Defending Our Future. Protecting Our Past.
Defending Our Future. Protecting Our Past.
May 26, 2023: A confrontation with Iran is coming to a head, but the United States under President Joe Biden may not have the stomach to drop bombs on Iran’s nuclear sites, according to former U.S. ambassador David Friedman, speaking at the May 24 fundraising gala for the Abraham Global Peace Initiative. He believes that a confrontation between Iran and Israel is inevitable, given the precarious situation brewing in the Middle East.
Unfortunately, these sorts of checks are noticeably absent in the UN. The UN Human Rights Council, which oversees the commission of inquiry, is made up of mostly tyrannical antisemitic regimes that have placed Israel on the organization’s permanent agenda for scrutiny and abuse. This has come at a tragic cost to the UN and its agencies. The Ye scandal has helped expose the antisemitic rot at the heart of the United Nations.
There's no doubt that Jerusalem's Old City has been a source of friction between the world's three major religions. Yet King Abdullah's comments suggest that Israel (and therefore the Jewish nation) is assaulting the Christian community. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our relationship and friendship with our Christian brothers and sisters is stronger than ever, particularly following the Nostra aetate declaration of the Second Vatican Council, which was designed to improve relations between Christians and Jews.
The Abraham Accords afford us the opportunity to force a change in the narrative. Here is the new narrative that is true in the Middle East today: the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has failed and Israel is thriving; very few believe the slander that Israel is an “apartheid” state; Israel is no longer isolated; the Abraham Accords made the so-called Palestinian veto obsolete; and there is no more Arab-Israeli conflict.
The International Court must immediately launch an investigation into war crimes committed by Syria and Bashar Al Assad. More evidence has come to light in recent days of some 50,000 photographs and documents that allegedly prove crimes against humanity have been committed.
The United Nations Human Rights Commission has passed a number of unfair and clearly biased resolutions passed against the State of Israel. No other nation must suffer such abuse of its rights and sovereignty as does the Jewish nation. It's a simple act of Antisemitism and one sided discrimination against Israel.
Tehran has threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the map before. The radical regime reached another low in its terror campaign this week when it published another direct threat to launch a missile attack against the Jewish State. The ayatollah’s mouthpiece, The Tehran Times, published a map of Israel with dozens of target sites Iran says its missiles could reach. “Just one wrong move!” threatened the headline.
Palestinians often claim that 1948 was the “nakba” for their descendants. But what is often ignored is that over one million Jews living in Arab lands would also experience their own "catastrophe" that has never been acknowledged or compensated. They became refugees overnight — uprooted from their homes and communities. Most found refuge in the fledgling State of Israel, while others moved to France, Canada and America.....
In a world turned upside down, where right and wrong are based on whomever has the loudest voice and the strongest propaganda machine, attacks on democracies and fundamental human rights are becoming commonplace. The decline of democracies and the growing power of totalitarian dictatorships means that countries that are antithetical to freedom and human dignity have ever-increasing power in international organizations.
Eleven Jewish worshippers were murdered by a white supremacist at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh three years ago this week. It was the largest ever domestic shooting attack against the North American Jewish community, sending our institutions into lockdown mode. Police increased their presence in Jewish neighbourhoods, security guards were posted at schools, and unprecedented debates ensued — should worshippers arm themselves for self-protection?
We need to confront issues head-on in a mature and productive manner. Finding game-changing solutions and flipping existing paradigms on their heads requires open and honest debates. They may lead to policy changes on the ground. NGOs can have a significant impact in reducing conflict. This can be accomplished through new and innovative educational programs aimed to promote equality, diversity and tolerance. We need to be courageous and ambitious if we are going to create a safe and secure Israel.
Durban became a watershed moment that launched a new wave of radical anti-Semitism and terrorism around the globe. Even though the conference was weaponized against Israel and the Jewish people, the United Nations shockingly plans on celebrating its 20th anniversary on Sept. 22. Canada took the moral high ground by announcing it will not participate in Durban. “Canada remains committed, at home and abroad, including at the UN, to advancing human rights, inclusion and combatting anti-Semitism,
From rogue terrorist organizations to such criminal elements as those depicted in Taken, the hostage-taking industry has morphed into a state-sponsored initiative in this increasingly unsafe world.. Rudy Rochman, Andrew (Noam) Leibman and Edouard David Benaym were finally released this week. In a statement posted on Instagram on Wednesday, the men said they were "caged and held for 20 days in horrendous conditions, locked into a small cell, sleeping on the floor with no access to showers or clean clothes."
When viewed in this historical context, Sarah Halimi’s murder is a travesty of justice that forever puts a black stain on the republic. Civil and human rights have to apply to all people equally and without distinction. America got it right in the case of Derek Chauvin. France got it wrong in the case of Sarah Halimi. May she be remembered for the goodness she brought upon this world and may her children be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. We will never forget.
The ICC was a promise to the world that war criminals would not evade justice. Following the Holocaust, it became clear that so many Nazi war criminals got away with murder. In recent decades, while some war criminals have been prosecuted for crimes in Bosnia and Rwanda, thousands more have gotten away with murder. I hold out hope that the ICC will focus its energy on these atrocities and emerging concerns like the plight of the Chinese Uyghurs and Iranian civilians who are suffering at the hands of brutal regimes. No less than humanity’s moral standing is at stake.
As the G7 convenes, the case for advancing critical human rights issues is important now more than ever. The world will be laser focused about the dialogue that transpires especially among the democracies that make up the group.
G7 leaders are set to discuss violence in Ethiopia, Iran and North Korea and Somalia as part of "pressing geopolitical issues that threaten to undermine democracy, freedoms and human rights". G7 countries include: Britain, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
Who would have thought that some 76 years after the Holocaust, babies would be gassed, teenagers would be brutally tortured and women would be raped at the hands of a barbarous regime? The International Criminal Court must take immediate take action. If we are serious about human rights and preventing mass atrocities, why is the International Criminal Court (ICC) silent on Syria? Its spokesperson, Fadi el-Abdallah, told me that the “ICC has not opened an investigation in relation to Syria.”
Every jurisdiction must create a Standing Up Against Anti-Semitism Act designed to counter the anti-Semitic economic campaign against Israel known as BDS.
It's designed to counter the anti-Semitic economic campaign against Israel known as BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and address the growing anti-Jewish hatred.
May 26, 2023: A confrontation with Iran is coming to a head, but the United States under President Joe Biden may not have the stomach to drop bombs on Iran’s nuclear sites, according to former U.S. ambassador David Friedman, speaking at the May 24 fundraising gala for the Abraham Global Peace Initiative. He believes that a confrontation between Iran and Israel is inevitable, given the precarious situation brewing in the Middle East.
Tensions are mounting. Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, Israel Defence Forces' chief of general staff, implied this week that if Iran continues to develop its nuclear program, Israel would have little choice but to stage a pre-emptive attack.
Israel’s military doctrine of deterrence and pre-emptive strikes on enemies at its gates is widely known. In 1981, it took out Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in a surprise attack. And in 2007, Israel wasted little time obliterating a Syrian reactor that was under construction.
Iran purposefully embarrassed the Biden administration over the Iranian nuclear talks in Vienna by biding its time through relentless negotiations, while shoring up its economic and military prowess. In the meantime, its created an axis of evil by aligning more heavily with Russia, through its supply of weapons for Moscow's war in Ukraine, and by signing economic and trade agreements with China.
So emboldened is the Iranian regime that in the last couple months, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi flew to Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad and the country signed a deal to re-establish diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia.
This week, Iran unveiled a new ballistic missile with a 2,000-kilometre range that can easily reach Tel Aviv. In our recent film, "The Future of Israel and its Defenders," we reveal that Iran already has the capacity to build at least three or four nuclear weapons.
Prof. Chuck Freilich attested that the Iranians may have not had the political inclination do so until now, fearing an Israeli — and possibly an American — response. But the more emboldened Iran becomes, the greater the likelihood that it will arm and possibly deploy nuclear weapons in the region. By mid-2021, experts contend that Iran had already enriched large quantities of uranium to 60 per cent, which is one step below weapons-grade.
A few weeks ago, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned that Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make five nuclear weapons in a matter of weeks. With its new ballistic missile, it has the capability to launch nuclear weapons at Israel.
In 2018, Israel clandestinely stole Iran’s nuclear archive from under its nose. It revealed what most of us already knew: the mullahs were lying to the world about their nuclear aspirations. They said the program was for peaceful purposes, when in fact, the radical Islamists were seeking to shore up Iranian hegemony in the region by creating a nuclear umbrella.
