{"id":14237,"date":"2021-01-27T15:09:30","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T15:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=155183"},"modified":"2021-01-27T15:09:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T15:09:30","slug":"bnai-brith-smears-leading-palestine-solidarity-activist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/27\/bnai-brith-smears-leading-palestine-solidarity-activist\/","title":{"rendered":"B\u2019nai B\u2019rith Smears Leading Palestine Solidarity Activist"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Recently Israel\u2019s largest human rights organization concluded the country was run based on a regime of Jewish supremacy<\/a>.  B\u2019Tselem wasn\u2019t only referring to the occupied West Bank but an \u201capartheid\u201d system in place from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.<\/p>\n

A week after B\u2019Tselem\u2019s report was released, one of Canada\u2019s leading lobbyists for the \u201cregime of Jewish supremacy\u201d smeared maybe the country\u2019s most effective activist in challenging Canadian complicity in that racism as, well surprise, surprise \u2026 racist. B\u2019nai B\u2019rith put out a press release attacking Karen Rodman for \u201cpromoting<\/a> the sale of Israeli wine \u2026 only because the winemaker is an Arab, rather than an Israeli Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n

The release is cringe worthy. It\u2019s hard to believe a more sober minded individual within the multimillion-dollar organization failed to intercede. But the truth is much of what B\u2019nai B\u2019rith produces reeks of an unsophisticated bully emboldened by a complicit political culture. A number of blogs promoting the \u201cregime of Jewish supremacy\u201d picked up B\u2019nai B\u2019rith\u2019s release declaring: \u201cAntisemitic BDSers support selling wine from Israel \u2014 as long as it isn\u2019t from Jews\u201d; \u201cAnti-Semitism: BDS Activist Promotes Israeli Wine Produced by Arabs, Not Jews\u201d; \u201cA \u2018wineing\u2019 hypocrisy: The BDS movement in Canada\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rodman\u2019s role in selling a few bottles from a Palestinian-owned winery is not, of course, why B\u2019nai B\u2019rith is targeting her. That self-declared human rights organization sees it as an opportunity to attack BDS and, more particularly, to undermine Rodman\u2019s effective activism on a series of fronts.<\/p>\n

A former United Church of Canada minister, Rodman has campaigned<\/a> to expose a 1970s agreement the church made with B\u2019nai B\u2019rith to inform it about Israel-related affairs or possibly even to seek their consent before implementing policy approved by the grassroots. She was also the key player in last summer\u2019s No Canada on United Nations Security Council campaign. Rodman compiled the research<\/a> contrasting Canada\u2019s viciously anti-Palestinian voting record at the General Assembly with its competitors for the seats Ireland and Norway. She also tracked down the contacts for all the UN ambassadors and coordinated an action alert that saw over 1,300<\/a> individuals deliver letters urging them to vote against Canada\u2019s bid due to its anti-Palestinian record. Flustered by the campaign, Canada\u2019s representative at the international organization wrote a last-minute response<\/a> to all UN ambassadors. (Another 1,000 letters were sent to UN ambassadors about other elements of Canadian foreign policy.) The security council loss was embarrassing to the Trudeau Liberals and was also a blow to the \u201cregime of Jewish supremacy\u201d and its Canadian lobby.<\/p>\n

More recently, Rodman has spearheaded the campaign to challenge illegal Israeli military recruitment in Canada. Canadians have been recruited to fight in Israel\u2019s military for three quarters of a century and only recently has there been an organized effort to stop the practice. The campaign launched with an open letter<\/a> signed by numerous prominent individuals demanding the Trudeau government take action on recruitment for the Israeli military and over 2,000 emails have been sent to Justice Minister David Lametti and RCMP Commissioner Rob O\u2019Reilly calling<\/a> on them to investigate the matter. Adding further pressure, Member of Parliament Mario Beaulieu is participating in an upcoming webinar<\/a> on the subject.<\/p>\n

While one may be tempted to call B\u2019nai B\u2019rith\u2019s attack on Rodman a new low, it is not. The group\u2019s fanaticism in promoting hate is long-standing. In October 2018 B\u2019nai Brith sponsored<\/a> an event in Vancouver with Ben Shapiro \u2014 a former Breitbart News<\/em> editor. Shapiro has said the \u201cPalestinian Arab population<\/a> is rotten to the core\u201d, \u201cArabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage\u201d and Islam is an \u201cideological representation of third worldism \u2026 and poverty.\u201d In response to a 2012 United Church resolution calling for a boycott of products from illegal Israeli settlements, B\u2019nai Brith CEO Frank Dimant issued statement claiming the minimal act of solidarity with the besieged Palestinians was tantamount to \u201ccalling<\/a> for ethnic cleansing of Jews from these areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just like White supremacists accuse people of colour of racism when they call for equality, B\u2019nai Brith accuses others of what it promotes. It backs extremist elements of the \u201cregime of Jewish supremacy\u201d while labeling those challenging racist governance as racist. People of good conscience will see through this and demonstrate solidarity with Karen Rodman.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently Israel\u2019s largest human rights organization concluded the country was run based on a regime of Jewish supremacy.\u00a0 B\u2019Tselem wasn\u2019t only referring to the occupied West Bank but\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,2568,1658,91,3227,3228,4,784,3229,295],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14238,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14237\/revisions\/14238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}