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By Yves Engler
Montréal is a bastion of Israeli nationalist ideology. Folks of conscience should disrupt their actions, confronting the truth of Palestinian dispossession and apartheid.
On the a hundred and twenty fifth anniversary of the First Zionist Congress, three weeks in the past, Montréal-born Sylvan Adams instructed the Jerusalem Publish, “Israel belongs to all Jews. Israeli born, or Israeli immigrants equivalent to my spouse and myself, but additionally to every Jew within the Diaspora. Israel belongs to all of us.”
The Montréal-born billionaire’s perspective might attraction to Jewish supremacists however how about non-Jews who’ve lived there for dozens of generations? Or the refugees Israel expelled to create a “Jewish state”? And is the territory that belongs to a Montréal Jew the 1948 border, the land Israel has managed for a half century, or many instances larger as some Zionists have claimed?
Adams is a proponent of what B’Tselem has labeled “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” (an space during which Jews are a minority). He aggressively promotes what Israel’s main human rights group, Amnesty Worldwide, Human Rights Watch and plenty of others have labeled an apartheid state.
Adams funds varied initiatives selling apartheid. He instigated an initiative with the explicitly racist Jewish Nationwide Fund and helped with a suppose tank led by Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel that promotes the Abraham Accords, which search to normalize relations between the occupying energy and regional governments. Final month he instructed the evangelical web site ALL ISRAEL NEWS, “the Evangelical Christians are in all probability higher mates of ours than many American Jews and even Israeli Jews who take Israel as a right. We’ve got no higher mates in your entire world.”
Adams’ most noteworthy contribution to the “regime of Jewish supremacy” has been to spend massive sums on headline-grabbing sports activities and cultural occasions within the hopes of whitewashing Israeli racism and violence. On Monday Adams instructed the Jerusalem Publish, “I’m not attempting to persuade the haters and the antisemites,” however reasonably sway the largely uninformed and apolitical. His purpose is to painting Israel as a “regular fashionable Western nation” that’s “open, tolerant, and numerous, and free, and democratic.”
In recent times, Adams has plowed tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} into Israeli bike racing initiatives in addition to a Madonna efficiency, area launch and Argentina soccer match. “My initiatives are meant to achieve out to essentially massive audiences”, Adams instructed The Occasions of Israel. “If we take the Giro for example, as a result of bike racing takes place open air, they obtained to see the whole lot of our nation from Acre within the north all the best way right down to Eilat within the south, and in an unvarnished method — with out preaching to them. We’re simply reaching out to sports activities followers and saying: Right here we’re, that is what we appear to be.” Past whitewashing apartheid and colonial violence, Adams stated his “second objective is to engender nationwide satisfaction and happiness and cohesion amongst our folks.”
On Sunday, September 11, 25 of us rallied towards the participation of the Adams’ sponsored Israel – Premier Tech staff within the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal. In the course of the bike race, Adams was straight challenged on his assist for apartheid. In the end, he jogged away from questioners.
Adams grew up in Montréal and his household made a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in Québec and Canadian actual property (he’s reportedly price US$1.7 billion). However now he’s utilizing this wealth to push again towards these against the brutal siege of Gaza and ethnic cleaning within the West Financial institution. His Israeli nationalism is pathological and deeply rooted in Montréal.
Adams has contributed to quite a lot of charities in Montréal that increase cash for initiatives in Israel. Montréal is dwelling to “Canadian Pals” of Hebrew College, Tel-Aviv College, Technion and Ben-Gurion College. It’s additionally dwelling to a charity supporting non-Israelis who be a part of the IDF and Canadian Pals of Yad L’Achim, which campaigns towards Jewish and Palestinian/Muslim intermarriage.
With the general public subsidizing about half the price of non-public education in Québec, almost 50% of Jewish youngsters in Montréal attend Jewish colleges. In 2016 Adams donated $15 million to Herzliah Excessive College. On its web site the Montréal college boasts of its “Israel Engagement initiative”, which “focusses on three key areas: Appreciating our homeland. Partaking with Israel. Advocating for Israel”. They educate the children in regards to the boycott, divestment and sanctions motion and “most necessary, college students will develop expertise and techniques to advocate for Israel at CEGEP [college], on college campuses and past.”
Various Montréal colleges actively promote the Israeli army. Montréal’s largest Jewish college, Hebrew Academy, exhibits motion pictures that commemorate the Israeli army; college students ship presents to IDF bases; Israeli emissaries lead kindergarten courses in “enjoyable IDF applications”.
An April 2020 article from the college web site notes, “following a nod to HA alumni serving within the IDF and a prayer for Chayalei Tzahal [IDF] by College Rabbi Eddie Shostak, Head of College Dr. Laura Segall relayed that her dad and mom each served within the IDF.” That month, Hebrew Academy additionally posted a video to its Fb web page of alumni at the moment serving within the IDF. Below the caption “A significant video that includes our HA alumni who’re serving within the Israel Protection Forces,” a half-dozen alumni spend 12 minutes telling college students in regards to the significance of serving within the armed forces of the Israeli state.
The varsity considers becoming a member of the IDF a particular accomplishment. Final yr Hebrew Academy posted an image of three younger males to its Fb web page with the caption: “Mazel tov to class of 2018 alumni Michael Kuperstok, Nathan Bebuzru and Yehuda Besner who’re enlisting within the Israel Protection Forces this week. We’re past pleased with you!”
Within the paper “Good Jewish Residents: Israel or Zionist schooling the important thing to saving North American Jewish Id?” Bonnie Ok. Goodman holds up Montréal Jewish education as a profitable mannequin. “To fight the disaster,” Goodman writes, “American Jews may search for north to Montreal, Quebec. The second-largest Jewish neighborhood in Canada has the bottom intermarriage charges and the very best variety of college students attending day colleges and summer season camps.
Town can also be dwelling to an Israel engagement program arming their highschool graduating class with the instruments essential to confront the anti-Israel school world and advocate for Israel. The curriculum creates a Zionist schooling that fosters its graduates to not solely be educated Jews however good residents versed in some of the important parts of Civil Judaism assist and ties to Israel.”
These of us who perceive the reality about Israel have a duty to counter nationalist lies and promotion of apartheid each alternative that presents itself, right here in Montréal or wherever we stay.
– Yves Engler is the writer of Canada and Israel: Constructing Apartheid and quite a lot of different books. He contributed this text to The Palestine Chronicle. Go to his web site: yvesengler.com.
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