A number of years ago, the major Jewish philanthropies in the United States, including the United Jewish Appeal and the Jewish National Fund, were asked to respond to the charge that they provide no funding for community projects in Judea and Samaria and Gaza. Their answer was that United States Tax regulations prohibited such contributions. A number of high-ranking Senators from both parties were consulted, and responded after investigating the matter that US Tax law said nothing about any such contributions, and that these organizations were allowed to give money to such projects should they so choose. That Cohn decided to make the same claim, albeit couched in slightly different methods, about Canadian organizations that do make such contributions, is, therefore, nothing new.
I am no professional when it comes to the intricacies of Canadian law as it pertains to such contributions or their validity as tax deductible donations. But I am nonetheless suspicious about the claims Cohn made in his article. A colleague of mine recently told me of a conversation he had with an accountant following the publication of Cohn's article. In that conversation, he was told that should a Canadian non-Jew choose to contribute to Arab community projects in Judea and Samaria, this would be allowable as a deduction, even if those projects were run by Hamas, or some other non-recognized terrorist organization. Upon further questioning, it was mentioned that the same thing would be true should the contributor be Jewish. Likewise, should any Canadian choose to contribute to community projects in Northern Ireland, where Canada does not recognize the IRA, these would be allowable. And the same is true in virtually all parts of the world where sovereignty is challenged.
What begins to emerge, by reading many of Martin Regg Cohn's articles, and what is crystallized by this particular report, is that he is an anti-Semite. He has consistently portrayed religious Jews, villagers in Judea and Samaria, and anyone associated with the current government of Israel, in a negative manner, and even goes so far, at times, as to associate these entire groups of people with Yigal Amir. By closely reading two weeks worth of Cohn's reports, the pattern emerges of a reporter with a decided anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist bent. Yet the Toronto Star continues to give him front page prominence on a regular basis.
In 1988 and 1989, the virulence of the anti-Israel bias in the Toronto Star led to a boycott of the Star by the Jewish community in Toronto and the surrounding area. The problems then were slanted coverage of the Intifadah and virtual ignorance of the Jewish suffering engendered by the violence of the time. As time passed, the coverage became somewhat better, almost to the point that the Globe and Mail became the worse of the two. All the while, of course, the Toronto Sun maintained its decided pro-Israel editorial stance, something that is still quite in evidence.
But in response to the direct frontal attack on the organized Jewish community by Martin Regg Cohn, the response of the Toronto Jewish community has been appallingly non-existent. A report in the Canadian Jewish News of October 24, 1996, stated that the Toronto Star ombudsman received exactly five complaints stemming from the article. Neither Canadian Jewish Congress nor Bnai Brith were particularly vocal in their objections. One article by Frank Dimant was the be all and end all of the organized Jewish response to this attack. Instead, the response of these organizations will likely be to continue to ignore the real financial needs of the Jewish Zionist pioneers of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and then point to this article as an excuse for their policy, even though there is likely little or no truth in his charges.
In September of 1996, Arabs attacked Jewish Israelis throughout the country resulting in 16 Jewish deaths, and the destruction of at least two yeshivot and synagogues. The violence was so bad that President Clinton demanded that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat meet with him in Washington immediately. The official response of the Canadian government, voiced repeatedly by Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, was that the Israelis -- those who had been attacked -- were in the wrong, and that they should re-open negotiations with the Arabs.
What that violence meant was the realization of the prophecies the Jewish right has been voicing for the past four years, namely, that the Arabs do not intend to settle in peace with Israel, but will continue their violent path toward what they hope will be the final liquidation of Israel. Yet, Axworthy could not see this, and demanded further Jewish capitulation to the Arabs demands. Again, there was no response from the organized Jewish community.
I can understand the position of the "Jewish Establishment" during the tenure of the previous government. Israel, as the Jewish State, needs to be supported in its policies by the Jewish communities of the Diaspora. So I was told during that time, while I positioned myself in opposition to the policies of that government. But now that the Labour Party is no longer in power, whatever support there is for the government is more grudgingly dispensed, and often not at all. If, as I was told during the life of the previous government, Jewish support for Israel should be given regardless of the party in power, then consistency would dictate that the Jewish Establishment also give its wholehearted support to the Netanyahu government now.
Now, however, the matter is not merely over Israeli government policy. Now, the attack has been brought home in the words of Martin Regg Cohn, and aimed directly at mainstream, though not necessarily Establishment, organizations within the heart of the Jewish community. Rather than silence, community organizations such as Canadian Jewish Congress, the Jewish Federation, the UJA and B'nai Brith should be responding forcefully to the threat presented by the article. Leadership of the Jewish community is at stake.
An organized community boycott of the Toronto Star should be launched, whereby subscriptions are cancelled and advertising is pulled from the paper until such time as Martin Regg Cohn is removed from his post in the Middle East and replaced by someone who exhibits no bias in his reporting of the news from Israel. Should this primary boycott not succeed, a secondary boycott should be discussed and implemented wherein companies that advertise in the Toronto Star should also be boycotted.
The Jewish community as a whole cannot sit back complacent and allow such a malicious and vindictive attack to go unanswered. If these Establishment organizations are not prepared to answer the challenge and defend the Jewish community they claim to represent, they are in danger of losing their positions as representative organizations and leading voices of the community.
Copyright 1996. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
