Quebec-Israel Committee's Islamophobia on rue St-Denis

Contributor: "PAJU"

From a joint press conference held on October 25 by Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) and the Montreal Chapter of Independent Jewish Voices (IJV)

MONTREAL: On Saturday, October 22nd, PAJU members were gathered, as we have been doing every week for over a year, on St-Denis Street in front of the Naot shoe store which sells Israeli shoes produced in the occupied Palestinian territories. Our objective is to distribute information in order to raise awareness about the conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live and to propose concrete actions that citizens can undertake in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

"Death to Israel"

Everything was going as usual until three masked men, wearing burkas and imitating women`s voices, presented themselves at our picket line. The men were carrying placards calling for the death of Israel.

You can see the footage of the event on the internet.

The men strategically placed themselves beside us to give the impression that they were standing with us. They screamed things like ''Death to Israel'' and they clearly targeted some of the Palestinian and Muslim members of our group by screaming things like ''he supports Hezbollah''.

These disgraceful acts are nothing more than an expression of hatred against Muslims and display contempt for Muslim women. The men in question obviously intended to express, by way of this ''parody,'' that all Muslims are fundamentalists, all Muslims mistreat women and all Muslims inherently wish the death of Israel.

Moreover, one of the more disturbing elements of this disgraceful act concerns the fact that those who were with them from the Quebec-Israel Committee and from the Réseau Liberté-Québec, and who regularly come to counter our action, were laughing and seemed highly amused as if this were simply some kind of funny street theater skit. In fact, this was without any doubt the obscene expression of xenophobic hatred of Muslims and Arabs in general.

The men also shouted racist epithets at a Palestinian member of PAJU by screaming things like "F..g Arab" and ''He`s Muslim; he`s Hezbollah''.

This was nothing more than a malevolent attempt to demonize and deform the figure of Muslims in Quebec society. The provocative nature of this Islamophobic ‘’theater’’ leads one to see in it a strategy meant to escalate confrontations with Quebec pacifists working for a peace with justice in Palestine and against initiatives for cooperation between Jews, Muslims and Arabs.

Quebec is without a doubt a pluralistic society. Quebecers will not accept such an expression of racial hatred and indeed, there is no room in Quebec society for such an expression of racial hatred toward any group regardless of religion or ethnicity.

After numerous failures to achieve peace through negotiations with Israel, in 2005 Palestinian civil society called on the international community to pursue a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against the Israeli apartheid regime until such time as Israel puts an end to the illegal occupation and agrees to negotiate a lasting peace with justice as equal partners with the Palestinian people.

PAJU, along with many other groups in many different countries, responded to this call and has been involved in BDS actions for the past 5 years.

Beginning with the campaign to boycott Israeli wines at the SAQ, the purpose of the BDS is to bring political pressure on Israel. BDS is a non-violent instrument meant to bring political and economic pressure against Israel to force it to end its illegal occupation and to sit at the table with the Palestinians to pursue serious negotiations resulting in a lasting peace with justice.

To generalize about Jews in a pejorative manner, as the three men dressed in burkas generalized in a pejorative manner about Muslims, would clearly and rightfully be called anti-Semitism. To criticize the State of Israel for its disregard of international law is not anti-Semitism; it is the defense of the rule of international law and the respect for human rights.

If the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign was good enough for Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, then we are certainly comfortable with it as an instrument for the emancipation of an oppressed people as the Palestinian people are today.

IJV appalled by Quebec-Israel-Committee’s parody of Muslim women

Carlos Latuff

This was not an ignorant school kids' prank like the Universite de Montreal students wearing blackface to honour Jamaican sprinter Usan Bolt that was featured and denounced in the media recently. The QIC must have understood their Islamophobic and sexist action would be protected by entitlement.

This despicable incident by the Quebec-Israel Committee - followed by the media, the governments of Quebec and Canada and the Israel Lobby’s silence – points out the obvious. IJV is alarmed and we denounce the QIC's carte-blanche Islamophobia that shows Quebec's elite institutions still tolerate racism and sexism -- as long as it is directed against Muslims and Arabs.

Why has the government not suspended relationships with the QIC? Their silence demonstrates why grassroots activities such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign are the only viable actions being undertaken now to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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