence-based policy-making, [my italics – do you understand what that means? Is this addressed to the general reader? It is political gibberish.] (ii) collect data to contextualize hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities, and that the Committee should present its findings and recommendations to the House no later than 240 calendar days from the adoption of this motion, provided that in its report, the Committee should make recommendations that the government may use to better reflect the enshrined rights and freedoms in the Constitution Acts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supported the motion, arguing that the Muslim community is currently “particularly vulnerable these days to intolerance and discrimination.” At the federal level, the Progressive Conservative party, or many of its MPs, took a different tack than their Ontario cousins and opposed the inclusion of Islamophobia in a general resolution condemning the rise of that type of speech or action. Federal Conservatives insisted that the federal motion should be opposed because it singles out one religious group over others. Many Conservative MPs opposed the inclusion of Islamophobia in a general resolution condemning the rise of that type of speech or action, fearing a suppression of free speech would result.

Some federal Conservatives supported the motion, such as South Surrey-White Rock B.C. Conservative MP Dianne Watts. Conservative leadership candidate Michael Chong also supported the motion. “In light of the mass shooting at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City suburb of Sainte-Foy last month, where six Muslims were killed and 19 injured while they prayed in their mosque, it is appropriate and important that Canadian parliamentarians study the issue of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic prejudice and discrimination.” He denied the argument that the motion could be used to curtail freedom of speech simply because Islamophobia is not defined. After all, Section 319 of the Criminal Code goes even further and makes it an offence to wilfully promote or publicly incite hatred against any identifiable group which, incidentally, Chong would repeal because the section sets too high a standard on non-hate speech.

Other Conservatives have argued that many definitions of Islamophobia include “dislike” of Islam and its adherents as part of the definition. The motion could potentially put a damper on free speech. Kellie Leitch (Conservative, Simcoe-Gray), another leadership candidate for the opposition party, claimed that she was fighting back “against politically correct nonsense.” Maxime Bernier, Andrew Scheer, Brad Trost, Chris Alexander, Kevin O’Leary and Erin O’Toole, other candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party, also criticized the motion condemning Islamophobia.

Barbara Kay, a national columnist, argued that there are many more anti-Semitic incidents, let alone statements, targeting, Jews. 181 hate-motivated crimes targeting the Jewish religion were reported in 2013; there were 65 crimes motivated by hatred against the Muslim religion. (There will be more on anti-Semitism in a subsequent blog.) Breitbart News went even further and noted that the motion never mentioned anti-Semitism or anti-Christian discrimination and suggested that the latter occurs far more often in Canada than victimization of Muslims, but provided no data to back up such a claim.

In the federal legislature, a Conservative motion virtually identical to Khalid’s, except that it excised the term “Islamophobia,” was defeated 165-126 as Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc Québécois and Green Party leader Elizabeth May, voted against the motion.

There have been a few indications that labeling something as motivated by Islamophobia could result in curbing free speech. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation objected to Mark Steyn’s 2006 book, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, precisely on such grounds. Steyn was not content to rail against Islam, or, more precisely, its radical interpretations, but expressed the fear that, because of internal weaknesses, largely attributed to bleeding heart liberals and their moral and cultural relativism promoting multiculturalism, combined with an increase in the Muslim population and demographic decline of native non-Muslim populations, as well as the economic unsustainability of the social democratic state, a day might come when the call to prayer from a muezzin on a loudspeaker would become widespread. In a much more fearsome scenario, Talibanic enforcers would cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops. The Supreme Court was imagined as having decided that Sharia law did not violate the “separation of church and state.” Steyn also dismissed the fear of climate change as an imminent danger as irrational.

While many condemned the book as Islamophobic, Christopher Hitchens gave it a rave review. George W. Bush recommended it to his staff. Ironically, promoters of Islamic exceptionalism agreed with Steyn in condemning Western relativism. The movers of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights (http://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/en/FMRpdfs/Human-Rights/cairo.pdf), the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, could be included. That human rights doctrine criticized the Western tradition of human rights as sometimes conflicting with Sharia law. This Islamic iteration of human rights included the usual litany that required protection and actions to be condemned – “discrimination on the basis of race, colour, language, belief, gender, political affiliation, social status and even religion.”

The defence of the freedom of speech in Article 22(a), however, was conditional not absolute. Expression cannot be “contrary to the practices of Shariah,” “the sole source of human rights,” not human nature. Article 24 states: “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Sharia.”
Conflicts arose over the definition of gender rights since women have specific duties to perform and men are given primary responsibility for the social and financial protection of the family. Equality is only guaranteed to men. Women do not have the right to marry a non-Muslim or to have more than one spouse and cannot initiate divorce without the consent of their husbands. In Iran, a Muslim woman can only marry a non-Muslim man if he can produce evidence that he had converted to Islam. Most specifically, Article 10 of the Declaration calls Islam “the religion of unspoiled nature” and prohibits conversion to another religion or atheism if compulsion or economic incentives and exploitation or even ignorance is allegedly used, leaving the barn door wide open for condemning virtually any conversion from Islam as an abuse of human rights.

This is not simply an abstract principle. As a 2014 U.S. State Department report documented, societal discrimination against non-Muslims is rampant in Muslim-majority countries. In 2013, in Iran, though the sentence of death as provided in law is no longer used, converts have been sentenced to an average of over three years of served time, lashes and fines for “apostasy.”

For someone committed to the Western tradition of human rights, the Cairo declaration on human rights not only has many lacunae, but provides a rationale for the abuse of human rights under the guise of protecting human rights and explicitly states that the Declaration is intended to limit the application of the UN universal declaration of human rights. There is, therefore, a difference between criticisms of Islam, dislike of Islam and discrimination against individual Muslims. The latter is forbidden in the Western human rights tradition. The former two are clearly not forbidden, and, further, are protected. You have a right to criticize Islam. You have a right to dislike Islam. You have no right to discriminate against Muslims.

Since the term Islamophobic is not restricted to discriminatory behaviour, but includes attitudes such as “dislike,” there is a real and not just a rhetorical problem. However, there is also a problem in cases where criticisms and dislike of Islam are used as justification for discrimination against Muslims.

