I used to think highly of Rosalie Abella too. She conned me well. Never would I have believed someone with her supposed legal experience and knowledge to be a staunch supporter of racist inhumane hate-filled genocidal Zionism instead of the Canadians that paid her wages, expenses and now her pension.
Since I was a child, I’ve been following, aghast, Israel’s crimes against humanity and thefts in Palestine, against the very people that gave Jews a home after WW2.
I am part Jewish, part German. I am horrified by Germany’s genocidal position supporting Israel’s mass murder, listen to this pathetic evil (and note Germany’s award to Rosalie Abella in the cross references near the end of this post):
Maher Arar@ArarMaher:
[It’d] be a mistake to think that Israel was the only country that was exposed naked through the genocide happening in Gaza. US/UK/Canada/Germany/Australia, i.e., the axis of genocide, have been exposed as well. These countries are a threat to world’s peace
Saul Staniforth@SaulStaniforth April 11, 2024:
“The need to atone for the killing of 6 million Jews during the Second World War has made supporting Israel a historical duty for Berlin. It’s even described as [Germanys] reason for existence”
Hamza@HamzaD86:
“Because we killed 6 million of them, we must close our eyes and let them now do as they please”
Sick.
Paul Morrison@chessclubgringo:
Why isn’t Germany’s “everlasting duty to stand up for” those having genocide perpetrated against them?
Stop The Bollocks with Mirabel@MirabelTweets1:
Germany never gave up on its white supremacist endeavour. It merely transplanted it to Palestine
The funding of the Israel genocide is a continuation of the Nazi Holocaust separated by a few decades. People forget that black & brown and gays, trans, Gypsy, etc. (Zionists want the world to believe only Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust) people were exterminated in Nazi Germany
Must watch 1:26 Min by Israeli journalist and author, Gideon Levy:
Giuseppe Guarriello@gu47351:
Gideon Levy : “It looks like apartheid, it talks like apartheid, it is apartheid”.
Gaza’s tragedy today: It looks like genocide, it talks like genocide, it is genocide.
***
Shoshana Schwebel@sschweb1 April 11, 2024:
Liberals are still tying themselves in knots to believe that this is muddy and complicated, but I know with 100% clarity, having been raised in multiple Zionist institutions, that Israel wants the land for itself and all the people either gone or dead. It always has.
And every Palestinian person has always known this, of course, and has been telling us this in every way possible for 75 years. I think everybody, by now, surely knows this beyond any doubt.Including Rosalie Abella, before and after her January 2024 op-ed.
They never bothered to hide this agenda with us at school. They were mask-off with us. So when we come out as antizionist and join the rest of the world in announcing that they are genocidal liars, they see it as a betrayal of their trust. They trusted us to be genocidal too.
@mopeyfeels:
Anyone with critical thinking skills should realise this by now. It’s always been a slow-rolling genocide with “terrorism” as a pretext for further killings & land grabs. Wstrn govs know too and are helping them, they’re just mad at Netanyahu for killing plausible deniability.
Bebe Jaser@BebeJaser:
I give all my respect and admiration to those who were raised in a Zionist Jewish community and were able to un-cleave their religion from that sick colonial project. It’s happening more and it’s glorious, and I imagine very difficult. Thank you.
***
Sammy Lawrence@SammyBytes:
Let Rosalie Abella stay in Boston where she is teaching, of all things, Equality, Discrimination and Human Rights, Spring 2024 at #Harvard.
My Encounter with Justice Rosalie Abella and my Dismay with her by Judy Haiven, , Another ruined dinner party…
Retired Justice Rosalie Abella’s recent op-ed in The Globe and Mail takes me back to an encounter I had with her a decade ago — and how disappointing she was.
I used to think highly of Justice Rosalie Abella, who in 2021 retired from the Supreme Court of Canada after 17 years. Forty years ago, in 1983-84, she was the sole commissioner of the Royal Commission on Equality in Employment which became known as the Abella Commission. In that role, she developed the first Canadian plan for Employment Equity which aimed to reduce barriers in employment for women, visible minorities (as people of colour were then called), the disabled and Aboriginal people – now Indigenous people. Abella was the chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board from 1984-89; she was a commissioner on the Ontario Human Rights Commission. More than 38 universities have awarded her honorary degrees.
