It’s easy to criticize when you are not on the front lines. It’s even simpler to preach what’s right and wrong when you are not actually part of the process or witness to an event. This is exactly what CIJA CEO Shimon Fogel’s commentary for The CJN, “Concrete action key to fighting BDS,” written as an apparent response to our community’s (failed) determined effort to pass the Standing Up Against Anti-Semitism Act in Ontario, attempts to do.
The bill was introduced to the Ontario provincial parliament on May 18 as a new legal tool to boycott the boycotters. It called for the government to abstain from doing business with companies that support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Prior to being read in the Ontario legislature, it was reviewed by members of the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP, including the expert drafters at Queen’s Park and a constitutional lawyer, to ensure alignment with all federal and provincial laws, including free speech provisions.
READ: ANTI-BDS BILL DEFEATED AT QUEEN’S PARK
The Act represented a massive constituency of over 30,000 families and a substantial group of students who are victimized by BDS and anti-Semitism on university campuses. And, while trade deals between Ontario and Israel are nice for both parties – and we congratulate Premier Kathleen Wynne on her successful trip to Israel – the truth is that economic trade benefits businesses and institutions. They do not alleviate the pain, suffering and insecurity here in Ontario. Fogel’s singular focus on the economic angle demonstrates a detachment from our grassroots Jewish community, and an inexplicable blindness to the growing levels of hate and hostility to which Jewish youth are increasingly subjected.
The article lauds the $120 million Cdn in trade between Israel and Ontario – and this is undeniably commendable. Unfortunately, it is difficult to as easily quantify the social costs of BDS, anti-Semitism, hostility, intimidation and the victimization of students. Perhaps if we added up these damages, and threw in the loss of private funding by university donors no longer willing to finance hate, we would arrive at a much larger figure.
Significantly, the indifference to the considerable danger of BDS and anti-Semitism is represented by the fact that our bill was not a new idea. It’s actually the strategic trend. In the United States, 16 individual states and the U.S. Congress have already passed anti-BDS legislation. Many more American legislatures are giving this measure consideration.
Our act would have reinforced and secured the trade deals Premier Wynne put into place on her trip to Israel. But given the bill’s defeat – shockingly, largely by her very own caucus – the future of those deals are in peril. In fact, it is short-sighted to believe that such deals are canonized without legal protection.
I will never forget what I witnessed at Queen’s Park that day. Despite that the premier was in Israel signing trade agreements at the time, it appeared every member of her party was specifically brought into the chamber to vote against the bill that would have protected those very same agreements.
Those who encourage us to be silent, to not give a platform to the other side and cause additional controversy, fail to realize the other side already has a platform. All these years while we were lighting menorahs, going on interfaith trips and singing Kumbaya, they have been busily lobbying political leaders.
READ: ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS – AN OPEN LETTER TO MAMDOUH SHOUKRI
The shameful strategy of being silent – a “court Jew” – is passé. My generation chooses not to be armchair quarterbacks calling out plays from the safety of the sidelines. We are deeply involved in the game, working on behalf of students and parents who are fed up by those who dismiss their legitimate fears and concerns while cheering bilateral agreements that – while positive and necessary – in no way benefit them or their children. Silence is a relic of a generation gone by, one that is no longer reflective of a fearless younger generation that sees through the platitudes and expects action.
Today’s generation of Jewish youth, raised on concepts of equity and social justice, demand the same rights and treatment as their peers.
Because after all, it is 2016.
Avi Benlolo is president and CEO of Friends of Simon Weisenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.
