The NDP’s Palestine Problem
Which is worse? The baseless and career-ending false accusations from the “official” Jews of the Atlantic Jewish Council (AJC) and Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) that a Dartmouth NDP candidate should be barred from running in the Nova Scotia election because on social media she dared to twice criticize Israel and its genocide of 43,000 Palestinians? Or the snivelling nastiness of the NSNDP in accepting the resignation of Eastern Passage candidate Tammy Jakeman because they don’t want trouble from the pro-Israel lobby?
What did Jakeman do that was so wrong? She posted a number of tweets almost a year ago that criticized Israel’s then incipient genocide in Gaza.
NSNDP leader Claudia Chender, without consulting her five other NDP MLAs or the other candidates running in the upcoming NS election, wrote a letter that stated in part “Everyone running for office has a responsibility to ensure that their comments do not cause undue harm.” And what is that harm exactly? Well, all Chender could come up with is the potential “hurt” to those who support Israel. In fact, it was CIJA that claimed it was “hurtful” and “inflammatory” to Jews when Jakeman posted to X (formerly Twitter) that “Israel is obsessed with killing all Hamas, regardless of the human expenses.”
If Jakeman’s comment sounds harsh, it is time to measure her words against those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In June 2024, he said “We reserve the right to return to war.” Bear in mind; at that point he had overseen the IDF murders of [at that time] 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and more than double the number horrendously injured. Netanyahu added, “We have maintained the goals of the war, first of them the destruction of Hamas.” [my emphasis]
Those comments sound pretty much in line with what Jakeman said.
Jakeman’s second tweet was “Apartheid Israel is at its happiest when terrorizing Palestinians.” The facts are that no fewer than five UN special rapporteurs, plus the current one Francesca Albanese, plus the International Court of Justice, plus the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), plus 20 Israeli human rights groups including B’tselem, Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence, Peace Now Israel, Physicians for Human Rights as well as international human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International – all use the word Apartheid in reference to Israel. There are many accusations by prominent human rights groups about Israel “terrorizing Palestinians”. For instance, Amnesty International criticizes the forced displacement of Palestinians: ie, their unlawful murders, lack of freedom of movement, arbitrary detention, torture and ill- treatment as a form of (Israeli) state terror. And a letter to the UN in April 2024 from the UN’s Permanent Observer to the state of Palestine notes in part,
“The irreparable harm that Israel is wreaking on Palestinian children, as a result of mass violence and terror against them, deliberate forced displacement, famine inflicted on them, deprivation of their education, their exposure to spreading diseases and a public health catastrophe, their exposure to unimaginable traumas and the theft of their childhoods, demands that the occupying Power be listed by the Secretary-General as a serial and dangerous violator of child rights.”
For NDP leader Claudia Chender to privilege the “hurt feelings” of Canadian Jews and their supporters ahead of 11,000 thousands of dead Palestinian babies is immoral and grotesque.
We’ve seen the NDP play this card before. Almost exactly five years ago, the federal NDP disallowed volunteer charity worker Rana Zaman from running in the Dartmouth-Cole Harbour riding. Though Zaman (who is Muslim) had won the riding’s nomination handily, her tweets about Israel’s murders of more than 223 Palestinians who were shot dead in cold blood by Israeli snipers during the Great March of Return in 2018 pushed the NDP to remove her as their candidate. Zaman also noted that, “not every Jewish person agrees with the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and many realize it’s a way to muzzle criticism of Apartheid Israel and supporters of Palestine.” True enough. A 2018 EKOS poll of Canadian Jews indicates that:
48% agree that “Accusations of antisemitism are often used to silence legitimate criticisms of Israel”
44% say Israel is not making sincere efforts at peace with the Palestinians
37% have a negative opinion of the Israeli government https://www.ijvcanada.org/new-ekos-poll-jewish-canadians-sharply-divided-on-israel-palestine/
Barely six months after her removal as a candidate, Zaman won the individual Nova Scotia Human Rights award from the NS Human Rights Commission. But that award was quickly taken back, at the behest of the Atlantic Jewish Council.
