CANADA AND ISRAEL: BUILDING APARTHEID by Yves Engler (Fernwood), 168 pages, $14.95 paper. Rating: NNNN
Yves Engler’s comprehensive book reminds me of the fears expressed decades ago in Toronto by Israeli military historian Meir Pa’il. He worried that his country “would become a mediocre combination of Northern Ireland and South Africa.”
[rssbreak]
Those prophetic words are echoed in Canada And Israel: Building Apartheid, Engler’s account of Canadian diplomatic, business and military activity relating to Israel. Those, he says, have been in lockstep with Israel’s major backer, the U.S., since the state’s 1948 founding.
Engler, a Montreal-based journalist and activist, relies on accessible scholarly and other sources à la Noam Chomsky to show that Canadians are selling goods and services to facilitate Israeli colonization and an “apartheid” infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, where close to half a million Jewish settlers now reside. He points out, for example, that a Canadian consortium has been involved in the construction of a notorious Jewish-only highway system that bypasses Palestinian communities.
Engler avoids simplistic and racist allusions to a so-called Jewish lobby as the rationale for Canada’s historical support for Israel. Instead, he offers the interesting thesis that Stephen Harper is the latest in a long line of Christian Zionists, going back to the pro-British imperialists among Canada’s elite in the 19th century.
Less reactionary Protestant politicians in this country’s past, he writes, including Lester Pearson and Tommy Douglas, also demonstrated strong sympathy for Israel’s military moves vis à vis its Arab neighbours.
Engler also identifies a darker motive going back to the 1930s and 40s, when Canada was anti-Semitic to the core.
Notorious for its “none is too many” stance, William Lyon Mackenzie’s government suggested desperate Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany settle in pre-1948 British-ruled Palestine rather than welcome them on our safer shores.
Later our pro-Israel leaders tried to make up for that heartlessness.
In this short, easy-to-read paperback, Engler opens a new conversation about a subject that has never been easy.
Engler launches Building Apartheid Sunday (April 11) at OISE. See Readings.
Write Books at susanc@nowtoronto.com
