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Comments (0)The legislature in the Canadian province of Ontario has condemned Israel Apartheid Week.
All 30 members of the 107-seat provincial legislature who were present on Feb. 25 voted for the resolution that denounced the campus event that kicks off March 1 at universities and colleges in 35 cities around the world.
Israel Apartheid Week events and speakers are scheduled at several university campuses across Ontario.
The term Israeli Apartheid Week incites “hatred against Israel, a democratic state that respects the rule of law and human rights, and the use of the word ‘apartheid’ in this context diminishes the suffering of those who were victims of a true apartheid regime in South Africa,” Conservative legislator Peter Shurman told Shalom Life, a Toronto-based Jewish Web site.
“If you’re going to label Israel as apartheid, then you are also calling Canada apartheid and you are attacking Canadian values,” he said. “The use of the phrase ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ is about as close to hate speech as one can get without being arrested, and I’m not certain it doesn’t actually cross over that line.”
Jewish students across Canada have adopted several campaigns to counter Israel Apartheid Week.
Meanwhile, York University in Toronto canceled a pro-Israel event that had been scheduled for Feb. 22, citing “security” concerns. One of the speakers was to have been conservative U.S. scholar Daniel Pipes, who spoke at York in 2003 amid threats of violence.
Also last week, tongues were wagging in Jewish circles over a spicy new video designed to sell Canadian university students on Israel as a travel destination.
The video, at sizedoesntmatter.ca, shows a couple in bed, with the woman looking at the man’s crotch and saying she “can’t go there because it’s too small.”
The man replies, “I consider this a spot of worship. It may be small, but it’s brought the driest places to life. Baby, this is paradise.”
The camera then pans to a map of Israel on the man’s lap.
British Police in Israel to Probe Assassination
British police are in Israel investigating the use of false passports in the assassination of a top Hamas official.
Two officers were set to meet with the six dual British-Israeli citizens whose identities were used on fake passports used in the killing last month of top Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel room in Dubai, the French news agency AFP reported. As many as 26 alleged assassins used fake passports.
Dubai police announced over the weekend that they have DNA evidence of one of the alleged assassins.
Seventeen of the alleged assassins have the same name as dual Israeli citizens from Britain, France, Australia, Ireland and Germany.
Israel’s Mossad has come under international suspicion in the killing, as Al-Mabhouh was the official responsible for arranging arms supplies from Iran to Gaza, and was a founder of the Hamas military wing, Izzadin Kassam. He also was involved in the 1989 kidnappings and murders of two Israeli soldiers, Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa’adon.
The European Union has condemned the fraudulent use of the passports. Several EU countries have called in their ambassadors to Israel looking for explanations. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he is “not satisfied with [the] explanation” given by Israel’s ambassador regarding the use of falsified passports in the assassination.
Meanwhile, Australia’s security agency has been investigating for the last six months the suspicion that three Australians holding dual Israeli citizenship spied for Israel in the past few years using their Australian passports, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The three men under investigation immigrated to Israel within the past 10 years and then visited Australia to change their names to something that sounded less Eastern European and more Anglo, the newspaper reported.
109 Candles for Australia’s Oldest Jew
Australia’s oldest Jewish person turned 109 years old.
Mary Rothstein was feted at a party Sunday at a Jewish Care home for the aged in Melbourne attended by her daughter, Ruth Cavallaro, two grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Rothstein was born in Russia on Feb. 27, 1901, moved to the United Kingdom when she was 2 and immigrated to Australia in 1958.
“I can’t understand why I’ve lived so long,” Rothstein told the Australian Jewish News. “It doesn’t seem possible.”
The world’s oldest Jewish person, 112-year-old Rosa Rein, died in Switzerland in early February.