Iran has already spread its terror-producing tentacles in an attempt to surround Israel. Iran has proxies in Lebanon and Syria to the north and is funding Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the south. The Jewish state has had little choice but to relentlessly attack Iranian intelligence facilities and arms depots deep inside Syria, in order to curtail the Iranian presence on its doorstep.
An all-out war between Iran and Israel will destabilize the region and sink the global economy. To make matters worse, since 2021, Iran has either attacked or harassed at least 15 merchant ships in the region, including Israeli-owned vessels. For this reason, the U.S. navy has stepped up efforts to thwart the Iranian presence in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran is also suspected of cyberattacks targeting Israeli shipping and financial firms in recent years. And this week, Gallant revealed that Iran is converting civilian ships into “floating terror bases” armed with missiles, drones and soldiers.
In response to reports that Iran had built underground nuclear facilities that were impervious to bunker-buster bombs, Israel’s national security advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, warned Iran earlier this week that, “We are sending the message, so is the U.S., that if you cross the red line, the price you will pay as a regime and as a country is one you wouldn’t want to pay, so be careful.”
Threats are flying back and forth. Tension is building while the world is fast asleep or focused elsewhere. At the Abraham Global Peace Initiative, we have recommended stiffer sanctions. We have advised our own government here in Canada to ban the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and add it to Canada’s terror watch list. More pressure from Europe must also be brought to bear on Tehran.
The clock is ticking but it’s not too late. The time to stop Iran is now.
National Post
Avi Benlolo is the founder and chairman of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-clock-is-ticking-on-an-apocalyptic-showdown-with-iran
The Ye scandal has helped expose the antisemitic rot at the heart of the United Nations
Author of the article:Avi BenloloPublishing date:Oct 28, 2022
After weeks of wrangling, businesses finally began severing their ties with Ye this week, after Adidas, which partnered with Ye on the Yeezy brand, terminated its relationship with him. The company said in a press release that, “Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”
Admittedly, I am disappointed that Adidas had the audacity to say in its very next breath that its decision was measured in dollars and cents: “This is expected to have a short-term negative impact of up to €250 million on the company’s net income in 2022 given the high seasonality of the fourth quarter.” This line should bring shame on the German company whose founders had ties to the Nazi party.
Of all the statements made by various celebrities distancing themselves from Ye, the most admirable was written by NFL superstar Aaron Donald and his wife Erica: “Our family has made the decision to part ways with Donda Sports. The recent comments and displays of hate and antisemitism are the exact opposite of how we choose to live our lives and raise our children. We find them to be irresponsible and go against everything we believe in as a family.”
Their statement was heartfelt, meaningful and boils the issue down to how we educate our children and treat each other on a human level. Unlike Adidas, they did not discuss how their decision would affect them financially. The Donalds understand that, “As parents and members of society, we felt a responsibility to send a clear message that hateful words and actions have consequences and that we must do better as human beings.”
Unfortunately, there are also those who have used Ye’s words to further incite hate. A white nationalist group standing on a highway overpass this past weekend in Los Angeles held up banners that read: “Honk if you know Kanye is right about the Jews.” In a horrific picture circulating the internet, members of the group are seen standing above the banner performing the Nazi salute.
It certainly doesn’t help that the United Nations continues to provide cover for those who are intent on spreading hatred against the Jewish people. While Ye was being called out for his antisemitism, the UN’s commission of inquiry into alleged Israeli human rights abuses, which would be better labelled the “commission of inquisition against Israel,” released yet another false and biased report that slandered and defamed the Jewish state.
Its claims are unworthy of repeating on these decent pages. Instead, my organization, the Abraham Global Peace Initiative, has released a thoughtful critique of the report, authored by Henry Kopel, who served as a United States federal prosecutor for 30 years in the areas of terrorism and crimes against humanity. The report can be found on our website, agpiworld.com.
But what is worth noting is that last summer, one of its commissioners, Miloon Kothari, made antisemitic remarks referring to the “Jew lobby” and questioning Israel’s very inclusion in the United Nations. As in the case of Ye, these remarks sparked accusations of antisemitism and calls for his resignation and the disbandment of an obviously biased and corrupt commission. Kothari apologized, but the integrity of the UN and its commission of inquiry had been compromised.
As the fallout from Ye’s antisemitic comments show, free and democratic societies can counter hatred through the chorus of voices that speak out against it and the companies and individuals who shun those who spread such vile messages.
Unfortunately, these sorts of checks are noticeably absent in the UN. The UN Human Rights Council, which oversees the commission of inquiry, is made up of mostly tyrannical antisemitic regimes that have placed Israel on the organization’s permanent agenda for scrutiny and abuse. This has come at a tragic cost to the UN and its agencies. The Ye scandal has helped expose the antisemitic rot at the heart of the United Nations.
National Post
Avi Abraham Benlolo is the founding chairman and CEO of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative.
I met Jordanian King Abdullah II at his home in Amman many years ago on a beautiful summer day. We discussed widening the circle of peace in the Middle East beyond Egypt and Jordan — which signed peace treaties with Israel in 1979 and 1994, respectively — long before the signing of the Abraham Accords. We discussed advancing peace by winning the fight against radicalism and terrorism in the region, values that King Abdullah has long advocated for.
Yet this stands in sharp contrast to the remarks he made this week at the United Nations General Assembly, in which he claimed that Jerusalem's Christian community is "under fire," saying, "The rights of churches in Jerusalem are threatened. This cannot continue. Christianity is vital to the past and present of our region and the Holy Land. It must remain an integral part of our future."
His comments seem designed to exacerbate tensions and create divisions between Israel's Jewish and Christian communities. They also run contrary to the situation on the ground in Israel, a country that welcomes about 700,000 Christian tourists a year and is home to around 180,000 people of the Christian faith.
The Christian community is well integrated into Israeli society and is spread throughout the country. According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, at the end of 2020, 70 per cent of Christian men and 64 per cent of women were in the labour force, and 71 per cent of Christian Arabs had successfully completed a matriculation certificate, which is necessary to enter higher education and certain professions, compared to 45 per cent of Muslims.
There's no doubt that Jerusalem's Old City has been a source of friction between the world's three major religions. Yet King Abdullah's comments suggest that Israel (and therefore the Jewish nation) is assaulting the Christian community. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our relationship and friendship with our Christian brothers and sisters is stronger than ever, particularly following the Nostra aetate declaration of the Second Vatican Council, which was designed to improve relations between Christians and Jews.
The hypocritical duplicity of King Abdullah's remarks at the UN also contradict the facts on the ground in all the Arab nations that surround Israel. Including Jordan itself, where the International fellowship of Christian and Jews reports that Christians face oppression and lack employment opportunities due to laws that prevent many refugees from working.
In Egypt, Christians are said to face unprecedented levels of persecution. According to a report produced by Open Doors, which supports persecuted Christians around the world, in 2017, 128 Christians were killed in Egypt because of their faith.
In 2015, ISIL executed 21 Christian men on a beach in Libya. In Syria during the civil war, ISIL reportedly turned a bakery into a death chamber, killing 250 Christians by kneading children to death in a bread machine and baking men in an oven.
A report commissioned by then-British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt in 2019 found that, while Christians comprised 20 per cent of the population of the Middle East and north Africa a century ago, their numbers have fallen to less than four per cent. “In countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia the situation of Christians and other minorities has reached an alarming stage,” according to the report.
And we know that the Palestinian Authority’s behaviour has motivated many Christians to leave.
I agree with King Abdullah that the “road forward is a two-state solution,” but G-d forbid east Jerusalem ever come under control of an “independent Palestinian state,” as he espoused. Given the persecution of religious minorities in the Arab world, and the radicalism among some Palestinian factions, the freedom to worship in Jerusalem would be impossible under the Palestinian Authority. Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel, in order to ensure that all religious faiths are protected and religious freedom is respected.
When I met King Abdullah in Amman, it was clear that he gets it. I understand that he has to appeal to his own citizens, many of whom are Palestinian, but if the Abraham Accords have taught the region anything, it’s that courage and truth brings about peace. I hope he reflects on this in peace.
National Post
We must make it clear in the West that the old, demeaning arguments about Israel are irrelevant today
The following is adapted from a speech given by Avi Benlolo, CEO of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative, at the Jerusalem Post conference in New York on Sept. 12.
Through careful strategic planning and analysis, the Abraham Global Peace Initiative is creating a new strategy that converges both antisemitism and the Abraham Accords to reset, and even undermine, the negative propaganda being peddled by Israel’s detractors in the West.
Let me explain this by first highlighting the problem: Canada’s Jewish community was recently shocked to discover that a government consultant hired to fight racism was actually an antisemite.
The Canadian Heritage department hired him without bothering to check his Twitter feed, which was filled with vile and hateful language. He allegedly wrote: “You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they came from, they will return to being low voiced bi–hes of thier (sic) Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters.”
