Save the date! PFEX meeting, October 17th @ OISE

[Mary-Jo Nadeau]

Hi PFEX,

 

As we all know, the CPCCA is meeting as the ICCA conference the second week of November in Ottawa. 

We had decided to break for summer and to meet again when their Report was tabled.  The report has

still not been delivered (see below). So, in the interest of moving our work ahead (and in response to

those who have been inquiring about next meeting dates), it looks like a good date to meet is October 17th

(in line with our Sunday meetings of last year).

 

Here's the details:

Sunday, October 17

3:00 - 5:00 p.m.

OISE-University of Toronto, 5th floor lounge

 

See below for two short items of interest as well. 

 

i.  Update from CPCCA office (based on recent inquiry):

 

The report is currently in the final stages of revision by the members of parliament who comprise the CPCCA Inquiry Panel.
 
We are also currently planning for the upcoming conference of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism to be co-hosted by the Government of Canada and the CPCCA. The conference will be held on Parliament Hill from the 7-9 November and will include in attendance parliamentarians and expert panellists from around the world.

 

ii.  *CPCCA: Coalition aims to criminalise criticism of Israel*

www.FlyingShingle.com/cgi-bin/coranto/viewnews.cgi?id=20101004493168828816
 
October 4 2010
 
Will a coalition of all the federal parties except the Bloc make it illegal
to criticise Israel?
 
According to Dr. of Philosophy Michael Keefer, the Canadian Parliamentary
Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) will try to do just that.
 
At a Sept. 25 presentation at the Nanaimo library, Keefer said that
activists in France have already been charged and convicted of hate crimes
for advocating a program of “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” against
Israel. Keefer said this is a sample of “the kind of exemplary intimidation”
the CPCCA wants to implement in Canada.
 
The coalition, which Keefer said is not currently an official parliamentary
committee, was organised to look into the problem of anti-Semitism by
Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) Professor Irwin Cotler, former justice
minister and human rights activist, and by Conservative MP Jason Kenney the
minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. Keefer said that
both men had taken positions “that can reasonably be described as
extremist”.
 
Keefer said that even before Judge Richard Goldstone – “a Jew and a lifelong
Zionist” – released his United Nations sponsored report on Israel’s 2008
attack on Gaza, Cotler said that Goldstone’s position would be “unbalanced …
unless it denounced the people of Gaza as the aggressors” and portrayed
Israel’s behaviour as appropriate.
 
As for Kenney, Keefer said, among other things, he has defunded and
denounced as anti-Semitic, KAIROS, a long-standing human rights organisation
supported by “11 mainstream Christian churches in Canada”.
 
The CPCCA first appeared in June 2009, Keefer said, and “… (came) to their
conclusions before … getting any public expert opinion or citizen’s input. …
They were saying anti-Semitism is a burgeoning, resurgent, horrendous
problem … and we have to act urgently to do something about it. … They also
made it clear that they wanted to consider anti-Semitism as a term that
incorporated criticism of the State of Israel”.
 
Writing the book
 
Keefer said he and many other well-respected scholars and organisations
wrote to the coalition to offer input, and were ignored. The Bloc Quebecois
withdrew from the coalition when this trend became apparent, he said.
 
Many of those who had their input snubbed sent their submissions to the
Canadian Charger – a news website – instead, Keefer said. The Charger
collected those submissions to give to all MPs, he said, “so that
parliamentarians can be made explicitly aware of the kinds of censorship
that are being exercised by this enquiry”.
 
Those submissions, he said, became the core of his book: “Anti-Semitism Real
and Imagined”. He said many of the submissions were written by Jews who
encountered anti-Semitic persecution in their lives, and whose experience
“living with a vile prejudice directed against them, was an important part
of what determined them not to remain silent in the face of injustice”.
 
‘Lawfare’
 
Keefer said he wrote an introduction to the book discussing “lawfare” –
which is what Cotler calls objections to Israel’s unlawful behaviour. Cotler
alleges, said Keefer, that those who speak against Israel’s lawlessness are
pretending to care about the law but actually just hate Jews. He said Cotler
was retaliating to this alleged racism by defining calls for Israel to stop
breaking international law as “hate-speech”.
 
Also included in the book, Keefer said, was the history of the real
anti-Semitism in Canada and research into, and statistical evidence on, any
modern resurgence of anti-Semitism. He said that Canadians are
insufficiently aware of Canada’s shameful history of anti-Semitism. But he
said the statements made by the CPCCA about an increase in anti-Semitism are
“false” and “fear-mongering”, although “there HAVE been spikes in
anti-Semitic incidents in the wake of war crimes committed by … Israel, such
as the attack on Gaza”.
 
CPCCA report
 
Keefer said that the CPCCA will be releasing its report in November while
hosting the Inter-parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism - an
international body founded by Cotler. He thought when that happens, “the
distinction between this group … and a formally appointed parliamentary
committee is going to evaporate”.
 
Kenney’s ministry is contributing $450,000 to host that meeting, Keefer
said. He added that some of the current funding for the CPCCA is coming from
a foundation that also funds a US group “which has taken forceful actions …
against academic freedoms in one case after another”, as well as initiating
“smear campaigns” against human rights activists.
 
Keefer said Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other politicians pander to
the fact that Canadians like to think of themselves as a decent people, but
“it is indecent to have participated in the blockade of Gaza. It is indecent
to provide material, support, and diplomatic cover to the ongoing
expropriation of Palestinians’ land in the West Bank. … The blockade of Gaza
is starving people (and is) a grotesque violation of international law, and
any country that supports that blockade is engaging in the breaking of
international law in the complete abrogation of its responsibilities under
the fourth Geneva convention. I think we need to stand up and say to our
Members of Parliament: ‘If you want to talk to us about decency, do kindly
start practising it’ ”.