{"id":473891,"date":"2022-01-18T06:38:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T06:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=125530"},"modified":"2022-01-18T06:38:36","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T06:38:36","slug":"pro-israel-canadians-pressure-ottawa-over-iran-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/01\/18\/pro-israel-canadians-pressure-ottawa-over-iran-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Israel Canadians Pressure Ottawa over Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those Canadians who take their political cues from Israel are obsessively stoking conflict with Iran. In a clear example, former CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre Avi Benlolo has published a half dozen National Post<\/em> columns critical of that country over the past year.<\/p>\n

In a recent article headlined \u201cAs the Doomsday Clock closes in on midnight, the time for action on Iran is now<\/a>,\u201d Benlolo demanded more belligerence while in August he argued \u201cthat Iran is just two months away from a nuclear breakout\u201d in a story headlined<\/a> \u201cJoe Biden must not support nuclear deal with Iran, Israel\u2019s existence depends on it.\u201d Over the previous year the ardent Zionist also published \u201cDiplomatic rift between Tehran and Ottawa continues to grow\u201d and \u201cU.S. preparing to throw Israel under the bus with Iran nuclear deal.\u201d Benlolo criticized Iran in a series of other columns and released a statement on his site titled<\/a>, \u201cOn One Year Anniversary, Canadians Commemorate Downing of Plane By Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israeli officials are pressing US President Joe Biden for more sanctions and violence<\/a> against Iran. They want to scuttle the Iran nuclear negotiations and any effort to reduce tensions between Washington and Tehran.<\/p>\n

While Israeli officials have been claiming Iran is on the cusp of acquiring nuclear weapons for decades, they\u2019ve sought to block (with US and Canadian support<\/a>) any effort to develop a Middle East Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. Most countries in the region support a nuclear free zone, which exist elsewhere, but Israel wants to maintain its 90 nuclear<\/a> weapons.<\/p>\n

There is little evidence Iran is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, but even if it did it wouldn\u2019t be an existential threat to Israel despite its claims. It would, however, slightly weaken Israeli hegemony in the region.<\/p>\n

But Canadian Zionists believe a European colonial outpost of 9 million should dominate a region of 450 million<\/a> so they incessantly demonize Iran. It was recently reported \u2014 with no mention he\u2019s a long-time B\u2019nai B\u2019rith lawyer \u2014 that David Matas was legal counsel<\/a> to a former member of the Shah\u2019s brutal secret service facing deportation to Iran. Last month Matas co-authored an op-ed<\/a> on the Iranian military mistakenly downing Ukraine Airlines flight PS752 to argue that Canada should \u201cdesignate the IRGC [Iran\u2019s military] as a whole, and not just its foreign division, as a terrorist entity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yesterday the CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre Michael Levitt article<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s long past time to hold Iran\u2019s regime to account\u201d was published in the Toronto Star<\/em>. It argued, \u201cthe anniversary of the downing of Flight 752 was a stark reminder of the odious regime leading Iran and its litany of crimes at home and abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Israel lobby has been using the two-year-old tragedy \u2013 at least partly Washington\u2019s responsibility for assassinating Iranian General Qasem Soleimani days earlier – to attack Iran. Recently the Washington-based Israel lobby group Foundation for Defence of Democracies pressed<\/a> the US government to take money Iran collects from international airlines for using its airspace to pay $107 million<\/a> to six Canadians killed on the flight. To weaken Israel\u2019s rival, Irwin Cotler\u2019s Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights has been campaigning for victims of PS752. Raoul Wallenberg Centre lawyer Yonah Diamond is representing families of PS752 victims and in July 2020 the Centre organized a webinar in which Cotler spoke titled<\/a> \u201cPursuing Justice and Accountability: Remedies for those murdered in the bombing of flight PS752.\u201d<\/p>\n

Married to a \u201cclose confidant<\/a>\u201d of Likud founder Menachem Begin and with a daughter recently in Israel\u2019s Knesset, Irwin Cotler has criticized Iran incessantly. Canada\u2019s most influential anti-Palestinian activist is chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in Iran and set up Iran Accountability Week in Parliament. Cotler also serves as counsel to imprisoned Iranian lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and helped get the Iranian Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) removed<\/a> from the US terrorist list. In recent years Cotler, Stephen Harper and other Canadian Zionists have promoted the MEK, which is a cultish group<\/a> that backed Iraq in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and, according to US government sources<\/a>, has teamed up with Israel to assassinate Iranian scientists.<\/p>\n