On the other hand, there is a difference between condemning Steyn’s book as Islamophobic and banning the book. The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights defined Islamophobia as a rights violation without ensuring that the criticism of Islam was guaranteed as a right. It is clearly possible, especially given the record of Islamic states, that individuals educated as Muslims might be more prone not only to condemn a book like that of Steyn, but ban it.

In Canada, we can be proud that many Muslims occupy important political positions and are excellent representatives of all their constituents with no indication that they confuse “dislike” and “criticisms” with their condemnation of Islamophobia. In addition to former members of parliament – Rahim Jaffer, Wajid Khan – these include Ontario Liberal MPPs: Shafiq Qaadri, Etobicoke, Omar Alghabra, Mississauga Centre, Khalil Ramat, London-Fanshawe, as well as the Attorney General of Ontario, Yasir Naqvi. In the federal parliament, we find Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal Don Valley East, and Maryam Monsef, Liberal, Peterborough, who is Minister of Status of Women in the Justin Trudeau government. Perhaps most notable of all, and with a reputation as possibly the best mayor in all of Canada, is Naheed Nenshi, Mayor of Calgary. Not one can be justly accused of subordinating Canadian law and the Western human rights tradition to the Cairo Declaration of human rights and Sharia law.

But there are also Muslim citizens of Canada who are not terrorists or supporters of terrorism, but who believe that Canadian law should be subordinated to Sharia law. I am critical of them just as I am critical of Jews and Christians with whom I disagree. I am critical of some Jewish and Christian religious practices and some expressions of each of those faiths. But it is also true that some aspects of Islam pose a much greater challenge to the Western liberal tradition than twenty-first century Christianity and Judaism. It is my right as a Canadian to offer well-intentioned and constructive critiques of religious practices or ideologies. However, I see no core inconsistency between a defense of the right to criticize and a suspicion of some Islamic beliefs and practices and a condemnation of Islamophobia.

There is a real problem that when Islamophobia also includes a dislike of Islam as well as an irrational fear of and prejudice against Muslims. There is a danger that the term can be misused. Irwin Cotler may be correct in stating that the term anti-Muslim prejudice might be preferable to Islamophobia. But a term and phrase is best understood in terms of current practices and real life situations that threaten the lives and well-being of Muslims. Also, although I too might have quibbles about a motion opposing Islamophobia and even harsher criticisms of some aspects of Islam, which should not be interpreted as resentment of Islam, I strongly support a motion condemning Islamophobia for I radically disagree with the contention that some Conservatives made that, “there no phobia of Islam in Canada.”

When federal Conservatives opposed the motion because it singles out one religious group over others and feared a suppression of free speech would result, it is important to recognize that the motion singles out one religious group precisely because this religious group was singled out. Also, the fear of suppressing free speech is rubbish. If you are rigorous enough, there will be no suppression. Only those who are drawn to slippery slopes may have to face the consequences. Bensoussan is but one example. He could have easily extricated himself from his predicament.

As far as Islamophobia goes, its practical acceptance as anti-Muslim sentiment is equivalent to the acceptance of anti-Semitism as anti-Jewish prejudice, in spite of the fact that Arabs are also Semites, inviting the facetious argument that anti-Semitism should be extended to cover Arabs as well. Is the term anti-Jewish prejudice preferable to anti-Semitism?

I see no evidence that the support for a motion condemning Islamophobia in any way puts the slightest dent in our belief in freedom of speech. Further, when a man is president of the United States who offers repeated evidence of being Islamophobic, it is all the more important to condemn Islamophobic expressions. I believe that the Canadian Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) opposing the federal motion on Islamophobia on grounds that the motion, “requires us to silence legitimate concerns or suppress a public conversation about those strains of Islam that pose a real and imminent threat to Jews around the world” is not only unjustified but irrational. The motion in context has no such requirement.

The motion M-103 is not the source of “alienation and dissonance” as CIJA is wont to believe. In my estimation, CIJA’s opposition has its roots in understandable Jewish fears. I can understand where CIJA is coming from as I explore the new face of anti-Semitism in my next blog.

With the help of Alex Zisman
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UNHRC Report 2014 Gaza War.III.Methodology

The UNHRC Report on the 2014 Gaza War

Part III: Methodology

by

Howard Adelman

How one investigates is as important as who does the investigation (the previous blog) and what framework one brings to the investigation (the first blog in this series).  Further, how one communicates the results of one’s investigation is integrally related to what is revealed, but I will reserve the discussion of that aspect of the methodology only after we examine the majority of the Report. For the context of how results are conveyed is as important as the context of the actual events themselves and the methodology for determining facts.

The Commission never visited Gaza. Israel never even acknowledged the repeated requests from the 2014 Gaza War Commission to permit entry from Israel. Egypt would not even allow the Commission to enter via the Rafah crossing, allegedly due to the security situation (para. 3). However, as we read on, Egypt’s refusal was irrelevant. Why?

“Israel also regulates all (my italics) crossings allowing access to and from Gaza. While it is true that the Rafah crossing is governed by Egypt, Israel still exercises a large degree of control, as only Palestinians holding passports are allowed to cross, and passports can only be issued to people featuring on the Israeli generated population registry.” (para. 29) Israel controls who gets passports in Gaza. Why is this claim made? Israel “controls the Palestinian population registry, which is common to both the West Bank and Gaza, and Palestinian ID-cards can only be issued or modified with Israeli approval.”

Assertions like this undercut the credibility of the report. Though most readers of the report will be unfamiliar with the so-called passport war, the basic facts are these:

  • The PA, not Israel, overwhelmingly controls who receives passports in Gaza
  • The PA issues approximately 500 passports per business day to Gaza residents
  • The PA is the party, not Egypt, which restricts the issuance of passports based on vague security concerns
  • Egypt’s restrictions are imposed, not only for security reasons, but to prevent overstayers and using Egypt as a place to escape from living in Gaza
  • Hamas has a record of confiscating passports held by members of Fatah, in part in retaliation for the PA limitations on who gets passports
  • Gaza human rights organizations have campaigned to end the practice; thus A-Dameer, one of the Gaza-based human rights organizations, once declared that, “The PA automatically prevents people affiliated with Hamas from receiving passports. We have appealed to the prime minister on the matter, but have so far received no response.”
  • The enforcement of these practices shifts depending on the character of the relations between Hamas and Fatah at the time
  • The major obstacle to leaving Gaza has not been the absence of passports, but the possibility of entry to either Egypt or Israel, both of which restrict entry, but Egypt has permitted students to cross, those seeking medical services, those with visas to other countries and those en route to attend the annual haj pilgrimage
  • Israel’s veto rights based on the Oslo accords over the Palestinian population registry is almost totally irrelevant to the issue over the issuance of passports, and is a red herring if ever there was one.

