Jagmeet Singh,  a Sikh, is the leader of the New Democrat Party and a proud supporter of BDS: the antisemitic  Boycott, Divest Sanction movement against Israel, the only Jewish state in the world surrounded by 230 million Muslims in 23 Muslim only states: Judenrein.  I have studied Sikhism and have had the great pleasure of meeting with and talking to Sikhs of many ages. And I am shocked by Singh’s antisemitic position because I have been told that Sikhs believe in protecting minorities under attack, and of all the minorities in the world, the Jews are the smallest, except for the Yazidis, who are in the process of being ethnically erased by Muslims, and no one seems to care.

Sikhism teaches the first Guru preached the belief in 1-one God a wondrous God, called Vaheguru– Infinite Source and the Source of everything. The Guru preached freedom from slavery and oppression, equality for all, and of all because each of us has a light within that comes from 1-one God, like the divine spark, that makes all equal no matter race, religion, gender, nationality, sexual orientation. Sikhism stresses monotheism, individual morality and martial valour.

Sikhs practice the Five K.

One is the Kirpan: The warrior’s sword. These days a small one is worn as a symbol of dignity and self-respect. It demonstrates power and reminds Sikhs that they must fight a spiritual battle, defend the weak and oppressed, and uphold the truth.

“It is a Sikh’s sacred duty, without fear or anger, to defend the weak and protect the innocent.”

“Sikhs respect and will act to protect the free practice and the beliefs and traditions of other religions.”

Despite an accent on mercy and compassion, violence is permitted in special circumstances, such as self-defense, and Sikhs are known as good warriors, aspiring to be “saint-soldiers.”

Has Singh turned his back on his religion? He backs the antisemitic trope of BDS and today, anti-Zionism IS antisemitism.

The NDP has been proudly antisemitic for years . The unions, who underpin the party, are proud BDSers. Odd, as the only country in the Middle East with unions is… Israel. And those unions represent all people. More than 7000 Palestinians are now part of national trade union – the Histadrut. If there is a Muslim country with active labour unions, please contact me.

Jagmeet Singh joins the ranks of people like Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party in Britain and the entire Democrat Party in America who stand by Ilhan Omar (embraced by David Duke  former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard) and Rashid Tlaib, two Congresswomen who have shared their Jew hating/Israel bashing  across America. He is now part of the group that includes Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

There are 8 million people in Israel, 7 million are Jews and the rest include Muslims and Christians, all with the rights to practice their religions freely and proselytize, despite the fact that Jews do not.

So what is this BDS?

It is a call for freedom justice and equality. I know because the website says so.

In reality BDS is today’s antisemitism – a global attack centred on one state rather than in the past when people all over the world attacked Jews living in different countries all over the world. Many were told to go home. That meant Israel. Now people tell Jews in Israel to go home – to those same states they were told to leave pre-Shoah.

Prof. Ron Hassner at Berkeley’s political science department, said anti-Semitism is rooted in the BDS movement itself.

“At divestment meetings on my campus, Israel has been accused of putting rats in the vaginas of Palestinian women, stealing Palestinian organs and poisoning the water in Gaza. You’ll recognize these as classic anti-Semitic tropes from 19th-century Polish blood libels, for example.”

More form the BDS website

BDS is now a vibrant global movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches and grassroots movements across the world. Thirteen years since its launch, BDS is having a major impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.

BDS is an inclusive, anti-racist human rights movement that is opposed on principle to all forms of discrimination, including anti-semitism and Islamophobia.

They write:

“one-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Palestinians who remained inside the armistice lines after 1948. They are subjected to a system of racial discrimination enshrined in more than 50 laws that impact every aspect of their lives. The Israeli government continues to forcibly displace Palestinian communities in Israel from their land. Israeli leaders routinely and openly incite racial violence against them.”

They write:

“Israel says it is a “Jewish and democratic” state. However, the 20% of the population of Israel who are Palestinian citizens of Israel who are subjected to a series of racist laws and segregation policies that facilitate the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinian citizens of Israel and make them third class citizens. A state that gives different rights to different people based purely on their ethnic identity cannot be described as a democracy.”

