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Written by: Daniel Xie

On December 17, 2020, the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee(CJPAC) reported a successful National Festival of Lights (Hanukkah) celebration hosted via Zoom by Liberal MP for Mount Royal, Anthony Housefather and Ya'ara Saks. The event involved the participation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Green Party Leader Annamie Paul.

Three days after CJPAC reported of Paul and Singh attending the National Festival of Lights, pro-Palestinian activist Sam Hersh criticized Singh’s participation. Hersh expressed disappointment that Singh would pose for photo ops with CJPAC, which he identifies as a pro-Israel advocacy group seeking to suppress advocacy for Palestinian human rights. These efforts to suppress Palestinian human rights and advocates, Hersh notes, have led to the targeting of non-Zionist Jews such as himself as “dangerous”.

Similar criticisms regarding the participation of the NDP in an event hosted by the pro-Israeli CJPAC were also expressed by Michael Buckert, the vice president for Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East(CJPME), who found it “weird” that the NDP would participate in CJPAC hosted events.

An examination of CJPAC’s website reveals the anti-Palestinian goals of the organization. The website contains many articles and news reports painting a one-sided, pro-Israeli image of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These articles include:

Statements by political figures such as Michael Ignatiff linking Israeli apartheid week to greater antisemitism in Canada
Statements by MPs linking the BDS movement to growing antisemitism within Canada
Articles, along with statements, attempting to link anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel with antisemitism, despite the fact that the majority of Canadians oppose the labeling of criticism of Israel as anti-semitic

NDP Top Brass Continues Shameful Suppression of Pro-Palestine Foreign Policy

Jagmeet Singh’s attendance at the CJPAC hosted celebration signifies the continued opposition of the NDP establishment to a pro-Palestinian foreign policy. For many years, particuarly under the leadership of Thomas Mulcair, the NDP has committed itself to a pro-Israeli foreign policy, going as far as to expel members for voicing criticism of Israel and preventing candidates from running for office if they have demonstrated pro-Palestinian viewpoints. Singh’s leadership has not generated any significant departure from the NDP’s opposition to Palestinian human rights.

At the start of 2020, Singh claimed in an interview with Canadian Jewish News that BDS ferments tension and division, supposedly detrimental to efforts at securing peace in the Middle East. He also falsely claimed the NDP opposes BDS, despite the fact that over 68% of NDP members have expressed support for BDS. This was a significant about-face from his opposition to anti-BDS measures when he was a MP in 2016. Recently, even as many NDP MPs are starting to express opposition to Israeli plans to annex the West Bank, Jagmeet Singh has chosen instead to not sign the pledge launched by CJPME to oppose Israel’s annexation plans. This behavior on the part of Singh has been criticized by Sheryl Nestel of Independent Jewish Voices Canada as demonstrating a “lack of understanding of the plight of the Palestinian people”.

While Singh remains tepid on the issue of Palestine, the NDP establishment tries to prevent the party from adopting resolutions favorable to Palestinian human rights. During the NDP’s 2018 Federal Convention, a resolution was brought forward that would have called on the NDP to ban products coming from Israeli settlements and oppose parliamentary efforts to undermine non-violent movements seeking a just resolution such as BDS. This resolution had the support of 28 Electoral District Associations, the Young New Democrats of Canada, along with a number of incumbent and former MPs. However, despite the groundswell of support, the resolution was given low priority at the convention, with many party staffers and MPs voting to keep it off the agenda.

This was not the first time the NDP establishment sought to prevent pro-Palestinian resolutions from being passed at a convention. At the Vancouver Convention in June 2011 pro-Palestinian delegates were sucessful in pushing for the Canadian Boat to Gaza resolution to be moved up to the number two position at the foreign policy panel. In response, 30 to 40 MPs and staff were directed into the room by NDP party officials to vote it down.

Some pro-Israeli figures within the NDP have worked with pro-Israeli lobbying groups to suppress pro-Palestinian activism and Palestinian human rights. The Canada Files has previously reported that Randall Garrison, who also refused to sign onto the CJPME pledge, is part of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group (CAIL), a pro-Israel lobby group that facilitates greater diplomatic ties between the two countries’ parliaments. Garrison has also participated in a 2019 World Jewish Congress meeting in Ottawa sponsored by the pro-Israeli Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs that passed resolutions supporting Israeli violence against Palestinians in Gaza and suppressing pro-Palestinian activism in Canada.