Why would the commission damage its credibility over such a side issue? Because, just as in referring to the Palestinian State, the Commission is committed to reinforcing the position that Israel is an occupying power, for an occupying power has additional responsibilities that an alien belligerent does not have. This is a clear example of ideology more than even a human rights frame influencing the content of the Report.

However, by and large the writing of the Report has not been influenced by the imposition of such crass uses of ideology. The Commission has relied on expert witnesses, especially when it had to determine the type of weapons used in a specific incident. However, witnesses who might contest the findings are not used. In using expert witnesses from the medical field to reinforce the source of death or injury, the Commission does not explain why medical doctors concerned with children’s health in Israel were not interviewed, but those in Gaza were.

However, the Commission has primarily relied on affected individuals through written submissions (500) and interviews (280), and on other witnesses primarily from human rights organizations. I will later offer a hypothesis to explain this source as the primary evidence in the documentation. The Commission also heard from representatives of the government of the West Bank, as indicated above, referred to as the representatives of the Palestinian State. No explanation is offered for that designation. Nor is there any consideration presented of how such a designation might in itself determine Israel’s non-participation in the process and whether such a designation arose after Israel’s refusal to participate or was one of the provocations that incited Israel to remain aloof from the proceedings of the Commission.

The Commission claimed that “a number of Israeli non-governmental organizations were reluctant to cooperate with the Commission of Inquiry, fearing in some cases that there could be negative repercussions on their work.” This is hard to believe and no back-up is provided for this contention. Certainly B’Tselem, Israel’s premier human rights organization, seemed to show no reluctance in offering evidence and is extensively cited in the Report.

Those who were not interviewed rather than those who were may be of somewhat greater significance. I mentioned two types of missing witnesses above, Israeli doctors and military experts on the use of weapons who might contradict the findings of the one military expert employed. A military expert on munitions was consulted to determine types of weapons used. That testimony, which is included in the details of each of the incidents described, reinforces the sense of detachment and concern with factual detail in the Report, but there is no reference to other military experts who might have a different view, and, if so, how the Commission adjudicated between and among differences. We will have to see when we examine the detailed descriptions whether this was significant. Alternatively, was there sufficient consensus such that the attention to detail on the munitions had another purpose that explains why this needed to be included in such detail. This is especially important since there is relatively very little in the Report, as there was in the Goldstone Report, discussing weapons banned by international humanitarian agreements.

There is no record of interviewing military personnel on either side or experts from either side or from other armies, or experts in humanitarian law, mainly the ICRC already discussed, other than from human rights organizations. The Commission also relied on satellite imagery, video and photographic evidence. But all of these sources, both neglected and included, were subsidiary. The Commission “gave particular weight to first-hand testimonies, recognizing the limitations resulting from the fact that the interviews were done remotely, the lapse in time since the incidents occurred, and the possibility of reprisals.”

The primary method in examining and presenting the evidence of the depiction of individual incidents is the use of “reasonable grounds” as the measure of what took place. That is, what “a reasonable and ordinarily prudent person would have reason to believe that such an incident or pattern of conduct had occurred.” (para. 19) Such a determination is based on the reliability and credibility of the source related to the objectivity and quality of the evidence and the methodology by which the evidence was obtained. The validity and veracity of the information itself was evidently based on cross-section comparisons. In examining the presentation of individual incidents, we will have to see if a major method of scientific objectivity was used, namely what checks were used to see if the evidence was false – known as the application of the principle of falsifiability, or whether that principle was employed at all.

This allows me to segue into a very different methodology altogether, and not one even mentioned or discussed in the methodology section –s literary and stylistic methods of presentation as well as issues related to determining scientific reliability and objectivity. First, it is very interesting that the Commission decided to place the depiction of the damages to Israeli civilians and property first. Of the almost 500 paragraphs in the Report which constitute the bulk of its material, only 50, or 10%, deal with attacks from Gaza against Israel. 90% deal with incidents of civilian deaths and injuries and property damage in Gaza. That may be justified because the proportions represent the different degrees of damage done by each side to the other, something that will have to be determined by a specific examination of incidents.

Before the Commission gets into the examination of the specific incidents, it offers an account of the legal framework it uses and of the context in which it places its investigation and the conflict that occurred. On the matter of the legal framework, the Report discusses three area of international law – humanitarian law (14 paragraphs), human rights law (8 paragraphs) and international criminal law (5 paragraphs).  The proportion given to each type of law is no indication of the importance in compiling the Report. For when one studies the Report, it is clear that the overwhelming framework for examining the legal issues in the conflict is humanitarian law.

On the issue of humanitarian law, the Report presents the most relevant principles for the conduct of war and presents them fairly and succinctly.  However, the Report offers no explanation of why it neglected to deal with other very relevant principles of humanitarian law. The first concerns not the conduct of war (ius in bello), the means and methods of engaging in a violent conflict, but the reasons for going to war in the first place (ius ad bellum). The Geneva and Hague Conventions are summarized as well as some follow-up treaties and references to customary international law, but case law seems to be reserved largely as citations in depicting and analyzing specific incidents. There is only an implicit and glancing reference to the reasons each side had for engaging in war in the first place and the extent to which the initiation of hostilities was justified.

This point is crucial. For both strands of international humanitarian law are critical to analyzing a conflict. To what extent does the Report engage in such discussions and what reason, if any, is offered for the relative inattention? The section on humanitarian law dutifully lists all the relevant international instruments. However, the focus of the discussion overwhelmingly concentrates on reinforcing the claim that Israel is an occupying power because:

  • Israel still occupies part of the Palestinian entity, namely the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and occupation of only part of a territory is sufficient to define a party as an occupying one
  • Israel exercises effective control over Gaza, not because it any longer has troops on the ground, but because it retains the capacity to launch troops easily into Gaza
  • Israel continues to control the air space and marine access
  • Israel exercises de facto control over the Gazan economy
  • As mentioned above, Israel controls not only access and egress via the crossings into Israel, but over the crossing into Gaza through its veto over the Palestinian population registry and, hence, over who does or does not get passports.