This antisemitism is bad. But it gets worse. Canada’s third-largest political party — the NDP — is resetting its Israel policy. Its leader, Jagmeet Singh, reportedly wrote in an email to supporters that, “The Liberal government’s record on (the Israel-Palestine) issue is more than disappointing: it flies in the face of their claim to stand up for human rights and international law.… We believe Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories is at the centre of the challenges facing the Palestinian and Israeli people.”
Singh also accused Israel of breaching international law, said he wants Israel referred to the International Criminal Court and that he wants Canada to accept the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports that accused Israel of practising apartheid. This aggressive posturing by a major political party is especially dangerous because the NDP has a governance deal with the minority Liberal government. In other words, the NDP has influence with the government.
So what does this have to do with the Abraham Accords? Everything.
The so-called Arab-Israeli conflict is over. There is an Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an Iranian-Israeli conflict, but Israel is no longer in conflict with the Arab world. Practically everyone in the Middle East gets this, but it is completely lost on the social justice warriors who dominate the discourse in many western governments and on university campuses.
Here is the truth: since the Abraham Accords have come into being, the reality of the Jewish state is at odds with the narrative peddled by its detractors. They need to understand this. The Abraham Accords have shattered Israel’s isolation. They are creating a paradigm shift and a sense of normalcy for Jewish and Arab citizens alike, including within the Arab world itself.
We need to start making it clear that those who oppose Israel, who slander and defame her, are working from an old playbook. Israel’s detractors refuse to see the Arab student working at the Nike store alongside Jewish youth in Tel Aviv, or the young Arab women running a coffee shop in the mixed Israeli-Arab city of Karmiel.
The Abraham Accords afford us the opportunity to force a change in the narrative. Here is the new narrative that is true in the Middle East today: the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has failed and Israel is thriving; very few believe the slander that Israel is an “apartheid” state; Israel is no longer isolated; the Abraham Accords made the so-called Palestinian veto obsolete; and there is no more Arab-Israeli conflict.
We still need to protect our past and defend our future. The fight against antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel is very much alive. But we must make it clear in the West that the old, demeaning arguments about Israel are irrelevant today.
National Post
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/avi-benlolo-israels-detractors-cling-to-stale-out-of-date-arguments
Tehran has threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the map before. The radical regime reached another low in its terror campaign this week when it published another direct threat to launch a missile attack against the Jewish State. The ayatollah’s mouthpiece, The Tehran Times, published a map of Israel with dozens of target sites Iran says its missiles could reach. “Just one wrong move!” threatened the headline.
In March, the Iranians revealed the existence of an underground missile complex — a “missile city.” Satellite images taken Saturday by California-based imaging company Planet Labs Inc. and obtained by The Associated Press showed what appear to be launch preparations at Iran’s Imam Khomeini Spaceport. This is clearly in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which called upon Iran not to take any action involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Without question, the Iranians are striving for Middle East dominance, destabilizing the region. This week, they harshly criticized the United Arab Emirates for hosting an official visit with Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the first of its kind. For them, there is no making peace, and the Abraham Accords, which are fostering new and positive aspirations throughout the region, are counterintuitive to the Islamic Revolution which took hold of the country in 1979. Iran is striving for regional hegemony and as Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, pointed out this week, it is “working to weaken American resolve and get Washington to withdraw, so that Iran can inherit the region as its own.”
Other than a radicalized version of Islam that rejects Judaism, there is little rhyme or reason for Iran’s hostility. It shares no border with Israel. It has no historic or present territorial claim and has never had an all-out war with the Jewish State. Although Iran was one of 13 countries voting against the UN Partition Plan in 1947, its relations with Israel, particularly from the mid 1950s until 1979, are sometimes defined as having been “friendly,” with trade and diplomacy flourishing between the countries.
Its U-turn not only against Israel, but also against America with the violent overrunning of its embassy, was a necessary confrontation with the West. The new Islamic regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini declared Israel an “enemy of Islam” and "The Little Satan," while the United States was called "The Great Satan." Its sharp anti-West stance was irrational yet necessary for a new national identity that provided supreme religious control over Iranians and an external enemy that would build cohesion and unity internally and externally over the next 40 years.
With this, and while Iranians have no particular historic affiliation with Fatah or the Palestine Liberation Organization, the mullahs quickly adopted their cause to overthrow what they refer to as the “Zionist regime.” In so doing, they have aligned themselves with vicious anti-Israel terror organizations including Hezbollah and Hamas, whom they now use as proxies against Israel and the West. Indeed, just this week, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian congratulated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on the anniversary of the founding of the Hamas "resistance movement.”
According to one published report, Abdollahian told Haniyeh: "The fake Zionist regime is the mother of all calamities and the root-cause of problems in the region and, therefore, the few regional countries that move toward normalizing ties with this fabricated regime are acting against the security and interests of the region and the Muslim ummah.” With this in mind, and through its proxies in the Middle East and now in Yemen, there is little doubt Iran is a serious threat not only to Israel, but to the world at large.
Last year, Iran was responsible for shooting down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 with 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents on board. It has fired missiles on an American base in Iraq; been implicated in the murders of American soldiers in Lebanon; and has been held responsible for the 1994 terrorist attack on the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires that killed 86 and injured more than 200. Today, its tentacles are far deeper around the world as it cements relationships with Venezuela, China, Russia and numerous African nations.
All this knowledge begs one question: how can Iran be trusted with nuclear weapons? Driven by a radical Islamic ideology that is hell-bent on committing a second Holocaust, the ayatollahs are the greatest threat to global stability. “Iran’s nuclear weapons program is no longer years or even decades away from completion, but on the verge of a real breakout”, says David Pollock of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Similarly, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, says the 2015 nuclear deal is no longer sufficient for the reality of Iran in 2022: “There’s no other country other than those making nuclear weapons reaching those high levels” of uranium enrichment, he told The Associated Press.
As the nuclear talks with Iran resume in Vienna, European and American leaders are coming to the realization that they are spinning their wheels. Iran’s negotiation prowess is well known. It tricked the Obama administration into ponying up $1.7 billion, which ultimately only strengthened Tehran's weapons development program and terror activities in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Now it’s clear the Iranian regime is biding its time. A deal would only buy Tehran more time and destabilize the region. As hard a pill it might be for the Biden administration to swallow, it must act decisively now by returning to sanctions and freezing Iran’s ability to mobilize.
The nuclear clock is closing in on midnight. Iran has blatantly threatened America’s ally, Israel. The time for action is now.
National Post December 17, 2021
Despite the fact Jews were scattered in Arab-dominant lands for more than 2,000 years, their rich history has been mostly silent. However, attention to their plight has gained momentum in the past several years, culminating in the naming of Nov. 30 as an official memorial day to mark their expulsion and departure from Arab countries and Iran. The date was chosen for symbolic reasons as it was soon after the Nov. 29, 1947, United Nations announcement of a partition plan for Israel and an Arab state that Jews in neighbouring Arab and Persian countries started to experience hostility there.
With the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel in 1948, Arab nationalism and anti-Semitism increased and Jews living in Muslim-majority nations had little choice but to flee. While German Nazism inspired and emboldened violence against Jewish communities between 1940-1945 in Arab-majority lands, the soil was fertile for Arab states to turn against their own Jewish citizens once the declaration for an independent Jewish state had been made in Tel Aviv.
Thus came about the beginning of the end of an incredible and rich history. Palestinians often claim that 1948 was the “nakba” for their descendants. But what is often ignored is that over one million Jews living in Arab lands would also experience their own "catastrophe" that has never been acknowledged or compensated. They became refugees overnight — uprooted from their homes and communities. Most found refuge in the fledgling State of Israel, while others moved to France, Canada and America.
Their communities, families and cultures were shattered into a million pieces. To put this devastation into perspective, some 265,000 Moroccan Jews left behind their homes; 140,000 Algerian and 105,000 Tunisian Jews locked up their ancient synagogues and cemeteries; 75,000 Egyptian and 135,000 Iraqi Jews closed their schools and businesses; 63,000 Yemeni Jews were airlifted to Israel; and Syrian, Lebanese, Persian, Turkish and Libyan Jews made their dangerous trek to Israel on barges and across deserts.
Despite the fact that many Jews from Arab lands were educated professionals, they faced hardship and often times discrimination in Israel. My own grandparents, having lived a modern, well-heeled cosmopolitan life in Casablanca and having been educated in the Alliance French school system, were sent to a refugee camp in the southern city of Ashkelon. In one of his last letters before passing away from an illness at the young age of 46, my grandfather spoke of his daily challenges adapting to his new life.
