Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird signed the Ottawa Protocol on Combating Anti-Semitism on September 19, 2011, an action plan developed during the second annual conference of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism (ICCA) which took place in Ottawa in November 7-9, 2010.
The Ottawa Protocol was a groundbreaking alarm against state-sanctioned anti-Semitism and the resurgence of anti-Jewish libels, including Holocaust denial. The parliamentarians and experts at the conference came from six continents and over 50 countries.
By the signing, Canada recognized anti-Semitism as a pernicious evil and a global threat against the Jewish people, the State of Israel and free, democratic countries everywhere.
As Prime Minister Stephen Harper has noted, "Those who would hate and destroy the Jewish people would ultimately hate and destroy the rest of us as well."
It is clear that in Canada the delegitimization of Israel must be delegitimized through a devised state formula that could match the drives to isolate Israel. A working formula was officially introduced to the Government of Canada, culminating in the signing of the historic Ottawa Protocol.
Canada has demonstrated an effective approach to combat anti-Semitism, starting with consistently adhering to principles of justice and fairness in recognizing the rights of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, and Canada has stood up to global bullying while enduring criticism from enemies of Israel, both international and domestic.
A brief look at Canada's record shows its seriousness in a state-sponsored approach to anti-Semitism: Canada was the first nation to withdraw early from the 2009 Durban II conference, followed by the U.S., Australia, Israel, the U.K., and most of the EU. With the September Durban III Conference, Canada again took the lead in boycotting it, again a year early to enable other countries better to follow suit. Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney called the Durban Conference a charade that promoted racism rather than combated it.
Canada also opposed the bid for Palestinian statehood, and has endured insults for its unrelenting support for Israel, as well as accusations of breaking away from "decency and fairness" in its foreign policy. Prime Minister Stephen Harper also vetoed any mention of Israel's pre-1967 borders in the final G8 statement earlier in 2011.
Excerpts from the remarks at the signing of Professor Irwin Cotler, MP and Chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism:
Indeed we are witnessing and we have been witnessing for some time a new escalating global virulent and even lethal anti-Semitism that overlaps with traditional or classical anti-Semitism but is distinguishable from it ….
Perhaps best captured in the pithy words of the former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden Per Olmark himself a leading advocate in the combating of anti-Semitism when he wrote and I quote, “compared to most previous anti-Jewish outbreaks, this new anti-Semitism is often less directed against individual Jews. It attacks primarily the collective Jews, the state of Israel and then such attacks start a chain reaction of assaults on individual Jews and Jewish institutions.”
He continued, “in the past the most dangerous anti-Semites were those who wanted to make the world judenrein, free of Jews. Today,” as he put it, “the most dangerous anti-Semites might be those who want to make the world Judenstaatrein, free of a Jewish state.
There are a number of considerations which make anti-Semitism, as I said the oldest and most enduring of hatreds, not only distinguishable but warrant the action being taken by the government on our behalf this evening. I’ll summarize and close with that.
Number one, we’re not only dealing with the oldest and most enduring and toxic of hatreds and one which assumes different mutations over time but which has ended up causing and having catastrophic consequences not only for Jews but for all who get enveloped in this virus of evil.
Second, anti-Semitism as Dennis McShane who chaired the United Kingdom parliamentary inquiry into anti-Semitism put, “anti-Semitism is the only hatred that has a global dimension.” Simply put there is no other targeted minority that is the target of an international historical racist virus and where that racist virus as the Ottawa Protocol put it and as Minister Kenney stated so eloquently in the House today, not only propagates hatred against Jews but propagates hatred against Israel as the targeted collective Jew among the nations.
Third, there is the distinguishable feature of state sanction, state orchestrated incitement to hatred and indeed to genocide including in particular the state sanctioned genocidal anti-Semitism. That is not a word that I would use easily or lightly but I have no other term to describe that which emanates from Ahmadinejad’s Iran and from their terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah.
Fourth, there is no other racism that is laundered or masked under the rubrics of all that is good, under the protective cover of the United Nations, under the cover of human rights, under the imprimatur of international law, under the struggle against racism. At the end of the day it is not only prejudicial to Israel and Jews which are the target of that laundering but prejudicial to all those institutions and those concerns and causes that we care about so deeply and which are used and abused for purposes of laundering anti-Semitism.
Five, there has been a dramatic spike in anti-Semitic attacks against Jews, Jewish property, Jewish communal educational and religious institutions. The year 2009 had the highest incidence of anti-Semitic attacks ever recorded and in such disparate countries as the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and I can go on. In 2010 while a certain drop, nonetheless the second highest that was recorded ever.
Finally we’re witnessing a resurrection of all the libels of classical anti-Semitism – the blood libel, the economic libel, the conspiracy libel, the poisoning of the wells libels, the protocols of the Elders of Zion libel and the what I would call the double entendre libel, the cruel libel that says the holocaust did not occur and at the same time not only denying the Nazi holocaust but accuses the jaws of behaving like Nazis while even accusing them of having brought about the holocaust, a bundle of contradictions but the most vicious kind of double entendre.
The time has come as this endorsement indicates not only to sound the alarm but to act. The endorsement of this Ottawa protocol by the Canadian government will allow Canada – government, Parliament and people – to exercise moral, political and juridical leadership both domestically and internationally in combating as I said this most enduring oldest and toxic of hatreds. Thank you.
See above a photo of members of the ICCA Executive joined by international delegates at the Ottawa Protocol signing, Tuesday, November 9, 2010.
