CANADIANS, please do not pass this article by. It involves one of our most threatened, most beloved fundamental rights as Canadians ~ FREE SPEECH. The following pieces by Arthur Topham and Ulli Diemer, TACTICS OF DESPERATION, are a MUST READ for Canadians.As you know, I reprint many articles from RadicalPress.com, written by my friend and staunch activist Arthur Topham. Please, meet Mr. Topham in his hirsute glory ~ fierce looking individual isn't he? Oh, dear, is that a nerdish pencil protector in his pocket?! So much for fierce.
RADICALPRESS PUBLISHER ARTHUR TOPHAM
December 31, 2009
Dear Radical Reader,
As 2009 comes to a close and we reflect on all that's gone down over the past 12 months in the realm of resistance to the onslaught of Zionist intrusion into the lives of Canadians and people in general there's a whole lot to be thankful for.
Over two years ago when Harry Abrams and B'nai Brith Canada laid their sec. 13 "hate crime" complaint against myself and my website RadicalPress.com I was virtually standing alone in challenging their attempt to use this Bolshevik-style piece of "human rights" legislation to stop Canadians from expressing their views and opinions on the domestic and foreign policies of the Israeli government.
And when I say standing virtually alone I don't mean that I was the first person to resist their draconian, totalitarian tactics of smearing and forcing an individual to appear before quasi-judicial "show trial" tribunals. There were many courageous Canadians before me who had the foresight and vision to understand that our only means of defense was to fight the very legislation that the Zionist Jew lobbyists had embedded into our judiciary over the past half century.
But at the time (2007) the public perception of Israel as a racist, supremacist and apartheid state was not anywhere near what it is today as we stand upon the threshold of the second decade of the 21st Century. So much has happened over the past two years that I hesitate to even begin covering all the issues.
Suffice it to say that the exceptionally cruel and devastating and evil attack upon Gaza during the Christmas season of 2008/09 was the ice-breaker in terms of sufficiently blowing the minds of people around the world as to the actual reality of what the Zionist state of Israel embodies.
That one event exposed the black claw of racism and supremacist ideology that lay hidden behind all the Zionist controlled media's smoke screen of daily propaganda. It smashed forever what was a false and deceptive icon: the concept of the state of Israel as a democratic and free nation.
Now, as we begin 2010 the tables are quickly turning on the Big Lie but the Harper government of Canada is not about to give up its Zionist agenda easily. As Ulli Diemer's article below clearly shows, they are deliberately working on new strategies to maintain control of our freedom of speech and this is part of the reason for Harper's prorogation of parliament yesterday. They need the darkness and anonymity of silence to conspire together for the benefit of the Israeli state and the satanic ideals embodied in their ideologically false messiah known as political Zionism.
In my own struggles with the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and B'nai Brith Canada over the past two years I've experienced first hand the level of deception and the corruption that permeates these government appointed bodies.
They will stop at nothing to fulfill their agenda of censorship and ultimate control of the Internet because they know, as sure as they know the sun will rise tomorrow upon a new year, that if they aren't successful in controlling the Internet and the Media and the Government then all hell will eventually break loose as more and more inquisitive and concerned individuals become aware of the true nature of Israel and the true agenda of political Zionism.
And this is why Ulli's title, "Tactics of desperation" is a most fitting one. They are desperate to stop the increased expansion of information about Israel and Zionism that is exploding on the net and that is why they are resorting to such desperate moves as contained in their "hate crimes" legislation which they have been slyly foisting upon Canada and the USA and the EU nations and Australia and New Zealand, etc. over the past number of years.
Short of shutting down the whole world wide web (now an impossibility without global repercussions to everyone) they are frantically searching for some balm to sooth the Achilles Heel that they can't seem to prevent from exposing their true nature.
2010, I hopefully predict, will continue to see more and more individuals and groups and organizations rising to their feet and declaring to the Harper government that their illicit love affair with Israel and Zionism must come to an abrupt end.