However, the key criterion of the readiness militarily to occupy a territory is whether a country, in this case, Israel, can at will assume physical control of the territory. Since Israel, by the war itself, gave proof that it could NOT do this both in beginning hostilities against Gaza as well as in the staging of those hostilities – conducting a ground war only after a period of air war – Israel could not be an occupying power by this criterion. The interesting point is that the Report cites the relevant measure but engages in no discussion of whether the measure is or is not applicable. It merely assumes that Israel had the capability in spite of the massive evidence to the contrary. It is not simply that the massive evidence is ignored, but even the argument is totally bracketed.

Nor does the Report get onto the issue of necessary versus sufficient conditions. Each criterion the Report cites is a criterion for determining occupational status. The question is whether they amount to sufficient conditions only in combination? Or does the presence of any one by itself determine whether one state is in occupation of another territory? The Report is written not in the form of a social science investigation, which considers and weighs the arguments for each side in a contentious controversy, but in the form of a prosecutorial notification before a court citing only evidence and arguments for the viewpoint it is putting forth, a viewpoint which reflects the position of the UNHRC and majority of members of the UN when it comes to the Gaza case (but not the case of Russia in the Ukraine, for example).

Perhaps Israel is legally an occupying power. The evidence as presented is totally unpersuasive and defies common sense. For if Israel were really in control of Gaza, how did Hamas manage to smuggle all those missiles and mortars into Gaza? Surely Israel’s going to war and the way it went to war are the best indicators that it did not exercise effective control over Gaza. If the issue of effective control of air space and of maritime access and of occupying a part of the territory of a state were key, then given the American extra-territorial military role on the Dew line in Canada, and its deployment of nuclear-armed missiles in the north of Canada contrary to general public knowledge, the United States, one might argue, has been an occupier of Canada, quite aside from the fact that America is by far the most important influence on the Canadian economy. The absurdity of such a claim, that America is an occupying power in Canada, should at the very least instigate the Commission to present the arguments and evidence for the other side in full instead of dismissing them as simply incidental and troublesome claims by the party, namely Israel, which allegedly wants to disown its responsibilities.

If the primary emphasis is on the issue of humanitarian law, why the big emphasis on the issue of occupation? And why does the issue take so much of the space within the humanitarian law section when the key issue of occupation seems to be the applicability of human rights law and the point the Report makes at the end of the discussion of human rights law: “victims and their representatives should be entitled to seek and obtain information on the causes leading to their victimization and on the causes and conditions pertaining to the gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law and to learn the truth in regard to these violations.” (para. 46) If Israel is an occupying power, then Israel is accountable to Gazan residents for justifying its behaviour and the relationship is not just one between two alien entities, Israel and Gaza.

The Report not only neglects key issues of humanitarian law. First, it avoids the critical issue of the justification for going to war in the first place. However, even other issues in the conduct of war than proportionality, distinction between combatants and non-combatants and the choice of military weapons used, are not discussed. Why is there no discussion of the principle of humane treatment? That principle prohibits violence to life and person, torture, taking hostages, treating the enemy population, whether combatants or non-combatants, in a humiliating and degrading manner, executions without due process and proper legal protections. In fact, the principle of humane treatment is referred to only once in the Report, not in the paragraphs discussing humanitarian law, but in a depiction of one incident of claimed mistreatment by Israeli troops. In paragraph 342, the Report cites the relevant Articles 27 and 29 of the Geneva Convention IV, and then makes the claim that in several cases, Palestinians were detained in their homes in Khuza’a, and then insulted, threatened with death and ill-treated by members of the IDF.

Quite aside from whether Israeli soldiers behaved this way in this incident – which will be discussed in another blog – or whether this was an exceptional incident, the real issue is why was the principle of humane treatment never discussed in the legal section and only cited once as far as I could find in the whole document?  After all, the Report does discuss and describe the extra-judicial execution of alleged collaborators (paras. 490-502), describing them as not uncommon, as mostly perpetrated against those imprisoned in Gaza before the outbreak of the war, ostensibly as a warning against other potential collaborators. These were among the most heinous breaches of the principle of humane treatment, and infinitely worse than the alleged conduct of the Israeli soldiers in this one incident cited. The Report documented 21 incidents in total (there were others), at least 11 of them from persons previously incarcerated in Al-Katiba prison. “On 7 August, Al Qassam Brigades, the armed branch of Hamas, claimed responsibility for the 5 August executions, declaring that the persons executed were ‘found guilty of giving information on the whereabouts of fighters and civilian houses’.” (para. 495)

Overt abductions, torture, extra-judicial killings, kangaroo trials in some cases, are all severe breaches of the principle of humane treatment, some evidently for strictly political reasons to dispose of Fatah personnel during war when the killings would not be noticed. It is interesting that the Report includes a promise made by the PA that the government would investigate at least 25 cases under this rubric “once it recovers control of the Gaza Strip” and the PA did not mean recovering control from Israel. This and other comments all challenge the Report’s assumption more than conclusion that Israel was an occupying power in control of Gaza. Another relevant aspect is that witnesses in Gaza refused to come forward and be acknowledged lest revenge be meted out against them.

The Report has to be applauded by inclusion of these incidents and pointing them out as breaches of the Geneva Conventions. But then why not discuss the applicable principle of humane treatment in the legal section? Why the overall emphasis on proportionality? There are other principles that are also ignored, one related to the principle of non-discrimination which directly overlaps with human rights principles. So is the principle ignored of preferential protection for women and children non-combatants, more particularly, protecting women from rape or assault, and prohibiting children from being combatants? Ignoring rape and assault of women might be understandable since neither side had a reputation for engaging in such activities. But there is plenty of evidence and certainly far more allegations that the militant groups in Gaza had no compunction against the use of child soldiers. Did the Commission not have a responsibility to investigate such allegations?

Once the principles of ius ad bellum were ignored, and which will be discussed in much greater detail in my next blog dealing with context, the playing down of the principle of humane treatment and of the gender issue may have been given little play because the condemnations overwhelmingly bring Gaza militants to the forefront and allow Israeli troops to appear much better in following such norms. But this is a mere speculation. We shall have to establish whether it has greater importance when we get deeper into the Report.