Alongside Jews from Arab lands is a tapestry of Jews from Spain and Portugal, often referred to as Sephardim. Within Sephardic tapestry are many other nationalities including Jews from Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece. Following the Spanish Inquisition, many more Jews scattered to Arab lands, mainly to Morocco and Turkey. Christian historians recall 1492 as the year Columbus set sail to the New World. Jewish historians recall the date for when Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain issued a decree to that Jews must convert, leave or die. This is how Ladino (the yiddish for many Sephardic Jews) came to be spoken mostly throughout the Ottoman empire.
The ancient Greek Jewish community of Thessaloniki was completely wiped out by the Nazis who murdered 46,700 people. In fact, had the Holocaust lasted one or two more years, Jews living in Arab lands would have been Hitler's next target.
The Nazis were establishing fronts all over the Middle East, readying themselves for their next phase of world domination once Europe was taken. Their control of Vichy France now put them in reach of Jewish communities throughout the region. In Morocco, Nazis began to compile lists of Jews and forced to move into ghettos (mellahs). In Algeria they were stripped of their French citizenship, and in Tunisia the SS Einsatzkommando began operations, putting 5,000 Jews to forced labour. In Egypt, SS commander Erwin Rommel created a mobile killing unit to murder Jews there and in the Holy Land.
Some would call the departure of Jews from Arab lands a modern-day exodus to the Jewish homeland. The promised land of our forefathers — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The land that Moses would never see, but was promised to him by G-d. The land that Sephardic Jews — along with Ashkenazi Jews — had been praying toward for millennia. "Next year in Jerusalem" they would call out in prayer from the synagogues they had built after being scattered 2,300 years earlier with the destruction of their temple in Jerusalem.
Sephardic Jewry is rich in culture and tapestry. Yet, despite its incredible scholarly and Judaic tradition, it has been left on the margin of history. Among its greatest luminaries was Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, also known as Maimonides — one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. His "The Guide for the Perplexed" is one of the most cherished books in my library and is venerated by most religious and philosophical scholars.
Justice for Jews from Arab lands means bringing their vibrant history and legacy in from the margins of history.
National Post November 26, 2021
In a world turned upside down, where right and wrong are based on whomever has the loudest voice and the strongest propaganda machine, attacks on democracies and fundamental human rights are becoming commonplace. The decline of democracies and the growing power of totalitarian dictatorships means that countries that are antithetical to freedom and human dignity have ever-increasing power in international organizations.
Last week, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, criticized the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for its well-documented disproportionate condemnation of Israel. In an impassioned speech to the General Assembly, he tore up the organization’s annual report and called out the UNHRC’s “obsessive anti-Israel bias.”
“Since the establishment of the council 15 years ago, it has decided to blame and condemn Israel not 10 times like Iran or 35 times like Syria," said Erdan. "The Human Rights Council has attacked Israel with 95 resolutions compared to 142 against all other countries combined.”
No state should be immune to criticism, but the sheer bias and hypocrisy of the United Nations and its affiliate agencies diminishes the organization’s credibility. Though the UN has a critically important role to play in world affairs, especially when it comes to alleviating poverty and war, its credibility wanes when it fails to adhere to its own charter, which champions human rights and freedoms.
An attack on the only democracy in the Middle East is an attack on anyone who cherishes the very principles of freedom and democracy. No other country on earth is put under the magnifying glass in as much as Israel is by the United Nations and its affiliate agencies. No other country is on the permanent agenda of the UNHRC and discussed ad nauseam and investigated relentlessly.
Even the UN-affiliated International Criminal Court relented to Palestinian propaganda by saying it would investigate the Jewish state for alleged war crimes. Yet the same court is refusing to launch a war crimes investigation against Syrian President Bashar Assad, despite documented evidence of his complicity in the gassing and murder of children, women and men during the decade-old civil war in that country.
The General Assembly’s relentless focus on Israel shifts attention from ongoing global human rights travesties almost everywhere on the planet. While the UN devotes much of its human rights work to demonizing Israel, China has steamrolled the last vestiges of Hong Kong democracy and is throwing democrats in jail.
A military coup is unfolding in Sudan and at least three pro-democracy demonstrators were killed and 100 wounded for protesting military rule. Yet the world is silent. A war is raging in Ethiopia's Tigray region between rebels and the government that has left scores of civilians dead and has left 400,000 people on the brink of famine. Yet the world is silent. In Libya, more than 5,000 refugees and migrants have been arrested by authorities, many of them suffering physical and sexual violence. Yet the world is silent.
What the world is not silent about is Israel. It makes no difference that Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip recently sentenced two men to death on allegations that they collaborated with Israel.
A recent poll published by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Research found that 71 per cent of West Bankers and 62 per cent of Gazans say they fear speaking out against their government. In other words, those in the Palestinian territories live under a constant threat of violence and repression and don't enjoy the same freedoms as those living in Israel — yet it is the Jewish state that the world is focused on.
Ignoring severe and serious human rights issues around the planet while spending undue time, energy and money on Israel not only diminishes the important role the United Nations can play in global affairs, but also turns attention from serious human rights abuses around the world.
The UN has become a political instrument for Israel’s enemies and detractors. And because democracies represent a minority of nations within the organization, their voices have been consistently diminishing. This threatens the very essence of the UN Charter and must be immediately addressed if we are to make the world a better place for everyone.
National Post - November 5 2021
Eleven Jewish worshippers were murdered by a white supremacist at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh three years ago this week. It was the largest ever domestic shooting attack against the North American Jewish community, sending our institutions into lockdown mode. Police increased their presence in Jewish neighbourhoods, security guards were posted at schools, and unprecedented debates ensued — should worshippers arm themselves for self-protection? The shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, Calif., six months later, which left a woman dead and three others injured, heightened concerns.
To mark the Tree of Life anniversary on Oct. 27, the White House released a statement from Vice-President Kamala Harris: “We stand in solidarity with the Squirrel Hill community and the entire Jewish community. We will never forget those lives that were taken. And we recommit to combat antisemitism wherever it exists.” But as we near another important date in a litany of attacks against the Jewish community, Kristallnacht, we wonder if anything has truly changed.
The "Night of Broken Glass" was the mass start to the Holocaust on Nov. 9, 1938, in which 267 synagogues were destroyed and schools, hospitals, homes and businesses were ransacked. Some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. The Times of London observed on Nov. 11, 1938, that “No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday.”
The echoes of the Holocaust are with us every day. This week, a 96-year-old woman is on trial in Germany for her alleged role as an accessory to the murder of thousands of people at the Stutthof concentration camp. Over 60,000 people were killed at that camp including Jews and non-Jews. In Paris this week, two men went on trial for the alleged killing of an 85-year-old French Holocaust survivor. Mireille Knoll was stabbed to death in 2018 in her Paris apartment in what prosecutors are calling an anti-Semitic attack. Let’s hope her killers don’t evade justice, as was the case with the murderer of Sarah Halimi in Paris in 2017.
The ideology of hate and anti-Semitism still haunts the Jewish diaspora 83 years after Kristallnacht. The White House notes that more hate crimes “were committed in the U.S. last year than any point in the last 20 years.” As in most other nations, the most affected group has been the Jewish community. Two studies released this week by American organizations affirm this rising trend. Not surprisingly, Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League found that a third of Jewish college students in the U.S. had experienced anti-Semitism in the past year. The American Jewish Committee reports that three per cent of American Jewish adults were the victims of physical anti-Semitic attacks while 82 per cent of American Jews say anti-Semitism has increased over the past five years.
If the lead-up to Kristallnacht is any indication about the safety and security of Jewish communities everywhere, we are in for turbulent times. Just this week, Neo-Nazis staged an anti-Semitic demonstration outside a Jewish community centre in San Antonio. They held up a banner that said, “Honk if you know the Holocaust is a fake.” In Brooklyn, two men reportedly lobbed anti-Jewish and anti-gay slurs at a 17-year-old boy before pulling a knife on him in an unprovoked confrontation at a local gas station. In Canada, staff working for a business located in Nanaimo, B.C., discovered a large red swastika sprayed on the window of the establishment on the morning of Oct. 15. This incident took place just two days after a swastika was found drawn into cement in the area of Cameron Island, also in British Columbia.
For most of us, it’s hard to fathom what drives a person to enter a synagogue or any place of worship and massacre its congregants. But incitement and propaganda motivates violence. This week a Chilean newspaper drew outrage when it published a tribute to Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering. The Jewish community of Chile called the article, which was timed with the 75th anniversary of Georing’s death, “an apology for Nazism,” while the German embassy in Santiago condemned the piecen saying that Goering committed “crimes against humanity.” Nazism should never be venerated.
