Controversies at U of T Law, York University highlight escalating suppression of moderate voices criticizing Israel
JVL Introduction
We have reported before on the University of Toronto’s law school decision to deny a job to Valentina Azarova as director of the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, because of her past writings on the Middle East.
In this article from the Toronto Star, Shree Paradkar, puts the story in the context of a wider move in Canada to silence expressions of Palestinian solidarity
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Ande see this report which appeared just soon we posted the story below: Jewish Group Shocked at Ontario Government’s Anti-Democratic Move to Ram Through Flawed IHRA Antisemitism Definition
This article was originally published by The (Toronto) Star on Sun 25 Oct 2020. Read the original here.
Controversies at U of T Law, York University highlight escalating suppression of moderate voices criticizing Israel
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Excellent article..
Not too sure if this is addressing the points made – but I was absolutely furious to read Ed Balls piece in “Labour List” :
” … Failure to deal with antisemitism a tragedy and a disaster says Ed Balls..”
referring to an interview on Times Radio.
Included explicitly in the interview was a recording ofJeremy Corbyn from 2013 speaking at a meeting organised by the Palestinian Return Centre about the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Ed Balls referred to the “Zionists” who were mentioned by Corbyn in the recording as synonymous with the Jewish people – where there was no such intention by Corbyn. In fact the men all belonged to the Zionist Federation, a political organisation, and included a previous Vice President of that Organisation.
As for Corbyn’s speech being antisemitic – I believe the equating of “Zionists” with “the Jewish people” by Ed Balls is itself antisemitic? If not it is certainly a debasement of Public Discourse – which he should very well know.
I just checked out the Labourlist artcle that Margaret referred to in her post, and this is one of the things Ed Balls says:
“If Jeremy had come out quickly, in a very clear way, and said not only that antisemitism is wrong, but that it will be rooted out in the Labour Party, and that there are things I have done and said in the past, which I now regret, and I apologise for, things could have moved on.”
Well I’m not quite sure when Ed Balls thinks Jeremy should have said this, because the anti-semitism smear campaign was ongoing but, as I’m sure Ed Balls knows, Jeremy DID come out quickly and condemn it, and couldn’t have made it any clearer that he thinks anti-semitism is abhorrent AND that he will do all he can to root it out of the party (and society in general). Now exactly when Jeremy first said this I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that it was within his first year or so as leader. And Jeremy said as much on several occasions during his first couple of years as leader.
As for Jeremy apologising – as Ed Balls says he SHOULD have done – for things he’d said and done in the past, well what possible reason could Jeremy have had for thinking that (post 2017 GE) various things he’d done and said in the past which didn’t even cause a ripple at the time, would then, one by one, suddenly cause tsunami waves of condemnation and vilification (albeit ALL faux outrage!). And – as Ed Balls knows of course – Jeremy DID apologise (for not looking at the picture of the mural more closely), and there was of course no reason for him to apologise about his sarcastic comment re the two trouble makers regarding English irony etc, etc, etc.
Ed Balls is of course being totally disingenuous, and I would go so far as to say he is actually being anti-semitic himself to try and cash in on something that is barely existent in the LP, and is far more prevalent in the Tory Party and on the right, and the far right in particular.
And needless to say – and you can bet your life Ed Balls knows it – that what EVER Jeremy had said, his enemies were never EVER going to let ‘things’ move on!
https://labourlist.org/2020/10/failure-to-deal-with-antisemitism-a-tragedy-and-a-disaster-says-ed-balls/
For the first couple of years after Corbyn was elected the Complaints mechanism was disorganised – we have known of that for a while. For this reason the Labour Party commissioned Chakrabarti to recommend changes – and some of these happened. However until April this year we did not know the full reason for the incompetence after 2015 .. the alleged deliberate disruption by an anti-Corbyn faction.
The EHRC report is coming out today – but it strikes me that it will not take account of the true position of the Labour Party – given the behaviour of a few
in the Labour Party in the first couple of years after 2015.
It is a pity that the report on this alleged deliberate disruption is not yet published ..