The Truth about Canada's Israel Lobby

A guest post by Yves Engler about Stephen Bronfman, the B'nai Brith, the CIJA, and more.

The article you are about to read is a guest post by Yves Engler.

Yves Engler is a Montreal-based author and anti-war activist best known for his critiques of Canada’s foreign policy, arms industry, and military misadventures. He is the author of 12 books, including Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid, which was published by Fernwood Publishing.

Recently, I was pleased to see him appear on the Geopolitics & Empire podcast, where host Hrvoje Moric praised his work highly. It’s good to see that his work is now internationally recognized!

I was also pleased to see that he belongs to those Leftists who have stayed true to their anti-war, anti-imperialist convictions during a time where much of the woke left has been cheering as NATO countries dumped billions of dollars of weapons into Europe in the name of “Standing with Ukraine”.

If you want to understand Canada’s war machine, which tends to hide in the shadows, I would highly suggest familiarizing yourself with his work.

Yves Engler is among the bravest Canadian political writers, as evidenced by the fact that he is one of the few willing to criticize Canada’s Israel Lobby.

My father was a journalist on Parliament Hill for my entire childhood. He lived in fear of the Israel Lobby. All Canadian journalists do.

This isn’t for nothing. Not only does defying the power behind the throne come with professional consequences, the Bronfman political dynasty also has a long history of murdering journalists.

Those of you who have read Whitney Webb’s masterpiece One Nation Under Blackmail, in which the Bronfmans play a key part, will be already be aware of this.

Personally, I am sick to death of people judging the Israeli regime by a different standard, as if its crimes against the Palestinians are in any way excusable or justifiable.

Israel Lobby groups such as the B’nai Brith and the Anti-Defamation League gave the gall to lecture the public about racism, tolerance and morality, when they are some of the most racist, intolerant and immoral people on the face of the planet.

Case in point: Leslie Wexner, the American billionaire sex-trafficker who enabled Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes for years on end, and who remains at large.

This kind of thing has been getting a pass for way too long, and it’s largely because a willingness to criticize the Israel Lobby has come with professional consequences for many years. Not too many people have wanted to stick their necks out on this issue.

I applaud people such as Yves Engler who have done so.

The Israel Lobby exploits people’s sensitivities around racism in order to browbeat people into toeing the line. I say ENOUGH ALREADY!

Organizations such as the B’nai Brith are not defending an oppressed minority, they are supporting a racist, fascist, apartheid regime.

We’ve got to stop pretending that their arguments are valid, and we’ve got to stop letting them control the narrative around Israel’s crimes against humanity.

There is only one country in the world that has been bombing hospital, mosques, and churches for years on end as part of a deliberate campaign of state terrorism and ethnic cleansing.

That country is Israel. Let’s stop letting them play the victim.

-Crow Qu’appelle

Yes, there is an Israel lobby, as any decent journalist knows

by Yves Englers

(originally published on his blog)

Is the idea of a “highly organized Israel lobby” antisemitic? An apartheid-promoting Globe and Mail columnist claims as much.

In attacking the Canadian Union of Public Employees for standing in solidarity with Palestinians Robyn Urback tweeted, “Points for alleging a Jewish conspiracy, but if CUPE really wanted to go full antisemitic trope, they should have mentioned something about poisoning the wells.” Below her message Urback quote tweeted a colleague stating, “CUPE Ontario says it’s targeted by ‘trolls’ – ‘a highly organized pro-Israel lobby,’ which targeted [Union president] Fred Hahn and CUPE 3906 for ‘recognition of Palestinians’ rights under international law to resist occupation through armed struggle.’”

But Urback knows full well there are many organizations backed by substantial wealth promoting Israel. This is not a trope. This is reality that is easily fact checked and should have been by any honest journalist.

In a sign of her dishonesty, Urback previously wrote about a lobby sponsored trip to Israel she participated in. Urback went on BirthRight, a program that pays for young Jews to go Israel to become “intellectual ambassadors” for the country.

The preeminent force in the “highly organized Israel lobby” is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. CIJA has over 40 staff and a $10 million budget. In addition, B’nai B’rith has a handful of offices across the country. For its part, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center Canada’s budget is $7-10 million annually. These groups work closely with StandWithUs Canada, CAMERA, Allied Voices for Israel, Israel on Campus, Honest Reporting Canada and other Israeli nationalist political organizations. Additionally, more than 200 registered Canadian charities assist projects in Israel and engage in at least some pro-Israel campaigning domestically. There are also numerous Jewish private schools, summer camps and community centres that actively promote Israel.