The only thing standing between the Jewish people and the rising tide of anti-Semitism is the State of Israel. While here in the diaspora we must continue to fight against this pernicious scourge, there is no greater assurance than the promise of the promised land for the safety and security of the Jewish people.
National Post October 29, 2021
JERUSALEM — Dusk settles upon Jerusalem. The glow of the beautiful Middle Eastern sun is fading fast as the hills around my hotel balcony flicker in radiance. In the distance one can hear the Muslim call to prayer from the various minarets dotting the valleys and hilltops. An Orthodox Jew walks on, not giving the call to prayer a second thought. It's part of the fabric of everyday life in the Holy City.
A massive Israeli flag atop a building waves proudly in this cool October breeze. New skyscrapers dot the skyline along with dozens of cranes signalling where buildings are rising. Arab and Jewish children are seen laughing as they walk home from school. The city is alive.
Yet in this city, peace means the absence of conflict. It has seen its share of terrorist attacks, shootings and car rammings. Violence like the one that inspired Gaza’s war on Israel this summer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque is only a heartbeat away. Conflict is simmering beneath the surface of this magical place. In a quest for solutions, over the past few months, I have met with a number of Israelis and non-governmental leaders, including heads of the United Nations and its affiliate organizations. Most have extended a hand and shown a willingness to have a conversation. It’s a start.
I stress that we need to confront issues head-on in a mature and productive manner. Finding game-changing solutions and flipping existing paradigms on their heads requires open and honest debates. They may lead to policy changes on the ground. In recent months, I have met with the top leaders of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) here in Jerusalem and in New York to discuss concerns about anti-Semitism and incitement to terror in curriculum at their schools. Holding them directly to account and discussing issues face to face — rather than through press releases — can be impactful. We are all under few illusions, but dialogue may eventually foster substantive reforms.
Time has venerated those who have taken chances to advance peace and normalization in this region. At great personal risk, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat gave up on warring with Israel and extended a hand in peace to Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin. Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin broke with tradition and signed on to the Oslo Accords with Yasser Arafat in an attempt to bring peace and transform the Middle East. This set the stage for peace with Jordan and unexpectedly in the past year, a warm and fruitful peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan and Israel.
There is a new reality on the ground. Accountability, truth and reconciliation are imperative if peace is going to be advanced in this region. The current anti-normalization campaign initiated by the Palestinian Authority as a boycott against dialogue and peace-building measures must end if peace is to be attained. According to one Palestinian leader who spoke with me off the record, there is a stalemate in ordinary human relations between Israelis and Palestinians who live in the West Bank. Both groups are effectively sitting in a virtual no man's land waiting for Godot to call. Even in the Holy Land, miracles are in short supply these days, especially when there is little effort to bring the sides together.
In my extensive conversations with Israelis, Palestinians and heads of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), it has become apparent a new roadmap is urgently needed to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the security threat posed by Hamas in Gaza. Most leaders agree that regime changes in Ramallah and Gaza are vital to remove the corruption and end the oppression of the Palestinian population. A reformed political system with democratic elections is vital to bring about hope, safety and security. Palestinian leaders need to be made accountable to their people.
NGOs can have a significant impact in reducing conflict. This can be accomplished through new and innovative educational programs aimed to promote equality, diversity and tolerance. Condemnation of anti-Semitism, hatred and incitement must be at the forefront of curricula that can inspire and empower students to new modes of acceptance and awareness. Unlike state actors, NGOs can facilitate projects and programs that bring Palestinians and Israelis together, creating a vast social network that renews social discourse in the pursuit of peace.
These goals are ambitious, say UN officials. I think we need to begin with incremental steps that open dialogue and inspire social change. We need to be courageous and ambitious if we are going to create a safe and secure Israel and Middle East for everyone.
If the word “chutzpah” had another name it would be the now infamous UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. A laughable name for a sham of a conference that was first held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, ostensibly to set policy against global hatred. Instead, it became a watershed moment that launched a new wave of radical anti-Semitism and terrorism around the globe. Even though the conference was weaponized against Israel and the Jewish people, the United Nations shockingly plans on celebrating its 20th anniversary on Sept. 22.
Canada took the moral high ground by announcing it will not participate in Durban. “Canada remains committed, at home and abroad, including at the UN, to advancing human rights, inclusion and combatting anti-Semitism, islamophobia and systemic racism in all its forms,” Global Affairs Canada spokesman Grantly Franklin said. “Canada opposes initiatives at the United Nations and in other multilateral forums that unfairly single out and target Israel for criticism.
The decision came after both the U.S. and Australia voted against the UN General Assembly resolution that called for the one-day conference to reaffirm the 2001 international fiasco that saw many nations — including Canada — walk out in protest of the obvious anti-Israel bias.
Copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious anti-Semitic forgery, were sold on the grounds of the 2001 conference. Leaflets saying “Hitler should have finished the job” were also reportedly circulated and Jewish participants had to endure chants like “Zionism is racism, Israel is apartheid.” The Jewish Centre in Durban was forced to close down because of threats of violence. All of these hostile and newly energized anti-Semitic activists were then defused into the world to spread their venom. And that they did.
The conference’s final declaration legitimized the global ideological attack on Israel. Only the Palestinians were listed as victims of racism and Israel was portrayed as the world’s leading purveyor of hate and intolerance. Israel was singled out alone and designated for boycott and endless campaigns, which are still being embraced to this day by UN bodies, including most recently the International Criminal Court.
A wave of new anti-Semitism began under cover of the 2001 Durban conference. Almost immediately after, anti-Israel agitators around the world began a campaign of defamation falsely connecting the South African apartheid model to the modern state of Israel. They used both the location of the conference and its extreme anti-Israel sentiment to launch campaigns, particularly on university campuses, referring to Israel as an “apartheid state.” In fact, the University of Toronto-made “Israeli Apartheid Week” was a direct manifestation of this framework and resulted in some 20 years of hostility and victimization of Jewish students as it infected campuses all over the world.
The South African government was rightfully castigated by the world community for the crime of apartheid. By attempting to link Israel to apartheid, its opponents still aim to delegitimize, disrupt and destroy the Jewish State. A conference that was supposed to be against hate and intolerance set into motion a wave of anti-Semitism that has spiralled out of control on our campuses, in some unions and even in some political parties.
Our city streets have even become avenues of hate, especially once a year when Iranian-backed anti-Israel groups put on an event called “Al-Quds Day,” which aims to “liberate Jerusalem,” violently if necessary. The Toronto group’s poster for this weekend’s event outrageously says it is “United Against Apartheid.”
The legacy of Durban is shocking in its radicalism and perseverance to profess any sort of legitimacy. At its followup conference in 2009, its organizers invited then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as one of its keynote speakers. This was despite the fact he and the Iranian regime called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and their open denial of the Holocaust — through an international anti-Semitic cartoon contest. Denunciations followed but the organizers still went ahead and scheduled a followup conference in 2011 and now have the gall to allocate funding and schedule its anniversary at the United Nations.
Any state actor or NGO that on one hand condemns anti-Semitism while on the other supports Durban IV should carefully reflect upon their consistency of action and language. It’s time for other democracies like Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Poland to once again join hands. In light of the violent anti-Semitism that is engulfing many European nations like France and the U.K., isn’t it time for these heavyweights to also join Canada, the U.S. Australia and Israel in denouncing this latest chutzpah by the United Nations?
Let’s be honest, the world does indeed require a framework to advance human rights and the fight against all forms of discrimination. Hate groups that are unfairly targeting the only democratic state in the Middle East for political and racist interests are providing a disservice to our cherished global community. By adhering to the true values of the UN Declaration for Human Rights, righteous national actors and NGOs can speak for the millions of Syrians who are languishing in refugee camps because of Bashar Al-Assad’s genocide; for a strong Iranian movement that desires democracy and peace with its neighbours and an end to the murders of innocent dissenters; and for the over one million Uyghurs who are being ethnically cleansed by China.
By targeting Israel, these regimes and their accomplices are focusing attention away from their own oppressive conditions.
The world is dangerously teetering on a loss of morality. If any country is suffering from apartheid, it's Israel. The world community repeatedly targets and demeans the Jewish state because it is a Jewish state. That double standard and separation from fairness and equality amounts to the world practicing apartheid on Israel — not the other way around by any measure. It’s time to dump Durban and start afresh.
Liam Neeson’s 2008 movie “Taken,” the first in the action-packed Taken franchise, shocked viewers with the kidnapping of innocents by international criminal elements. At the time of the movie's release, kidnapping for ransom by terrorist organizations had already become commonplace in many places around the globe. Canada’s Amanda Lindhout, for instance, was kidnapped for ransom by Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia in August 2008. Her memoir, A House in the Sky, details the horrific torture and abuse she endured for 15 months.