Next: Context and the Justification for Going to War

UNHRC Report.2014 Gaza WAR.I.Mandate

The UNHRC Report on the 2014 Gaza War

Part I: Mandate

by

Howard Adelman

The basic question is whether a) the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was operating outside of its mandate field or its field of supposed expertise, and b) in setting up a commission of inquiry, its own presumptions about human rights law, for which it has a clear mandate, deformed in any way the application of humanitarian law in its analysis of the 2014 Gaza War.

On 24 June 2015, the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict delivered its report (A/HRC/29/52) (UN Gaza War 2014). The commission was set up by the UNHRC and the report was delivered as agenda item 7 under the more general heading, “Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.” One year earlier, on 23 June 2014, when the Gaza war was still underway, the UNHRC adopted resolution A/HRC/RES/S-21/1 to establish the independent, international commission of inquiry to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law (my italics) and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014, and to report to the Council at its twenty-eighth session in March 2015. The report was delivered only three months late. The mandate read as follows:

“Ensuring respect for international law (my italics) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”, the United Nations Human Rights Council requested the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to “to urgently dispatch an independent, international commission of inquiry, to be appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, to investigate all violations of international humanitarian law (my italics) and international human rights law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014, whether before, during or after, to establish the facts and circumstances of such violations and of the crimes perpetrated and to identify those responsible, to make recommendations, in particular on accountability measures, all with a view to avoiding and ending impunity and ensuring that those responsible are held accountable, and on ways and means to protect civilians against any further assaults (my italics), and to report to the Council at its twenty-eighth session”.

However, the United Nations never mandated the UNHRC itself to investigate humanitarian law. Human rights, yes. Humanitarian law, no. Humanitarian law is not mentioned once in the long resolution of 15 March 2006 setting up the United Nations Human Rights Council to replace the United Nations Commission on Human Rights which had fallen into total disrepute. According to the website of the Commission as well as the UNHRC, the Commission of Inquiry interprets this mandate as including investigating the activities of Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, including attacks on Israel, as well as the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip and Israeli actions in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by looking into a broad range of alleged violations committed by all parties under the full range of human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights. [Note that humanitarian law is not mentioned in this section.]

Here again, Res. A/60/251 setting up UNHRC does refer to regional groupings of states and especially individual states, but nowhere can we find any mention of armed groups, military, violence, etc. The UNHRC was mandated to strengthen the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe, that is, the rights of individuals in relationship to the states in which they live or of which they may be members. The UNHRC was not given responsibility for protecting all aspects of international law, but only those aspects having to do with the relationship between states and its citizens or individuals living on the soil governed by a state. Two overlapping realms of international law – refugee law and humanitarian law – deal respectively with the rights of individuals who are not members of a state that provides for their protection and for the laws governing the initiation and conduct of war. Yet the mandate, now as specifically interpreted by the Commission, was to look into the actions of Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, including attacks on Israel, as well as the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a part of the West Bank.

Under humanitarian law, this would mean investigating what happens to prisoners of war, how the wounded are treated, how military personnel are treated, and how and whether the state makes a strong effort to distinguish between civilian and military personnel. When we examine the report in detail, it will be interesting to see what aspects of humanitarian law are covered and which are not. We are, however, no longer surprised that the UNHRC would decide to investigate the protections afforded civilians and the permitted military means used in the 2014 Gaza War. After all, five years earlier, on 12 January 2009, under almost similar wording, the UNHRC set up what came to be known as the Goldstone Commission.

The difference in wording is interesting. Resolution S-9/1 setting up the Goldstone Commission in 2009 decided to: “dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law (my italics) by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission.” What a difference five years can make! Unlike the Goldstone Report, which was found to be so flawed, even by Richard Goldstone himself after it was published, the 2014 mandate mentions both belligerents and not just one (Israel) and does not restrict the investigation to Palestinian territories. The 2014 mandate does not predefine the war as unjust on the part of Israel by referring to the “current aggression” by Israel. In a more subtle shift, the reference to humanitarian law in the Goldstone Commission mandate followedthe investigation of the application of human rights law. In the 2014 mandate, the reference to humanitarian law precedes the reference to human rights law.

Recall that Mary Robinson, who eventually supported Richard Goldstone’s Report, partially because of her respect for him, and who had been the first person approached to head the 2009 Commission, refused to take the position as head of the 2009 Commission because the mandate was so one-sided and had been “guided not by human rights but by politics.”  Richard Goldstone himself, before taking the position, complained of its failure to take into account the actions of all parties in the conflict and informally received approval by the President that the Commission could broaden its mandate. However, the broadening seemed peripheral and, in any case, the UNHRC ignored the recommendation applicable to Hamas. Thus, Goldstone’s insistence that the informal broadening and the fact that his initiative received no objections at a plenary session of UNHRC was sufficient, proved incorrect, as did his chastisement of Hillary Clinton for her “tiresome and inept” criticisms of the one-sided nature of the mandate. This could not be done with the 2014 mandate which formally required the mission to look at all parties: Israel; the Palestinian Authority; Hamas, which governs Gaza; and other armed Palestinian groups. The two mandates, however, are similar in covering the West Bank, said to include East Jerusalem instead of being referred to as a separate entity, though the violent conflict did not take place there.

In 2009, Richard Goldstone in presenting his report said that he and his fellow commissioners had been motivated by four goals:

  • To uphold the principle of the rule of law and, more particularly, humanitarian and human rights law
  • To ensure the protection of civilians during armed conflict to the greatest extent possible
  • To ensure that no state or armed group should remain immune from accountability and justice
  • Finally,“out of a deep concern for the hundreds of civilians who needlessly died and those who suffered injury and dislocation of their lives.”

The key question in the 2014 inquiry would be the same. Were civilians “to the greatest extent possible” protected during an armed conflict? The question was not, were civilians protected to a reasonable degree in accordance with the laws of war? Because humanitarian law does not require that civilians be protected to the greatest extent possible, for, in the end, that would entail not going to war at all by either side. Killing per se is unlawful under human rights law. However, under humanitarian law, killing combatants is not unlawful and even the killing of civilians is permitted under the situation of “collateral damage” where deaths of civilians are permitted under the principle of proportionality, which is not about protecting civilians to the greatest extent possible, but requires balancing the incidental loss of civilian life or injury to civilians in relationship to the concrete and direct military advantage expected from a particular attack. In other words, it is not about the numbers killed relative to one another on each side, but whether those civilian deaths were proportionate to the military goals being pursued.

