Category: Anti-Black racism

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Anti-Black racism Israel

Israeli governments have a long history of anti-Blackness

This is a follow up to my October 2022 post Black and Jewish activists share a long history of collaboration and is about the actions of Israeli governments, not Israelis or Jewish people in general.

Since Israel’s creation in 1948, much of what successive Israeli governments have done has been pro-Israel – and anti-Black. Being pro-Israel is largely what they got elected to do, being anti-Black isn’t.

This started with Israel’s complex relationship with South Africa’s apartheid regime – which South Africa also started in 1948. 

[Note: Much of what follows is taken from the Wikipedia post Israel-South African relations which I have indicated with quotes. I enclose things I’ve added with square brackets.]

“The Union of South Africa was among the thirty-three states that voted in favour of the 1947 United Nations (UN) Partition Plan, which endorsed the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. On 24 May 1948, nine days after Israel’s declaration of independence, the South African government of Field Marshal Jan Smuts became the seventh foreign government to grant de facto recognition to the State of Israel. Two days later, Smuts was voted out and the new South African government was formed by D.F. Malan’s National Party (NP), which had run on a platform of legislating apartheid. This result was of interest to Israel primarily because of the presence in South Africa of a large Jewish population: by 1949, there were 120,000 Jews living in South Africa, the overwhelming majority of whom were Zionists….[According to Oxford Languages a Zionist is “a person who believes in the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel.”]…many of whom had provided important financial support to the Zionist movement…After its election to government, the NP apparently overcame its earlier tendency towards “virulent anti-Semitism”. The South African government granted de jure recognition to Israel on 14 May 1949. Formal diplomatic relations between the countries began in the same year, with the opening of Israel’s consulate-general in Pretoria…In addition to granting Israel diplomatic recognition, Malan…relaxed South Africa’s rigid currency regulations to permit the export of commodities and foreign exchange to Israel…Annual flows of funds to Israel from South Africa were estimated at $700,000 by [1959], and in all it was estimated that South African Jews sent more than $19.6 million to Israel between 1951 and 1961.”

This friendly start to Israeli-South African relations quickly changed. In the 1950s and 1960s, Israel began taking positions opposing South African apartheid at the United Nations. During this time, UN General Assembly debates over apartheid had become increasingly vociferous. “This had begun in the very week of Israel’s accession to the UN in May 1949, when it had supported a motion requiring South Africa to enter into roundtable discussions with Pakistan and India over apartheid and its implications for Indian and Pakistani citizens. In December 1950, [Israeli] diplomat Michael Comay wrote in an internal memo that the Israeli strategy in such votes was to:

“generally refrain from condemnation of South Africa, and from passing any judgment on the specific merits of the issues… On the other hand, we can and should refrain from any express or implied support for the South African caste system…”

In a letter in December, Comay summarised this position as responding to the need to “find a compromise between our principles and convictions on matters of racialism, and our desire to maintain friendship with South Africa”. According to legal historian Rotem Giladi, during the 1950s this manifested in frequent “equivocation” on apartheid by the Israeli mission to the UN – though Giladi also argues that Israel’s speeches and votes on apartheid were nonetheless “considerably more progressive” than those of many Western states. And, during the 1960s, Israel became increasingly consistent in its criticism of the South African government; it frequently voted against South Africa and apartheid at the UN.

In October 1962 at the UN General Assembly, Israel voted in favour of the landmark Resolution 1761, which strongly condemned apartheid and called for voluntary sanctions against South Africa. Members of the Israeli legislature, the Knesset, approved the measure in a 63–11 vote. [In 1962, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was serving for his second time as prime minister and head of the Mapai party, a democratic socialist political party that was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the modern-day Israeli Labor Party in 1968.] The following year, Israel announced that it had withdrawn its envoy to South Africa…It also announced that it was taking steps to enforce an embargo against the South African military, as called for by Resolution 1761…In the 1960s, senior Israeli politicians frequently framed diplomatic opposition to apartheid as a matter of principle: in October 1963, Golda Meir, then Israel’s Foreign Minister, told the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “deep abhorrence for all forms of discrimination on the grounds of race, colour or religion… stems from our age-old spiritual values, and from our long and tragic historical experience as a victim”. Israel also had strategic reasons to distance itself from South Africa: as a counterbalance to the hostility of the Arab and Soviet blocs, it increasingly sought closer ties with black African states, which were gaining their political independence during that time and which strongly opposed the apartheid policy and South Africa’s regional hegemony. These moral and strategic considerations had to be balanced against the concerns of South African Jews…”