From rogue terrorist organizations to such criminal elements as those depicted in Taken, the hostage-taking industry has morphed into a state-sponsored initiative in this increasingly unsafe world.
In one case, which was largely kept out of the media as requested by the family (a common theme for most hostage takings), three Jewish men who went to Nigeria to film a Jewish tribe as part of a documentary about far-flung African Jewish communities, were wrongfully taken on July 9, 2021, without charge.
Rudy Rochman, Andrew (Noam) Leibman and Edouard David Benaym were finally released this week. In a statement posted on Instagram on Wednesday, the men said they were "caged and held for 20 days in horrendous conditions, locked into a small cell, sleeping on the floor with no access to showers or clean clothes."
They were interrogated and mistreated without ever being charged. What reportedly drew the ire of Nigeria's Department of State Services (DSS), the country's internal security service, was the presentation of a Torah scroll to the Jewish community. It was suspected the filmmakers had come into contact with Biafran separatists.
Nowhere is safe. Being taken without charge or on trumped-up charges by a foreign government has become a common theme in geo-politics. Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig have been held hostage by China since December 2018. Their imprisonment is clearly the result of a spat between China, the U.S. and Canada over Canada's detainment of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request. Whether called “hostage diplomacy” or outright state-sponsored kidnapping, the stage is set for an increasingly dangerous and perilous world, especially for journalists, diplomats and human rights defenders.
In another instance of state-sponsored hostage-taking, Belarusian dissident blogger Roman Protasevich, flying from a conference in Athens to his home in Lithuania on May 23, was arrested after Belarusian authorities used an alleged bomb threat (which turned out to be unsubstantiated) to force the Ryanair plane to be diverted and land in Minsk. Protasevich's kidnapping been condemned worldwide and sanctions have been imposed on Belarus. What is clear for anyone who blogs or even tweets a message is that none of us is safe, and our individual human rights and freedoms are at stake.
In another case, Nizar Banat, an outspoken critic of the Palestinian Authority who planned to run in the now-cancelled parliamentary elections, was killed during his arrest. Coincidentally, he had been calling on Western nations to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority because of increasing authoritarianism and human rights violations.
Arbitrary arrests, kidnappings and state-sponsored hostage-takings have prompted global allies to join Canada in a joint declaration against this growing trend.
On Feb. 15, 57 nations including the U.S., Japan, Britain and Australia plus the European Union signed the Canadian initiative to stop arbitrary detentions. An additional seven nations endorsed the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations on July 22.
Canada said the initiative was motivated by the arrests of foreigners by China, Iran, Russia and North Korea. It can now also add Nigeria to the list of offenders. Western nations are rightfully paying attention to this crisis, with the British parliament’s foreign affairs committee deeming Iran’s “arbitrary detention of foreign nationals” to be hostage-taking. This was in response to the case of British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was jailed in 2016 after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran’s clerical establishment. Although Zaghari-Ratcliffe was moved from prison due to the coronavirus pandemic and placed under house arrest, she was sentenced this spring to another year in prison.
With the decline of democracy and the rise of tyranny and instability around the world, the threat to individual rights and freedom has increased spectacularly. Taking precautions and evaluating personal risk have become a necessary part of travel and daily life. Rochman and his fellow filmmakers are fortunate to have survived their arbitrary arrest, and Nigeria should be held to account, possibly even placed on a recommended no-travel list. Given the fact that action heroes like Neeson can’t always come to our rescue, freedom should never be taken for granted and we must continue to fight for and protect it every single day.
Justice was served in America this week as Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd. Comparatively, in Paris, an anti-Semitic killer was effectively acquitted of the murder of a 65-year-old Jewish woman. Sarah Halimi, who has been described as a kind and gentle doctor, was in her apartment when a crazed man broke in, viciously beat her and threw her to her death from her third-floor balcony.
Clearly motivated by anti-Semitic hatred, he was heard by neighbours yelling “Allahu Akbar” ("God is great" in Arabic) and “Shaitan” (evil spirit) during the horrendous attack. However although he was clear-minded enough to yell anti-Semitic slurs, an upper French court, for the second time, refused to charge him with murder last week, saying his judgment was impaired because he was high on cannabis and therefore not criminally responsible.
In America, this hate-motivated crime would have elicited outrage. In France however, where violent anti-Semitism is near-normal, the farcical ruling has not been met with massive street demonstrations. To his credit, President Emmanuel Macron has condemned anti-Semitism many times and has said the laws regarding criminal responsibility must be changed. But the Jewish community currently feels more vulnerable than ever. Its leaders have said this latest ruling allows for attacks on Jewish people with impunity.
A lawyer representing the Halimi family, Oudy Bloch, was right to tell the media after the court's ruling that ,“Today we can smoke, snort and inject ourselves in high doses to the point of causing ourselves an ‘acute delirious puff’ which abolishes our ‘discernement,‘ and we will benefit from criminal irresponsibility. It’s a bad message that has been sent to French citizens of the Jewish faith.”
Jewish French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy wrote that “the derailment inflicted by the high court is revolting.” He added, “Indeed, we live in a country, France, where a man who throws his dog from his fourth floor is sentenced to a year in prison, whereas if he murders an old Jewish woman, he may face no consequences whatsoever.”
In 1898, another well-known French writer and philosopher dared to speak out against anti-Semitism by penning an open letter to the president and the government. Outraged about the clearly false charge of treason against a Jewish military hero named Alfred Dreyfus, Émile Zola wrote an incendiary letter entitled “J’accuse!” — effectively accusing the state of anti-Semitism.
Another witness to this travesty of justice happened to be covering the Dreyfus trial as a journalist. It was this watershed moment that prompted the father of the modern State of Israel, Theodor Herzl, to launch the Zionist movement that would establish the Jewish state as the protectorate of the Jewish people. With a front-row seat at the Dreyfus trial, Herzl was aghast at seeing the dark spectre of anti-Semitism in France. He would foresee the horrible tragedy about to unfold in Europe against the Jewish community (the Holocaust) and earnestly began campaigning for a Jewish homeland.
The famous French slogan — Liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, fraternity) did not apply to French Jews, especially during the Second World War. More than 75,000 Jewish citizens were deported from France by the Nazis, having been aided and abetted by the Vichy Nazi-puppet regime. Even while the post-war Jewish community of France has established wonderful communities and contributes incredibly to the nation, it continues to be impacted by anti-Semitism and terrorism on a daily basis.
A recent report surveying 11 European countries found that France is the most dangerous place to be a Jew in Europe. That report, conducted by a former NYPD commissioner, concluded that attacks and threats against French Jews surged 74 per cent from 2017-2018 while data in 2019 showed further intensification. One attack is too many. But estimates indicate there are at least 500 attacks on Jews in France each year.
While anti-Semitism has grown globally, with the European Union announcing this week it would be allocating $1.5 billion to fight the scourge, violence against Jews in France has almost become commonplace: In 2006, Ilan Halimi was brutally murdered by youth on his way home from work; in 2012, three children and a Rabbi were murdered in front of their Jewish Day School in Toulouse; and in 2015, four Jewish shoppers were murdered at the Hypercacher Kosher supermarket in Paris.
And who can forget (or forgive) the 2018 murder of 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll? She was stabbed to death 11 times by two assailants. Her murder has been described as an anti-Semitic hate crime.
When viewed in this historical context, Sarah Halimi’s murder is a travesty of justice that forever puts a black stain on the republic. Civil and human rights have to apply to all people equally and without distinction. America got it right in the case of Derek Chauvin. France got it wrong in the case of Sarah Halimi. May she be remembered for the goodness she brought upon this world and may her children be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. We will never forget.
Instead of prosecuting actual atrocities, the ICC has lost its legitimacy by going after the very people who suffered during the Holocaust and whose tragedy inspired and motivated the formation of international human rights conventions
The Biden administration announced that the United States will be rejoining the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) — an institution that has demonstrated an uncanny bias against Israel since its inception.
Since its establishment, the UNHRC has condemned Israel 90 times; whereas Syria, for all its evil transgressions and murder of some 350,000 civilians, has only been condemned 35 times, North Korea 13 times, Iran 10 and Venezuela only twice. No democracy in its right mind should be affiliated with UN agencies that have clearly become weaponized against Israel.
Thus, it was almost comedic when the International Criminal Court (ICC) joined the fray and announced that it has jurisdiction to investigate supposed war crimes in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza. The court has been pursuing this claim since 2015 with what appears to be a clear and unequivocal political agenda. Interestingly, and perhaps not coincidentally, the ICC came out with its decision not long after U.S. President Joe Biden assumed office.