There is also an overlap between humanitarian and refugee law. Some of the norms applicable to the Gaza War require:

  1. If the territory is legally an occupied territory, the prohibition under the Fourth Geneva Convention of individual or mass forcible transfers, both within the occupied territory and beyond its borders; there is an exception – an occupying power is permitted  to “evacuate” the inhabitants of a particular area if this is necessary for the security of the civilian population or for imperative military reasons;
  2. Attacking belligerents is permitted, but attacking civilians and civilian property indiscriminately is prohibited;
  3. The duty to spare the civilian population as much as is feasible;
  4. The prohibition of reprisals against either the civilian population and its property.
  5. Permitting an unhindered passage of relief supplies and assistance.

Who investigates, how they investigate and the intellectual frame they use to conduct that investigation will determine, in large part, the outcome. To take up the latter point, in international studies a definitive distinction is made between humanitarian law, refugee law and human rights law. These three spheres overlap in their application, but the distinction does not. Human rights law deals with a state’s relationship to its citizens and other foreigners on its soil focusing on the protections of civilians from any oppression by a state. Refugee law deals with the rights of individuals who lack membership in a state that will protect them and are outside their state of normal residence, but, in situations of failing or disintegrating states, may even be living within their national home. Humanitarian law deals with the conduct of war, more particularly, though certainly not only, the protection of civilians affected by armed conflict. Unlike humanitarian law, which can never be suspended, some human rights treaties permit states to derogate from certain rights in times of public emergency and suspend certain key rights, including the right to life and the prohibition of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The three spheres are said to overlap and complement each other. But, in reality, they are also at odds. After all, in war, targeting anyone for death, even if the person is a soldier, cannot be part of human rights law which, as interpreted in the last two decades, even restricts states from taking the lives of their own citizens even in cases of very heinous crimes. So it is very difficult to look at military behaviour through a military lens of humanitarian law if the primary glasses used are to assist in viewing that behaviour in terms of human rights violations. It is akin to using reading glasses to allow one to see distances more clearly.

Now it is well known that three agencies were set up to educate and monitor behaviour in each of these three fields – the UNHRC for human rights law, the UNHCR (High Commission) for refugee law, and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) for humanitarian law. So how come the UNHRC seems to be poaching on ICRC territory? One reason is conceptual.  ICRC in its 2005 statement on its own mandate, stated that, “International humanitarian law, refugee law and human rights law are complementary bodies of law that share a common goal, the protection of the lives, health and dignity of persons. They form a complex network of complementary protections and it is essential that we understand how they interact.” However, that is not how a coterie of human rights lawyers, researchers and professional actors who have made human rights their specialty, view it. For them, human rights is all encompassing and humanitarian law and refugee law are but specialized divisions of human rights law. The three fields are not related as overlapping, but one field is all-encompassing while the other two are subordinate.

But the rivalry is not just conceptual. This is quite evident. The UNHRC states unequivocally its imperial position: the UNHRC defines itself explicitly as the “principal human rights official of the United Nations.” But it is not the principal humanitarian law official of the international system. The ICRC, an organization much older than the UN itself, is. Yet the UNHRC saw no need to seek out the ICRC to forge a partnership to investigate the violent conflict in Gaza, or, for that matter, to cite the ICRC very much in its report. There is another reason, for the ICRC, unlike UNHRC, does not have a close relationship with any human rights organization, but particularly with the UNHRC which lacks a field presence. Further, human rights organizations define themselves as outspoken and, therefore, by their very nature, they speak out. ICRC, in contrast, has a confidential modus operandi.

But this does not explain why, of the 680 paragraphs and 1255 footnotes, ICRC is only referred to in 18 of them, that is just under 1%. Though ICRC was present and active in Gaza throughout the whole conflict, ICRC is only cited three times for evidence, each time with respect to Israeli behaviour – targeting civilians in an UNRWA school, targeting ambulance drivers and targeting the Gaza power plant. There is not one citation that says anything positive about Israel by the ICRC and no references to ICRC observations re Hamas conduct.

In addition to the three specific observational and interpretive issues, ICRC is cited three times with respect to two issues, the Palestinians aiming missiles at Israel, and here only to note that since the missiles could not be aimed properly, this would clearly be a mitigating circumstance in the degree to which they could found to be at fault. There are also two citations concerning Israel as an Occupying Power, not to discuss the legal issues raised, but to simply support the view that Israel has been an occupying power long before it invaded Gaza and even after it withdrew its troops.

The other 12 citations refer to ICRC as the definitive reference point on international humanitarian law, therefore granting in reality what they take away conceptually and concretely in the behaviour of UNHRC. Further, as the leading authority on humanitarian law, ICRC makes itself available to offer advice, particularly to the UNHRC, on the basic principles and guidelines applicable to various situations of alleged humanitarian law regulations. Why was so little attention paid to ICRC when it is clearly the most respected and widely recognized protector of humanitarian law as well as one of the most respected humanitarian organizations in the world? Most importantly, it is THE organization mandated under international law, including the Geneva Conventions, to both interpret humanitarian law and to protect the victims of armed conflict, including those wounded in war, combatants taken prisoner, the forcibly displaced and, most importantly for this report, the responsibility for protecting civilians and other non-combatants. Given ICRC’s well-known criticisms of some of Israel’s conduct, it could not be because ICRC is biased in favour of Israel. But ICRC is biased in favour of humanitarian law as a distinctive field, though overlapping with human right law, occupying a distinctly separate niche in international law.

