george galloway speaks out against canada's new mccarthyism

George Galloway, currently on a cross-country speaking tour in Canada, has pledged the proceeds of his lawsuit against the Canadian government to the Canadian peace movement. He's been announcing this in local and national Canadian media all over the country, and the news has been rocketing through the anti-war movement. Galloway's generosity and strength of commitment is so energizing for all of us who work for peace.

On the tour, Galloway has also been addressing the recent conference of the misnamed "Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism," more properly called The Return of McCarthyism. In an excellent post, Paul S. Graham quoted Galloway:

Well, it’s all very mysterious. That’s the first point. The Canadian taxpayer paid a pretty penny for this conference, even though they were entirely locked out of it. No media were permitted in it. We have no proper record of who was there. The attendance list even has not been published despite the taxpayer funding the whole thing. And it’s all very mysterious – what it’s all about. And when we’ll see its impact on Canadian public life. But it would be a fair inference that its impact will be malign and that the current assault on free expression on this issue in Canada is going to be intensified as a result of these protocols.

I don’t think that this kind of secret conclave, coming up with – until now — secret protocols – is going to combat any antisemitism in Canada. As a matter of fact, it’s quite likely to generate greater feelings of enmity, which of course, I would deplore.

Antisemitism exists. It is a racist phenomenon that has long existed in Christian countries for many, many centuries. Like all forms of racism it must be combated, and combated in the correct way which successfully, hopefully, one day, extinguishes it.

But the answer to antisemitism is not to stop beating up the Jews and start beating up the Muslims. Instead, the answer is to conduct oneself in an unrelenting campaign against all forms of racism, bigotry and hatred – and that’s what I have done all of my life.

Insofar as I’ve seen anything from this secret conclave, it attempts something unique in the world – to make Israel the collective Jew. And this, itself, is a racist and therefore antisemitic idea. Israel is not the collective Jew. There is no collective Jew.

There are huge numbers of Jews who don’t want anything to do with Israel either from religious or secular, progressive standpoints. The population of Israel is not Jewish. There are at least 25 per cent of the population which is not Jewish and no one has the right to collectivize them as Jewish – to do what Lieberman is demanding they do themselves – to sign an oath effectively liquidating their place in the state as first class citizens.

And of course there are well over two and a half million – in fact, getting on for three million Christians and Muslims living under illegal occupation within the de facto borders of Israel today. And they too cannot be collectivized as Jews by the whim of a secret conclave in Ottawa. So I think it’s all rather disturbing.

But it raises what we used to call the $64,000 question, which is: Why is Canada doing this? Why has Canada become this monomaniacal supporter of the most extreme forms of support for Israel? Why has Canada allowed itself to become effectively an embassy for Netanyahu in the world?

It’s certainly not in Canada’s interest. I don’t believe it’s in the interests of the Jews of the world. And I don’t even believe it’s in the interests of the State of Israel. And it goes without saying it’s certainly not in the interests of the region as a whole and peace in the world.

Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) also has an excellent response to this dangerous trend.

Newcomers to wmtc may want to read this older post: "a simple lesson: how to tell the difference between hatred of a people and criticism of a nation's policies".

Today, George Galloway's second Toronto appearance is sold out, but you can catch him tomorrow in Hamilton, then in Vancouver, Calgary, Yellowknife, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Ottawa. Calgary is going to be fun. Tour dates and ticket info here.