Stephen Kimber, a journalism professor at Halifax’s University of King’s College wrote,
“On Dec. 11, in the immediate aftermath of Zaman’s award presentation — which is to say before the Atlantic Jewish Council decided to tell the human rights commission what to do — the commission’s executive director, Christine Hanson, defended the award. She told the website allnovascotia.com that activists like Zaman inevitably tend to be controversial ‘because they push the boundaries and they’re often very outspoken and courageous. We look at a full picture, but mainly we’re focused on people who are doing that work in community, doing that advocacy work.’ “
Within days of giving her the award, the NS Human Rights Commission decided to rescind Zaman’s award saying the Commission had been “unaware of public statements made by Ms. Zaman.” According to Kimber, this comment “beggars belief.” Though the Commission did recognize her major contributions to human rights, it changed its mind about giving her the award after being “bullied by one of its award partners, the Atlantic Jewish Council.”
The NDP demonized Rana Zaman
But who really started the campaign to demonize Rana Zaman? It was none other than the NDP. Zaman, an immigrant from Pakistan, a racialized person and a community activist was not good enough for the NDP, though she had won the nomination “fair and square”. The NDP’s slander about her being an “unacceptable” candidate and suggesting her tweets were antisemitic were initiated and then amplified by the Jewish establishment.
However as writer and professor Stephen Kimber noted,
“It is interesting to consider the good Rana Zaman might have done as the NDP’s candidate for parliament, the even more she might have accomplished as an MP.”
In 2015, NDP candidate Morgan Wheeldon, who had won the federal NDP nomination in Kings-Hants, suddenly resigned. The NDP confronted Wheeldon because he was critical of Israel’s killing of more than 2000 Palestinians in Gaza in Israel’s six week ‘Operation Protective Edge’ that summer. Brad Lavigne, an NDP campaign adviser, said Wheeldon’s stance on Israel’s attacks on Palestinians did not reflect the party’s position.
“Our position on the conflict in the Middle East is clear, as Tom Mulcair expressed clearly in the debate. Mr. Wheeldon’s comments are not in line with that policy and he is no longer our candidate,” Lavigne said.
Judy Swift, then-president of the Kings-Hants NDP riding association, resigned in support of Wheeldon.
I think the NDP has a lot of ‘splaining to do. I can understand that the NDP doesn’t want trouble from the pro-Israel lobby; the Atlantic Jewish Council and CIJA are vitriolic and damaging to those who do not support Israel.
Did Tammy Jakeman do “harm” to the Jews?
By framing the issue to say that Tammy Jakeman’s remarks “did harm” to Jews, the NDP is succumbing to a horrible moral blackmail. Whenever ANYONE criticizes Israel, whether robustly or mildly, some Jews are going to feel hurt. Well too bad, so sad. It’s necessary. When the ICJ called Israel’s actions a plausible genocide, no doubt many supporters of Israel felt pain. The end result of focusing on hurt feelings versus dead bodies is to shut everyone up as the genocide happens before our eyes.
NDP Heavies warn Jakeman about AJC’s attacks
Two NDP “heavies” James Pratt (chief of staff to NSNDP leader Chender, and a former staff member of federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair) and Ali Clarke visited Tammy Jakeman late last week. They warned her that she was in the Atlantic Jewish Council’s crosshairs, and that the AJC would relentlessly attack her as an antisemite – even after the election was over and the dust had settled. This was Jakeman’s second run for MLA, but it was doubtful Jakeman could win the riding, as it is currently represented by Tory cabinet minister Barbara Adams, who today wasted no time in gloating over the NDP’s debacle.
It’s unclear whether Jakeman resigned before or after Pratt and Clarke called on her.
What does this tell us? Did the NDP learn nothing from the Rana Zaman case (and several othe similar ones across the country)? Did they not learn no matter how many times the NDP has grovelled and apologized for its candidates legitimately criticizing Israel it will never be enough. In Canada, the name of the game is to obey “your betters.” And here, it is clear that the pro-Israel lobbyists have a lot of power and access to friends in high places. Their goal is to keep Palestine off the political agenda, and silence those who dare speak out.
Featured image at the top: A red ‘I love you’ teddy bear lies in the ruins of a two-storey apartment block in Ain Yaaqoub, Akkar, Lebanon, in the aftermath of an Israeli air raid on Monday night 11 Nov. 2024. [Raghed Waked/Al Jazeera]