Democratic rights – Suzanne Berliner Weiss

Socialism Is a Democratic Transformation

By Suzanne Weiss

This zoom talk was given in a panel organized by Socialist Action Canada in October 2020. It focuses on the defense and expansion of democratic rights of fighters for a new society representing their human needs.

Sixty-one years ago, I learned how a socialist transformation would be possible in the heart of the beast, the USA.

I learned from socialists who had met Lenin and Trotsky in Moscow, who knew the Russian Revolution first-hand: Jim Cannon, Rose Karsner, Arne Swabeck, and others, members of my local branch in Los Angeles. They drew on ideas in the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels and the History of the Russian Revolution by Trotsky.

They published their view of revolutionary strategy in a book called Socialism on Trial, which was our socialist recruitment handbook at the time and is now on line.It’s a transcript of a famous court case which should to be read and studied today, especially in the climate of growing mass social movements.

In 1941 Cannon and seventeen other socialists were arrested and charged with conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government by force and violence. — That’s the eternal slander of the political police against socialists, then and now.

‘Holocaust to Resistance’ Tour Draws Wide Interest

March 23, 2020

Resistance to Hitler Has Lessons for Today

by John Riddell: The dangers posed by the Covid-19 virus forced suspension on March 19 of Suzanne Weiss’s tour introducing her memoir, Holocaust to Resistance: My Journey. But the tour’s results so far indicate encouraging interest in her story and its message of global solidarity.

Suzanne’s seventeen meetings in Toronto, Montreal, Kingston, Hamilton, Winnipeg, and Pittsburgh were attended by 1,000 participants. Many more saw her or heard her four interviews in print and online. (See Interview by Radio Western.)

All Suzanne’s city and university presentations highlighted Palestinian human rights, a topic that today often triggers false accusations of anti-Semitism. (For a recent overview of this controversy, see IJV Statement.) Yet Suzanne’s meetings aroused no such criticisms. When her views were questioned, the exchange was respectful and constructive.

Interview in: Sada Almashrek

by Hussein Hoballah

Suzanne Weiss, Jewish advocate for Palestinian human rights and author of “Holocaust to Resistance: My Journey” (Fernwood, 2019), contributed the following response to our questions in Sada Almashrek, an Arabic-English publication in Montreal.

Though the “anti-Semitism” narrative is today being made bait at large to hit back hard on any criticisers of Israel, outspoken Weiss says she, like many other Jews, refuses the Israeli authorities’ unjust treatment and supports, instead, al-Quds Day, as well as collaboration with Muslims to fight real anti-Semitism and any other form of racism.

Mrs Weiss says that her activism on behalf of Palestine is based on the principle of “universalism” found in both Jewish and Islamic faiths.

Now nearing eighty, Suzanne Weiss still enjoys a strong memory of major global incidents that have shaped today’s injustices and is therefore determined to make a difference.

1) Mrs Weiss, it is amazing to read your book Holocaust to Resistance: My Journey, and learn about your personal journey, so would you please briefly share some background info on it?

When I was an infant child, a Jew in France under Fascist occupation, the Nazis targeted me to be killed. After the Nazi defeat, I wondered how I had survived. Over the decades, I pieced the story together: my survival was the work of a broad movement of solidarity that saved many thousands of other Jewish children.

In solidarity with Tlaib and Omar

Dear Rashida and Ilhan,

As a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust, I hail your personal sacrifices, dedication, and courageous actions for the Palestinian people, as they strive for homeland, equality, and freedom.

As a young child under Nazi occupation, like countless other Jewish children, I was saved from Hitler by the warm embrace of solidarity.
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Today, you bring this same spirit to the aid of Palestinians, who seek to tear down the racist apartheid walls and to build a foundation for peace, justice, and reconciliation.

Thank you, Rashida and Ilhan, for breaking the silence over inhuman apartheid and raising the Palestinians’ unifying demand for boycott, divestment, and sanctions.

Suzanne Weiss, Toronto
Aug. 19, 2019

Celebrating the Palestinians and Freedom of Speech

Today, June 1, was a great success for the Al Quds rally which gathered more than 1,000 people in support of Palestinian freedom and free speech. I was honoured to be one of the speakers. Here is what I said:

My name is Suzanne Weiss. I am a Holocaust survivor. As a Jewish infant, I was marked down by the Nazis for death. All my life I have worked to prevent another Holocaust through pursuit of social justice and free speech. We meet today in the cause of human rights for the Palestinian peoples. Their lands are seized, their homes destroyed; they are confined by walls and checkpoints; they are arbitrarily jailed. In Gaza – they suffer a brutal and murderous blockade without the medications, water, and food needed to enjoy life.

How can we help put an end to these evils?
Through the global campaign to end Israeli apartheid. A campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions against the Israeli government! To end apartheid, we have three demands:
** End the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
** Let the exiled Palestinians return to their homeland.
** Grant equal rights to all in Israel- including the Palestinians.