The previous administration was frustrated with the ICC and even went as far as threatening economic and travel sanctions against the institution. An executive order signed by President Donald Trump last year clearly stated that, “Any attempt by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute any United States personnel without the consent of the United States, or of personnel of countries that are United States allies and who are not parties to the Rome Statute or have not otherwise consented to ICC jurisdiction, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
In a post-Holocaust world, the international community requires an international body that investigates and prosecutes war crimes. So many war criminals have gotten away with murder, only to live out their lives, marry and raise families. Just this week, Germany announced it had charged a 100-year-old man with over 3,500 murders that took place in Nazi concentration camps.
This comes on the heels of accessory to murder charges laid against a 95-year-old woman who worked during the war as the secretary of the SS commandant of the Stutthof concentration camp. In Canada this week, an accused 96-year-old ex-Nazi evaded deportation by having an immigration board hearing delayed, after his citizenship was revoked four times.
Where has the ICC been on the Nazi war criminal file over the last 25 years? Instead of prosecuting actual atrocities, it has lost its legitimacy by going after the very people who suffered during the Holocaust and whose tragedy inspired and motivated the formation of international human rights conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, arguably, the United Nations itself. With legitimacy lost, how can the world community count on the ICC to go after modern-day war criminals like Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has been accused of launching gas attacks against his own civilian population?
By clearing the way for it to investigate a free and democratic state that is not party to the Rome Statute, the ICC is losing public and international trust. Its position has already been condemned by countries that are widely respected in international legal circles.
In Canada, for example, Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau released the following statement: “The creation of a Palestinian state can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties. Until such negotiations succeed, Canada’s longstanding position remains that it does not recognize a Palestinian state and therefore does not recognize its accession to international treaties, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
Despite the fact that the court has no jurisdiction in Israel, it has effectively undermined peace negotiations by declaring that the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza qualify as a sovereign state. Nothing could be further from the truth. In response, the U.S. State Department declared that, “We do not believe the Palestinians qualify as a sovereign state, and therefore are not qualified to obtain membership as a state, or participate as a state in international organizations, entities or conferences, including the ICC.”
Even German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas weighed in, saying that, “In our legal view on jurisdiction of the ICC regarding alleged crimes committed in the Palestinian territories … the court has no jurisdiction because of the absence of the element of Palestinian statehood required by international law.” The ICC’s judges and prosecutors surely knew this, yet proceeded to execute the Palestinian lawfare campaign against Israel anyway, presumably to undercut the Jewish state’s growing international standing and legitimacy.
The ICC was a promise to the world that war criminals would not evade justice. Following the Holocaust, it became clear that so many Nazi war criminals got away with murder. In recent decades, while some war criminals have been prosecuted for crimes in Bosnia and Rwanda, thousands more have gotten away with murder. I hold out hope that the ICC will focus its energy on these atrocities and emerging concerns like the plight of the Chinese Uyghurs and Iranian civilians who are suffering at the hands of brutal regimes. No less than humanity’s moral standing is at stake.
Who would have thought that some 76 years after the Holocaust, babies would be gassed, teenagers would be brutally tortured and women would be raped at the hands of a barbarous regime?
Several years ago, Holocaust survivors cried out against the gassing of Syrian civilians. Horrific pictures streamed across our television screens of children lying on the floor in agony, after breathing in chlorine gas following an attack from Syrian forces. The many corpses lying on the street and in makeshift hospitals were reminiscent of images we have seen from other genocides. For Holocaust survivors, seeing these types of images again was agony.
Yet the world failed to act and the war in Syria, along with continued attacks on innocent civilians, did not stop. Between 350,000 and 500,000 civilians have been brutally murdered. Some 11 million became refugees, fleeing to other places in the Middle East, Europe and North America. Canada saved around 50,000 fleeing Syrians, while Israel set up a tent hospital on its border to treat the injured.
Syrian President Bashar Assad may have regained control of his country, but he has blood on his hands, as do his senior government and military officials. A scathing “60 Minutes” documentary that aired this week revealed the extent of the war crimes committed by the Assad regime. It featured activist Mouaz Moustafa, who has received thousands of photographs of civilians who were allegedly tortured to death and has been sharing them with the world, in an effort to hold Assad and his enablers to account.
Moustafa’s Syrian Emergency Task Force is said to have received some 50,000 photographs from an anonymous military photographer who goes by the alias Caesar. Alongside numerous documents said to have been signed by Assad himself, the photographs provide some of the most damning evidence of the most horrific crimes imaginable.
Who would have thought that some 76 years after the Holocaust, babies would be gassed, teenagers would be brutally tortured and women would be raped at the hands of a brutal regime? How can the world allow Assad to get away with murder, as it did the Nazis?
If we are serious about human rights and preventing mass atrocities, why is the International Criminal Court (ICC) silent on Syria? Its spokesperson, Fadi el-Abdallah, told me that the “ICC has not opened an investigation in relation to Syria.” The ICC is currently investigating places like Uganda, Darfur, Mali, Georgia and Burundi, but not Syria — a country that arguably has committed more documented war crime than any other.
When asked why, el-Abdallah said that, “Syria is not a state party to the Rome Statute and has not accepted the ICC jurisdiction. Thus, crimes committed by its citizens on its own territories do not fall under the ICC jurisdiction, unless the (United Nations Security Council) would refer the situation to the ICC, which has not happened to date.”
Given the fact that Russia has veto power on the Security Council and is militarily involved in Syria and backing Assad, it’s highly unlikely that the council would ever refer the matter to the ICC. But the court’s excuses have become all the more problematic following the ICC’s recent ruling that it has jurisdiction to investigate Israel and the Palestinian Authority over alleged war crimes, despite the fact that Israel is not a state party to the Rome Statute and the Palestinian Authority is not a recognized state.
The ICC was able to circumvent the UN Security Council in order to go after Israel by claiming that the Palestinian Authority is party to the Rome Statute. Surely it could find a loophole to allow it to go after Syria, if there was a will to do so.
The UN’s high commissioner for human rights also seems to be taking exception to the court’s inaction, but has had little success in changing its ways. Marking the 10th anniversary of the conflict, the Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic released a 20-page report documenting “the most heinous of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law perpetrated against the civilian population in Syria since March 2011.” It concludes that, “Such acts are likely to constitute crimes against humanity, war crimes and other international crimes, including genocide.”
A spokesperson at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights told me that they have tried to get the UN Security Council to refer the matter to the ICC, noting that, “This matter has not been referred to the ICC, despite the several calls by the commission of inquiry, and numerous recommendations by the Human Rights Council for the UN Security Council to do so.” The commission is now looking at other “areas of criminal justice” to address the matter of war crimes.
Despite the ICC’s inaction, there are things that Western countries like Canada can do to defend human rights. In 2019, the United States passed the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, which targets the Assad regime and its allies — including Russia, Iran and Hezbollah — with economic sanctions.
Canada can also take a lead in this effort by invoking its so-called Magnitsky act against officials in the Assad regime and putting in place sanctions that prevent the murderous regime from operating freely. Given our experience with the Holocaust, anyone who believes in human rights should never allow war criminals like Assad to get away with murder.
The International Court must immediately launch an investigation into war crimes committed by Syria and Bashar Al Assad. More evidence has come to light in recent days of some 50,000 photographs and documents that allegedly prove crimes against humanity have been committed.
In our investigation into these allegations, we contacted the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague directly to inquire if an investigation had been launched. The ICC advised that it had not launched an investigation citing that Syria was not party to the Rome Statute and the matter had not been referred to the ICC by the UN Security Council.
The two excuses mentioned by the ICC appear to contradict its own mandate given it recently green-lighted an investigation into Israel and Palestinian allegations. Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute that governs the ICC, while the International community contends that the Palestinian Authority is not a sovereign state and therefore cannot be a party to the Rome Statute.
Yet, despite no referral from the UN Security Council, the ICC determined it is within its right to launch an investigation against Israel. If it created a loophole allowing for an investigation against Israel, then the case against Syria should be a no brainer. The ICC has now shown the world that it can very well find a way to empower itself. By not going after Syria, it is politicizing itself.
The UN's High Commission told us that it has repeatedly made several calls for an investigation to be launched against Syria by the ICC. Despite the fact it recently released a report that states that war crimes and possibly a genocide has been committed by Syria, the High Commission says it is now at an "impasse". It is waiting for the ICC to take action and in the meantime, is looking at "criminal justice" options.
The world community has a moral and ethical obligation to pressure the ICC and the UN High Commission on Human Rights to prosecute war criminals like Bashar Al Assad. If we learned anything from the Holocaust and from genocides that follow, it's that we cannot let war criminals get away with murder.
