Middle East Orphan

Funny thing how reputations are made.  Not always based on reality but all too often on perception.  And when perceptions are twisted, as sometimes happens, then the reputation that ensues can border on the slanderous.  It has long been held by those who look to find fault with Jews that they are interfering, manipulative, controlling, with a broad aspiration to power.

The thing of it is that this may result from a misperception, one that would hardly bother those who look for 'reasons' to detest Jews.  As an ethnic group Jews have a tendency to become involved; broadly speaking, Jews have a social conscience and they act on it.  Not only for their own furtherance, but on a wider level, they have a sense of social fairness and justice that has universal application.

Jews seem to naturally gravitate to social movements that tend to further the interests of broad sections of a population.  Even while Jews, as an entrepreneurial class are known to excel in so many areas of endeavours and to gain wealth and prestige, they still tend toward the philanthropic.  In Jewish tradition, Jews are encouraged to be charitable and true charity is performed quietly, with no wish to achieve gratitude in exchange but altruistically.

Jews have always been supportive of 'liberal' causes.  During the Russian Revolution Jews were in the forefront of extolling the presumed virtues of 'socialism'.  The kibbutz movement in Israel owed much to a sense of collective socialism, a communality of like-minded people throwing in their lot to achieve a goal that would be useful to all, equally.

During the days of social emancipation of the 1950s United States in the social movement for equality between whites and people of colour, Jews were there too, in the forefront of activism.  Some Jews are so committed to what is commonly termed 'left' idealism that they manage in fair-sized groups to agitate against what they claim is the right-wing agenda of the State of Israel.

In Canada, as in the United States, Jews become involved to a far greater extent than any other ethnic component in the politics of their country.  And they put their money where their faith is.  Traditionally, Jews have been active in the Liberal and New Democratic parties in Canada, in the Democratic Party in the United States.  More funding is received from Jewish sources than any others.

Lately that has been changing.  Canadian Jews are by no means monolithic in their political devotion, nor their support of Israel.  But they are sensitive to slurs impacting their reputations and that of Israel, used as a proxy for anti-Semites in criticism claimed to be based on realities, not anti-Semitism.  There are Jews who belong to groups active in their claimed dislike for Israel's politics.

But like any family group, even Jews who hold little brief for Israel, get tired of seeing its isolation at the United Nations, and the clear discrimination and bias extended toward it from blocs of countries where politics has exploited membership in the UN.  When UN committees consistently single out Israel for condemnation, deliberately overlooking the world's worst human-rights abusers, it sends a message.

And when a reigning political party that has long been supported by Jewish activists and Jewish funding, consistently avoids taking a stand in support of a member democracy, sitting by while that country is demonized, it has its consequences in the minds of those Jews.  Who begin to re-think their allegiances and withdraw them.

Which is what has occurred in Canada, and which is now beginning to manifest itself in the United States as well.  President Barack Obama, while portraying himself as sensitive to Jewish concerns about the security of the State of Israel, surrounded by hostile and violent neighbours, has also gone out of his way to placate those neighbours, many of which are obviously hostile to both Israel and the U.S.

The president of the United States has within his entourage people who have been seen to be anti-Semitic, and he has given audience and respect to many who are hostile and intolerant of Israel.  It seems on a good many occasions that he is himself hostile to Israel, given his reception of its current leaders.  Which contrasts with the manner in which the current Conservative-led Government of Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper reacts to Israel and those who would do it harm.

During this presidential election year Barack Obama's staunch supporters, among whom were wealthy Jews, have begun to withhold their support for him.  Many have converted their support for the Democrats to support for the Republicans.  The Liberal Party of Canada went into a tailspin when its support markedly waned, and it was unable to raise campaign contributions, partly due to lost support.

While the new Conservative Party of Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper saw an entirely opposite reaction as a result of his administration's staunch backing of the State of Israel, stating clearly what the position of the Conservative government is in support of a sister democracy.  It is the left, once supportive of Israel, as the Middle East underdog, that has relinquished that role entirely.

That would be the left hugely supported by Jewish voters, activists and financial backers.  Their new credentials at a time when anti-Semitism is once again rising world-wide, includes wholesale criticism of Israel, and the fostering of poor relations between trade unions, academics and members of Parliament who have taken up the cause of the Arab world, leaving Israel a Middle East orphan.