The Trudeau government has been campaigning aggressively for a seat on the Security Council, but its bid to win a place on the United Nations\u2019 most powerful decision-making body later this month will be hampered by Canada\u2019s decidedly anti-Palestinian voting record. <\/p>\n
Despite claiming to support the \u201cinternational rules based order,” the Trudeau government has voted against more than 50 resolutions upholding Palestinian rights. The extent to which the Liberals have mimicked the Stephen Harper Conservative\u2019s position regarding General Assembly resolutions, which are little more than symbolic acts of solidarity with the long-beleaguered Palestinians, highlights the power of the Israeli lobby in Canada.<\/p>\n
Together the United Jewish Appeal\/Combined Jewish Appeal of Toronto, Montr\u00e9al, Winnipeg, Windsor, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, London, Ottawa, Vancouver and Atlantic Canada raise<\/a> over $100 million annually and have about $1 billion<\/a> in assets. For half a century UJA Toronto has organized an annual Walk with Israel and the Montr\u00e9al branch organizes an annual Israel Day march. Many thousands march each year. The lobbying arm of the UJA\/CJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has over 40 staff and a $10 million<\/a> budget. In addition, B\u2019nai B\u2019rith has a handful of offices across the country. For its part, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center Canada\u2019s budget is $7 to 10<\/a> million annually.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n These groups work closely with StandWithUs Canada, CAMERA, Honest Reporting Canada and other (often extreme right wing) Israeli nationalist political organizations. Dozens of registered Canadian charities, ranging from the Jewish National Fund to Christians United for Israel also engage in at least some pro-Israel campaigning.<\/p>\n Since 2013 the chief fundraiser<\/a> for the Trudeau Liberals has been Stephen Bronfman, scion of a Canadian-American family who built their fortunes off of Seagram\u2019s liquor. Bronfman has millions invested<\/a> in Israeli technology companies. Over the years the Bronfman clan has secured arms for Israeli forces and supported its military in other ways. <\/p>\n Other notable Canadian moguls have long histories of ensuring ties between Israel and Canada. <\/p>\n Worth more than $3 billion<\/a> prior to his death, David Azrieli was the ninth richest person in Canada. In his youth he served in the paramilitary Haganah<\/a> group during the 1948 war in the Seventh Brigade. His unit is responsible for the Battle of Jerusalem, including forcibly displacing around 10,000 Palestinians. <\/a>He was also a real estate developer in Israel, and built the largest <\/a>residential towers in the country. In 2011 Azrielis made a controversial donation to Im Tirtzu, a hardline Israeli-nationalist organization (deemed a \u201cfascist<\/a>\u201d group by an Israeli court).<\/p>\n Canadian-Israeli Sylvan Adams in recent years has plowed tens of millions of dollars <\/a>into various sports and cultural initiatives to rebrand Israel. <\/p>\n In \u201cA story<\/a> of failed re-engagement: Canada and Iran, 2015\u20132018\u201d University of Ottawa professor Thomas Juneau highlighted the Israel lobby\u2019s role in deterring the government from re-establishing diplomatic relations with Iran: <\/p>\n \u201cInitially, Cabinet and most caucus supported re-engagement. Dion, who was actively lobbied by Bombardier (whose headquarters were in his riding) and the Montreal Chamber of Commerce, was especially keen. Other senior ministers such as Freeland (International Trade) and Harjit Sajjan (Defence) also supported. With time, however, opposition within caucus grew. It was led by Michael Levitt, the influential MP for York-Center and chair of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group, and also included Anthony Housefather (MP for Mount-Royal). These MPs had support from former minister Irwin Cotler, who had long argued for harsher policies towards Iran.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Juneau continued, <\/p>\n \u201cother interviewees also highlighted the differences in organization among pressure groups. Between the tabling of the motion [to oppose reengaging with Iran] and the vote four days later, groups opposing reengagement, such as the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, rapidly launched an effective campaign to pressure MPs. Groups favoring reengagement, however, such as the Iranian Canadian Congress, were unable to match these lobbying efforts.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n In 2019 Trudeau\u2019s Liberal party ousted high-profile Imam Hassan Guillet as a candidate after B\u2019nai B\u2019rith attacked him<\/a> for challenging Israeli expansionism. The winner of the Saint-Leonard-Saint-Michel riding nomination gained global notoriety for his sermon at the memorial for the victims of the 2017 Qu\u00e9bec City mosque attack, but when B\u2019nai B\u2019rith twisted his pro-Palestinian statements to imply he was antisemitic the Liberals dumped their star candidate.<\/p>\n Similarly, when members of the extremist Jewish Defence League attacked peaceful pro-Palestinian activists protesting a presentation by Israeli military reservists at York University Trudeau sided with the thugs. Following a statement by B\u2019nai B\u2019rith, CIJA and the Israel lobby\u2019s point person in the Liberal government, Michael Levitt, Trudeau denounced<\/a> \u201cantisemitism\u201d by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.<\/p>\n The influence of CIJA, B\u2019nai B\u2019rith, Bronfman, Adams, etc. sets a backdrop to the Trudeau government\u2019s anti-Palestinian voting record at the UN. Whether that will scuttle Canada\u2019s bid for a seat on the Security Council is to be determined.<\/p>\n But, we should hope so. Please join over 100 organizations<\/a> and dozens of prominent individuals that have signed an open letter calling on UN member states to vote for Canada’s competitors, Norway and Ireland, for the two non-permanent Security Council spots open for Western countries.<\/p>\n Yves Engler is the author of ten books, including his latest, <\/i>Left, Right – Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada<\/a>. Reprinted from MondoWeiss<\/a> with the author’s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Trudeau government has been campaigning aggressively for a seat on the Security Council, but its bid to win a place on the United Nations\u2019 most powerful decision-making body later this month will be hampered by Canada\u2019s decidedly anti-Palestinian voting record. Despite claiming to support the \u201cinternational rules based order,” the Trudeau government has voted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":244,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-35300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/244"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35302,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35300\/revisions\/35302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35300"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=35300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}