Then something happened that would draw Israel and South Africa back together…

“In 1967, Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War and subsequent occupation of the Sinai and the West Bank alienated it diplomatically from much of the Third World and black Africa, whose nationalist movements began to view Israel as a colonial state. At the same time, Israel became the object of admiration among parts of the South African white population, particularly among the country’s political and military leadership. An editorial in Die Burger, then the mouthpiece of the South African National Party, declared:

“Israel and South Africa… are engaged in a struggle for existence… The anti-Western powers have driven Israel and South Africa into a community of interests which had better be utilized than denied.”

The 1973 Yom Kippur War, however, came with “the near-complete collapse of Israel’s position in Africa.” [The war was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria]. By the end of 1973, all but four African states had severed diplomatic relations with Israel. This was partly due to the 1973 oil embargo instituted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries against Israel’s Western partners, which reinforced a new alliance between the Arab and black African states. 

At the UN General Assembly in the 1970s, Israel abstained from some key votes affecting South Africa, such as the vote on granting observer status to the African National Congress (ANC) in 1972, and votes against apartheid in later years.

In the 1970s Israel aided the National Liberation Front of Angola …forces organized and trained by South Africa and the [US Central Intelligence Agency] to forestall the formation of a government led by the  MPLA [People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola] during the Angolan Civil War…”

“By 1987, Israel found itself the only developed nation in the world that still maintained strong relations with South Africa.”

Israeli governments’ checkered past regarding treatment of Black people in South Africa mirrors their treatment of Black Israelis.

Following high profile stories of Israel airlifting thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1991 far less was heard about how life was for Ethiopian Jews, known as Beta Israel, in Israel.

In a January 2023 article Fighting on Behalf of Ethiopian Jews in Brandeis University’s The Jewish Experience, Penny Schwartz features the story of Ethiopian Jew Shula Mola. Schwartz writes that, “Mola arrived in Israel in 1984 at age 12, but life in the country hasn’t been what she imagined. Ethiopian Jews, in her experience, face mistreatment, discrimination, and injustice. Today, she is one of the community’s leading activists, a board member of the New Israel Fund, a group advocating for equality for Israel’s minorities, and a co-founder of Mothers on Guard, which the Israeli newspaper Haaretz described as the “Black Jewish wall of moms fighting Israeli police brutality.” She was recently named one of Israel’s 50 most influential women by the country’s leading economic newspaper, Globes. Ethiopian Jews started coming to Israel in the late 1970s. As a result of efforts by Ethiopian Jews, the U.S., Israel, several other countries, and activists around the world, many more managed to leave over the next two decades. Today, there are some 160,000 Israelis of Ethiopian origin.”

The article describes Ethiopian Jews experiencing things similar to African Americans and African Canadians. Mola attended boarding school where some classmates taunted her for her dark skin color and challenged her Jewish identity. Her younger brother, a special education high school student, was in a class too large to accommodate his specific needs, and she felt there was a lack of precise diagnosis for his particular learning challenges. She was even more disturbed when she realized that more than half the class was from the Beta Israel community and faced similar circumstances.

Beta Israel income levels remain around 40% lower [than the general population], according to a 2018 report by the Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, an Israeli research center. 

And Beta Israelis face police brutality as Schwartz writes:


“Mola helped start Mothers on Guard in 2016 in response to a decision by Israeli authorities to close an investigation into the death of Yosef Salamsa, a 22-year-old of Ethiopian descent. Salamsa was tasered by police in Jerusalem two years earlier and found dead several months later. Police were never charged in the incident. Four years ago, when an off-duty Israeli cop in Haifa shot dead an Ethiopian-Israeli teenager, Mola protested for months, demanding reforms in the criminal justice system. In a newspaper editorial, [Mola] recounted a conversation with her son while she was out demonstrating.

“The police killed an Ethiopian boy. Why didn’t you tell me that they are killing us?” he asked her over the phone. 

“Sweetheart! My dear child,” she told him. “There are stupid policemen — hotheads who kill people. They’ll pay for what they did.”

According to [Israeil newspaper] Haaretz, cases opened [by police] against Ethiopian minors were 4.3 times their share of the population between 2018 and 2020.

