Madam Speaker, I want to thank my learned colleague from Thornhill, my colleagues, the members from Calgary Nose Hill and Parry Sound—Muskoka, for the contributions so far to this debate. This matter is personal to me. My wife Evangeline has Jewish heritage and my father-in-law, Winfred Winfield, is also Jewish by birth.
The motion before the House deals with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, also known as BDS, an acronym I will be using, against the state of Israel. Like I have done before, I am reminded of the Yiddish proverb, “The smallest vengeance poisons the soul”.
The BDS movement is vengeful, petty, counterproductive. It poisons the olive branch of peace that individuals on both sides of the conflict are attempting to nurture. It discriminates based on nationality and ethnicity. It undermined peace by endangering Palestinian jobs linked to Israeli-owned companies. It imports a foreign conflict to Canada.
It achieves none of the goals of its supporters. It is not pro-Palestinian; it is anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and, in many cases, anti-Semitic. It poisons whatever potential for goodwill there exists between these two competing sides. It shields the anti-Semites behind a veil a righteousness to pretend to fight for the weak and the downtrodden, while actually promoting hate, a hate that poisons the soul.
In 2011, the Boutique Le Marcheur, a shoe store on St. Denis Street in Montreal was the target of activists in a pro-BDS group who protested owners Yves Archambault and Ginette Auger's inclusion of Israeli made shoes in their stocks. The sheer pettiness of picking on small business owners in Canada, trying to earn a living, achieves nothing toward the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I would also like to inform the House that the Quebec National Assembly rejected any BDS attempts against Israel. François Bonnardel, the MNA for Granby, moved the following motion on February 9, 2011, together with Lawrence Bergman, MNA for D'Arcy-McGee, Martin Lemay, MNA for Sainte-Marie-Saint-Jacques, Éric Caire, MNA for La Peltrie, and Marc Picard, MNA for Chutes-de-la-Chaudière.
I salute these members of the Quebec National Assembly. I will read the motion:
That the National Assembly of Quebec condemn the boycott that has been held for several weeks in front of Boutique Le Marcheur in Montreal.
That, by virtue of the principles of free enterprise and the free market, the National Assembly support the owner of this business, Yves Archambault, who has been established on this street for 25 years and who pays taxes in Quebec.
That the National Assembly reiterate its support for the Cooperation Agreement Between the Government of Québec and the Government of the State of Israel, which was signed in 1997 and renewed in 2007.
The only member of the Quebec National Assembly who refused to give consent to debate the motion was the MNA for Mercier, Amir Khadir. Mr. Khadir shamefully refused to agree to debate the motion, since he knew very well that his support of the boycott was morally indefensible and, quite simply, repugnant.
Members of the National Assembly strongly condemned the movement to boycott the Boutique Le Marcheur, which is a boycott against Israel. By doing so, Quebec stated in no uncertain terms that anti-Semitism is unacceptable in a free and democratic society.
The impact of BDS reaches university campuses throughout the world and Canada as well, where BDS campaigns become Israeli-phobic events; that is to say Jewish-phobic events.
I am ashamed of Concordia University, from where I hold a bachelor's degree in political science, for its soft response to BDS on campus. The Concordia University student union held a successful yes referendum by-election vote in 2014 endorsing BDS. I am ashamed because it poisons academic freedom, freedom of speech, open debate, and mutual respect.
I agree with Alan Shepard, the president of Concordia University, who said at the time:
...[academic] freedom—to think the thoughts we want to think, to test ideas however controversial—is the bedrock of university life. Boycotts by definition foreclose all opportunities for such a free exchange of ideas and perspectives.
BDS on Canadian campuses poisons the learning environment. It creates an environment that welcomes further hatred toward Israelis and Jewish persons.
As Bassem Eid, a human rights activist and commentator on Palestinian domestic affairs, has written for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He says, BDS supporters are “creating more hatred, enmity, and polarization”. This from a supporter of the Palestinian cause. When he attempted to speak at a University of Johannesburg event to criticize Israel for its settlements in the West Bank, he was taken aback by what he described in his own words as the “raw hatred and the sheer unreasoning aggression” of the BDS crowd.
Mr. Eid went on to write in the Fikra Forum, June 25, 2015, “There is no connection between the tactics and objectives of the BDS movement and the on-the-ground realities of the Middle East.” Again, BDS enables a poisonous, vengeful brew of anti-Semitism.
In 2012, Israel accounted for 81% of Palestinian exports, less than 1% of Israeli GDP, but Palestinian purchases from Israel were two-thirds of the total Palestinian imports, or 27% of Palestinian GDP. How will sanctions improve any of this? How will boycotts help the families that need these jobs?
BDS supporters want to obliterate the vast trade surplus Israel extends to Palestine and offer nothing in return. Trade builds understanding. Trade builds trust over time. Trade, especially free trade, builds successes that a future peace agreement can be built upon.
Israel has enjoyed a free trade agreement with Canada since 1997, which has tripled our trade to $1.5 billion in 2015 alone. Israel is our trusted trading partner and a friend when it comes to the fight against international terrorism.
The BDS movement poisons rather than enlightens global dialogue around the peace process. Israel invests heavily in Palestine and the rest of the world typically does not.
BDS targets Israel for special treatment when there are horrific regimes with much worse human rights records. It singles out Israel for special treatment on human rights when no widespread BDS movement exists against serial human rights violators such as Cuba, Russia, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, China, Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Zimbabwe, and North Korea. I do not know of any BDS movements against their regimes.
Where is the North Korean BDS movement, a regime that has brutalized millions of its people, generations in fact, for half a century, a regime that openly has used forced labour camps where political pariahs are dispatched, where their children can spend a lifetime toiling in medieval conditions?
Where is the Venezuelan movement for BDS against the Maduro regime, against the Chavistas, a government that intimidates, censors, and prosecutes its critics, jails opposition politicians on spurious grounds? Its police forces engage in arbitrary arrests and violently suppress demonstrations with total impunity. All the while it enjoys a seat at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
BDS is immoral. It begins with a fundamental error for Jewish people. Israelis or Israelites are the indigenous peoples of the region who continue to return to their homeland from exile. The demands of the BDS movement are inconsistent with achieving a durable peace and incompatible facts on the ground in the current conflict.
Israel has agreed in the past, at least three times to my count, to peace. In 1967, it agreed to the conditions in UN Security Council Resolution 242; the Palestinians refused. Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the prior prime minister of Israel, offered peace twice in 2000-01 and 2007. The first time the Palestinian leadership refused and the second time there was no response to its overtures.
Even as BDS fails in its overt goals, it succeeds in eroding the clear moral recognition that Israel has a right to exist as a thriving Jewish state, the only Jewish state of clear Jewish character anywhere in the world.
Palestinians and Israelis need to reconcile. I accept that. It must happen. They do not need to reject and vilify each other. We must not assist in this rejection and vilification by allowing BDS campaigners and campaigns to run in Canada without some rejection of it from this Parliament. I ask members to support the motion to have a clear, unanimous motion in the House.