Posted by : Omar Shaban Tuesday, April 30, 2013


Using the flimsiest of arguments, B'nai Brith Canada issued a statement denouncing the cyber-appearance of Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khaled at the Conference for Palestinian Shatat in North America.

According to the statement, the CEO of B'nai Brith, Mark Dimant, said:

“Allowing Leila Khaled, a convicted terrorist, a platform at a UBC affiliated event is absurd. Her presence, even if only by video, adds to the real risk of students being influenced by radical ideologies, especially at a time where home-grown Canadian terrorism is a major concern."

I am not interested in debunking propaganda which maintains that Leila Khaled is a "terrorist" (whatever that means anyways). Such literature is readily available on the internet.

However, I do want to point out to the fact that this statement is offensive to the UBC community. It assumes that students at UBC are not capable of critical thinking, assessing Khaled's speech and making informed judgements.

Dimant thinks that by giving Leila Khaled a platform at UBC, students will be influenced by what he refers to as "radical ideologies" especially during the age of "home-grown Canadian terrorism," and it is the job of B'nai Brith to tell these students what and who to listen to. As if students at UBC and elsewhere in the world cannot just google her name and listen to her as much as they want. Would he suggest that we should ask the "internet" to disallow her from having a platform to speak?

Zionist Standards:

By their own standards, persons who perpetuate "radical ideologies" should be banned from speaking in Canada and university campuses. Here I am assuming that by "radical ideologies" they mean extreme, racist and destructive ideologies bent on causing indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians.

According to this standard, B'nai Brith, an organization that is openly Zionist and openly racist against Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians, should be banned and not allowed a platform in Canada. B'nai Brith should renounce their Zionist ideology, join the peace and justice camp and actively campaign against allowing Israeli war criminals to enter Canada. By their own standard, B'nai Brith should actively seek to dismantle all campus groups that actively represent the policies of the Apartheid Israeli state - these include Hillel House, the Israel Awareness (or Advocacy) Club and other groups affiliated with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA).

By not doing so, B'nai Brith is violating its own principle.

B'nai Brith on the Defence:

B'nai Brith and other Zionist organizations in Canada are excellent in the business of denunciations. They are capable of denouncing almost everything without providing strong arguments to support their positions. They rely on myths and propaganda that have been repudiated numerous times on many fora.

Such a behaviour is indicative of the moral, political and intellectual bankruptcy that they are facing right now. With the sharp increase of websites on the Palestinian struggle against occupation, the Zionists must now find new methods to cover up for the war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel commits on a daily basis inside Palestine.

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