Justin Trudeau’s pack of lies about BDS
by Ali Abunimah
I spoke to The Real News about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s renewed attacks and smears against the BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – movement for Palestinians rights.
During a town hall meeting at Brock University in Ontario this week, one questioner asked Trudeau to retract his previous smears that the BDS movement is anti-Semitic.
Instead, the Liberal Party prime minister doubled down, claiming that the anti-racist BDS movement targets Jews.
Trudeau asserted “that anti-Semitism has also manifested itself not just as targeting of individuals but it is also targeting a new condemnation, or an anti-Semitism against the very state of Israel.”
Trudeau’s refusal to distinguish between Jews and Judaism on the one hand, and Israel and its state ideology Zionism, on the other, is, I told The Real News, itself an anti-Semitic move.
The prime minister also repeated the claim that “Jewish students still feel unwelcome and uncomfortable on some of our college and university campuses because of BDS-related intimidation” – a frequent smear by Israel lobby groups aimed at criminalizing Palestine solidarity activism by students.
I told The Real News that Trudeau was spouting a pack of lies about the BDS movement and echoing Israeli government talking points.
While he is claiming to defend “Canadian values,” I said that Trudeau is actually smearing Canadians, including Jewish Canadians, who fully support Palestinian rights.
Trudeau is taking his cues from Canada’s powerful Israel lobby – indeed in his answer Trudeau cited as one of his sources his “friend” Irwin Cotler, one of Canada’s top pro-Israel propagandists.
However, as opinion surveys show, Trudeau is out of step with a majority of Canadians who view BDS tactics as a reasonable way for Palestinians to pursue their rights in the face of the complicity and inaction of the so-called international community.
Adapted from: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/justin-trudeaus-pack-lies-about-bds
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