But in her op-ed in Tuesday’s Globe and Mail, she refused to let facts get in the way of her support of Israel. According to her, Israel is the victim in its war on Hamas. This statement sums up her position:
“Hamas’s explicit and unapologetic goal is to eliminate Jews. The elimination of Jews is genocide. … It is a legal absurdity to suggest that a country that is defending itself from genocide is thereby guilty of genocide.”Justice Rosalie Abella, in The Globe and Mail, Jan. 9, 2024
Where have we heard that Israel is merely defending itself? We’ve heard it from most mainstream western politicians, from US Pres. Joe Biden, to British PM Rishi Sunak to Prime Minister Macron, to our own PM, and leader of the Opposition. We’ve heard it from the pro-war glee club – those Canadian journalists and hangers-on that always believe war and power are the way to solve international problems. They also believe that Israel remains a beacon for democracy so total support for Israel and its record of murdering and maiming tens of thousands of Palestinians over 75 years are acceptable. The journalists include–Paul Wells, Don Braid, Terry Glavin, Conrad Black, Rosie DiManno, Barbara Kay, Rex Murphy, Warren Kinsella, Martin Regg Cohn, Konrad Yakabuski, Matt Gurney, Jesse Kline and Tasha Kheiriddin. You’ll notice the club has few women. But it boasts support of the editorial boards of the National Post and The Globe and Mail.
Of course, in her Globe article Rosalie Abella had to lament the “deaths and suffering of innocent civilians” but she doesn’t even bother to put a number on them. Come to think of it, most of the journalists and politicians listed above don’t bother put a number on the deaths of Gaza’s civilians. It’s as if their tongues would catch fire at the mere mention. [As of January 11’s] numbers reveal more than 23,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed including at least 10,000 children in the last three months. According to Save the Children, more than 1,000 Palestinian children have had one or both of their legs blown off or amputated (many without anaesthetic or pain relief) since Oct 7. These numbers do not include the thousands of children and adults buried alive – dying or dead — in the rubble of tens of thousands of homes flattened by Israel’s bombings, shelling, and drone attacks.
According to Abella, Gaza is an “unbearable tragedy” but it is one she, and other supporters of Israel along with the establishment Jews in Canada, are more than willing to bear. Even if Israel had the right to defend itself (which it does not according to Francesca Albanese, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories) at what point does self-defense end and genocide begin? According to Israel’s defenders the answer is “never”. Here’s an example: your home gets invaded by a thug; you shoot him in the leg, then you torture, then starve him. Then you kill him. Will the fact that he invaded your home save you from judgement of the court? At some point, the argument of self-defense ends.
Where are the facts?
Where are the facts behind what Abella says?
Where is the evidence of genocide against the Jews? Twenty-three thousand dead Palestinians suggests a genocide against the people of Gaza, not the Jews in Israel.
Abella cries that the world refuses to show “the same obsessive interest” in holding other countries to legal account for their actions. Well, it turns out that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has done just that. The ICJ, which will hear South Africa’s case against Israel for genocide this week, has found fault with another country. In 2022 the ICJ ordered Russia out of Ukraine. Thirty-two countries supported Ukraine. Of course Abella, slyly, did not mention that decisions by the IJC are basically unenforceable. Decisions are forwarded to the UN Security Council which is supposed to “uphold” the judgements, but permanent members have veto power.
I have to say Abella’s impassioned defence of Israel, did not really surprise me as it once would have. It was about ten years ago now, that I had a private chat with Justice Abella which revealed a side of her I wish I had not seen.
My Night With Justice Rosalie Abella
In 2004, Rosalie Abella was appointed a Supreme Court justice. About ten years later, the Religious Studies Department at Saint Mary’s University (where I was a faculty member) invited her to give a talk in Halifax. It was part of an annual lecture series meant to knit faiths together to discuss weighty matters. Abella’s talk on the topic of human rights was co-sponsored by the Atlantic Jewish Council.
As I walked into Saint Mary’s Theatre Auditorium, I saw a scattering of students in the huge hall, and members of the Religious Studies Department and administrators. About 50 attendees were prominent members of the Halifax Jewish community. A dozen professors and students came from Dalhousie’s law school.
As I sat through the gushing introduction, I realized it had elevated everyone’s expectations – but Justice Abella’s 40-minute speech sounded lacklustre and rote. She spoke of all the trouble spots in the world, the Congo, Somalia, Rwanda, China, the Russian orbit of countries, Latin America and explained the lack of democracy and the wars which had caused huge misfortunes for the local people, and the abrogation of their human rights on a grand scale. She must have named 20 countries, but never once mentioned Palestine.
