As workers around the world continue to protest the Israeli military’s intensifying air and ground assault on Gaza, and in many cases their own governments’ support of this, those governments are taking repressive measures. Thousands around the world have been arrested at pro-Palestine public rallies, and such events have even been banned in countries including Germany, France, and Sweden. The British government has openly considered criminalizing the mere display of the Palestinian flag. Members of International Socialist Alternative in these and other countries, including Canada, have taken part in rallies in solidarity with the Palestinian people and will fight against attacks upon the democratic rights to free speech and assembly. This is a key task for socialists and the working class generally because the capitalist state, while it can be forced and cajoled into reforms up to a point, is fundamentally not on our side and cannot be trusted. History has shown that any government actions of repression are more likely to be used against the working class and socialists than any measures it might sometimes take against the right.
Socialist Alternative wrote in February 2022 opposing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s imposition of the Emergencies Act to force an end to the convoy protests in Ottawa and elsewhere. We did so not out of any sympathy for these protesters’ goals or for the movement’s far-right leaders, but because it helped open the door to “serious implications for the right to protest and may well be used in future against the left.” We even warned that “Palestinian or USSR flags could[…] be tarred as ‘hate symbols’ in order to delegitimize or criminalize future protests.”
While Trudeau and company have not gone so far as some European states or as his own actions of 21 months ago, the Canadian state and ruling class have still made notable attempts to crack down on displays of Palestinian solidarity, attempts which the Canadian working class of all ethnicities must oppose now before they are allowed to get worse.
Bringing Down the Hammer in Hamilton
The most high profile of these cases so far has been the campaign of attacks upon Ontario New Democratic Party MPP Sarah Jama, the provincial representative for Hamilton Centre. Jama, elected in a March 2023 by-election, had been targeted during that campaign by conservative media outlets and Zionist organizations such as B’nai Brith, a self-proclaimed “staunch defender of the State of Israel.” The cynical allegations of antisemitism leveled against her were pinned to her participation in Israeli Apartheid Week during her time as a student at McMaster University and her support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS aims to loosen Israel’s grip on the occupied Palestinian territories through economic pressure, including by discouraging the use of products manufactured there (it does not typically target products made in the state of Israel proper, though the war has grown the number of corporate targets to include companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks).
The smears drastically intensified in the period after Hamas’s bloody assault on October 7, in which 1,200 people, including Jews, Arabs, Bedouins, and immigrants, were killed and 220 others taken hostage. This targeting of civilians was hugely counterproductive, provoking the furious Israeli counterattack that has killed over 12,000 people — over 40 percent of them children — in Gaza and over 200 in the West Bank. Jama released a statement on October 10 calling for an immediate ceasefire, mourning “the endless cycle of death and destruction,” and describing the occupation of Palestine as “apartheid,” with reference to the same description used by a United Nations special rapporteur. Of course, nowhere in her two short paragraphs did she support or excuse Hamas’s killing of unarmed Israelis, and she nonetheless apologized the following day and “unequivocally condemn[ed] terrorism by Hamas on thousands of Israeli civilians.”
But once bulldogs clamp down, they do not let their victim get away. A cascade of dishonest press releases, newspaper columns, and social media screeds haranguing Ontario’s NDP leader Marit Stiles to boot Jama from the party were reinforced by Ontario premier Doug Ford demanding that Jama resign from the legislature. He brought forward a vote of censure, with the unusual added proviso that the House Speaker would not be allowed to acknowledge the member from Hamilton Centre until she deleted her statement and apologized in the legislature. Jama faces the choice of which democratic right would be curtailed: her right to publicly call for a ceasefire, or her right to represent her constituents by taking part in a democratic parliament.
Stiles, who had unenthusiastically defended Jama from the first barrage in March, did so in much the same way for about a week but eventually decided that she wanted some very temporary praise from the likes of Sun Media more than she wanted an MPP who speaks publicly against imperialism. Stiles expelled Jama from the NDP caucus on October 23, citing a vague list of supposed offences as justification, such as “a number of unilateral actions” which “have contributed to unsafe work environments for staff.” Unsaid by Stiles is that Jama’s own staff had been forced to close Jama’s constituency office because of threats made by some of the same people whipped into frenzy by the media, pro-Israel lobby groups, and Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party.