"Several years ago, I stood alongside several Holocaust survivors as we cried out against the gassing of Syrian civilians. Horrific pictures streamed across our television screens of children lying on the floor in agony, after breathing chlorine gas following an attack from Syrian forces. the many corpses lying on the street and in the makeshift hospitals were reminiscent of images we have seen from other genocides. For Holocaust survivors, seeing these types of images again was agony".
The United Nations Human Rights Commission has passed a number of unfair and clearly biased resolutions passed against the State of Israel. No other nation must suffer such abuse of its rights and sovereignty as does the Jewish nation. It's a simple act of Antisemitism and one sided discrimination against Israel.
Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today that the UN's Human Rights Council is "blinded by political bias against Israel, sponsored by the world's leading autocracies".
Israel was once more attacked over the last couple of days as a resolution against "Israeli occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem passed 42-3, with two abstentions. Then there was another one against Israeli settlements that was approved 36-3 with eight abstentions. Finally, a resolution condemning Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights was approved 26-18 with three abstentions.
As we have said elsewhere, despite the genocide in Syria; human rights abuses against women and gay rights in Iran; concentration camps in China and trafficking of children in many parts of Africa - Israel is the only country that has a dedicated and permanent agenda item (#7) by the UNHRC.
Israel's permanent representative, Meirav Eilon Shahar, in Geneva to the UNHRC said in a statement: "Item 7 was not created to improve the human rights of Palestinians, it was created to negate Israel & institutionalize hatred & bias against the only Jewish State. I urge Member States to take a stand. Vote against all resolutions presented under this Item".
Israel's Foreign Minister slammed the resolutions saying, "I thank all the countries who chose not to lend a hand to this circus and the systematic discrimination against Israel". Sadly, given the fact the new US administration has advised it will be rejoining the UNHRC, it appears to have become bolder and more venomous against Israel.
One of the positive surprise countries that stayed away from the Israel slamming sessions was Bahrain - a recent partner of Israel in the Abraham Peace Accords.
Ontario must reconsider the Standing Up Against Anti-Semitism in Ontario Act originally introduced in 2016. It was designed to counter the anti-Semitic economic campaign against Israel known as BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and address the growing anti-Jewish hatred in the province that is fuelled by the movement.
It provided the legislative muscle to reinforce Ontario’s commitment to its Jewish community and our friendship with Israel — a friendship solidified by then Premier Kathleen Wynn’s first mission to Israel and the principled stand she took in declaring this week that, “The BDS position is certainly not mine, nor is it that of our government, and I entirely oppose the movement. In fact, I stand firmly against any position that promotes or encourages anti-Semitism in any way.”
Despite these sentiments, the Premier instructed her party to vote against the law, in what was the most disappointing measure undertaken by the Liberal Party at the time. No matter, the Act is in fact a tremendous template for cities, states and provinces all over the world to consider and enact.
For the Jewish community, the BDS campaign is a reminder of the pre-Holocaust era, when the Nazis first enacted boycotts against Jewish businesses. In fact, businesses are often targeted right here in Ontario because they are owned by Jewish citizens or are trading with Israel.
Anti-Semitism is one of the oldest forms of hatred. Throughout time, Jewish communities have been decimated through inquisitions, crusades, pogroms and finally the Holocaust — all in the name of righteousness. There was always some good reason provided to justify the decision to oppress, isolate, marginalize, shame and murder Jews. Tellingly, almost every single sequence of anti-Semitism began with boycotts, separation, dehumanization and “divestment” of Jews.
This is exactly what is happening today. And this is why governments must respond.
To date, many U.S. states as well as the U.S. Congress and the Canadian House of Commons have enacted legislative initiatives in response to this form of anti-Semitism. Economic, cultural and academic anti-Semitism are forms of discrimination and have been defined as such by Canada (the Ottawa Protocol on Combating Anti-Semitism, 2011), the European Union and the U.S. State Department. A motion to condemn BDS was also passed this year by the government of Canada and the federal Conservative party.
The Standing Up Against Anti-Semitism iAct is an essential tool in combating this discrimination. It prohibits the government from entering into contracts with businesses that support or participate in BDS; provincial pension funds will now divest themselves of investments in businesses that boycott Israel. Additionally, as BDS campaigns are so prevalent on university campuses, the legislation prohibits college and university administrations from supporting or participating in the BDS movement. In other words, the act puts the weight of the government behind tolerance, and against hatred and intimidation.
Significantly, the act does not restrict free speech in any way. However, those who choose to discriminate against the Jewish people by refusing to do business with Israel or a Jewish-owned business will find that Ontario will not conduct business with them. Our province will not support intolerance and hate.
The BDS Campaign is an anti-peace movement that is impacting Palestinian workers as much as Israelis, and is furthering the wedge between the two communities. The shutdown of production plants like Soda Stream due to pressure from BDS campaigns has resulted in the loss of employment for many Palestinians who were working alongside Israelis.
One of the most frequent comments voiced by Holocaust survivors is their anguish so few people spoke out against the Nazis’ marginalization of the Jews in the years before the Holocaust happened. People went along to get along, even when they knew it was wrong. Today, we have the lessons of history to learn from and no excuse for inaction. No matter our political stripes, we should all stand up and speak out against anti-Semitism.
Just as we frown today on those who refused to speak out in the past, one day our actions will also be judged by those who come after us. Therefore, let our legacy be our commitment to speak out against hate and intolerance. Let us be the first generation that treats not only our Jewish community but all our diverse communities with respect, compassion and friendship.
As the G7 convenes, the case for advancing critical human rights issues is important now more than ever. The world will be laser focused about the dialogue that transpires especially among the democracies that make up the group.
G7 leaders are set to discuss violence in Ethiopia, Iran and North Korea and Somalia as part of "pressing geopolitical issues that threaten to undermine democracy, freedoms and human rights". G7 countries include: Britain, the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
Here are some additional critical areas of concern the G7 can engage in as foundation of human rights policy moving forward:
1. Recommending to the International Criminal Court that it issue an arrest warrant for Bashar Al Assad, the President of Syria. Assad and his regime is responsible for the genocide of hundreds of thousands of Syrians over the last decade. Documentation recently released by a former Syrian military photographer explicitly demonstrates orders were given from the highest echelons of the Syrian Regime.
2. With this in mind, the G7 must also demand the ICC immediately withdraw its investigation of Israel for alleged war crimes. The investigation has come under wide scrutiny over what appears to be a politicized process that was launched against Israel.
3. The G7 must demand that any consideration for the return of the United States to the JCPOA with respect to Iran - must involve Israel and the Gulf States in negotiations. Moreover, under no circumstance should Iran have an ability to develop nuclear or ballistic weapons. If Iran wishes to engage the free world, it must become a peaceful nation; desist from further hostility in the region and toward Israel and end its state sponsored campaign of antisemitism and Holocaust denial.
4. G7 nations (including Canada) must follow the U.S. in declaring they will not be participating in the UN sponsored so-called anti-racism conference known as Durban IV. The 2001 conference proved to be a farce, having inspired a new wave of antisemitism and boycotts against the Jewish State. Rather than promote human rights and counter racism, the conference specifically targeted Israel. Countries such as the U.S. and Canada deliberately walked out of the conference at the time for its vicious attack on the Jewish state.
5. The G7 must seek to take action over atrocities committed by China concerning the Uighur population. Over 1 million Uighur's are reportedly incarcerated in concentration camps. Some nations and human rights agencies have named this a genocide. Similarly, the G7 must confront critical human rights issues in Myanmar, where recently there was a coup and innocent civilians are being murdered in cold blood during protests.
6. The G7 must advance peace in the Middle East by demanding that the Palestinian Authority not suspend its elections. It must hold free and fair elections. It must also require that Hamas cease and desist firing rockets into Israel immediately. Failing this, G7 nations must immediately stop financial support of the Gaza strip including through UNWRA.
7. G7 nations must advance human rights by also reaffirming and condemning antisemitism. Over the course of the last couple of years especially, antisemitism has increased at alarming rates all over the world, including in G7 related countries. It's time for the G7 to take increased measures to stop the tide of antisemitism and the outgrowth of hate and intolerance in general.
8. Advancing human rights also includes a comprehensive global plan relating to Covid-19 vaccinations. First and foremost, ensuring the global population is urgently vaccinated and building more capacity. Second, for citizens who are vaccinated, opening borders and allowing for free travel at the earliest possible convenience, when health capacities permit. Finally, ensuring the most vulnerable people are vaccinated and are not left behind.
It is time for democracies to take a unified approach to protecting and preserving humanity. The G7 framework allows for this type of dialogue and effort.
Can we connect? Join me in this fight and I'll send you my new book, "Never Surrender".