It was a huge oversight, a glaring omission, a leap that showed not only that Palestinian human rights were not an issue, but that Israel’s illegal and brutal military occupation of nearly 60 years did not exist – for her.
When she ended her speech, there was a standing ovation; she looked pleased and curtsied to the audience. Members of the Jewish community climbed onstage to present her with a handmade Nova Scotia quilt, local pottery and even an artisan-woven shawl. She blushed and accepted accolades and the presents.
After the thanks and gift-giving, I realized I had to talk to her about her refusal to speak about Palestine and her support for Israel. I only had this once chance. The auditorium emptied quickly. Her driver said the snow that night was heavy so he was going to get the car and bring it around to the front doors.
Finally, she and I were alone in the room. I walked up smiling, and presented my business card. I said I had admired her work in labour law, especially her plan for employment equity which lay the ground for the federal Employment Equity Act. She was happy, and glad to get the praise.
Then I said, “You know, people like you and me have to stand up against injustice committed by Israel—because if we as Jews don’t stand up, we can’t expect anyone else will. We have to speak against the Occupation.”
Her face clouded over; sharply and clearly she stated, “I will never do that.”
I said, “Surely if you are in favour of human rights you have to see what Israel is doing is wrong.”
She turned her back on me and muttered “I don’t agree and I will never say those things.”Fucking wow, so ugly, rude, cowardly and racist of Abella Then she picked up the shawl, the quilt and the pottery and dashed for the front doors.
Left alone, I pulled on my coat to trudge home in the snow.
In the deep night of the soul…
Once home, my younger son asked me how it went. Terribly, I said. She just blew me off. He said, “You know mum; she’s now in her hotel room and sometime tonight she’ll look out her window and will be thinking ‘I was in small-town Halifax and a Jewish woman prof asked me to support human rights for Palestinians.’ This will dog her – she won’t forget.”I don’t know if it will. Abella’s op-ed showed me she sold her soul to Zionist Terrorism; her pissing on the law, lying ruling in Ernst vs AER showed me how far she’ll go to serve Israel’s land and resource thefts of what legally belongs to Palestinians (hundreds of $billions worth of gas that must be frac’d). Ultra vulgar that Abella was a supreme court judge, just another lying legal person like Irwin Cotler, enabling Israel’s horrific crimes against humanity.
All these years later I remember the furious look she gave me – I was a traitor.I’ll never forget the viciousness on Abella’s face she was unable to conceal as she attacked my lawyer during the hearing for my case, while not once attacking Glenn Solomon, (Jewish? Zionist?) lawyer for AER. I knew within the first 10 seconds of the hearing, I had lost – and not because of the law, because of genocidal hatred.
I could not believe that someone who was a Supreme Court judge, someone who was a feminist, someone who challenged existing labour law – could be so wilfully blind.
That was about ten years ago; I doubt she’s visited Halifax since. Maybe I can take small pleasure in the fact she didn’t return because she didn’t want to run into me again.
With thanks to Davide Mastracci who wrote a brilliant article, “A List of Journalists Supporting Israel’s War on Gaza” in The Maple, here.
Comments:
Gordon Doctorow:
Thanks, Judy, for that clarifying anecdote. You showed the two faces of Rosalie Abella. It’s too bad that others weren’t around to hear her dismissive arrogance and her unwillingness to even discuss.
Can you imagine how this narrow-minded person would have dealt with an issue related to Palestine/Israel while she was a judge?Like in her snide lying ruling in my case, enabling charter-violating frac industry’s self regulator, the AER?
Will Koop:
Thank you very much, Judy. All I can say is that this is the tip of the Iceberg, as it were. There is a very deep reveal behind all of this, to be sure, part of a complex web.
judyhaiven to Will Koop:
thanks very much
Refer also to:
2024: Dear Rosalie Abella, This post is for you.
2021: Retiring Supreme Court of Canada Justice Rosalie Abella when asked if she’d change any of her past rulings: “Not One.” The End. It takes incredible arrogance (and ignorance) to publicly claim having never made a mistake. Just wowza gall.
2020: Dear J Rosalie Abella and Germany: Is it “justice” and “a fantastic work ethic” for a Supreme Court of Canada judge to lie in a ruling and damage our Charter of Rights and Freedoms?Germany is second largest weapons supplier to kid-killing, kid-starving Israel, after the USA. Did Germany give Abella this award because of her work as a judge, or as a Zionist, enabling Israel’s genocide?