Enough of our young men and women have been sacrificed upon the blood-spattered Zionist altar of greed and war and lies and deception in Afghanistan.
Enough of our citizens have been spied upon and hunted down and kidnapped and forced to endure torture and loss of their constitutional rights and ended up in foreign jails all due to the depraved and pathological machinations of this cabal of Zionist traitors who have breached the walls of our federal government and usurped the one power that belongs to all Canadians and not to the seditious tyrants who now lurk about our hallowed halls of parliament desperately trying to figure out new ways of forging more chains for Canada.
It's my additional hope that Canada's Jewish community will rise up further in 2010 and acknowledge the role that they must assume in bringing to the attention of all Canadians the ever-present threat to our collective freedom posed by the Harper government and its assorted band of sycophants.
The Jewish community stands to lose the most if they don't start setting aside their own fears and phobias and start to work in earnest with the non-Jewish sectors of Canadian society who also are determined to resist this growing threat to our nation.
My own experience over the past two years in trying to liaise with Jewish orgs on the issue of Zionism tells me this will be one of the more challenging aspects of fighting the false accusation of "anti-Semitism."
My New Year's Resolution for 2010 will be the same as it was for 2008 and 2009: to do whatever is in my power to draw attention to the immediate danger to Canada posed by the Jewish media and lobby groups here in this country who are behaving in a most seditious manner in their quest to subvert our Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms and substitute them for the law of the jungle, i.e. Zionism and Racist Supremacism and Hatred and War.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank those on my list (and off) who have helped me out financially over the past year. Without your contributions I would not have survived and been able to keep my website running and my articles appearing and my legal documents forthcoming. I owe you a tremendous debt of appreciation and will continue to do all that I can to fight this national menace. God bless you all!
And so, happy New Year and please continue to...
Shine your Light for Love, Peace & Justice for All, Arthur Topham Publisher/Editor Canada's Radical News Network "Digging to the root of the issues since 1998"
Http://www.radicalpress.com/?p=1158
TACTICS OF DESPERATION:USING FALSE ACCUSATIONS
OF "ANTI-SEMITISM" AS A WEAPON
TO SILENCE CRITICISM
OF ISRAEL'S BEHAVIOUR
By Ulli Diemer
URUKNET
December 29, 2009
Ulli Diemer argues that as world public opinion turns against Israel, its racist apartheid regime and its occupation, the Zionist state and its lobbies have turned to attempts to outlaw criticism of Israel by labeling it as “anti-Semitism” ~ attempts that need to be exposed and challenged as a serious threat to basic freedoms.
“At the same time as it attempts to crush internal resistance, the Israeli state, aided by its supporters in the United States and Canada, has launched extremely aggressive and well-financed propaganda campaigns abroad whose goal is to counteract the decline in support for Israel.
“A telling characteristic of these campaigns is that they by and large do not focus on attempting to justify Israel’s behaviour…
“Instead, the focus has shifted to attempting to shut down criticism of Israel by targeting the most outspoken critics with crude smear tactics and outright censorship.”
For more than 60 years, Israel has engaged in an unceasing campaign to dispossess Palestinians of their land and their rights. Its ability to do this has depended on three factors in particular:
• overwhelming military superiority;
• keeping public opinion, especially in North America and Europe, on its side; and
• making ordinary working-class Israeli Jews believe that it is in their interest to support Israel’s Zionist elite rather than making common cause with ordinary Palestinians.
Israel’s military dominance is unchallenged, thanks to unconditional support and limitless supplies of advanced military technology and equipment provided by the United States and its allies (including Canada).
However, military dominance has not been able to achieve Israel’s ultimate goal: forcing Palestinians to stop resisting and to acquiesce in their dispossession and oppression.
Israel’s relentless onslaught has been met by equally determined Palestinian resistance which, despite the odds, steadfastly refuses to accept the injustice of occupation.
