Israel-Canada postage stamp has postal union going postal Dave Gordon - Saturday, 8 May, 2010 (3668 views, Comment on this article)

 For twenty-five years, my father worked for Canada Post, and for eighteen years he delivered mail to an array of communities, and a variety of nationalities. Over the course of a quarter century, he delivered to Italians, Jews, Blacks, Poles, Asians – pretty much the United Nations of colour and ethnicity, in both Halifax and Toronto.
It didn't take me long to discover that mail never discriminates.

It always amazed me that, despite a litany of terrible conflicts around the world, civilians in nearly every country on the planet could always send mail to each other, successfully communicate with each other, no matter the distance, no matter how war-torn the country. The post office is really one of the few efforts of mankind that have been a great unifying force among us. Mail is apolitical.

But there are always those who want to make the apolitical, political.

 The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) would love to stamp out the first-ever postage stamp issued jointly by Israel and Canada.
The international rate stamp, portraying a red maple leaf and blue Star of David, commemorates six decades of bilateral relations between Canada and Israel. It’s available at most Canadian post offices. Sounds pretty harmless.

Though like the teachers’ union, labour unions, and other unions before it, CUPW has set its crosshairs on Israel, taking any opportunity to take aim at the Jewish State, and its problems (both real and imagined), to the exclusion of any of the world’s tyrannies.
Denis Lemelin, national president of the postal union, wrote in a letter to the head of the Canada Post Corp saying, “CUPW recognizes that Israel is a democracy and has taken steps to end discrimination against lesbian and gay citizens.” That’d be a dandy compliment but for the backhanded slap that follows. He prattles on about what he believes to be various forms of Palestinian discrimination, and writes this:

“However, we are puzzled about the concept of shared values with a country that has consistently ignored United Nations and World Court decisions in regards to the ongoing Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.”
Strange, because Israel made Gaza judenrein a few years ago, while that coastal strip of a million people were subsequently taken over by militant Islamozealots, Hamas.
And, something like nine-tenths of the West Bank is operated and controlled by the Palestinian Authority. To Mr. Lemelin, it’s still a capital-O Occupation. Fine. Overall, it’s a comparatively benign occupation; Palestinians in the West Bank are freer than any Arabs elsewhere in the Middle East.

(Further, the editor of Canadian Stamp News, Charles Verge, in an open letter, chimed in with a political dig of his own, and from what I read between the lines, he vaguely implied that there may have been needling Zionists on the stamp selection committee who forcibly nudged their way in to issue the stamp.)

But just to give you an idea of what The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) are made of, they were the first national union in North America to pass a resolution in support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel.
During its 23rd triennial convention held in April, 2008 in Ottawa, 600 union delegates, after one hour of discussion, passed that motion. The union says it represents more than 50,000 Canadian postal workers. 

The resolution states the posties would work, “with Palestinian solidarity and human rights organizations to develop an educational campaign about the apartheid [sic] nature of the Israeli state...”
Yet there is no ‘educational campaign’ of the violent, Jihadist crusade, and the anti-Semitic nature of the mosques and television broadcasts in the would-be Palestinian State.

Lemelin wrote in an open letter that, “the union calls on Israel to immediately withdraw from the occupied territories in accordance with UN resolution 242 and tear down the Israeli-West Bank barrier.”

Say what you will about the efficacy of the barrier. Those who know 242 are still waiting for, “Termination of all claims or states of belligerency, and respect for, and acknowledgement of, the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence” of Israel, and her, “right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

The letter also stated that the union supports, “the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions [ital on] until Israel recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and right to return to their homes as stipulated in UN resolution 194 [ital off].” Hasn’t every successive Israeli government since Rabin recognized the Palestinians’ right to self-determination?

Meantime, this focus of 194 was on the refugee issue. And for CUPW, that means only the Palestinians, to be sure. No word on the 750,000 Jewish refugees, booted out of 20 Arab lands.
For that matter, pay no mind to the 103,000 Bhutanese refugees that have been residing in seven refugee camps in Nepal.
Or the 400,000 Somali refugees, residing mainly in Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia and Djibouti.
Or a half-million Burundi refugees in Tanzania.
Or the 990,000 Afghani refugees in Pakistan.
Or 100,000 Chinese refugees in India.
The UN says there are 21 other refugee issues outstanding in the world. Israel somehow is held to a higher standard, according to Lemelin and his ideological friends.

As for the rights of religion accorded to everyone else in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, Jews need not apply. Not a peep from CUPW.

Why so much emphasis on the relatively small aggravation of the Palestinian situation, and so little to no stress on other, much larger problems? The primary reason, I believe, is not the welfare of Palestinians that troubles the union. Rather, there’s something annoying about the existence of the Jewish State, a homeland for the Jews. The double standard is just too grand, the singular demonization of only Israel too magnificent, to be otherwise.

If CUPW comes off as certain that Israel is the only tyrant on the world stage, and that a boycott of Israel is good and just, I ask of them to at least be consistent.

Those who use the Pentium MMX Chip in their computers, ought to jettison it. It was designed in Israel at Intel. The boycotters need to cancel their cell phone plans. Motorola developed the cell phone in Israel. They’ll need to stop using voice mail; that technology was developed in Israel, too. And by no means shall they use products made by Microsoft, and Cisco, who built their only R&D facilities outside the US in – where else? - Israel.
What’s a boycott and divestment campaign without specifics?
They will have to avoid air travel. A better, more advanced X-ray machine, made in Israel, is on its way to an airport nearest you.
The divesters will have to keep polluting the air with fossil fuels. In the past year, an Israeli company perfected the hydrogen-powered automobile. The Renault Sedan, another Israeli innovation, was released with much fanfare as the next generation of electric cars.

Sadly, and much worse than changing the kind of car they drive, the boycotters may need to refuse medical help if they get sick. In recent years Israelis developed heart tissue and pacemakers from stem cells. They created muscle tissue that the body doesn’t reject. They invented an electronic monitor that can diagnose cancer.

Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, non-radiation required, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer. Israeli researchers invented a pill-sized camera that helps doctors diagnose cancer and digestive disorders. Then there’s the new device that helps those with heart failure - an artificial blood pump. The postal union’s members will have to be sure to tell the doctors in the emergency room, that when admitted, they reserve the right to refuse certain treatments – at the risk of their own lives. This is all in the name of a consistent boycott.

    I concede that these scenarios are unlikely, as the union doesn’t appear to be fans of logic, let alone morals. The union evidently knows little about Israel, other than it being the sole demon of the Earth.
For those of us disgusted by CUPW, a gut response would be to boycott everything Canada Post related. But that political move against the Crown Corp would have little effect on the CUPW, and the indignation against a union led by moral morons – about a set of limited issue stamps - would gain little traction.
Another gut response would be to encourage people to buy the Israel stamp – thereby sending a message to Canada Post that it made the right choice. Alas, few of us really need a set of $1.70 stamps, unless we’re sending a bunch of mail to particular overseas countries. So that’s a tough sell.

Like most other recent boycott attempts, supporters of Israel ‘buy-cotted’ things people found a need and want for: Israeli wines, tickets to the Dead Sea Scrolls, and so on.
    My suggestion? If you love Israel. Seek out, and buy Israeli products. CUPW’s most recent nonsense is yet another reminder to those who love democracy that there are plenty who wish Israel ill. Nevermind the stamps. Just continue to support Israel.