Mola said she’s had to have “the talk” with her son where she instructed him on what to do if the police stop him: “Don’t be smart or cool. Don’t get angry. After that, call your ima,” she told him, using the Hebrew word for mother. “It was the most painful moment,” Mola said in an interview. “It was the hardest thing for me … to realize that I’m raising kids with limits on their freedom.””

In addition to Israeli police limiting the freedom of Black Jewish kids, the Israeli government denied some Ethiopian Jewish women another basic freedom: the freedom to have children. A January 2013 Independent story, Israel gave birth control to Ethiopian Jews without their consent, reported that, “Israel has admitted for the first time that it has been giving Ethiopian Jewish immigrants birth-control injections, often without their knowledge or consent.” The story detailed how Israeli gynaecologists, on orders from the Israeli Health Ministry, had been giving Ethiopian Jewish women injections of “Depo-Provera, which is injected every three months and is considered to be a highly effective, long-lasting contraceptive.”

From support for South African apartheid to arming the wrong side of African colonial struggles to enforcing systemic anti-Black racism against their own Beta Israeli citizens, successive Israeli governments have supported the very policies Black and Jewish activists have a long and rich history of opposing together.

Categories
Anti-Black racism OPS

Two Ottawa companies support systemic white supremacy and anti-Black racism…by working with a Black owned company

Normally, when we claim white-led companies are supporting systemic white supremacy and anti-Black racism it’s because they’re not hiring or partnering with Black companies even though those Black companies are highly competent. However, another way companies support systemic anti-Black racism is by hiring incompetent Black firms, apparently with the goal of having them fail.

A growing body of evidence indicates this is what two Ottawa companies may have apparently done.

On May 30, the Ottawa Police Services Board gave the Ottawa office of global executive search company Odgers Berndtson the green light to award Black-led Hefid Solutions a $76,500 contract to assist with the design and implementation of the community engagement process for recruiting Ottawa’s new police chief. The Board did this despite community groups publicly exposing weeks earlier that Crime Prevention Ottawa (CPO) had awarded a $50,000 contract to Hefid for the development of a new street violence and gun violence strategy in Ottawa despite Hefid having no apparent experience in street violence. 

The Board also did this despite having been previously informed of several things on Hefid’s website which raise questions about Hefid’s competence and credibility, including:

  • The website has no information on who owns or works for, or with, Hefid.
  • It says, “Founded in 2008, Hefid corporation has grown to become trusted (sic) management consultancy with millions of assets under management.”
  • It says “220+ happy clients from largest corporations” (sic).
  • Under Values on the About Us page, it lists Transparency as a key value stating, “There is nothing frustrating than trying to cover up something when it should not be so. Hefid Solution prides itself as ridiculously transparent. We are an open book. This has ensured the public trust us and our clients adore us.” (sic)
  • The website had quotes (since deleted) endorsing Hefid, and at least one Hefid staff member, that appeared to be fake as they appear on multiple websites. 
  • The site plagiarizes an entire 2017 CEO Magazine article, Teams are a reflection of the leader, posting it as a 2019 Hefid blog post. 
  • There are no details on any specific projects Hefid has done related to either street violence or community engagement.

Furthermore, a leaked presentation Hefid did for CPO identifies the African Canadian Association of Ottawa (ACAO) as the sole “community partner” on the street violence project and six of the eight individuals listed as members of the “Engagement Team” are either current or former ACAO executives, directors or members. This is particularly concerning as, after being asked several times who owns Hefid, CPO executive director Nancy Worsfold finally admitted that ACAO founder and executive member Hector Addison owns it – which makes the central role of ACAO in the proposed street violence strategy a direct conflict of interest. All six members of Hefid’s engagement team for the chief recruitment project are ACAO members – with five being directors or officers.

Finally, Hefid owner Hector Addison is a long time member of the Ottawa Police Service Community Equity Council (CEC) which the OPS funds and acting Ottawa Police Service chief Steve Bell co-chairs. 

The Board hired Odgers Berndtson Ottawa to run the police chief recruitment and Odgers recommended hiring Hefid to run the community engagement. Odgers has, therefore, hired the same person who is a member of the group created, run and funded by the OPS, and chaired by acting chief Bell, to run the community consultations to hire the new chief. There could be no clearer conflict of interest.

Hefid’s presentation to CPO indicates they’re partnering with CTLabs on the street violence project. CTLabs is part of Lansdowne Technologies that lists the Ottawa Police Service as one of its clients.