In this analysis I will eventually discuss the key legal issues and the observations and interpretations of specific incidents where each of the belligerents were or could be found to be at fault. I will also compare the citations of ICRC compared to those attributed to such NGO human rights organizations as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch who also presumptively assume a responsibility for humanitarian law, but almost always within a human rights frame. I will also question why the foremost authorities on applied humanitarian law are not cited or drawn upon for their experience in the application of international humanitarian law, namely the views of various Western armed forces on the ethical conduct of the war in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Just because the UNHRC is not the first among equals when it comes to humanitarian law, and just because it places international humanitarian law in a subordinate position to international human rights law, and just because its citations of the ICRC are so few, and even those few are feeble, does not mean that the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict could not conduct a proper investigation and deliver an excellent report. Certainly even on a cursory reading, it is much superior to the Goldstone report. If the Goldstone Report was worthy only of an E, a complete failure, a cursory reading of this report on the 2014 Gaza War appears to deserve at least a passing grade. Whether it will be a bare pass, a good pass or an excellent one will have to await our analysis.

One last word about the UNHRC’s own mandate and the mandate assigned to its commission. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the principles of which UNHRC is mandated to uphold, itself suggests that UNHRC in conducting this inquiry strayed both well outside its comfort zone as well as its responsibilities to the international community. For example, echoing Immanuel Kant, the preamble of that Declaration states unequivocally that its foundation is not only freedom and justice, but peace. Further, Article 3 states clearly that, “Everyone had the right to life, liberty and security of person.” War contradicts that and claims that belligerents have no right to life and no right to security, with the exception of the protection of civilians so long as that is possible given the strategies each side adopts. War by definition is a violation of human rights. But the Declaration is not concerned with violent conflict, either the reasons for going to war or the conduct of the war. It is concerned with such old standbys as freedom of speech, of assembly, as well as the new economic freedoms enunciated since the Universal Declaration was adopted. The latter document clearly refers to its mandate as focused on a state in relationship to individuals over whom it has charge.

International humanitarian law is about the conduct of states or quasi-state entities as they do battle, and primarily about the protection of individuals. Human rights are also about the protection of individuals. Those rights make up a very long list. However, by the time you get to Article 29 of the Declaration, the clear aspiration is peace. Article 28 reads: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.” Clearly that is aspirational since international order is stated as a precondition for the full realization of human rights. Yet the Declaration does not attend to the question of how an international peaceable kingdom can be established. The foundation of human rights law and international humanitarian law are fundamentally distinct.

If human rights are based on the universal declaration of 1948, international humanitarian law is based on the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two additional protocols of 1977, as well as a number of specific treaties, such as Conventions on the use of specific weapons – such as phosphorous or poison gas – Conventions on the protection of cultural property during violent conflict, and all of these as interpreted by international jurisprudence. International law governs the initiation and conduct of armed conflict even if nowhere in the law is armed conflict defined. But somehow, we all seem to know what it is even when it is not defined. And certainly there was no dispute that humanitarian law applied to the Gaza conflict. However, just to be clear, the ICRC qualifies a situation of violence and then “sends a memorandum to the parties concerned setting out their obligations under international humanitarian law and offers its services.”

What constitutes an “unlawful killing” in situations of armed conflict must be assessed on the basis of the relevant rules of international humanitarian law, including the fact that combatants or other persons taking a direct part in hostilities may be attacked – even with lethal force; and that killing of civilians in certain circumstances must be assessed pursuant to international humanitarian law’s principle of proportionality which requires a balancing of the incidental loss of civilian life or injury to civilians with the concrete and direct military advantage expected from a particular attack.

I will pay a great deal of attention to the application of this principle by the Commission the objectivity and expertise of which depends in good part on the expertise and mental frameworks of the Commissioners.

Next blog: The Commissioners

The New Anti-Semitism: An Introduction

The New Anti-Semitism? An Introduction

by

Howard Adelman

Last night at the Israel Studies Association, Irwin Cotler gave the keynote speech. The title was, “Israel, Human Rights, Global Anti-Semitism.” At dinner afterwards, I asked Irwin whether he thought characterizing the global anti-Zionism that has been raging at least for the last decade as anti-Semitism was the most appropriate way to categorize what has been taking place. To my surprise, one of the foremost proponents of that categorization said that he had raised that question for himself often, but continued to believe it was, but not without the inquiry and the question being a worthy one.

We could only probe the surface over a dinner in which there were many distractions – other people at the table I wanted to talk to: Dr. Richard Deckelbaum of Columbia University, an old friend, who was scheduled to give a talk today on the llnk between health services and advancing the dialogue between peoples and the peace process; Itzhak Galnoor who was awarded the lifetime achievement award by the Israel Studies Association for his phenomenal scholarship on both governance and government in Israel as well as on laughter; Howard Liebman who for twelve years was Irwin’s administrator-in-chief in Ottawa and had just started a new job working on international affairs for the Mayor of Montreal; and Ariella, Irwin’s wife, with whom I had to catch up on so much of the personal affairs of the Cotlers. And this was just at our table. There were so many friends and colleagues at other tables. You can see why we did not get very far into our probe. I promised Irwin that I would write my next blog on the topic to see if we could advance the inquiry.

One does not have to be a scholar to grasp the issue. It permeates the atmosphere and ordinary table talk when Jews gather and discuss the news stories in the media. I grew up in Canada in the golden age of Jewry in North America. I was born in the year when None Is Too Many was a dominant policy of my government and a ship loaded with Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi regime was not allowed to land on Canadian shores. I grew up on stories of anti-Semitism that inflicted itself upon the lives of my parents.

My mother worked at the Toronto Club, but could only do so because her maiden name was Duviner and she did not look or sound like a Jew and had to hide that she was a Jew to keep her job. Anti-Semitism was an integral part of the casual conversation at the club and she listened to it very day. I went to university to study medicine because Jews could feel freer as an independent professional than as an employee of a large corporation. I was in the Class of ’61 in Medical School and the major teaching hospital in Toronto only appointed its first Jewish physician on staff in 1960. Fraternities, legal and accounting firms were all strictly divided between Jewish and non-Jewish ones, and the Jewish ones included blacks and Chinese.

It does not sound like a golden age, but it was one. For it was the period during which all those inherited anti-Semitic tropes were breaking down. Jews after WWII constituted the highest percentage of the Canadian population they had ever achieved before and would for the foreseeable future. Though Jews constituted at most 3% of the Jewish population of Canada, they were perceived in many surveys as making up 25% of the city of Toronto’s population because of their emerging prominence in Canadian cultural, business and professional life. Wayne and Schuster were Canada’s foremost comedians. Nathan Philips would become the first Jewish mayor of Toronto. Jews were in parliament and in the cabinet of government. The signature of Louis Rasminsky, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, was on all our one, two (yes, there once was a two dollar bill in Canada), five, ten and twenty dollar bills.