On its website B\u2019nai B\u2019rith has an email campaign titled \u201cThree Ways<\/a> for the Government to Combat Iran.\u201d It calls for Ottawa to: \u201cApply the Magnitsky Act to members of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to sanction its human rights abusers; List the IRGC in its entirety as a terrorist entity in Canada; Hold Iran to account for its killing of 57 Canadians on January 2020\u2019s Flight PS572.\u201d In 2020 B\u2019nai Brith sued<\/a> the federal government for failing to comply with a motion in Parliament to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the official lobbying arm of Canada\u2019s Jewish Federations, also promotes an anti-Iran campaign titled \u201cMaintain<\/a> diplomatic pressure on the Iranian regime.\u201d CIJA\u2019s five demands echo those of B\u2019nai B\u2019rith.<\/p>\n

In \u201cA story of failed re-engagement<\/a>: Canada and Iran, 2015\u20132018,\u201d University of Ottawa professor Thomas Juneau highlighted the Israel lobby\u2019s role in deterring the Trudeau government from re-establishing diplomatic relations with Iran, which they promised to do prior to their election: \u201cInitially, Cabinet and most caucus supported re-engagement. [Then foreign affairs minister Stephane] Dion, who was actively lobbied by Bombardier (whose headquarters were in his riding) and the Montreal Chamber of Commerce, was especially keen. Other senior ministers such as [Chrystia] Freeland (International Trade) and Harjit Sajjan (Defence) also supported. With time, however, opposition within caucus grew. It was led by Michael Levitt, the influential MP for York-Center and chair of the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group, and also included Anthony Housefather (MP for Mount-Royal). These MPs had support from former minister Irwin Cotler, who had long argued for harsher policies towards Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juneau continued, \u201cother interviewees also highlighted the differences in organization among pressure groups. Between the tabling of the motion [to oppose reengaging with Iran] and the vote four days later, groups opposing reengagement, such as the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, rapidly launched an effective campaign to pressure MPs. Groups favoring reengagement, however, such as the Iranian Canadian Congress, were unable to match these lobbying efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zionists in Canada have sought to lay obstacles to renewing diplomatic relations with Iran. An important obstacle is Ottawa listing Iran as a state sponsor of terror and seizing its diplomatic assets. In 2019 Canada seized and sold $28 million worth of Iranian properties in Ottawa and Toronto to compensate individuals<\/a> in the US who had family members killed in a 2002 Hamas bombing in Israel and others who were held hostage by Hezbollah in 1986 and 1991. The Supreme Court of Canada and federal government sanctioned the seizure under the Harper Conservatives 2012 Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which lifts immunity for countries labeled \u201cstate sponsors of terrorism\u201d to allow individuals to claim their non-diplomatic assets. Tehran considers the asset seizure a violation of international law and, as I detailed in \u201cSeizure of Iranian Property to Pay Americans Another Example of Canadian Hypocrisy\u201d, many other victims have far more legitimate claims to seizing diplomatic (US\/Israeli) assets. But the asset seizure and state sponsor of terrorism listing are a major hurdle to re-establishing normal relations between Canada and Iran.<\/p>\n

Canadian Zionists sometimes claim the notion of a powerful \u201cIsrael lobby\u201d is an anti-Semitic \u201ctrope\u201d but their success in disrupting promises made in the Liberal Party election campaign proves its influence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>The post Pro-Israel Canadians Pressure Ottawa over Iran<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.\n

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

Those Canadians who take their political cues from Israel are obsessively stoking conflict with Iran. In a clear example, former CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre Avi Benlolo has published a half dozen National Post columns critical of that country over the past year. In a recent article headlined \u201cAs the Doomsday Clock closes [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post Pro-Israel Canadians Pressure Ottawa over Iran<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,25,221,3229,295],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473891"}],"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=473891"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":474956,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473891\/revisions\/474956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}