Why would Odgers Berndtson Ottawa and CTLabs, both highly respected, highly competent firms, hire and partner with a firm with such clearly questionable competence? This could not have been a mistake. We wrote to both companies for an explanation and neither replied. We must, therefore, assume they hired Hefid with the intent for Hefid to fail and to maintain the status quo of systemic white supremacy and anti-Black racism.

If this is the case, it would be very similar to what we have argued Steve Bell has been doing for years with the CEC which Bell has co-chaired since its creation in 2018. 

The stated goal of the CEC is, “To improve relationships between Indigenous, racialized and faith-based communities and the Ottawa Police Service.” However, according to the April 2022 report, Troubling Encounters: Ottawa Residents’ Experience of Policing, the CEC has helped do exactly the opposite as the report shows that racialized and low income Ottawa residents have extremely low levels of trust in the Ottawa police. In fact, the report states, “In short, for many people in this city, police do not contribute to individual or community safety, in fact, they appear to do the very opposite.” This is directly related to the CEC having no measurable success criteria as confirmed by former CEC vice-chair, Gerard Etienne who, in summer 2021, replied to the 613-819 Black Hub’s request for the CEC’s success criteria by saying, “It has yet to be defined.” Bell has, and continues to, enable the CEC’s ineffectiveness and, by doing so, continues supporting systemic white supremacy and anti-Black racism.

Any community engagement to recruit the new chief or street violence strategy led by Hefid will have no credibility with the community. But that doesn’t seem to matter as the aim clearly appears to be to crown Steve Bell as Ottawa’s new police chief and create a street violence strategy that does nothing to reduce street violence – and Odgers Berndtson Ottawa and CTLabs appear to be fully on board for both.

Categories
Anti-Black racism Hate crime Police

Trump-style racism in Russell, Ont.

In 2018, in a ranking of 415 cities, towns and villages, MoneySense Magazine named Russell Township, 40 minutes southeast of Ottawa, as one of the best places to live in Canada. However, based on what happened last week, Russell’s few Black people weren’t home when they did the survey.

On Tuesday, Sept. 22, a 10-yr-old Black youth was biking with a white friend along a Russell street, when they passed two white boys their age, one of whom called the Black boy a nigger. When the boy’s white friend asked if the white boy had said what he thought, the white boy repeated it several times. When the boy’s white friend told the aggressor to stop, the aggressor hit the Black boy in his leg with his scooter, knocking him to the ground. The other white boy then jumped on the Black boy’s arm, breaking it in two places. When the Black boy’s mom found out, around 5:15pm, she immediately called the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) (who cover Russell), but they didn’t come. The officer who did finally call, around 9:30pm, was very rude and dismissive and said, “it was consensual” and “It’s not a crime to call someone a nigger.” The mom then asked for the officer’s superior and spoke to his sergeant, but he said she’d have to speak to the same officer. When she refused, the sergeant finally connected her with an officer who was empathetic. The 613-819 Black Hub immediately contacted the boy’s mom to provide support. 

The principal of the victim’s school said that the principal of the arm breaker’s school said he suspended the arm breaker but she didn’t know what, if anything, he did to the other kid who the mother said also called her son a nigger then assaulted him with his scooter.

With the mom’s consent, we emailed the head of the Russell OPP requesting a meeting to discuss the troubling police response, and the principal of the school the arm breaking kid attends also asking for a meeting. The response from OPP Russell County Detachment Commander, Luc Duval, is below.

“Hello Robin:

Thank you for reaching out.  I definitely understand your interest in this matter. The OPP takes incidents involving young people very seriously. Due to the ages of those involved, we cannot get into specifics related to those involved in the incident. For this reason, I must respectfully decline your invitation to meet. I am able to tell you that our area Crime Supervisor has reviewed the actions of the officers involved, to ensure proper steps were taken. As the injuries were not life-threatening, officers waited until the medical issues could be dealt with as a priority before responding to the hospital to talk to the victim.  It took one hour from the time of dispatch to the time the officer was at the hospital.  This is not unusual for an assault involving non-life-threatening injuries. We are aware that the incident allegedly started over a racial slur, but cannot speculate on the thought processes or the reasons it happened. As you are aware, under Canadian law, individuals under the age of 12 cannot be charged criminally. For that reason, the OPP is working with the parents of the young people involved and has engaged community support services, including the Intersections program and Valoris.

