Paul Fromm reveals hate agenda of B’nai Brith

Dear Free Speech Supporter:

Once again B’nai Brith’s Annual Audit of Anti-Semitic (2004) incidents has been released and the press, like so many slack-jawed morons, are treating this overblown document of numerical hocus focus as profound gospel. B’nai Brith is calling for more repression and restrictions on free speech, including a ban on “racist” groups and symbols. “B’nai Brith called on the federal government to tighten federal hate crimes laws and urged police departments across Canada to form hate crimes units.” (Toronto Sun, March 15, 2005)

Those “hate crimes units”, as we’ve seen from Edmonton to London to Vancouver, are just political police who harass dissidents, spy on citizens and enforce political correctness. B’nai Brith also wants to make “holocaust denial” a crime, taking us back to the times of a state religion, when heretics and dissidents were exiled, executed, branded or burned at the stake. As the politically correct organize to silence Christianity, it seems that a new religion is being elevated to take its place.

You have to watch B’nai Brith’s methodology. There’s been a rise in “anti-Semitic” incidents, the Audit thunders. You might well imagine that synagogues are going up in flames all over the country, Jewish businesses being bombed, rabbis assassinated: in short, the Blackshirts are back in town. In truth, the reality is much less dramatic. Only 31, a tiny 3.6% to 857 “anti-Semitic” incidents were violent. Even there, the definition of violence, in addition to actual assault, includes “threat of violence against a particular group or person where there is reasonable cause to believe that bodily harm in imminent.” In other words, hot air.

Harassment

The Audit tallies 457 incidents of “harassment” or 53.3% of the total incidents, The Audit defines “harassment” thus: “Harassment refers to verbal or written actions that do not include the use of physical force against a person or property. It includes, but is not limited to:

verbal slurs, statements of hate and bias, or harassment

stereotyping of Jews, such as the airing on radio talk shows of comments on “Jewish characteristics”

systemic discrimination in the workplace, schools or campuses

hate propaganda and hate mail via the Internet, telephone, or printed material

verbal threats of violence, where application of force does not appear imminent, or no weapon or bomb is involved”

Basically, “harassment” is criticism of Jews or nasty comments directed in their direction. Of course, “hate propaganda” is whatever B’nai Brith says it is. It’s not limited to the miniscule number of cases where at least a court has made such a finding.

The Audit tallied 369 incidents of vandalism or 43.1% of the total.

Again, when we look at what B’nai Brith considers vandalism, the report contains more smoke than fire.

“Vandalism refers to physical damage to property. It includes, but is not limited to:

posting of graffiti, swastikas and similar racist emblems and slogans, at times accompanied by other criminal acts including thefts and break-ins

damage to religious objects such as mezuzahs on the door posts of private homes, hospitals and other facilities

desecration of cemeteries and synagogues

fire bombing, arson”

While we can certainly agree that firebombing, arson and damage to graveyards is vandalism, most of the incidents are nothing more than a racial comment or slogan scrawled on a public hoarding or posted in a washroom.

The following list of incidents for two representative months are indicative of just how trivial most of the so-called incidents are. As the Canadian Jewish Congress’s Bernie Farber – no friend of free speech – scoffed some years ago, you could double the “anti-Semitic” incidents by simply doubling the number of so-called “hate” pamphlets left on car windshields.

MAY

Montreal QB

Tombstones in a Jewish cemetery were defaced with swastikas, SS symbols and “Heil Hitler”.

Saskatoon SK

Antisemitic, anti-immigrant material was distributed at a local discount store.

Montreal QB

A bomb threat was made against a Jewish organization.

Winnipeg MB

Threats of violence were made against a Jewish day school.

Kitchener ON

A visble Jew was verbally harassed and threatened by teens outside a public school.

London ON

Antisemitic material, including Hitler’s Mein Kampf, was sold in a local bookstore and the owner refused to remove it.

Quebec City QB

A Jewish senior citizen received threats that a “civil war” against Jews was coming.

Montreal QB

A convoy of cars drove through a predominantly orthodox Jewish neighborhood, its passengers waving Palestinian flags and shouting antisemitic epithets.

St. John’s NF

A website operated by a local teenager posted hate-filled references comments about Jews.

Montreal QB

Eggs were thrown from a passing car at visibly orthodox Jewish children.

Montreal QB

Flyers were found in public school yards and elsewhere calling for “Killing Juis any wear you find them [sic].”

Ottawa ON

“Die Jew, fuck niggers”, swastikas and “White Aryans” were spray painted on a bridge in a public area.

Montreal QB

An ultra-orthodox Chassidic man was assaulted and threatened when walking home from synagogue by a group of young men who identified themselves as Arabs.

NOVEMBER

Toronto ON

Articles appeared in the Hungarian-language ethnic press denying the Holocaust and denigrating the Jewish community.

Bolton ON

The only Jewish child in a public school was physically assaulted by a group of boys who referred to themselves as a “Nazi gang.”

Mississauga ON

A Jewish student was required by his professor to identify his country of origin and religious background, and was subsequently confronted with antisemitic remarks by fellow students.

Montreal QB

An encrypted message appeared in the yearbook of a private school calling for “Death to all Jews”.

Toronto ON

A Jewish organization received a telephone call warning of a bomb threat against “Jewish interests” in the Toronto area.

Montreal QB

A woman wearing a Jewish religious symbol was harassed and threatened on public transit by students who identified themselves as Arabs. She had to leave the subway car in order to avoid a threatened assault.

Edmonton AB

An individual was charged with operating an antisemitic and racist website.

B’nai Brith seems to deem any support for people it sees as its enemies as a threat. The Audit bemoans: “However, organized activity warrants some careful examination. Much of the far right wing activity in Canada during 2004 was related to the re-appearance in this country of Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. The ongoing hearings into the reasonableness of a security certificate that was issued against Zundel in 2003 continued throughout 2004. These proceedings became a rallying point for far right wing activities in Canada. Protests were held in a number of locations across Canada and the United States in support of Zundel and in an attempt to raise funds for his legal defence. For instance, there was a public protest in Toronto on March 9, 2004, which was followed by an international conference of Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis convened in his honor the following month in Sacramento. This was attended by Canadian sympathizers.” The Sacramento Conference was, indeed, attended by a large contingent of Canadians, including myself and CAFÉ Associate Wolfgang Mueller. To the best of my knowledge none of the attendees was a “neo-Nazi”. However, we all strongly support freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. We refuse to have an ethnic lobby group shove its self-serving version of history down our throat that then insist that we cannot even inquire or question the truth of this account.

Paul Fromm
Director
CANADIAN ASSOCIATION FOR FREE EXPRESSION