As is a usual thing for me to do, I spent part of my day Sunday surfing the Net for interesting news and opinion pieces. One story that happened to catch my eye was the one below in the Toronto Globe & Mail about Canadian activist Nellie McClung - who lived from 1873-1951 - here is her Wikipedia biography.
Here is the story from the Globe & Mail - in my opinion, the thrust of the story is that Winnipeg human-rights lawyer David Matas does not believe that Ms. McClung should be honored for related to female suffrage in Canada because she was also a prominent supporter of eugenics - defined here but which I understand to be the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans with the goal of improving the species. The Nazis were obsessed with eugenics and it formed the basis of their racial theory - and pretty much everyone knows how that turned out.
So far, so good, so to speak - the article briefly canvasses a variety of perspectives and concludes with a discussion that - surprise, surprise - not every who is honored has a perfectly clean background that would not offend anyone.
But the story does not end there, David Matas is not just any human rights lawyer - he is senior legal counsel for B'nai Brith Canada.
Many online sites allow readers to post comments. If you have ever read posted comments, you know that they range from A to Z. It did not take long to see where the comment section headed. Here are some examples (edited for format but not for spelling, grammar or content):
"Mr. Matas is senior legal counsel of B'nai Brith Canada. His going back into hisotory to critize Nellie is inappropriate. He could be more relevant if he protested the current situation in Isreal and Gaza."
"Mr. Matas' connection to B'nai Brith should have been up front in the article. Winnipeg is set to be the home of a the Asper Holocaust museum, a pro-Jewish, pro-Israel information tool. It is expected that school children and tourist visitors will receive a very pro-Jewish biased account of world history and be given 'acceptable' views to take away. It takes incredible chutzpah to oppose the modest statue of McClung in Winnipeg while building the collosal $265 million museum with a $22 million annual operating cost. Mr. Matas motivations aren't innocent."
"Who cares what Matas says? Nellie McClung was a Canadian hero, albeit one with flaws typical of her time - a hundred years ago. Matas is an apologist for a racist theocracy - today."
"Dear Sean Smith; thanks priceless. Matas got an orde of Canada for what? For being a rabid Zionist and supporter of greater Israel expansion at the cost of Palestine Apartheid and occupation? Not in my name. If Anne Ross (wife of Bill Ross former Mayor of Winnipeg and deserved recipient of the order of Canada) was alive, she would be very upset with the fact that any dick and harry is getting an order of Canada. David Matas is an apologist for the Zionists' behaviour, the world over."
"If it is true that Mr. Matas is the senior legal counsel for B'nai B'rith, then his statements reek of hypocrisy. He is condemning a women from a century ago for her ideology while he is supporting and defending human rights abuses against living people today. I am sure Mr. Matas has many excuses for his beliefs and actions, but that does not make them any less repugnant and, ultimately, on the wrong side of history. Using Mr. Matas' own standards, we can pretty much bet that there will not be any statues erected in his honour in 70 years time. During WWII, Winston Churchill engineered a famine in India that killed hundreds of thousands of people. He did this in order to attack and punish the Indian nationalist movement. Beyond being a mass murderer, Churchill was also a blatant racist. A similar charge of racism can be made againt most famous European figures of the past 200-300 years. Abraham Lincoln was a racist by the standards of today. He may also have been deliberately complicit in actions taken to worsen the genocide of native peoples. If we did fairly evaluate almost any historical figure, there would be very few statues of anyone, anywhere. If Mr. Matas ever comes up for his statue, I hope that he is evaluated on more than just his shameful support for the oppression of the Palestinians. I hope that the entirety of his life's work is taken into account."
"When David Matas decides to investigate Israeli abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip then he can comment on Nellie McClung. Until then, his comments on the failures of others are rank hypocrisy."
"One "David Matas, senior legal counsel for B'nai Brith Canada." This man should go to work on Israel's PR disaster instead. Let the lady's honour friend."
Many more flagrant comments were removed by the moderator, including one that referred to Mr. Matas seeking to being "so-called Nazi war criminals" to justice when he could instead seek to bring "Israeli war criminals" to justice and one that talked about how Mr. Matas should instead spend his time protesting the "...demeaning role of women in Jewish society."
In my experience, this is no isolated occurrence. Follow the comments posted below an article, and you will see the pattern repeat itself time and again.
Regular visitors to my blog know that I often cite Natan Sharansky's 3D test for determining whether an anti-Israel comment is fair or really antisemitic. In fact, I am currently engaged in an ongoing debate about this with a very good friend (whose opinion I deeply respect) who takes issue with that test.
I do not always agree with what B'nai Brith says - I think that sometimes the organization reacts too reflexively to characterize something as being an antisemitic incident. However, in this case, my take is that the manner in which the comments on this article quickly became focused on Israel and its alleged misdeeds is a very clear example of an ulterior motive and a poorly hidden agenda - antisemitism.
In my humble opinion, of course. Thoughtful comments welcome.
