Short Solo

My city counselor (Sherri Rollins) and federal parliamentarian (Ben Carr) are both proud Zionists.

This is fitting given my passion for exposing Zionism as a racist colonial project based in an ideology of apartheid and genocide.

The South Africans I lived and worked with (2001-2003) taught me these lessons and deserve respect for initiating charges of genocide before international jurisdictions.

Sherri Rollins (Fort-Rouge East Fort Garry) has been this area’s city counselor since 2018 – before I moved into this neighborhood. She has decided not to run in the upcoming election.

However, it was only last year that Rollins asked the mayor to rescind an award given to Ramsey Zeid for improving the community around his Maryland store.

Zeid is a local small business owner of Winnipeg’s Food Fare grocery stores and president of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba (CPAM).

The Jewish Federation of Winnipeg took issue that Zeid stated: “Israel a terrorist foreign entity of demonic Zionists.”

I have no time to debate whether the WORD “demonic” is a problem to the social fabric of our society. Words really don’t inflict any damage. We have a Charter and human rights legislation.

I do have time to ask Rollins why her ideology needs to enter Winnipeg discourse and promote continuous censorship, settler violence, and the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians every year.

The Federation that supports local Zionism itself is quite active in smearing any Palestinian voices in Winnipeg.

In April 2019, Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman, cowed to the demands of groups like the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg and B’nai Brith Canada, who publicly called on the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg to disinvite American activist Linda Sarsour from a speaking panel.

The first ever Métis mayor of Winnipeg, proud liberal and now judge didn’t blink – he held hands with Winnipeg’s most powerful Israel lobby groups and proclaimed before a press conference that one of the strongest Palestinian and feminist voices in America wasn’t welcome in the city.

It might be surprising to know that Winnipeg had already been awarded, “the most racist city in Canada” by Maclean’s magazine – a title that had Bowman breaking down in tears at a press conference with promises to address that problem. Palestinian life must fall outside acceptable people in the city.

This trend continues in the federal jurisdiction – the primary area responsible for foreign relations, arms sales and trade agreements.

Ben Carr should be a universally loved politician. He represents the federal riding of Winnipeg South Centre – elected in a By-election following the death of his father, Jim Carr a long time liberal cabinet minister. He’s generally a nice reasonable guy who makes time for all his constituents.

That facade ends in formal votes on Israel.

Carr is a Jewish Zionist and was one of only three Liberal MPs who broke ranks with their party to vote against an NDP-sponsored opposition motion in March 2024. The motion called for an immediate ceasefire, an end to arms transfers to Israel, and sanctions on extremist settlers. 

Carr’s brand is to represent Israel as a key interest of the people of Winnipeg.

This included a shameful display of interference when he challenged a conference at a university in his riding where Palestinians and allies would discus their own their liberation from Zionism.

The controversy centered around an online academic event scheduled for November 24, 2023, titled “Palestine and Genocide: Reflections on Imperialism, Settler-colonialism and Decolonization”. 

Carr’s Main Criticism was that the event failed to provide “an iota of balance or diversity of thought” on a deeply nuanced issue. He argued that by presenting only one viewpoint, the organizing professors had abdicated their responsibility to maintain academic integrity. 

Carr was essentially pushing speaking notes from Gail Apser’s lobbying to come years later.

Asper believes that Palestinians shouldn’t tell their own story without the input of Israeli voices – regardless of the fact that a museum exhibition on this matter is likely smaller than any Asper family pantry.

This feels like the equivalent of Holocaust exhibits, including Auschwitz, being required to consult with the Nazis.

Would it be legitimate to invite the concentration camp guards to any discussion so we incorporate the Nazi experience? Are Nazi voices needed as a prologue to Anne Frank’s diary? Of course not.

Carr also had a major problem with Specific Speakers.

Carr and local Zionist leaders raised major alarms because a panelist previously made controversial public claims suggesting that Israelis—rather than Hamas terrorists—were responsible for many of the civilian deaths at the October 7 music festival

Fast forward a few years later and we’ve all seen – covered by Israeli media – that the “Hannibal Directive” meant Israel’s military slaughtered their own to ensure they weren’t kidnapped.

Adult conversations should allow for the sharing of facts and diverse thoughts on interpretations of those facts.

Instead we are strongly censored – on the charge of antisemitism- from hard truths that paint Israel in a negative light.

It’s vital that we acknowledge the strength of Israel’s power over Canadian politics.

Even my only other elected official – my provincial MLA (who is also the Premier of Manitoba) has sided with Israeli interests in Manitoba while rejecting the reality of life for indigenous Palestinians.

Kinew famously said he won’t use “activist” language like “genocide” regardless of how many human rights groups, the UN and Israeli progressives themselves call it just that. This places this denial in the realm of residential school denial, Holocaust denial, etc.

I’m proud of being a Manitoban and having a historic figure like Kinew at the helm of the province. This is what makes this issue so strange – genuinely “reasonable” people won’t push back against the power that’s dehumanized Islam and Palestine.

Unfortunately, Israel is the one issue that seems to always have politicians and those in society broadly forgetting their principles.

This leaves Manitoba investing in the war machine via weapons manufacturing. Additionally, Manitoba has an agreement with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) to work with Crown prosecutors on what must be interpreted as an antisemitic hate crime.

I fear and get angry thinking that they’d likely argue this blog itself is a hate crime somehow equivalent to Israel’s murder of more than 70,000 to 90,000 Palestinians of which official Israeli numbers estimate were almost 85% Palestinian civilians.

I hate that my Canadian representatives are beholden to a foreign nation that’s as brutal as any other regime in my lifetime.

This makes me even more committed to promoting Palestinian life and ending our complicity in one of the largest human rights abuses in modern history.

It’s telling in a city dubbed the most racist in Canada that I’m expected to say “free Ukraine” and not “free Palestine.” It’s not hard to draw conclusions of why that may be.