Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to rise on this motion. I will not be supporting it, but I want to make it very clear that the Green Party and I personally do not support the BDS movement. There is a Green Party in Israel which is consulted with frequently, and its view is that it would prefer that Green parties around the world do not support calls for boycotting Israel. Similarly, Green Party members do call for free speech and respect the right of Canadians to organize as they wish on issues that disturb them.
There is no question that the plight of the Palestinian people is an issue that concerns many Canadians. I do not think that this is tactically an appropriate choice. However, I ask the hon. member—and I think he tried to tread this water carefully in his speech—that we not assume that a campaign for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against the state of Israel is based in hate, nor have we assumed that it is anti-Semitic. If the United Church of Canada carries forward such a campaign, it is not anti-Semitic organization; it is not a hate-filled organization.
I put to the hon. member this interesting vote count from the Israeli Knesset. In July 2011, that parliament of Israel voted on a question of whether to condemn calls for boycotts against Israel as a civil wrong. The vote carried, but it was not overwhelming. There were 47 members of the Knesset who voted for it, and 38 members voted against it. The 38 members who voted against it were certainly not hate filled against the State of Israel.