This Palestinian resistance has called into being an ever-growing international network of support and solidarity. In dozens of countries and hundreds of communities around the world, organizations and movements have emerged to demand that Israel be made to adhere to international law and to basic principles of justice.
Israel and its supporters see these international campaigns as a huge threat. Israel has escaped the sanctions that have been applied to other states which commit human rights abuses and violate international law only because the United States automatically vetoes all attempts to hold Israel accountable.
Israel is also crucially dependent on huge annual inflows of foreign aid, to the point where it is conceivable that the state would collapse if the flows of outside cash which prop it up were to be withdrawn.
Anything that undermines public support in the US, Canada and Europe, therefore, threatens the external backing on which the Israeli state depends for its very existence.
It is true that the governments which turn a blind eye to Israel’s violations of international law mostly ignore popular opinion in their own countries as well, but this could change if support for Israel were to become a serious political liability.
In this regard, what is particularly worrisome from Israel’s point of view is the fact that support for Israel among Jews in the United States and Canada, especially among younger Jews, has declined dramatically. If Jews stop supporting Israel, then all foreign support is in jeopardy.
Threats to Israel’s international legitimacy bring with them an even greater internal danger: the danger that Israeli Jews will themselves start seeing the Zionist formula ~ in essence, a militarized apartheid state holding down the Palestinian population by force ~ as a dead end.
If working-class Israeli Jews were to see their interests as being different from those of the ruling elite ~ if they come round to the view that their long-term interests will be better served if they join Palestinians in working for a democratic secular state with equal rights for Palestinians and Jews ~ Israel’s ruling class would find itself in the same untenable position that the white elite in apartheid South Africa faced in the early 1990s.
Already, Israel’s rulers are debating what to do about the “demographic threat” they are facing: Israeli Jews are leaving the country in increasing numbers to move to other countries, while the Palestinian population continues to increase.
The Palestinian resistance, and the growing international support which it has attracted, have had a substantial effect in changing the way Israel is perceived. Increasingly, international public opinion is no longer willing to turn a blind eye to ethnic cleansing, house demolitions, systematic humiliations, imprisonment, torture, and the indiscriminate killing of civilians, children as well as adults.
Bil'in resident, Bassem Abu Rahmeh gunned down while involved in such peaceful protest.These stories get out around the world and do the Israeli cause little good.
Faced with the erosion of its credibility and support, the Israeli state has lashed out by using ever-increasing repression against the non-violent Palestinian resistance. One of the centres of this resistance is the village of Bil’in, which has been fighting the expansion of an illegal Israeli settlement on its land with weekly non-violent protests for more than five years now, protests which have turned Bil’in into an international symbol of non-violent resistance.
The Israeli state has been using ever more extreme tactics of harassment and brutality to attempt to crush the village and put an end to the protests, which it correctly believes are causing substantial harm to Israel’s international image.
Similar tactics of harassment and imprisonment are being used against other Palestinians who resist, as well as against Jewish Israelis and international solidarity activists who support the Palestinian cause.
At the same time as it attempts to crush internal resistance, the Israeli state, aided by its supporters in the United States and Canada, has launched extremely aggressive and well-financed propaganda campaigns abroad whose goal is to counteract the decline in support for Israel.
A telling characteristic of these campaigns is that they by and large do not focus on attempting to justify Israel’s behaviour. One has to assume that the architects of the propaganda efforts realize that it is no longer possible to explain war crimes and human rights abuses in a way that the international public will accept.
Instead, the focus has shifted to attempting to shut down criticism of Israel by targeting the most outspoken critics with crude smear tactics and outright censorship.
On a growing number of campuses, for example, this has involved harassment and firing of outspoken professors (e.g. Norman Finkelstein, Joel Kovel), as well as attempts to ban events such as “Israeli apartheid week”.
