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It targets:
(1) The UN as Enemy #1 - because it is the only international forum where all states meet as equals. It sets the standards of acceptable norms of behaviour and gives voice to less powerful countries in international affairs.
As Israel's foot soldiers, UN Watch and NGOM want the UN either to abide by their definition of the rule of law or damage the UN's international legitimacy while advancing their pro-Israel agenda. The ongoing vicious attacks by Israel and friends on Justice Richard Goldstone, himself a Zionist, illustrate the persistence and ruthlessness of the shock-and-awe propaganda troops. His crime? Producing a report that found evidence of war crimes by both sides during the Israeli war on Gaza in December 2008 - January 2009.
Peter Kent, Canada's Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas), and member of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA), decided to attack the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council, instead of addressing the contents of the Goldstone report, by asserting that "the so-called fact-finding commission was the creation of one of the United Nation's most flawed bodies, the Human Rights Council, which includes some of the UN's least democratic states."
(2) Donors and partners of NGOs hypocritically accusing Human Rights NGOs of having a political agenda and conducting anti-Israel, if not anti-Semitic, activities when the NGOs are fulfilling their mandates.
The aim is to have agencies and foundations, such as the New Israel Fund, the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Institute, sever their working relationships with NGOs and avoid using them as partners on projects, as Canada did with KAIROS and UNRWA. Steinberg's voice is magnified in Canada, because he has access to the sympathetic ear of the government.
(3) Civil society itself - by making criticism of Israeli practices taboo, thereby inhibiting society's normally existing plurality of opinion.
Steinberg's group claims that civil society should endorse the government's policy and that it poses a danger to the state when it does not. In "The Trojan Horse", a report co-sponsored by the Institute for Zionist Strategies (Chairman Yisrael Harel is himself an illegal settler and a founder of the extremist Gush Emunim settler movement), Israeli NGOs are accused of being a fifth column because they receive funds from abroad. There is no criticism of ultra-nationalist groups receiving foreign funding from controversial sources in the report. NGOM itself receives funds from US-based family foundations, so by their own reasoning JCPA and NGOM themselves were and may become again Trojan horses, considering that although their position towards Israel/Palestine aligns with the current Israeli extremist government, it would not under a government that seeks a land-for-peace resolution of the conflict. Since donations through foundations are tax deductible, NGOM is in fact funded by the US taxpayers.
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So how does this affect Canada? The ideological insertion of Israel into our institutions, including inside Parliament, and the politicization of human rights have a negative impact not only on the institutions themselves, but on our democratic rights as it makes impossible any pragmatic understanding of issues, and stifles the necessary strong debates that underpin democracies.
On August 31, 2009, NGOM made a submission to the CPCCA. The CPCCA is not an official parliamentary body but a multi-party voluntary association of Parliamentarians who are holding an inquiry into antisemitism because "The extent and severity of anti-semitism is widely regarded as at its worst level since the end of the Second World War." The aim of CPCCA is valid as racism continues to be an issue that needs to be addressed. However, seeking to equate criticism of a foreign government (Israel) with antisemitism is a dangerous proposition. The witnesses that are called do not seem to represent the wide variety of opinions in Canadian society or in the submissions. Cotler and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney are the driving force behind the CPCCA and are listed as ex-officio members. Kenney, who gave KAIROS' de-funding as an example of how the Canadian government dealt with antisemitism, is slated to appear as a witness on February 8, 2010. Interestingly, there is no indication of how the CPCCA is funded. This information should be posted on the website, for the sake of transparency and accountability.
Just as the extreme right in North America has moved the political centre towards the right, the pro-Israel organizations have been instrumental in tilting the discourse in favour of Israel, through intimidation and various other tactics, along with its attempts to conflate criticism of Israeli policies with antisemitism.
While contributing nothing but a potential divide within our multicultural society, NGOM has also created a chill within civil society. In fact, its attacks based not on first hand research since they do not visit Gaza have shut down any possibility of a thoughtful dialogue about the role of civil society, the role of NGOs in Canadian (or other) society, and fair and equal access by NGOs to decision makers and government. It is to be noted that since its ascent to power, the current government has not met with national organizations that deal with Arab-Canada issues in spite of repeated requests.
Israeli propaganda draftees may find fault with human rights NGOs who hold that the law is universal and have been producing reports pointing at the different ways Israel violates the rule of law against Palestinians, both in Israel and in the OccupiedTerritory. But these NGOs are not the problem. The problem is Israel's refusal to abide by the human rights and humanitarian laws of the various treaties to which it is party. Instead of urging Israel to fulfil its legal responsibilities, the propagandists find it easier to shoot the messengers and browbeat governments and institutions into accepting that Palestinians should not and do not have the same rights they enjoy.
The so-called " only democracy in the Middle East" is a rogue state. Since the fateful General Assembly partition resolution, the Security Council has passed scores of resolutions, the first of which, Resolution 57 of September 18, 1948, expressed "deep shock at the assassination of the UN Mediator in Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte, by Zionist terrorists."
No, the UN is not irrationally fixated on Israel. It is the duty of the world body to keep reminding us that the Palestine file is still open because Israel has implemented no UN resolution fully, including the Partition resolution, which divided Palestine into two states, and the resolution accepting Israel as a UN member. Should the UN stop its scrutiny as Steinberg and friends wish, it will have betrayed the spirit in which it was created. It will also indicate that non-respect of international law is rewarded given time, a dangerous message considering all the abusers and potential abusers around the world.
