Monday, March 9, 2009

we think you a hater...

one of my friends sent me a link to a really great article written by rick salutin over at rabble about the accusation that israeli apartheid week(and its organizers, and those involved and attending events) are anti-semitic.

i was only able to attend the last event of the week: Turtle Island, South Africa to Palestine: The Struggle Continues, where Mike Krebs and Ronnie Kasrils discussed struggles for indigenous peoples in canada and the anti-apartheid movement in south africa in the context of israeli apartheid policy.

what i saw were deeply engaged and passionate people who had extensive knowledge of a complicated and complex issue--a knowledge and a passion that those accusing them of anti-semitism don't seem to possess.

these are people who welcome questions and dialogue, who have sacrificed so much to raise awareness and protect their and others right to hold events like this.

unlike the organizers and participants of IAW, Jason Kenny or Michael Ignatieff simply painted the entire week as a series of hate crimes without attending a single event themselves.

yet again we see the liberals and the conservatives align to show themselves as cowards and idiots who might as well be members of the same party.

prorogueing parliament, denying the coalition government's democratic right to govern, trying to push a sneaky budget that punishes students/allocates funding in a totally inappropriate way, a budget that makes it harder for women to access pay equity legislation, repressing student and labour movements and introducing dangerous legislation that undermines the right to strike, and using the economic crisis as justification for all of this are just a few examples of what we can continue to look forward to under the new liberal/conservative coalition.

and now this. calling israeli apartheid week anti-semitic is dangerous because it makes critique of israel's state policy off limits and as rick salutin writes at the end of his article critique of israel is important "because Israel is now a state among nations and must be held to account, not absolved for fear of igniting a new Holocaust"



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Israel, apartheid, anti-Semites

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