05) PARLIAMENT’S RACIST MOTION

People’s Voice Editorial, March 1-15, 2016

            Congratulations to courageous students at McGill University, who voted by a margin of 512 to 357 on Feb. 22 to support a motion in favour of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel’s apartheid policies. But on the same day, Parliament took the opposite position, voting 229-51 for a Conservative motion to condemn Canadians who promote the BDS movement.

            This movement began in 2005, when about 100 Palestinian civil society organizations issued a call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, similar to the international campaign to isolate apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. Back in those days, Canadians who acted in solidarity with opponents of the South African regime were condemned by right-wing politicians for supposedly “supporting terrorists.” Even after apartheid was swept away, racist Conservative MPs continued to attack President Nelson Mandela, the leader of the ANC and the freedom struggle. Parliament’s motion condemning the BDS movement is an equally shocking and openly racist declaration: that Palestinians should not be treated as human beings.

            The fact that most Liberal MPs supported this Tory motion (about a dozen abstained and one was opposed) proves that the new  government cannot be judged on the basis of progressive campaign promises. The Liberals must be held to account as they “govern from the right,” including on international issues such as the expanding war in Iraq and Syria, the sale of weaponized vehicles to Saudi Arabia, and support for regimes in Ukraine and Israel which trample on human rights.

            Finally, we welcome the fact that the NDP and Bloc Quebecois caucuses, and Green MP Elizabeth May voted against the Conservative motion because it violates the rights to free speech and expression. However, NDP MPs also attacked the BDS movement during the debate in the Commons, yet again exposing their party’s shameful racist position against criticism of apartheid Israel.

(The above article is from the March 1-15, 2016, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)