Not one of my teachers at high school was Jewish, though the population of the school consisted of 95% Jews. So the anti-Semitism was still present and permeated the society, but its tide was clearly receding. Further, as we told ourselves, the prejudice only made us work harder to prove we were worthy of respect. This has been and continues to be a common experience of new immigrant cohorts. The receded anti-Semitism allowed us to sharpen our wry humorous appreciation of the world and our love of its culture.

We were, of course, immensely assisted by what was taking place south of the border. I grew up loving Al Jolson as did most of America. America was being remade in the utopian dreams of Jews as Jewish songwriters dominated Tin Pan Alley and gave America so many of its most patriotic songs – “God Bless America” (Irving Berlin) for one. As in the U.S., Jews were the lead wave in the transformation of our society into a multicultural one. And Jews went into law and Bora Laskin rose to become Chief Justice as the rule of law rather than of men emerged as the predominate mode of governance in our country. I grew up when Orthodox Jewry was the norm rather than the exception, at least in our neighbourhood, but where we wore that orthodoxy like our T-shirts and learned in our teenage years that it could be taken off and thrown into the washing machine for a good cleansing.

Zionists were a distinct minority – only Ricky Rappaport, the second best student in our class, planned to make Aliyah. The best student was Judy Ochs, Rabbi Ochs’ definitively orthodox daughter. I sat in the front seat of my row given my name, and was the only one who was passionately and ideologically dedicated to being a non-ideologue. Behind me sat a communist, then a Bundist, then a Liberal and then a Conservative – all of whom went on to become physicians. Debating politics provided our life blood, next to reading Mad Magazine. Only slowly did the domination of Israel become the pervading force in Jewish life. I was perhaps the last convert, holding out until the Six Day War for my rebirth. As much as we gradually began to accept Israel as a predominant part of our identity, anti-Semitism as a fearful trope receded at the same time as the Eichmann trial at the beginning of the sixties brought the Holocaust into our intellectual lives and even more into our deepest fears.

So we became part of the avant-garde of the sixties generation, campaigning against nuclear testing and then for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam. Just as Canadian nationalism was beginning to grow, we were at the same time being acculturated into a world dominated by America. We, however, were the new Jews, born in a world destined to be free of anti-Semitism, a generation not to be determined by others that we were Jewish, but a generation that could choose whether or not to be Jewish. So we read Phillip Roth, Saul Bellow and Mordechai Richler, Commentary and soon the new New York Review of Books.

Israel became integral parts of our lives and our experience. Even if were anti-Zionists, we trembled at the possible extinction of Israel prior to the Six Day War and exulted at the Israeli military triumph. Many of us quietly or more actively became born-again lovers of Zion. None of us had ever been subjected to the venomous and splenetic anti-Semitic treatment of two students at UCLA and Stanford about who we had read but whose stories became integrated into academic discourse at my session yesterday on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Those to Jewish women had been questioned about whether, as Jews, they were capable of being free of the Zionist virus when they applied for positions in student government.

In a recent study in the U.S., 54% of students reported experiencing anti-Semitism on campus. That anti-Semitism was integrally linked with anti-Zionism. But was that anti-Zionism, agreed in characterizing the ideology of the Iranian regime as both virulently anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic, best characterized as a new form of anti-Semitism? I greeted the negotiations of the Obama regime to deprive Iran of its potential nuclear arsenal as a beneficial course of action. Others, even more passionately, argued that President Obama had a deep visceral hatred for Benjamin Netanyahu and that the Obama regime was selling Israel down the river for an eventual future of extinction at the hands of a nuclear armed Iran determined to wipe the state of Israel off the map. That was a sign of a deep-seated but unacknowledged new form of anti-Semitism.

Jews as Jews, whether in California or a Jewish supermarket in Paris, were being targeted, sometimes even being murdered, and Israel as a state was clearly being targeted by a large number of states for discriminatory treatment. The anti-Semitism and the anti-Zionism were clearly linked. But was or should the new virulent anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism be conflated so that anti-Zionism is dubbed the new anti-Semitism? There is a suggestion that President Obama who refuses to call the new terrorists Muslim, has, perhaps unintentionally without malice aforethought, engaged in characterizing organized Jewish opposition and that of the Prime Minister of Israel to his new Iranian opening as raising the question of Jewish dual loyalty. Has the old hatred mutated into a new form that it even permeates the views of the President who may not recognize that he has been infected and is a carrier of this equivalent of an Ebola virus? When I chastise Netanyahu and his approach, who has a legitimate existential fear driving him in his approach, as hysterical and misrepresenting the case, have I fallen back into my pre-1967 mindset and lost my love for Zion? Am I on the edge of being infected with this new anti-Semitic virus?

Ironically, even Barack Obama in his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg very recently explicitly and clearly articulated the view that the new anti-Zionism was a mutated form of the old anti-Semitism. Pope Francis agreed. In his interview with Portugese-Israeli journalist Henrique Cynerman, he opined that the refusal to recognize and support Israel as a state among the states of the world and as the expression of the Jewish right of self-determination was an expression of anti-Semitism. Is the view that Israel does not have the right to exist best characterized as a new form of anti-Semitism? Irwin thinks it does. Barack Obama and Pope Francis agree.

In my next blog in this series I will question both the utility and the cogency of such an equation, not to provide a counter-claim, but to raise some central issues about the equation. The core of the justification is that if countries and movements want to eliminate Israel as a polity in the Middle East, and many of these target Jews elsewhere at the very least as fifth columnists and as worthy targets as well, this is anti-Semitism and a form of racism that is doubly guilty because it is blind to the fact that Jews come in all sorts of stripes and colours, from Ethiopian to Indian and Chinese Jews, and still want to identify in a way equivalent to racism.

Obama accused the new virulence as “implicitly equating anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism,” Some have attacked Obama for saying that the convergence of the two categories itself bordered on the new form of anti-Semitism because he said the connection was only implicit when it has been explicitly explicit. I will describe Irwin’s argument that he presented last evening in tomorrow’s blog – it will force me to keep my memory intact for another 24 hours – and I will begin with a closer examination of both Obama’s and Pope Francis’ views.