Posted on 06/08/2002 12:07:32 PM PDT by Clive
This week, 3,000 dedicated unionists are gathering at a Canadian Labour Congress convention in Vancouver. So what's labour's hottest issue these days? Is it how to organize the kids at Starbucks? How to breathe new life into the NDP? Wrong. It's Israel.
Major unions across Canada have recently passed emergency resolutions condemning Israel, and they want the CLC to do the same. "I think it is appropriate if you are a union that believes in social justice for all," says Deborah Bourque, who's president of the 40,000- strong Canadian Union of Postal Workers.
The CUPW resolution is typical. When I asked to see it, the union referred me to a militantly pro-Palestinian Web site where it's posted. Ms. Bourque believes it's fair and balanced. But it casts Israel as the bad guy. It says suicide bombings have to stop, but doesn't mention who directs them. And it includes the usual demand for Israel to immediately withdraw from the territories that it "invaded" in 1967.
"I'm not an expert on the historical nuances," says Ms. Bourque.
To be fair, few of us are. But saying that Israel invaded the territories is like saying the U.S. invaded Japan, without mentioning Pearl Harbor. The Six-Day War (fought 35 years ago this week) began when Egypt, Syria and Jordan massed an army of 500,000 soldiers and a gigantic arsenal of weapons on Israel's borders. Arab sentiment was summarized by the then-head of the PLO, who said, "We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants, and as for survivors -- if there are any -- the boats are ready to deport them."
Israel won the war and occupied the territories of Gaza and the West Bank. It promised to relinquish them in exchange for a guarantee of peace that never came. That's what Oslo and Camp David were about.
"I don't expect the world to become pro-Israel, but at least it could be represented in a fair manner," says Lil Nobel, who is president of CUPE Ontario Local 2063. Her union also passed a resolution on Israel. It, too, was an "emergency" -- which meant that none of the members, including Ms. Nobel, had a chance to see it before it hit the floor.
Local 2063 is a Jewish social services agency in Toronto. CUPE's Jewish agencies, which employ around 400 people, are trying to get the resolution redrafted.
When the Canadian Jewish Congress complained to the union, CUPE president Sid Ryan accused it of "trying to foment antiunion sentiment." The CJC, he said, was "splitting hairs and trying to silence debate" -- a curious accusation, since there was no chance for a debate.
It's hard to see how the Mideast conflict is relevant to the labour issues of flight attendants, garbage collectors and daycare workers. But Canada's biggest unions spend lots of time on world peace and justice. To them, the Palestinians have replaced the black South Africans under apartheid as the world's leading victims of First World oppression. To them, the fight against globalization, racism and oppression is all the same fight. It is a fight, above all, against America. And Israel has become a proxy for America.
It's no accident that checkered scarves are an important fashion statement at antiglobalization protests. Those events are increasingly being hijacked by radical protesters against Israel. There you can find many people who explicitly equate Israelis with Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan. Naomi Klein may disagree, but many of these protests feature a wide streak of outright anti- Semitism.
There is a straight line between the unions' anti-Israel resolutions and Durban, the notorious UN conference last September that turned into an anti-Jewish hatefest. The CLC had a delegation there. But it detected only good things. According to its report, the negative media coverage was wildly biased. And in a post-Sept. 11 note, it blamed the Americans for cruelly bombing Afghanistan and triggering a wave of terror against its own Muslim minorities.
Not surprisingly, the big American unions have taken a sharply different course. The AFL-CIO and others are strong and vocal supporters of Israel. They boycotted the last antiglobalization rally in Washington. They, too, want peace. But they have a completely different view of who the terrorists are.
No wonder countless Canadian Jews have given up in disgust on the Canadian left. I suppose the left doesn't care. After all, the CLC has 2.5 million members. Most of them are hard-working men and women who aren't particularly political and don't have a clue what their leadership is up to. (Speaking of world peace, where's the resolution on Kashmir?)
Maybe one day those leaders will ask themselves why so many people who were raised to revere the union movement now find it morally revolting. "I'm furious," says Ms. Nobel about the Israel-bashing.
They should all be furious. The rank and file should rise up against their leaders, and raise hell.
Many American Jews have expressed surprise at the strong support Israel is getting from the 'Christian right.' Since it seems to have taken a real threat of annihilation for so many to question their commitment to the party of the left, it is now understandable why the Republicans made no positive impression on most American Jews.
In America, a big push in unions has been the pro-mass immigration attitude, directly contrary to their members interests. But the leaders feelings are more important than their members below, and union leadership gives them a podium to give their views the "union stamp of approval." For them the union is only a means of pushing their agendas and hangups.
The CJC, he said, was "splitting hairs and trying to silence debate" -- a curious accusation, since there was no chance for a debate.
Standard leftist side-step these days. Criticism explained as censorship, smearing the critic as an oppressor, deflecting attention from the issue. Will continue to work until writers like this person calls this tactic for what it is.
As for Kashmir, the author has a valid point. But if he wants the union members to understand, he's got to explain it. The obsession with Israel has nothing to do with an even view of the world, but an uneven one.
Thank you for exposing the union attack on Israel.
This is the same murderous hate which motivated the 911 attackers.
That unionists would support the Arafat murder machine, the corrupt dictatorship of the terrorist Fatah should be repellant to all Canadians.
The view from here indicates such is not the case. Peter Jennings finds it all delicious.
The repeated attacks on Israel, 1948, 1967, 1973, and the thousands of terrorist assaults throughout that half century down to today, have no justification.
To allow such terrorist propaganda to go unchallenged will be the end of Canada as anything but a hostage of Islamism.
Phil Dragoo
NEWS FLASH: The Left is the enemy of humanity.
Canadian public sector unions are about as odious a group of hypocritical slimeballs as one could find( think ZANU-PF without the charm).
They have NO redeeming characteristics whatsoever; I am ashamed to share citizenship with them.
You know MY solution. ;^)
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