[R-G] Canadian Left and Zionism

[Anthony Fenton]

Canadian Left and Zionism

by Yves Engler

The Canadian Left has taken a major step forward in its opposition to  
Zionism. On Saturday, Montréal held probably the largest pro- 
Palestinian demonstration in Canadian history. Despite some ridiculous  
media reports, I estimate that there were between 12,000 and 17,000  
(possibly as many as 25,000) people marching through the streets of  
downtown. "Jews, Christians, Muslims, anglos, francos, grandmothers  
and children walked together yesterday in the bitter cold to call for  
an immediate ceasefire in [Gaza]," noted the Montréal Gazette. The  
march was endorsed and organized by all three major Québec unions and  
most of the province's social groups.

On Thursday 20 people blockaded Israel’s consulate in Montreal, a day  
after a group of Jewish women occupied the Israeli consulate in  
Toronto. Two weeks ago Sid Ryan, the head of 200,000-member Canadian  
Union of Public Employees-Ontario, courageously denounced Israel's  
"genocide" in the Gaza strip and this weekend influential Canadian  
author Naomi Klein published an article supporting the boycott,  
divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel called for by  
Palestinian social movements. In the face of media hostility, CUPE- 
Ontario, The Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the teachers Federation  
in Québec and the 40,000 members of Québec student Association ASSE  
have all supported the international boycott campaign against Israeli  
apartheid.

Canadian opposition to Israeli policy is important in light of this  
country's long history of private and public support for Zionism.  
Before there was a Jewish Zionist movement, in the 1880s, Canada’s  
preeminent Christian Zionist, Henry Wentworth Monk, supported efforts  
to colonize Palestine on behalf of European Jews and called for the  
British Empire to establish a "Dominion of Israel", similar to the  
Dominion of Canada. Six decades later, Ottawa played a decisive role  
in the UN's 1948 partition plan, which gave the new Jewish state the  
majority of Palestine despite the Jewish population owning only 5.8%  
of the land and representing less than a third of the population. Four  
decades on, a survey of UN members ranked Canada second only to the  
U.S. in perceived support for Israel and by fall 2008, Harper's  
Conservatives were publicly proclaiming that Canada was the most pro- 
Israel country in the world.

One might assume that the Canadian Left has long opposed Israel's  
Jewish/White supremacy, its role in advancing US geopolitical  
interests in the Middle East or its status as the final frontier of  
European settler colonialism. Unfortunately this has not been the  
case. Recent opposition to Israeli policy by the Canadian Left is  
particularly important because it's a reversal of the Left's historic  
support for Zionism. While it might seem like ancient history to  
unions that recently passed motions to boycott Israel, in September  
1977 the Canadian Labour Congress passed a resolution demanding Ottawa  
enact anti-boycott legislation against Arab countries that were  
boycotting companies doing business with Israel to pressure that  
country to return land captured in the 1967 war.

In 1975, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution (72 votes to 35  
with 32 abstentions) calling Zionism a form of racism. In response,  
CLC President Joe Morris, stated, "By this act, it can justifiably be  
argued the UN has 'legitimized' anti-Semitism and pogroms against  
Jews. Canadian labor will fight all moves to implement such a  
resolution and will exercise its influence to prevent further  
extensions of the resolution." The same year, the CLC vigorously  
opposed the admission of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)  
to the International Labor Organisation and in 1985 CLC president  
Dennis McDermott denounced a Canadian Senate report that rebuked  
Israel's 1982 invasion/occupation of Lebanon and provided mild support  
for the PLO. McDermott, who refered to himself as a "Catholic  
Zionist," said the Senate report, which stopped short of calling the  
PLO the legitimate voice of Palestinians, was an ''exercise in bad  
judgment and, even worse, bad taste.'' (A portrait of McDermott hangs  
in a library named after him at the trade school of the Histadrut  
union in Israel.)

Most astoundingly, in 1956, the CLC called on the Canadian government  
to "lend its sympathetic support to Israel’s request for defensive  
armaments in order that Israel may match in quality if not in  
quantity, the constant flow of Soviet Block armaments into the Arab  
countries." The resolution was passed just before Israel invaded Egypt  
alongside former colonial powers France and Britain. What is  
especially disturbing about this resolution is that Canada had been  
selling Israel weapons for a number of years and was under (private)  
pressure from Washington to send Israel advanced fighter jets.

Unions are not the only part of the Left that staunchly supported  
Israel. In 1975, Tommy Douglas, the head of the CCF (precursor to the  
NDP) and 'father of Medicare', told the Histadrut, "The main enmity  
against Israel is that she has been an affront to those nations who do  
not treat their people and their workers as well as Israel has treated  
hers." This speech was made eight years into Israel's occupation of  
the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a quarter century after 800,000  
Palestinians were ethnically cleansed during the 1948 war. Staunch  
Zionist Irving Abella explained in the late 1970s that, "Historically,  
the New Democratic Party (NDP) has been the most supportive of the  
Israeli cause, largely because of its close relationship to Israel’s  
labour party, and to the Histadrut, the Israel trade union movement."

The Left is still not unanimous in its antagonism towards Israeli  
policy in Palestine, its domestic racism or its belligerence in the  
region (over the years Israel has bombed Palestine, Jordan, Egypt,  
Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq and is now threatening to bomb Iran).  
Some unions continue to buy Israel Bonds while NDP MPs still take  
tours of the region organized by pro-Israel groups. In a particularly  
distasteful episode last year, the NDP opposed and then supported the  
Harper government when Canada was the first country to withdraw from  
the second UN Conference on Racism ("Durban II"), much to the delight  
of the Israeli government, which was the second country to pull out  
(criticism of Zionism at Durban I was deemed "anti-semitic").

Despite some setbacks it is clear that the Canadian left is slowly  
catching up to the rest of the world in seeing the fundamental  
injustice of Zionism. Palestinian activists, alongside non-Arab  
activists, have worked tirelessly to make opposition to Zionism a  
central part of the left's political culture. This explains why there  
were 18 actions across the country on Saturday, many of them with as  
many as 1000 people, even in smaller cities like Hamilton and Edmonton.

Yves Engler is the author of the soon to be published Canada on the  
World Stage: A Force for Good or Bad Actor? and other books.