You can learn more about Intersections at http://improvingsystems.ca/projects/intersections-3. Information about Valoris can be found at https://valorispr.ca/en/about/.  Both families agreed with this approach.

Inspector Luc Duval, Detachment Commander, OPP, Russell County Detachment”

There are a number of problems with Mr. Duval’s response:

  1. He says he can’t meet with us because of the kids’ ages and the fact that he can’t discuss the specifics. But why can’t he meet the family to see how they’re doing and to discuss our other request: what the OPP is doing to address systemic anti-Black racism within the ranks of the OPP, that even Premier Doug Ford has acknowledged?
  2. He says proper procedure was followed and “it took one hour from the time of dispatch to the time the officer was at the hospital.”, when, according to the victim’s mother, no officer ever showed up at the hospital.
  3. He says, “We are aware that the incident allegedly started over a racial slur, but cannot speculate on the thought processes or the reasons it happened.” Really? A white kid calls a Black kid he doesn’t know a nigger and then breaks his arm and they can’t speculate what might have motivated that? Would he say that if a Black kid had called a white kid a honky then busted his arm?
  4. He says “the OPP is working with the parents of the young people involved” but the mother says they weren’t working with her at the time of his reply so he must have meant they were only working with the attackers’ families.
  5. He says nothing about the mother’s claims that the officer, who finally contacted her more than 4 hours after she called 911, was rude, said the attack was “consensual” and angrily told the mother, “It’s not a crime to call someone a nigger.”

But, at least Mr. Duval responded which is more than can be said for the principal. Instead, his school superintendent, Norma McDonald, who we copied on our email to him, responded on his behalf:

“Good afternoon Mr. Browne, I am responding to your email regarding an incident which occurred on September 22nd which resulted in an injury to a student from Russell. Immediately after learning of the incident, a principal’s investigation took place which resulted in appropriate immediate remedial action.  By reason of privacy obligations, I cannot supply you with any details of the steps taken by the Board to address the situation. You have requested a meeting with our principal to discuss the incident.  Unfortunately, I must decline your request.  As I am sure you can appreciate, we are not able to discuss the personal circumstances involving a particular student of the Board. I would add that the Board treats with the utmost seriousness any allegation of racist behaviour by any student, member of staff or any other official of the Board.  [Quotes board policy]. While I cannot speak to the specifics of any matter involving a Board student, I can advise that the Board will adhere to the commitments outlined in its policies and will take all reasonable steps to ensure their application to any student, staff member or other official of the Board who has acted in contravention of those policies.

Thank you for your email, Norma McDonald, Superintendent of School Effectiveness, CDSBEO”

The main problem with Ms. McDonald’s response is the same as with Mr. Duval’s. She cites privacy issues as a reason for not being able to meet with the family and us but doesn’t explain why she can’t meet with us to find out how the victim and his family are doing and to discuss what the school is doing to address systemic anti-Black racism on, and off, school property.

The OPP did finally reach out to the victim’s mother, by phone, to offer support services, including those provided by Valoris that Mr. Duval mentioned in his email. Under “Services”, Valoris offers individual and family mental health counselling. There is also a section called Diversity and Inclusivity with a tag line: For Everyone. However, under that tab, it says, “Pick the topic that interests you”, and offers only two choices: LGBTQIA2S+ and FMIN (First Nations, Metis, Inuit). The chances of the young victim being able to see a Black counsellor through Valoris are about as high as Russell hiring its first Black police chief next week (like Ottawa did last October).

Russell may have been named one of the best places to live in Canada in 2018 but now it’s one of the best places in Canada to see systemic anti-Black racism up close and personal.

From the boy being the victim of a violent anti-Black hate crime; to the police response, first late, then hostile, then blaming the victim; to the school principal not reaching out to the family and continuing to ignore requests to meet with them; to the attackers’ families also not reaching out to the victim’s family to the mom being challenged to find a Black counsellor, Russell has it all.

So, our advice to Black families is as clear as the title of Jordan’s Peele’s Oscar winning movie: Get Out!

Leave Russell and come to Ottawa. We have Ottawa’s first Black police chief, its first Black director of education and its first Black city counsellor. The city has a new anti-racism directorate, the Federal Black Employee Caucus and the 613-819 Black Hub. We would also tell businesses not to invest in Russell until the people in power in Russell do something to address systemic anti-Black racism.

Ottawa is open to Black folks and open for business!