CKUT’s Off the Hour: Radio Interview with Scott Weinstein, Independent Jewish Voices and Sam Bick, Israeli Apartheid Week organizer
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by RAE DOOLEY AND COURTNEY KIRKBY
The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA) released their first report, over a year after it was meant to be released. The coalition is not a formally recognized government coalition, but that didn’t stop them from using taxpayer resources alongside private donations to hold a conference in 2009 and produce this report. The coalition consisted of current and former members of parliament from three political parties.
The report attempts to make a distinction between new and old anti-semitism. Critics of this report understand the definition of “new anti-semitism” as a thinly veiled attempt to quell criticism of Israel and Israeli government policy and attack freedom of speech on university campuses. Beyond that, many see new anti-semitism as diluting anti-semitism and being more harmful to the Jewish population then helpful.
CKUT spoke with Scott Weinstein, spokesperson for Independent Jewish Voices [http://www.independentjewishvoices.ca/], one of several well-established Jewish groups not allowed to testify at the CPCCA conference where they gathered source material for this report, and Sam Bick, on of the organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week [http://apartheidweek.org/], a city-based week of activities held on campuses across the world to provide a forum to discuss Israel-Palestine that was frequently mentioned in the CPCCA report.
Photo: Parliamentarians from six continents were on hand to release the Ottawa Protocol – a document which represents global cooperation in the fight against Antisemitism. The Ottawa Protocol is a major outcome of the 2010 Conference on Combating Antisemitism where Parliamentarians and experts from over 50 countries gathered in Ottawa from November 7-9th to take part in the 2010 Conference on Combating Antisemitism.
This originally aired on Friday Off the Hour on CKUT 90.3fm, 17h-18h.