This Latuff poster was ripped from public spots in Canadian universities due to the "offended sensibilities" of a few fragile Jewish students, after which followed great controversy and even fining of students who went ahead with the programme as planned.
In Canada, we are now seeing an attempt to silence criticism of Israel by labeling all such criticism as “anti-Semitism” and therefore as hate speech. This tactic has a triple purpose:
1. to suppress public awareness of what Israel is doing.
2. to discredit critics by smearing them as “anti-Semitic”.
3. to keep Jews onside by frightening them with the spectre of anti-Semitism.
In Canada, the Harper government, fanatically pro-Israel, is fully involved in this effort. It has cut funding to groups which have supported Palestinians in their quest for justice, and it has set up a Parliamentary body charged with coming up with the legal rationale for making it illegal to criticize Israel.
OH! CANADA! CHRISTIAN CHURCHES ARE ANTI SEMITIC OPERATIONS?
Canadians, please note how minimalized OUR flag is compared to the Star! Note Harper placed square in the middle of the Stars! In itself that is an outrage and speaks volumes of his values! Did that beanie suck out all of your common sense and decency, Mr. Harper?
If the Harper government is successful in getting its way, statements such as the following, all of them expressions of generally accepted principles of human rights and international law, will henceforth be classified as anti-Semitic hate speech in Canada:
• “A state must be the state of all its citizens”.
Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it implies that the Israeli state has a duty to serve and represent all of its citizens equally, Palestinians as well as Jews.
• “Everyone born in a state, and everyone who has been a permanent resident for a specified and reasonable period of time, is entitled to citizenship”.
Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it would mean that Palestinians under the rule of the Israeli state have the right to be citizens of Israel.
• “All citizens of a state must be equal under the law, equally entitled to the rights, privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. A state may not favour, or discriminate against, citizens, on the grounds of religion, ethnicity, or race”.
Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it implies that Israel has to dismantle its discriminatory, apartheid-style system of laws.
• “Every state must accept its internationally recognized borders and must renounce all claims on territory outside of its borders”.
Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it would mean that Israel would have to stop seizing land beyond its borders.
• “All states must abide by international law, including the Geneva conventions, laws against collective punishment, laws against torture, etc.”
Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it implies that Israel has to stop engaging in ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and other violations of international law.
• “Refugees have a right to return to the lands from which they were expelled by an invading army or occupying power.”
Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it means that the Palestinian refugees expelled from their homeland by Israel must be allowed to exercise their right of return as guaranteed by international law.
• “Sanctions should be applied to those who violate international law.”
Saying this will be classified as “anti-Semitic” because it implies that Israel should face sanctions for engaging in collective punishment and ethnic cleansing, for practicing torture, for committing war crimes, for defying UN resolutions and World Court rulings, and for other illegal acts.
ALL OF THE ABOVE ARE BRILLIANT!
One must appreciate and love such a twisted LEGAL mindset!!
The attempt to outlaw criticism of Israel
by labelling it as “anti-Semitism”
is a serious threat which
needs to be exposed and challenged.
At the same time, it should also be recognized as a tactic of desperation, a tactic that has become necessary because of the ever-growing opposition to the crimes of the Israeli state.
The resort to increasingly blatant open repression
is a symptom of loss of control.
In the past such tactics would not have been necessary because any criticism of Israel was confined to the outer fringes of public debate.
Now it has become mainstream, and those who support an ethnically defined, apartheid-style Israeli state are feeling increasingly threatened.
Those of us who support
a democratic secular state
should feel encouraged,
even though the struggle is far from won.
Ulli Diemer is a Canadian socialist writer, publisher and archivist. He is the coordinator of Connexions, an online social justice library. His Radical Digressions website is at http://www.diemer.ca. A version of this article was originally published on his website. The version on this website is published by permission of Ulli Diemer.
Link: http://www.uruknet.info?p=61586
Link: http://www.redress.cc/palestine/udiemer20091230
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