Like any subversive group, Canada’s Israel lobby conducts its nefarious doings out of the public eye. If Canadians had regular reports on how this cabal and their MP sock-puppets try to control our foreign policy a furour would erupt, or at least I hope it would.

Look what happened in the U.S. after the media reported that Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin passed a classified report on Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Even though AIPAC’s control of U.S. policy is an open secret that nobody dare mention, the fact that Franklin was caught red handed was highly embarrassing. The Lobby went into damage control; its senators and congressmen jumped to attention and defended its honour [sic]; and Israel uttered the predictably absurd statement that it does not spy on the U.S.

Well, Canada’s Israel lobby is facing its own crisis. On Oct. 15 and 21, Globe and Mail columnist John Ibbitson reported that a “storm” was brewing within the ministry of foreign affairs because of the Martin government’s “major but surreptitious shift in this nation’s foreign policy.”

Ibbitson’s imagery begs allusion to a coup-in-progress, which is not the kind of image the Lobby wants to project. Nevertheless, a McCarthyite climate of fear has spread throughout the ministry. After the first of his two columns appeared, a vigorous search ensued to find the individual or individuals who spoken to him. Ministerial officials are now so afraid for their jobs, that none would agree to comment for this column.

Not too long ago, Canadians were proud that their prime minister refused to jump on board the Texecutioner’s Maniacal Misery Tour to Iraq. Jean Chrétien also refused to roll over for the Lobby. Now with Paul Martin as the prime minister of a minority government, the zionists have become offensive.

To get an idea of how zionized Canada’s Middle East policy is becoming, the ministry’s Middle East file has been sent out of Ottawa for the first time and is being overseen by senior diplomat Jill Sinclair in our embassy in Tel Aviv. When Sinclair was stationed at the embassy in Cuba, she married David Miller, son of the leader of Cuba’s Jewish community in 1988. During her tenure there, and for many years before, the Canadian embassy in Havana maintained a hush-hush relationship with Israel to facilitate the emigration of Cuban Jews. After the 1973 War, Cuba broke off relations with Israel, and it soon became known to Cuba’s Jews that Canada was the new conduit. This 25-year relationship only came to light in 1999.*

Officials at foreign affairs, therefore, have good reason to charge Sinclair with having a pro-Israel bias and a disregard for Arab interests. Thanks to Ibbitson, this bit of zionist chicanery has come to light quickly, and this “surreptitious shift” has been exposed as a subversive power grab.

Let us speak plainly: Zionists are agents of Israel; they do not speak for Canada; they do not represent our democratic principles; they have no regard for international law; and they are intellectually dishonest.

Take the comments of Anita Neville, co-chairman of the government’s “Little Knesset,” which now boasts 18 pro-Israel MPs, most of them from heavily Jewish ridings: “We’ve looked at a large number of [UN] votes and Israel has been the only country to be singled out,” she said. “We want a more balanced approach at the UN.”†

According to this logic, foreign policy should be a shallow numbers game, as if the law didn’t matter. Is Canada supposed to ignore Israel’s violations of the Geneva Conventions and UN Security Council resolutions because it looks like we’re “singling out” Israel. Maybe if Israel acted like a civilized state the UN wouldn’t have to censure it, but Israel and civilized behaviour are mutually exclusive.

It cannot be an act of “anti-Israel bias” to condemn the invasion and destruction of refugee camps, the murder of children, the demolition of homes, or the continued theft of Arab land. The Little Knesset would have the government acquiesce in a crime against humanity. “Balance,” as Neville and others use the word, is zionist doublespeak for making excuses for Israelis but condemning Palestinians and their defenders at every opportunity.

After Peter Hansen, the Commissioner-General for the UN Relief and Works Agency in Palestine, said members of Hamas were working for him an intense international campaign emerged demanding Ottawa to cut off all funding. Fortunately, the government did not cave in—this time—but this uncompromising pro-Israel mentality is what is being foisted upon career foreign affairs officers.

A lot of the blame for this coercion is being directed at Israel’s main man in Ottawa Irwin Cotler, although his office refused to comment on his involvement with foreign policy.

Among his other Cotler odious achievements—membership in the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries. Founded on Jan. 25, 1976, WOJAC is based on the bogus notion that Jews in Israel are “refugees” from Arab lands, and therefore entitled to compensation. This is the “Double Exodus” myth by which Zionists try to draw a false equivalence between the forced depopulation of 750,000 Arabs in 1947–48 with the unforced migration of Jews to Palestine over a 20-year period. The very idea of “Jewish refugee” is ridiculed and denigrated even in Israel. As Tel Aviv University professor Yehouda Shenhav wrote:

“WOJAC was not formed to assist Mizrahi Jews; it was invented as a deterrent to block claims harbored by the Palestinian national movement, particularly claims related to compensation and the right of return… [It] infuriated many Mizrahi Israelis who defined themselves as Zionists. As early as 1975, at the time of WOJAC's formation, Knesset speaker Yisrael Yeshayahu declared: ‘We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations.’”§

As a member of this organization, Cotler would have to be banned from having any connection with foreign policy, since it would confirm that he is hopelessly biased in favour of Israel. According to Cotler’s communications manager Denise Rudnicky, he resigned from WOJAC last December when he entered cabinet. Really?

After a couple of calls to Tel Aviv, I got a hold of WOJAC chairman Oved ben-Ozer, who enthusiastically confirmed that Cotler is still a member. So much for honesty. A full-scale investigation of Cotler is long overdue, as is his dismissal from cabinet.
***

Postscript to my previous column: The Israeli officer who fired 13 bullets into murdered 13-year-old Iyman Hams will not be charged. Lt-.Gen. Moshe Yaalon said he acted properly. Canada’s foreign affairs minister Pierre Pettigrew has not issued a statement condemning her murder, but his office did issue an Oct. 1 statement deploring the recent killings of Israeli civilians, including two children.

Notes
* Estanislao Osiewicz, “Secret transit of Jews has gone on 25 years,” Globe and Mail, Oct. 11, 1999.
† Ron Csillag, “Liberal MPs work to change UN voting pattern on Israel,” Canadian Jewish News, Oct. 27, 2004.
§ Yehouda Shenhav, “Hitching a ride on the magic carpet,” Ha’aretz, Oct. 27, 2004. These claims for return and compensation are facts of international law, and are admitted by Israel. “Mizrahi” refers to Jews from neighbouring Arab states like Yemen who were brought to Israel as cheap labour for Ashkenazi (“German” or “European”) Jews.