Reciprocity

A basic principle for resolving conflicts and discussing moral issues is reciprocity. Turn the question around. Would it be OK if the positions if the people (or communities) were reversed? What if I did that to you?

I have written here about the obligation of people and communities protesting for Palestine and advocating for a ceasefire to avoid raising fears, by actions or statements, of antisemitism among Canada's Jewish community. I stand by that urging. That obligation applies reciprocally: the Muslim communities in Canada also have traumatic histories of colonialism, dispossession, and exile. Their concerns deserve sensitivity as well, particularly in this time of horrific violence. 

Recently, Warren Kinsella published an opinion article on the protests attending a presentation on Israeli real estate, which according to reports included homes in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. He denounced these protests in the strongest terms because the presentation, and the demonstrations, took place at a Thornhill synagogue. 

There's a lot to unpack in this controversy, starting with the extreme offence Mr. Kinsella takes at a demonstration outside a synagogue. From my perspective, that of someone who stubbornly attended a church that was hounded by picketers for months, the idea of religious institutions as some kind of completely protected zone, like the home base in a child's game of tag, doesn't make sense. The right to oppose events, particularly secular and commercial events, should not be cancelled simply because the event is happening within the walls of a religious institution.

But it probably helps to take a simple view. Assume for a minute it's legal to sell land in the occupied territories, whatever international law says. It's legal to march past Mount Sinai hospital with Palestinian flags and chants accusing Israel of genocide, too. But measures to reassure a traumatized community are a two way street. Whether or not selling real estate in occupied territory in a probable violation of international law is legal, doing so when bombs are raining down on Gaza, and right wing politicians are talking openly of expelling the Palestinians of the territory will definitely terrify and enrage many people.

Telling these people they can't protest because the real estate presentation is taking place at a synagogue won't exactly solve the problem. In fact, it makes it worse; if nothing else, it sets up a cycle of fear and anger. The last six months shows again what we know from experience: when two communities, both inheritors of trauma, each at odds with the other, both do everything the law permits without regard for the concerns of the other, hostility quickly rises to dangerous levels. I believe it is up to both sides to step back, and refraining from offering real estate purchases that are widely held to involve violations of international law does not seem to me to be an unreasonable expectation.