Not Just Politicians in the Crosshairs
A similar campaign is underway against Fred Hahn, president of Ontario’s Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), both for defending Jama and for making an October 8 Thanksgiving statement on Twitter that the pro-Israel smear machine chose to misinterpret as celebrating the mass killing of Israelis: “As we all think about reasons to be thankful this #thanksgiving2023, I know I’m thankful for the power of workers, the power of resistance around the globe. Because #Resistance is fruitful and no matter what some might say, #Resistance brings progress, and for that, I’m thankful.” CUPE’s 2,000-delegate national convention re-elected Hahn as one of five general vice-presidents and passed an emergency resolution calling for a ceasefire on October 26, but the political and personal pressure to force him out is still intensifying. On November 6, CUPE was hit with a lawsuit alleging “systemic discrimination against the complainants by promoting and engaging in antisemitism.” One of the few concrete examples of alleged antisemitism mentioned in the suit (beyond “caus[ing] the complainants to feel isolated, unwelcome,” and other such impossibly vague weaponizations of “inclusivity”-type language) was a Jewish union delegate being told she could not wear a t-shirt extolling the Israeli Defence Forces at a CUPE Ontario convention. The suit not only demands $500,000 as compensation for such horrors, but also aims to attack the union’s finances by allowing members to redirect their dues payments to a Jewish charity.
University campuses have been another arena in which attempts have been made to silence those who don’t abjectly fall in line with the doctrine of “Israel has the right to defend itself,” a reasonable-sounding catchphrase, which in reality always translates to “Israel has the right to destroy as many Palestinians as it likes,” whatever mention of “within international law” is thrown in afterward. (Conversely, Palestinians are rarely presumed to deserve any rights of self-defence.) York University and the University of Toronto Mississauga have threatened to decertify student unions for pro-Palestinian statements. Law students at Toronto Metropolitan University, who signed a similar letter, are having future job prospects threatened. Western University’s volunteer Muslim chaplain was forced to relinquish his position after an online confrontation with former Conservative senator Linda Frum.
And it is not only political parties or public institutions that are trying to silence inconvenient voices. Restaurant chain Moxies fired four workers from its downtown Toronto location after they were videoed at the restaurant entrance waving and cheering to the passing participants of a pro-Palestine march on October 21. Which workplace might be next? Will retail workers or teachers be told to keep their noses out of this and other “controversial issues,” which might bring their company or profession into some imagined “disrepute?” Will immigrant and non-citizen workers be threatened with deportation (as professional celebrity and former prime minister’s son Ben Mulroney has demanded) if they don’t toe the Canadian government’s political line?
Don’t Take the Attacks Lying Down
Socialist Alternative differentiates between genuine cases of anti-Jewish hatred, intimidation, violence, and assaults, which socialists have always opposed (such as the nighttime shootings of Jewish schools in Montreal), and the dishonest political smears of pro-imperialist groups like B’nai B’rith and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. These pressure groups claim that criticizing the actions of the Israeli government are anti-Semitic. Their claims are part of Western imperialism’s decades-long support of Israel as a Middle Eastern bastion against the Arab world. The US armed Israel, due to its fear, especially from the 1950s to 1970s, that the Arab masses would rise up in struggles for democratic rights, against the reactionary dictatorships and monarchies.
Apologies to disreputable political actors are not worth making. The right-wing scribblers and lobbyists demanded that Jama and Hahn apologize, but then only redoubled their attacks after such apologies were proffered. Next come demands for resignations, and then for all sorts of guarantees from successors that they will not raise their heads up to speak against injustice.
