Rae leadership bid target of anti-Semitism smears
Fri, December 8, 2006
By JOAN BRYDEN, CP
OTTAWA -- Bob Rae was the target of anti-Semitic attacks at the Liberal leadership contest, motivated in part by the fact his wife is Jewish.
Sources close to Rae say that at the convention Arlene Perly Rae was approached by a delegate who didn't realize she was the candidate's wife. The delegate told her not to vote for Rae "because his wife is Jewish."
Perly Rae stonily informed the delegate that she was the wife in question. The delegate beat a hasty retreat.
The incident might have been shrugged off if it had been an isolated event. But Rae team insiders contend it was part of a larger pattern of anti-Semitic smears on Rae.
A flyer was circulated electronically among convention delegates denouncing Rae for having once delivered a speech to the Jewish National Fund, a group the flyer said was complicit in "war crimes and ethnic cleansing."
"Rae's wife is a vice-president of the CJC (Canadian Jewish Congress), a lobby group which supports Israeli apartheid," said the flyer in bold letters over Rae's face.
The Canadian Jewish Congress has condemned the flyer and blamed Khaled Mouammar, president of the Canadian Arab Federation for circulating it, an accusation the federation denies.
Nevertheless, in a release yesterday, the federation supported the content of the flyer, saying the Jewish National Fund manages all state lands in Israel and allows only Jews to live on such land, a "practice that amounts to ethnic cleansing." It added that "Canadians have the right to know who supports the JNF in Canada."
Several days before the leadership vote, the flyer was posted on a website operated by an immigrant advocacy group.
Mouammar wrote on that website, "It is well-known that Bob Rae himself is hostile to Palestinians and Arabs."
Ed Morgan, CJC president, called on the Liberals Thursday to denounce the flyer.
