- Representatives of the Jewish community are disappointed
that their meeting with Liberal MP Pat O'Brien failed to sway the parliamentarian
from his view that Israel is turning the West Bank and Gaza into giant
"concentration camps."
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- Leo Adler, director of national affairs for the Canadian
Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Jacob Peretz, chair of community
relations for the London Jewish Federation, said their one-hour meeting
with O'Brien went poorly. Both were scathing in their criticism of O'Brien,
with Peretz saying "I've seen a lot of people say things [when] they
don't know what they're talking about," while in a letter to O'Brien,
Adler said one of the MP's arguments justifying his use of the term was
"breathtaking in its foolishness."
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- Adler said he and four representatives of the London
Jewish community met with O'Brien to sensitize him to the inflammatory
nature of the term "concentration camp." That kind of language
is "hurtful" to the Jewish community, he said.
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- "His right to agree or disagree with the wall is
not in dispute. He's entitled to his opinion. but there's no necessity
for that language. He said he deliberately used it. He knew it would raise
flack. He knew others had used it."
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- But the MP for London-Fanshawe said "members of
the Jewish diaspora [also] used that phrase," including Norman Finkelstein,
the controversial critic of Israel.
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- "If people of that calibre say it, I'm going to
use that phrase in the House," he told The CJN.
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- O'Brien, who has served on a number of parliamentary
committees, including foreign affairs and international trade, drew the
ire of the Jewish community when he told parliament on Feb. 17 that the
security barrier being constructed by Israel "denies basic human rights
to the Palestinian people and further reduces the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip to the status of concentration camps."
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- In a telephone interview, he said he had researched concentration
camps prior to rising in the House.
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- He said he was surprised people assumed he was referring
to Nazi-era concentration camps. "There were many concentration camps
that pre-date the Nazis. Surely you're aware of that. They didn't invent
them.
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- "I would never have equated the actions of the Sharon
government, the incredibly unacceptable actions of the Sharon government,
as bad as they are, with the Nazis," he said.
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- "I'm not using concentration camps as the Nazi camps.
I'm using concentration camps in the generic sense. They predate the Holocaust
by quite some time."
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- O'Brien said that in addition to Finkelstein's use of
the phrase "concentration camps," an editorial in Catholic Insight,
a Roman Catholic magazine, also employed the term.
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- Finkelstein is an American Jewish professor known for
arguing that Jews and Jewish organizations exploit the Holocaust for money
and political power, and as an ideological weapon to justify Israel's treatment
of the Palestinians.
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- O'Brien said he has received numerous calls of support,
including from Canadian Jews, who agreed with his characterization. He
said he received no complaints from London Jews until he met recently with
members of the organized Jewish community.
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- Adler said O'Brien has "a substantial Muslim Arab
population in his constituency and he says they brought things to his attention.
He studied the security barrier and saw references elsewhere that it caused
concentration camps."
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- In a subsequent letter to O'Brien, Adler pointed out
that comparing the West Bank and Gaza to a concentration camp is "absolutely
wrong." People who employ it "are either ignorant of what a concentration
camp is, or they choose to be deliberately provocative."
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- In his letter to O'Brien, Adler stated, "Your remark
[in the meeting] that 'not all concentration camps were as bad as the Nazis',
I am sorry to say, is breathtaking in its foolishness... The fact you deliberately
inserted those words makes it clear you intended to be offensive and hurtful."
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- Peretz said the Jewish delegation went into the meeting
hoping to determine whether O'Brien had been misinformed and would clarify
his remarks.
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- However, the group came away with the impression that
O'Brien had accepted the propaganda of his Arab constituents and was "not
interested in learning anything."
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- Peretz said he does not believe O'Brien was interested
in taking up a suggestion that he visit a Nazi concentration camp in Europe
and then compare it to the situation in the Middle East.
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- With a federal election looming, political considerations
seem to be motivating the MP, Peretz continued. The latest census data
puts the Muslim population of London at about 11,000, compared to only
2,000 to 3,000 Jews. Moreover, "nobody here goes to an MP and tries
to pester him or twist his mind to push a certain agenda. He said many
people came to him from the Muslim community and complained to him and
urged him to make a statement [about the barrier].
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- "It seems to me like there was a war of propaganda
by people in the community against the Jewish community, and we're not
participating in it."
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- http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp?id=2806
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