What if you protested, in a city of a few million people, and almost no one noticed?

I received a copy of an email sent out by the Canadian Arab Federation, highlighting Monday’s protest by the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid at the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Center against the ‘branding Israel’ campaign initiated by the Israeli government which is to meant to show the world that Israel, as a country, is much more than the sum of the conflict with the Palestinians. I understand the Palestinian dilemma and without the conflict with Israel, where is their unique identity? The war against the Jews has shaped and long defined their identity and culture as a people, and without the war against the Jews, who would be able to distinguish the Palestinians culturally from say the Syrian, Jordanian or Egpytian Arabs?

I know the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre, in fact, the Last Amazon acted as a volunteer computer mentor to ‘disadvantaged’ children this past fall and winter there. The program was designed to help poor child learn how to operate a computer and at the end of a successful completion of the program, the disadvantaged children would not only have learned how to operate a computer effectively but would be gifted with one at upon completion of the program. The program was open to all poor children regardless of their ethnicity, race, religion, or sex. There’s an irony here for you and I wonder if the day will ever come when the Canadian Arab Federation or the CAIA would ever run the same kind of egalitarian program from their doors. Call it a failure of imagination on my part but I cannot imagine Jewish children being shown the same kind of hospitality.

Anyway, a copy of their full press release after the protest can be found here but the real money quote can be found at the end of their press release:

CAIA has vowed to continue pressing forward with this important campaign until the core demands of the Palestinian-initiated BDS movement are met, including: (1) the end of Israeli military occupation over all Arab lands; (2) the right of return of refugees as stipulate by UN Resolution 194 and (3) the granting of full equality to the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Ahhh yes, the destruction of the Jewish state all dressed up as a plea for equality. This group never speaks about the right of return for Jewish refugees from Arab lands, or demands the granting of full equality of citizenship to Jewish refugees from their respective Arab homelands, or how about a few lines of print suggesting an ending to the Arab occupation of Jewish lands?

crossposted to Dust my Broom