Some tell us that to speak of Israeli apartheid is hateful. Some want to make it a crime even to say the words “Israeli apartheid.”
But we must speak the truth. It is Israeli apartheid that is the crime. The call to end Israeli apartheid is a non-violent effort to achieve justice and reconciliation. The call to end Israeli apartheid affirms our hope and trust that the Israeli people, like the Palestinians, will come to embrace an agenda of equality. Our goal is for Palestinians to be free to pursue their dreams in their homeland, in equality and reconciliation with their Jewish sisters and brothers.

I welcome the efforts of the Al-Quds organizers, our Muslim and Palestinian friends, to achieve this goal. Al Quds explains the difference between Judaism and Zionism. Al Quds seeks to overcome anti-Jewish and anti-Palestinian prejudice. They say “Judaism yes, Zionism no!” These efforts deserve constructive engagement, dialogue, and respect for free speech.

In this spirit, we say: “Free — Free Palestine!”

Hassan Diab: France’s new Dreyfus Affair*

Introduction:

On Oct. 3 1980 at 6:38 p.m. a Paris synagogue on Copernic Street in Paris was bombed during prayer services which resulted in four dead and 46 injured. It was reported as the first deadly attack against Jewish people in France since the end of the Second World War. It wasn’t until 2011 that France requested the extradition of Prof. Hassan Diab for his alleged involvement in the 1980 Paris synagogue bombing.

Sign letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for justice!

On April 4, 2012, the Canadian Conservative Minister of Justice, Rob Nicholson, ordered Diab extradited to France. On November 14, 2014, Hassan was extradited from Canada to France where he is languishing in prison while the investigation into the 36-year old crime continues. Continue reading Hassan Diab: France’s new Dreyfus Affair*

Six three-minute speeches …

I’ve learned to make concise and cogent speeches in the three minutes appropriate for rallies and meetings. Of the several dozen “three-minute” talks I have on file, here are six examples.

Against Islamophobia and white supremacy

The video version of this speech made a rally against Islamophobia and white supremacy went viral and received over 26,000 views as of this posting.

I speak today as a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust. Nazism took the lives of most of my family and six million my Jewish community. I and so many other Holocaust survivors are here only because of people united to protect us.

What is anti Semitism? It is simply the hatred of Jewish people. Amazingly, Donald Trump honoured the Holocaust by omitting, and in essence denying history. He forgot to mention that that six million Jews were murdered in the attempt to eliminate the whole Jewish people. It’s amazing that we heard no one object to this omission, and we especially did not hear a peep from Israel who prides itself on building a Jewish state. Continue reading Six three-minute speeches …

‘Canadian Charger’ must oppose Ottawa’s fake ‘anti-terrorism’ list

On December 11, 2013, the Canadian Charger, a web-based weekly with many readers in the Muslim community, formally retracted its editorial call for the Harper government to place Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood on its fake “anti-terrorism” list. The Charger thus responded to a wave of protests of its damaging editorial, published in its December 4 issue. Along with its retraction, the Charger featured the following article, which combines two of the protest letters. – JR and SW.

By John Riddell and Suzanne Weiss. We wish to express our concern with Canadian Charger‘s editorial, “Canadians: List Egypt’s Brotherhood a terrorist group.” The article’s call on the Harper government to ban the Muslim Brotherhood as “terrorist” group is a serious breach of the Charger’s previous stand for democratic rights and against Islamophobia. Continue reading ‘Canadian Charger’ must oppose Ottawa’s fake ‘anti-terrorism’ list

A Handbook for Defenders of Free Speech on Palestine

28 July 2010 – Michael Keefer has compiled a timely and effective handbook for all those resisting attacks on free speech regarding the Israeli government’s crimes against Palestine.

His 268-page book, Anti-Semitism Real and Imagined, contains contributions from eleven committed campaigners in the fight for freedom of expression, as well as position papers from seven well-respected Canadian social organizations.

The book reports on an extra-parliamentary committee named the Canadian Parliamentary Committee to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA), established in 2009 as a lobbying venture by 21 members of parliament hostile to criticisms of the Israeli government’s policies toward the Palestinians. Continue reading A Handbook for Defenders of Free Speech on Palestine

Israel’s apartheid: Making Palestinians pay for Hitler’s crimes

This speech was given on March 2, 2010, to a meeting of students at the University of Waterloo in Canada, held as part of the Israeli Apartheid Week. She, a holocaust survivor, is a member of Not in Our Name: Jewish Voices Against Zionism and of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid in Toronto.

A year after a murderous Israel’s assault, the war on the people of Gaza continues. Gaza is still under siege – still surrounded by walls and checkpoints. Its people are denied the necessities of life and the right to rebuild and shape their future.

For me, as a survivor of the holocaust, the tragic situation in Gaza awakens memories of what I and my family experienced under Hitlerism – the ghetto walls, the killings, the systematic starvation and deprivation, the daily humiliations. Continue reading Israel’s apartheid: Making Palestinians pay for Hitler’s crimes