The NDP Suppression of pro-Palestinian activism on the Provincial Level

Efforts by the NDP establishment to suppress pro-Palestinian voices extends to both federal and provincial levels. At the 2019 provincial convention of the Ontario NDP, a pro-Palestinian resolution was also prevented from appearing on the floor. The ONDP accomplished this by pushing the resolution to the very bottom of its list of resolutions, despite the fact that the resolution had many more endorsements than resolutions that appeared higher up the list.

The blocking of a pro-Palestinian resolution at the 2019 provincial convention was not the only shameful display of the ONDP’s opposition to pro-Palestinian voices within the NDP. The Ontario NDP has, under pressure from the pro-Israeli B’nai Brith organization, pressured MPP Joel Harden to not speak in favor of Palestinian human rights in response to his call for the release of Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jaffar, who was arrested for exposing Israel’s criminal record before the International Criminal Court. In addition, the ONDP did not put up any resistance against Bill 168, which sought to ban criticism of Israel under trumped-up accusations of Anti-Semitism. Rather, the majority of the ONDP abstained from the vote, and some even voted in favor of Bill 168.

The Pro-Israel Foreign Policy realignment within the Green Party

Jagmeet Singh was joined in the CJPAC hosted event by Annamie Paul, the current leader of the Federal Green Party. The appearance of Annamie Paul signifies a potential pro-Israel turn within the foreign policy of the Green Party combined with an escalation of attempts by the Green Party establishment to suppress pro-Palestine voices in their own party. Prior to the ascension of Annamie Paul as party leader, the Green Party has been seen as an alternative by many progressives and leftists disillusioned with the NDP over its rightward shift.

The migration of disillusioned leftists and pro-Palestinian activists into the Green Party has in turn facilitated the passing of a resolution by former Green Party Shadow Cabinet Justice Critic Dimitri Lascaris calling on the Green Party to support BDS. It had also resulted in a strong showing by Lascaris when he ran for leadership in the Green Party leadership race, managing to come in second in the final round, along with the launching of leadership campaigns by other left leaning figures in the party such as Amita Kuttner and Meryam Haddad.

This leftist insurgency within the Green Party however, has faced opposition from the Green Party establishment, which launched their own efforts to suppress the growing eco-socialist and pro-Palestinian insurgency within their party. In retaliation for Lascaris bringing forth a pro-BDS resolution, former Green Party leader Elizabeth May fired Lascaris from his position as Shadow Justice Critic. The Green Party establishment then pushed through resolutions erasing all mentions of BDS at a Special General Meeting in 2016. While the basic tenants of the pro-BDS policy the Greens adopted on Palestine remained, the erasure of BDS was treated as a victory by May, who spun a false narrative that the party did not support BDS.

During the 2020 Green Party leadership race, Elizabeth May would secure Annamie Paul’s victory by suppressing the campaigns of Lascaris and other left-wing candidates such as Meryam Haddad. One method in which this suppression was carried out was through the promotion of Annamie Paul as the candidate of choice by Elizabeth May and the Green Party establishment. Apart from clearly taking a side in favor of Annamie Paul, the Green Party establishment would initially prevent Dimitri Lascaris from running at the start of the leadership race, they would also attempt to expel Meryam Haddad from the race a week before the leadership election. Both of these decisions were reversed following backlash.

The victory of Annamie Paul in the Green Party leadership race, when framed in the context of the rampant suppression of left wing voices in the Green Party, signified the victory of the Green Party establishment over the leftist, pro-Palestinian, insurgency seeking to move the party in a leftwards direction. Paul’s leadership representing a shift to a more pro-Israeli foreign policy was pointed out in the assessment made by CJPME of the various Green Party leadership candidates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which gave Paul the lowest score with regards to their foreign policy towards the Middle East. It notes that while Paul had opposed Israeli annexation rhetorically, her actions paint a different picture. Paul was one of two candidates who did not endorse the anti-annexation pledge, and was noted by CJPME to have opposed the BDS movement.

Oppose the Suppression of pro-Palestinian Activism in the NDP and the Green Party

The attendance of Jagmeet Singh and Annamie Paul at the CJPAC hosted Hanukkah celebration demonstrates both the continued adherence of the NDP to a pro-Israeli foreign policy, and the efforts of the Green Party to realign its foreign policy to a pro-Israeli orientation under continued establishment leadership. The pro-Israel foreign policy of both the seemingly progressive NDP and Green parties not only alienate them from their left leaning base, but also alienate them from the majority of Canadians, who are increasingly in opposition to the pro-Israeli foreign policy of the Trudeau government.

Going forward, we can expect to see continued efforts to suppress pro-Palestinian resolutions at the 2021 NDP convention, as well as efforts to fully abandon even the basic tenants of the pro-BDS policy adapted by the Green Party on the part of the Green Party establishment.

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