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Rochelle Wilner |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
Ruth Klein |
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Rochelle Wilner |
Frank Dimant |
Prof. Stephen Scheinberg |
Ruth Klein |
The increased focus on Israel during the past two years and the often unfavourable attention it receives in the media has helped to create a climate in which individual Jews, as well as Jewish religious and community organizations, have increasingly become targets. This has been the case especially in such European countries as France and Belgium where young and old alike have been assaulted and harassed. In Germany, Berlin police even went so far as to suggest that Jews refrain from wearing skullcaps or Star of David necklaces so as not to identify themselves as potential targets. Security around Jewish sites is tight and barricades surround buildings such as Berlin’s historic New Synagogue.
In many countries around the world, the Jewish community has been forced to take additional precautions around its synagogues, schools and community buildings. However, following 9/11, the focus of the threat has moved from fringe right wing groups and lone agitators to entities linked to international terrorism. The terrorist attack against the ancient synagogue on the island of Djerbe, in which 17 people were killed, and the subsequent near destruction of a synagogue in the Marassa Quarter of Tunis, have increased concerns for Jewish communities worldwide. Firebombings and synagogue desecrations — once events that would prompt shock and public outrage — rarely cause much of a stir. Even in Canada, the pattern is starting to become familiar as well, as seen in the lack of response to the firebombing of the Quebec City synagogue by the MP for that constituency.
The Canadian Jewish community has become much more sensitive to this type of threat, especially following the city wide alert issued to the Jewish community by the Ottawa Chief of Police and Mayor for the entire month of June 2002. While the exact nature of the threat was unspecified, the fact that Jewish synagogues have been included on various lists of possible targets in Canada and elsewhere, has heightened the awareness of the community to the latent threats against it from diverse directions. Meanwhile, the community itself carries the entire burden of the extra security required at synagogues and community buildings.
In a dramatic change from the past, much of the antisemitic rhetoric seen and heard by Canadians in 2002 originates not from the traditional extreme right wing, but rather from the intellectual left and the anarchist/anti/globalization/anti-US milieu.
This often takes the form of questioning the legitimacy of Jewish nationalism, while respecting the right to self determination of all other peoples, as well as blaming the entire Arab/Israeli conflict — and at times other world problems — on the Jews. League researchers have encountered a common belief among left wing activists that Jews control the western media — a sentiment echoed by the Lebanese Ambassador to Canada, Raymond Baaklini, who decried “Zionist” and “Jewish” control of “90%” of the Canadian media in an interview in December — and unduly influence western governments.
Also indicative of left wing antisemitism is the continuing appearance of antisemitic tracts on “progressive” media sites. In August of 2002, B’nai Brith investigations led to the discovery of antisemitic materials on two Canadian Indymedia websites, in Hamilton and Windsor. These tracts included a piece entitled The Hidden Tyranny, ostensibly recounting the confession of a Jewish participant in a global conspiracy based on the age-old antisemitic forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and a discussion claiming that Jewish racial origins were central Asian and Khazar, thus denying entirely the Jewish connection with the land of Israel. The League for Human Rights has brought these sites to the attention of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, and the Tribunal has elected to engage in its own investigation.
Even participants in North American anarchist movements have recognized the trend towards increasingly antisemitism in the responses of the Left. Writers Dan Berger and Nicole Solomon have noted:
“Anti-Semitism has also been on the rise, including in radical circles. In fact, Anti-Semitism has sometimes been masked as Palestine solidarity, a dangerous trend if we are to accomplish anything positive.”
“Anti-Semitic propaganda by the ‘left’ creates an unsafe environment for Jewish radicals… Where do… activists… with no understanding of the worldwide historical legacy of anti-Jewish oppression, get off burning the Star of David, a traditional symbol of Judaism and the Jewish people?”xxi
It is unfortunate that this phenomenon has yet to be dealt with in any substantive way by the Left.
Furthermore, there are ominous signs of linkages between the extreme Left and the extreme Right. The Anti-Globalization Action Network (AGAN), for example, has established ties to the Right wing National Alliance, which has participated in recent anti-globalization demonstrations. The Council of Canadians has noted that in a “big, loose movement like [the anti-globalization movement] it would be easy for the right wing to hide”.xii National Alliance organizers, meanwhile, apparently view this milieu as a promising recruiting ground with enough “common ground” between the two movements. This is a situation that does not bode well given the underlying current of antisemitism that has been observed at some anti-globalization events.
The type of open recruitment by the far Right extremist groups, that prompted action from police agencies and B’nai Brith in the past, has not returned to Canada. However, Right wing groups continue to use the Internet to spread their messages of hate and to recruit members to their agenda. In addition, postering and mail activities by White Supremacist groups were reported to the League during 2002 in Calgary, Toronto, London and Halifax, among other locations.
