In the Fine Tradition of Literary Antisemitism

"Canlit Responds, originally formed as the literary community’s protest against charges laid against demonstrators who disrupted the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize over it’s main sponsor’s substantial investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems, has released a statement signed by 20 Canadian authors withdrawing their work from the 2024 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and refusing to participate in the Giller Foundation’s ongoing programming."

"Fifteen authors have pulled their 2024 fiction releases from contention for the prize. The other five signatories are authors who have prior relationships to the prize – one is a former Giller winner, and the remaining authors have either been shortlisted or longlisted for the prize."

"The letter states that the authors 'cannot abide [their] work being used to provide cover for sponsors actively investing in arms funding and Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians'."

"The authors call on the Giller Foundation to 'use their organizational leverage to pressure their main sponsor, Scotiabank, to fully divest from Elbit Systems' and to 'cut ties with all funders directly invested in Israel’s occupation and genocide in Palestine, including the Azrieli Foundation, Indigo, and Audible'."

Atilla Berqi, Quill & Quire 

Elana Rabinovitch, executive director of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, says she will maintain her partnership with the bank despite protests from authors, several of whom have withdrawn their works from consideration. over the bank's investment in an Israeli weapons manufacturer. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

 

So it is that in their conscientious proselytizing for compassionate regard for the Palestinians in Gaza -- beset by an industrialist-military complex contiguous with the territory that Arabs who call themselves Palestinians insist is their exclusive patrimony of ancestral heritage although history documents the rightful indigenous population as 'Palestinian' Judaeans -- David Bergen, Noor Naga, Aimee Wall, André Forget, Catherine Hernandez, Farzana Doctor, Sheung-King, Jacob Wren, Nour Abi-Nakhoul, Colin Barrett, Frankie Barnet, Greg Rhyno, Jen Currin, Jess Taylor, John Elizabeth Stintzi, Julie Delporte, Kazim Ali, Lily Wang, and Sydney Hegele call upon the Giller Foundation to pressure  Scotiabank to fully divest from Elbit Systems.

 

 

Their stern voices condemning Israel as an occupier of Palestinian-designated territory -- above all, "Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians", is testimony to their deep ignorance of reality, much less that of history and a recognition of actual events as opposed to aggressive and malignant propaganda. That no fewer than 40 Canadian authors signed a letter protesting the Giller Prize representing a group specifically formed in support of protesters charged for disrupting the Giller Prize ceremony of the year previous speaks to utter arrogant sanctimony in a veneer of humanitarian concern for human life.

 

Tellingly, the group's 'progressive' ideological embrace condemning Israel for its temerity in assuming it has the right to defend itself from forty decades of violent hostility from a Palestinian population that feels in the aggregate that the Jewish state has no right to exist, speaks volumes about their love affair with antisemitism. Equating the Palestinian 'struggle' against an 'aggressor' with a legitimate nation's counter-struggle to deter murder-minded terrorists from claiming greater numbers of Jewish lives describes vulnerable victims of Jewish terror, a complete and deliberate inversion of reality.

 

Protesters are escorted out of the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto by police after interrupting the Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony in November 2023. Three of them were later charged in connection with the disruption, CP24 reported. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

Their intention to force Scotiabank as the major sponsor of the Giller Prize in literature to divest from Elbit Systems, the Israeli arms manufacturer, is merely a veneer to gloss over hatred of Israel and of Jews. Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank have long demonstrated their hostility toward Israel and Jews and done so at the behest of their leaders who have groomed them from cradle to grave to view Israel as an illegitimate nation squatting on Arab territory. The horrors of the October 7 mass atrocity masterminded by Hamas and joined by other terrorist groups such as the PLFP and PIJ had the full support of the larger population.

It is not Israel for which 'genocide' is a goal, but rather it is Palestinians supporting their terrorist groups whose purpose is the eradication of Israel from its heritage soil. Israel is living proof that a Jewish state is capable of viewing non-Jewish inhabitants of a Jewish state as citizens, be they Christian, Druze, Kurds, Bedouin or Palestinian Arabs. Along with the right of electing their own representatives to the Knesset (Jewish parliament) to represent their interests; to sit on the judiciary; to have full respect as members of important professions, to serve in the military as trusted colleagues.

Scotiabank may invest in an Israeli arms manufacturer as an astute financial choice for its investors, but it also invests in Boeing and Lockheed Martin as well as Raytheon Tech. If CanLit Responds views weapons manufacturing as deplorable, do they also call on divesting from those weapons manufacturers? Elbit after all, manufactures weaponry used by the United States and NATO countries as well as by Israel. U.S. weapons manufacturers supply planes and bombs; do they not also merit attention? 

Does it not disturb CanLit Responds that Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas deliberately place Palestinian citizens they reportedly care so much about in harm's way with a deliberate focus on numbers that they then use to stir the humanitarian concerns of groups like themselves? Their lens is so fixed on a belief of Israeli malevolence against Palestinians that they cannot -- or will not -- recognize that to Palestinian terrorists their own citizenry is expendable in their longer vision of annihilating Israel by any means possible -- including propaganda distribution to stir the rage of antisemites eager to isolate Israel on the international stage.

The associated targets this group of Israel-haters focus on, from the Azraeli Foundation, Indigo and Audible all support the ancient homeland of the world's Jews reborn. As why would they not? Since diaspora Jews from antiquity to the present have always faced the headwinds of antisemitism to survive -- and millions did not survive. A people whose existence is barely tolerated and between lulls of tolerated co-existence face dread times of resurgent threats, hate and existential violence. 

CanLit Responds is just yet another of the many groups that have arisen in the past to the present, to exalt themselves as principled humanitarian examples of global compassion for the oppressed and whose identity as warriors for justice is beyond question. The target of their wrath and condemnation just always happens to be Jews, a mere coincidence that speaks to the tired old, but always-useful contention that Jews are responsible for whatever occurs that reflects human dysfunction. 

A protest at November's Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony in Toronto sparked calls from authors for the prize to cut ties with the bank, because of its investment in Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. On Thursday, more than 20 authors pulled their books from consideration for this year's prize. (Rob Gillies/The Associated Press)