All these groups are backed by substantial wealth. Patron of CIJA, the Jewish federations of Toronto, Montréal, Winnipeg, Windsor, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, London, Ottawa, Vancouver and Atlantic Canada raise $200 million annually and have over $1 billion in assets.

A large amount of private wealth strengthens Israel lobby groups’ influence. Since 2013 the chief fundraiser for the Trudeau Liberals has been Stephen Bronfman, scion of an arch Israeli nationalist family.

Bronfman has millions invested in Israeli technology companies and over the years the Bronfman clan has secured arms for Israeli forces and supported its military in other ways. Bronfman openly linked his fundraising for Trudeau to Israel.

In 2013 the Globe and Mail reported:

“Justin Trudeau is banking on multimillionaire Stephen Bronfman to turn around the Liberal Party’s financial fortunes in order to take on the formidable Conservative fundraising machine…. Mr. Bronfman helped raise $2-million for Mr. Trudeau’s leadership campaign. Mr. Bronfman is hoping to win back the Jewish community, whose fundraising dollars have been going more and more to the Tories because of the party’s pro-Israel stand. ‘We’ll work hard on that,’ said Mr. Bronfman, adding that ‘Stephen Harper has never been to Israel and I took Justin there five years ago and he was referring at the end of the trip to Israel as ‘we.’ So I thought that was pretty good.’”

Other notable Canadian moguls have long histories of ensuring ties between Israel and Canada. Worth more than $3 billion prior to his death, David Azrieli was among the richest Canadians. In his youth he served in the paramilitary Haganah group during the 1948 war. His unit was responsible for the Battle of Jerusalem, including forcibly displacing 10,000 Palestinians. Azrieli was also a real estate developer in Israel and in 2011 he made a controversial donation to Im Tirtzu, a hardline Israeli-nationalist organization (deemed a “fascist” group by an Israeli court).

Worth $1.6 billion, Gerald Schwartz and his wife Heather Reisman created the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers, which provides millions of dollars annually for non-Israelis who fight in the IDF.

In recent years Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams has plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into various sports and cultural initiatives to rebrand Israel.

Other Canadian billionaires Larry Tanenbaum, Mark Scheinberg, David Cheriton, Mitch Garber, Daryl Katz, Seymour Schulich, as well as the Zekelman, Reichmann and Sherman families, all back Israel. Again, none of this a conspiracy theory or antisemitic trope. It is simple reality and easily fact-checked if one is interested.

It is good, not bad, that a union leader mentions powerful lobbyists influencing Canadian politicians to take certain policy positions. Democracy requires shining a light on such lobbying. Is Urback against this very common practice of good journalists?

Canadians politicians express unmatched fidelity to a state all leading human rights groups say is committing the crime of apartheid. Trudeau’s government organized a pizza party for Canadians fighting in the Israeli military, sued to block proper labels on wines from illegal settlements and announced that should Canada win a seat on the United Nations Security Council it would act as an “asset for Israel” on the council. In recent days Canadian politicians have fallen over themselves to express support for Israel as that country obliterates Gaza, kills dozens in the West Bank and bombs Lebanon, Egypt and Syria.

There’s nothing conspiratorial or untoward about citing the role of a “highly organized Israel lobby”. In fact, there would be nothing conspiratorial or untoward to describe it as a “highly organized Jewish Israel lobby”. A slew of self-described Jewish organizations are deeply involved in anti-Palestinian campaigning and no other lobby focused on a country/ethnicity/religion is near as well-resourced or organized as the above mentioned Canadian Jewish groups.

That’s not to say there aren’t other political and cultural forces shaping Canadian backing for Israel. Zionism began in Canada in the latter half of the 1800s as a Christian movement and there’s still Christian Zionist forces. At the turn of the 20^th century Canada became staunchly pro-Zionist due to its close ties to the British empire and Washington’s perspective has significant influence today. There’s also a European ‘settler solidarity’ element to Canadian Zionism and Israel advocates wield a unique and powerful stick: The ability to play victim and smear those advocating for justice as racist.

Robyn Urback knows full well there’s a “highly organized Israel lobby”. Her claim that CUPE is anti-Jewish to mention this is ridiculous. It is also bad journalism and most likely a projection of her (perhaps unintentional) anti-Palestinian racism.