CANADA: Anti-semitism and free speech

  Anti-semitism and free speech  

A handbook for all those resisting attacks for being critical of Israel

Anti-Semitism Real and Imagined: Responses to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism 

by Michael Keefer

Michael Keefer has compiled a timely and effective handbook for all those resisting attacks on free speech regarding the Israeli government's crimes against Palestine.

His 268-page book, Anti-Semitism Real and Imagined, contains contributions from 11 committed campaigners in the fight for freedom of expression, as well as position papers from seven well-respected Canadian social organizations.

The book reports on an extra-parliamentary committee named the Canadian Parliamentary Committee to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA), established in 2009 as a lobbying venture by 21 members of Parliament hostile to criticisms of the Israeli government's policies toward the Palestinians.

It was established and funded privately, with representation from all four parliamentary parties, although the Bloc Québécois has since withdrawn. But it is in no way non-partisan. Rather, it advances an agenda to which the Stephen Harper government is deeply committed.

Evidence of bias one of the book's contributors, Bruce Katz of Palestinian and Jewish Unity, asks why there are no parliamentarians of Arab descent or of Muslim faith sitting on this commission.

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