[R-G] CANADA: Jewish Defence League Energised by Israel's Far Right

[Anthony Fenton]

CANADA:  Jewish Defence League Energised by Israel's Far Right
By Paul Weinberg
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42195

TORONTO, Apr 30 (IPS) - Like an aging group of retro rocker musicians,  
the Jewish Defence League (JDL) resurfaced in Toronto recently after a  
decade of dormancy, trying to look a little more mainstream.

The group made its largest public foray in quite some time on Mar. 27,  
when it hosted a meeting of about 150 for Israeli politician Moshe  
Feiglin at the Shaarei Tefillah Synagogue on a stretch of Bathurst  
south of Wilson that conjures Jerusalem's Mea Shirim with its black  
top hats, piety and peyes.

Once targeted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation as "domestic  
extremists" and linked to two banned anti-Arab racist groups in  
Israel, the JDL now considers Feiglin, leader of the hard-line Jewish  
Leadership faction of the already right-wing Likud party, its  
political mentor.

Feiglin saved most of his bile at the meeting for Israel's leadership,  
accusing them of caving in to the violence perpetrated by the enemy,  
namely the Palestinians, whom he referred to as simply "Arabs".

"We are not going to get used to it," he declared to an applauding  
audience about Hamas rocket attacks on Israel. Nevertheless, said this  
West Bank settler, "The Arabs are not the problem; [some] Jews are."

Feiglin advocates an Israel without Arabs, citing the example of the  
peaceful Golan Heights, emptied of its Arab population after the Six- 
Day War when the territory was taken from Syria. Where U.S. JDL  
founder Rabbi Meir Kahane, assassinated in New York City in 1990,  
advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israeli-controlled territory,  
Feiglin, in a new wrinkle, urges they be paid to vacate.

"We are talking about more than 60,000 people on the military  
payroll," he says. "We're talking about 150 billion dollars that  
Israel spends every 10 years. That money is enough to give every Arab  
family in Yesha [Gaza and the West Bank] 250,000 dollars."

Meir Weinstein, aka Meir Halevi, national director for the JDL of  
Canada, spoke with IPS after the event and directed attention to the  
growing Muslim population of more than 750,000 and the shrinking  
number of Jews living in Canada -- a little above 300,000.

"The significance of that is that Muslims come from countries that  
don't have a friendly view of Jews. A lot of these countries promote  
material denying the Holocaust, so when they come here in greater  
numbers and their population is on rise...," he said.

Weinstein said he is willing to go to court to refute any racist tag  
attached to his organisation. Recently, he issued a letter of intent  
threatening to sue Canadian Arab Federation president Khaled Mouammar  
for defamation over comments allegedly made on the CAF's website.  
Mohamed Boudjenane, CAF exec director, told IPS the organisation has  
no comment at this time.

In fact, the JDL is in on the offence on more than one front. One of  
its directors, Lou VanDelman, a white-haired militant who began his  
participation in the late 1960s, says the group's thuggish reputation  
is overblown.

"People always like to dramatise. The JDL was always a defensive  
organisation, and it always will be. If somebody hits us, we have the  
legal right to hit back," he said.

VanDelman regrets "the deterioration'' in the relations between the  
JDL, in its heyday, and U.S. authorities, in contrast to what occurred  
in Canada, particularly in Montreal. "We had an association with the  
police, we had association with members of parliament,'' he said.

On the other hand, in 2002, U.S. JDL leader Irv Rubin died in jail  
awaiting trial on charges of allegedly planning to bomb a mosque and  
the office of a local U.S. congressman in California.

Currently, the JDL is supporting a public campaign both in Israel and  
North America by Feiglin to be included on the list of candidates for  
the Likud party in the upcoming election, which recent public opinion  
polls indicate it has a shot at winning. Feiglin came in a significant  
second at 22 percent in a leadership contest up against the subsequent  
winner and former Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

But how serious a force is Feiglin in Israel's complex political  
landscape? According to Beate Zilversmidt, a spokesperson for Israeli  
peace group Gush Shalom, even within Likud he is considered "too  
extreme".

"But he definitely has some leverage, and the more relevant question  
might be how much influence he can exert on the more mainstream Likud  
candidates. They don't want him to break away and compete with them  
from the outside, forming powerful blocs together with other Judeo- 
supremacists," Zilversmidt said.

Meanwhile, Bernie Farber, chief executive officer of the Canadian  
Jewish Congress, casts doubt on the re-emergent Jewish Defence  
League's ability to be anything but a marginal force in Canada.

Farber says his organisation had "serious concerns" about the JDL in  
the past regarding its "highly inappropriate, even racist" language.

"They have come back again, as I understand it, a different version of  
what they were. As long as they maintain the peace, as long as they do  
not engage in racist language or hate or violate Canadian law, they  
have the right to exist. They will not in any way be connected to the  
mainstream, nor do they want to be, from what I understand," he said.

Michael Neumann, a Trent University philosophy professor and the  
author of "The Case Against Israel", also warns against getting  
diverted by fears of JDL ultra-nationalism.

"Hell, if I'm going to be concerned about violent or extremist Jews,  
I'll be concerned about the Israel Defence Forces. By far the greatest  
threat to peace are the lobbying efforts of impeccably well-behaved,  
well-connected Zionists and the decent but fence-sitting Jews who  
allow these lobbyists to speak in their name," he asserted.

(END/2008)