As confirmed in conversations between B’nai Brith Canada and local police services, increased activity by groups such as the Heritage Alliance, Tri-City Skins and Northern Alliance has been noted in London.xxiii In Guelph, the OPP opened an investigation of a website containing antisemitic material owned by a group called the Earth Community Organization. In Toronto, there were at least two incidents of hate rock concerts. Although no violence erupted, due perhaps in no small measure to the presence of police, there is great concern among activists and police agencies of a resurgence of right-wing groups that seek to peddle their ideology through music. In fact, there are concerns that white supremacist organizations are making inroads as they aggressively recruit among the youth.xiv The Internet continues to be the tool of choice to spread their message of hate.
The need to keep a vigilant eye on such groups has been recognized by the police in several areas, for example, the London police force. In January, 2002 Alexan Kulbashian, a former spokesperson for the Canadian Ethnic Cleansing Team (CECT), was charged with counseling to commit murder. The Hate Crimes Unit of the London police alleges that he facilitated the CECT website which declared war on Muslims and Jews. He is also cited as one of three operators of an Internet database containing addresses and home phone numbers of police officers and private citizens. Apart from a brief jail spell for breaching bail conditions, Kulbashian has been out on the streets on his own recognizance.
B’nai Brith Canada has long recognized the potential dangers of Hate on the Internet and has worked for more than a decade in co-operation with other community groups to track and counter this phenomenon. The groundbreaking work of its international symposia on Hate on the Internet in 1997 and 1999 has led to closer co-operation on this issue. However, the virtual explosion in web-based activity in the last few years has seen an exponential increase in hate activity on the Internet.
With the marked increase in the number of hate sites, the problem of widespread dissemination of hate propaganda has intensified. Surveys put the number of hate sites world wide as between 3500 and 4000, but further research is necessary to narrow down how many are antisemitic in content.
The League responded to 55 Internet sites and email-based complaints, which formed over 12% of the reported antisemitic incidents in 2002. Many more sites and chat rooms are monitored on an ongoing basis. In several incidents, hatred and bigotry have found their way onto mainstream Internet portals. For instance, the League fielded complaints about the presence of hate “clubs” on Yahoo, one of the Internet’s most popular sites.
With the growing number of children and youth spending an increasing number of hours per day online, there is further cause for concern. The Internet is becoming a powerful — and cheap — recruitment tool for hate groups such as the National Alliance. It offers small fringe groups the opportunity to reach a previously untapped worldwide audience.
As noted in R. v. Keegstra, hate propaganda can come in many forms. In referring to hate propaganda laws, the Supreme Court of Canada wrote that “the harm which the government seeks to prevent is not restricted to certain mediums or locations.”
Of concern is the unregulated nature of the contents of Internet sites and the limited tools available to police and other agencies to stem the flow of hate, especially where there are cross-border issues. Even where rulings have been issued in Canada, such as the Human Rights Tribunal decision in the notorious Zundel case,xxvii the Zundelsite has continued to operate from the United States and remains accessible to Canada without limitation. The recent return of Zundel to Canada and his attempts to claim “refugee” status here in order to avoid deportation to Germany where he faces criminal prosecution, has highlighted once again the difficulties inherent in enforcing protections against hate-mongering.
In one interesting case, a well-known reporter recommended as “well considered” a conspiracy theory site which clearly contained antisemitic material; she later issued an apology that she had failed to notice it. However, both the original article and the subsequent update that include her apology still contain active ‘hot links’ to the site in question, allowing ease of access to the casual reader. Furthermore, the reporter later qualified her mea culpa by assuring readers of the site in question that her original endorsement still stands, albeit with the proviso that the antisemitic parts are unacceptable. This incident has not been classified as antisemitic, but the concern remains that unsophisticated readers, encouraged by such an endorsement in a mainstream newspaper, will accept, wholesale, any arguments linked to the site, including the antisemitic “theories”. In one particular case that is included in the 2002 Audit, a clergyman relied on such conspiracy theories from Internet sources when informing congregants that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 tragedy.
Bias can also creep into the categories used to power search engines on the Internet, as evident in a League’s investigation, in association with the Jewish Internet Association and the originator of a pro-Israel site. The category of “Jewish hate groups” set up by individual editors in the directory known as the Open Directory project (DMOZ) classified pro-Israel websites as hate groups. On pointing out the bias inherent in the classification, DMOZ dropped the category.
Hate email campaigns, targeting a wide range of Jewish institutions and individuals, were reported a number of times in 2002. In one case, the hate content of an antisemitic site was copied and pasted into emails that were made to look as if they originated from a well-established security computer company based in the United States. They were then sent around the world, including Canada.
Hate spread by other arms of technology should also be of concern. Reports were included in the Audit from individuals who heard antisemitic comments espoused on shortwave broadcasts, which are re-broadcast from the top of the CN Tower. In addition, there were instances of callers on radio talk show who made clearly antisemitic comments, sometimes with no contradiction or comment from the talk show host. This was particularly glaring in cases where callers repeated the calumny that no Jews died in the World Trade Centre attacks or variations of that theme.