And my favourite: Resolution 194

“Since its violent establishment in 1948 through the ethnic cleansing of more than half of the indigenous people of Palestine, Israel has set out to control as much land and uproot as many Palestinians as it can. As a result of this systematic forced displacement, there are now more than 7.25 million Palestinian refugees. They are denied their right to return to their homes simply because they are not Jewish.”

Now, keep in mind no other refugees have had the right of return. No one. Or that these people became refugees because they went to war against Israel in 1948 with the help of five Arab nations. And 850,000 Jews were removed from the surrounding Muslim countries in 1948. Where are they? Can they return – they and their children and grandchildren?

And the ethnic cleansing? There are more than 6 million “Palestinians” today claiming a right of return. Which would turn Israel into another Muslim state.

But, BDS consistently mischaracterizes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a racial conflict. BDS claims Israel is an “apartheid state” and that “white” Jews conspire against “brown” Arabs. These statements are not only inaccurate, but also offensive and even antisemitic. “Apartheid” refers to a legal system that segregates populations based on race. This does not apply to Israel because Israel guarantees equality before the law to all its citizens, Arab, Jew, or other. Jews and Arabs generally do not view themselves as constituting “races,” but rather peoples in conflict over land.

For those who believe there is discrimination based on “race” I suggest watching HBO Our Boys which shows the lengths Israelis go to provide equal justice under the law-to all.

BDS calls for boycott, divest and sanction of Israeli companies and the state of Israel. In Nazi Germany the Germans were told to boycott, divest and sanction the Jews living there.

BDS has held on to and expanded upon, the blood libels shared during the Middle Ages

At Vassar, Africana Studies offers course AFRS 383, “Transnational Solidarities: Palestinian Struggle for Self-Determination/Black Struggle for Liberation” and Jasbir Puar, a Rutgers Gender/Queer Studies professor, delivers a diatribe accusing Israel of harvesting Palestinian organs for research, experimenting on Palestinian children and targeting Palestinians for “stunting” and “maiming.”

“Maiming” means shooting to intentionally cripple, shattering knees and hitting vital organs (an obvious contradiction) to minimize death statistics and ensure that Palestinian workers can be profitable without threatening the occupier.

“Stunting” is used to permanently debilitate and disable the Palestinians. This is achieved through population poisoning with uranium, lead and phosphorus and “calorie starvation” in children. Through Israel’s actions, it is creating physical, psychological and cognitive injuries by controlling infrastructure, water, electricity and land, restricting mobility and limiting telecommunications. Her personal observation is that 95 percent of Palestinians are permanently disabled.

Ms. Puar’s libelous accusations included Israelis killing Palestinians to harvest their organs, a version of the age-old anti-Semitic “blood libel,” experimentation on Palestinian children, “field assassinations” of 120 Palestinians, ages 12-16, in the last four months, and the intentional bombing of Palestinian hospitals and nursing homes.   She labeled Israel an apartheid state that uses its world-renowned reproductive technology to control population demographics by collecting genetic data to identify who is Jewish and specifically targeting Palestinian procreative organs. Paradoxically, she bragged that the Palestinian birthrate is triple that of the Jewish Israelis.

She is not alone. Prominent BDS leaders such as Omar Barghouti and Hatem Bazian have called for “armed resistance” against Jews in both the United States and Israel. Bazian has even suggested that Jews control academia and stated that Jews “kill, rape, smuggle organs and steal the land of Palestinians.” These statements echo classic antisemitic tropes, including the slanders that Jews drink the blood of non-Jews and Jews are conspiring to take over the world.

And no one says a word. Silence. We have been there, before, but Jagmeet Singh, the LEADER of Canada’s national NDP Party, today, supports BDS and its innate, endemic and systemic Jew hatred. All this takes place while Conservative Party leader, Andrew Scheer, is attacked for his Catholic beliefs, especially his personal beliefs on abortion.

Oh Canada.

 

From the Ethics of the Fathers: “Rabbi Tarfon used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it.”