The treatment of the former leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, is exemplary of the strategy. Part of the witch hunt against Corbyn, by pro-big business Labour MPs was accusing Corbyn of anti-Semitism because he defended Palestinian’s rights. Corbyn was eventually suspended on this bogus charge by the right-wing around the current leader Keir Starmer that now dominate Labour. Unfortunately, Corbyn never fought back against this campaign with the necessary intensity and the Labour Party is now totally in favour of big business. Starmer, who steadfastly supports Israel and its war on Gaza and oppression of the Palestinians, has so enraged many Labour Party member that they are resigning.
Jama herself has refused to retract her statement or succumb to pressure from her ex-party’s leadership, which is commendable. She has also spoken at pro-Palestine rallies since her removal from the NDP, while the party’s remaining elected officials have stayed away. And her expulsion has outraged many on the left, including inside the NDP and its affiliated labour groups. The Hamilton and District Labour Council released a statement “condemning the Ontario NDP for the removal of Sarah Jama from Caucus” and later said that they “will soon have the opportunity to decide on the future of our relationship with the party” and “will work to ensure [Jama] is re-elected whether she stands under a party banner or not.” The Peel District Labour Council tweeted about “the misguided decision to remove Sarah Jama” from the NDP caucus. Jama’s Hamilton Centre NDP riding association has called for a leadership review, the Toronto-St. Paul’s riding association “denounce[s] the actions of Ontario NDP leadership,” and the Kitchener Centre riding association has demanded Stiles’s resignation as party leader. ONDP MPP Jill Andrew has said that there was no caucus vote or even consultation on Jama’s removal — i.e., that it was a decision made by Stiles and the NDP’s bureaucracy — and that she did not agree with that decision.
In the case of workers like those at Moxies fired for expressing pro-Palestinian sentiments, unions must take the lead in defending their employment, even if these workers are in non-union workplaces. Food-service industry unions such as Unite Here and the Union of Food and Commercial Workers could have proactively and publicly taken up the Moxies workers’ defence to demand that they should not be victimized for showing their solidarity with Palestinians. They still can and should launch a campaign to win these four workers’ jobs back and demonstrate to the wider restaurant industry workforce the benefits of unionization, one of which can be protection from arbitrary or politically motivated firings. The right wing will not shy away from using the current situation to attack workers’ rights and are even eager for the new opportunity.
Post-secondary and high school students have also staged walkouts from classes in protest. National unions and union locals have passed declarations of solidarity. This can be built upon if workers in the munitions and logistics sectors follow in a long and proud tradition and refuse to manufacture or transport weapons to the Israeli military — this was announced by a coalition of Belgian unions on October 31 and has since been supplemented by Japanese rail workers and Catalan dockers. While Canadian exports pale in comparison to those recently demanded in the United States by the Biden administration, Canada sold a combined $49.1 million worth of weaponry to Israel in 2021 and 2022, a record for a two-year period. This includes explosives and targeting systems, which may well be in active use in the Israeli warplanes and artillery that are currently ripping apart buildings and people in Gaza, as well as products ranging from armoured vehicles to remote-firing devices to surveillance equipment. A small demonstration disrupted government-subsidized weapons firm INKAS‘s Toronto headquarters for several hours on October 31 and other actions have taken place since. Stepping up such efforts to shut off the Canadian weapons tap with the power of organized labour would be an important victory that workers elsewhere could emulate.
All these developments, especially the condemnation of the NDP by a major city’s labour council, could have significant ramifications if they are followed through on and not left to simply be some isolated radical statements. The party bureaucracy will throw all sorts of obstacles in the path of change within, as they have with Jama and with BC’s Anjali Appadurai, who has also defended Jama’s stand. The NDP is once again betraying and disappointing its best members and paving the path not just for the right-wing to come to power in Canada, but also possibly for a new working-class and internationalist party, through its constant capitulations to imperialism and capitalism. A new working-class party would be firmly on the side of Palestinians and other national groups resisting colonialism, including within the borders of Canada. The powerful forces of Canadian and Western imperialism will try to use their own weapons, from political smears to police batons, to keep workers in Canada from organizing in active support of their compatriots in other countries. In this war and the future ones that capitalism will cause, Socialist Alternative stands for international working-class unity, solidarity and action in opposition to war and imperialism.