Back row (left to right): Congressman Chris Smith (USA), Minister Yuli Edelstein (Israel), Guillaume Ngefa (Democratic Republic of Congo), Gert Weisskirchen (Germany), MP Vivienne Teitelbaum (Belgium), Father Nortbert Hofmann (The Vatican) Front row (left to right): Hon. Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein, MP (Italy), Hon. Irwin Cotler, MP (Canada), MP John Mann (UK) (Photo by Victor Turco).
The full text of the Ottawa Protocol on Combating Anti-Semitism
Preamble
We, Representatives of our respective Parliaments from across the world, convening in Ottawa for the second Conference and Summit of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism, note and reaffirm the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism a-S a template document for the fight against anti-Semitism.
We are concerned that, since the London Conference in February 2009, there continues to be a dramatic increase in recorded anti-Semitic hate crimes and attacks targeting Jewish persons and property, and Jewish religious, educational and communal institutions.
We remain alarmed by ongoing state-sanctioned genocidal anti-Semitism and related extremist ideologies. If anti-Semitism is the most enduring of hatreds, and genocide is the most horrific of crimes, then the convergence of the genocidal intent embodied in antisemitic ideology is the most toxic of combinations.
We are appalled by the resurgence of the classic anti-Jewish libels, including:
- The Blood Libel (that Jews use the blood of children for ritual sacrifice)
- The Jews as "Poisoners of the Wells" - responsible for all evils in the world
- The myth of the "new Protocols of the Elders of Zion" - the tsarist forgery that proclaimed an international Jewish conspiracy bent on world domination - and accuses the Jews of controlling government, the economy, media and public institutions.
- The double entendre of denying the Holocaust - accusing the Jews of fabricating the Holocaust as a hoax - and the nazification of the Jew and the Jewish people.
We are alarmed by the explosion of anti-Semitism and hate on the Internet, a medium crucial for the promotion and protection of freedom of expression, freedom of information, and the participation of civil society.
We are concerned over the failure of most OSCE participating states to fully implement provisions of the 2004 Berlin Declaration, including the commitment to:
"Collect and maintain reliable information and statistics about antisemitic crimes, and other hate crimes, committed within their territory, report such information periodically to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), and make this information available to the public."
We are concerned by the reported incidents of anti-Semitism on campuses, such as acts of violence, verbal abuse, rank intolerance, and assaults on those committed to free inquiry, while undermining fundamental academic values.
We renew our call for national governments, parliaments, international institutions, political and civic leaders, NGOs, and civil society to affirm democratic and human values, build societies based on respect and citizenship and combat any manifestations of anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination.
We reaffirm the EUMC - now Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) - working definition of anti-Semitism, which sets forth that:
"Contemporary examples of anti-Semitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:
- Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
- Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective - such as, especially but not exclusively - the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy, or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
- Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
- Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
Examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:
- Applying double standards by requiring of it behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
- Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g. claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
- Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
- Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel
However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.
Let it be clear: Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is wrong. But singling Israel out for selective condemnation and opprobrium - let alone denying its right to exist or seeking its destruction - is discriminatory and hateful, and not saying so is dishonest.
Members of Parliament meeting in Ottawa commit to:
Calling on our governments to uphold international commitments on combating anti-Semitism - such as the OSCE Berlin Principles - and to engage with the United Nations for that purpose. In the words of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, "It is [...] rightly said that the United Nations emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust. And a human rights agenda that fails to address anti-Semitism denies its own history";
Calling on parliaments and governments to adopt the EUMC working definition and anchor its enforcement in existing law;
Encouraging countries throughout the world to establish mechanisms for reporting and monitoring on domestic and international anti-Semitism, along the lines of the "Combating Anti-Semitism Act of 2010" recently introduced in the United States Congress;
Encouraging the leaders of all religious faiths - represented also at this Conference - to use all means possible to combat anti-Semitism and all forms of hatred and discrimination;
Calling on the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies to make the combating of hatred and anti-Semitism a priority in their work;
Calling on Governments and Parliamentarians to reaffirm and implement the Genocide Convention, recognising that where there is incitement to genocide, State parties have an obligation to act;
Working with universities to encourage them to combat antisemitism with the same seriousness with which they confront other forms of hate. Specifically, universities should be invited to define anti-Semitism clearly, provide specific examples, and enforce conduct codes firmly, while ensuring compliance with freedom of speech and the principle of academic freedom. Universities should use the EUMC Working Definition of Anti-Semitism as a basis for education, training and orientation. Indeed, there should be zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind against anyone in the university community on the basis of race, gender, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation or political position;
We encourage the European Union to promote civic education and open society in its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and to link funding to democratic development and respect for human rights in ENP partner countries;
Establishing an International Task Force of Internet specialists comprised of parliamentarians and experts to create common indicators to identify and monitor antisemitism and other manifestations of hate online and to develop policy recommendations for Governments and international frameworks to address these problems;
Building on the African representation at this Conference, to develop increased working relationships with Parliamentarians in Africa for the combating of racism and anti-Semitism;
We urge the incoming OSCE Chair, Lithuania, to make implementation of these commitments a priority during 2011 and call for the reappointment of the Special Representatives to assist in this work.
Further reading:
A pan-European legal task force to fight anti-Semitism
Montreal Conference on “Combating the Delegitimation of Israel” held on Nov. 6, 2011
Annual Israel-EU seminar on the fight against anti-Semitism and xenophobia
Oleksandr Feldman: Ukranian Fighter Against Hatred
Conference on combating anti-Semitism to take place in Kiev, Ukraine
