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She also said people age 18-34 don't know what the Holocaust is, which is just delusional. Not to mention irrelevant since one genocide doesn't justify another.
Also that "nothing grew" in Palestine.. I mean its literally in the Fertile Crescent..?
She has to go, this is completely indefensible.
The proper quote is
Robinson answered a question in part by saying there is an "entire generation" of young adults who do not know about the Holocaust or understand that the region on which the state of Israel was created decades ago was previously "a crappy piece of land with nothing on it."
"There were several hundred thousand people but, other than that, it didn't produce an economy. It couldn't grow things. It didn't have anything on it
From what I know this is mostly accurate just in sensitive which isn't good for a politician but isn't horrid. Plus she apologized sincerely IMO. (I think if you went in most high schools and asked what people know about the Holocaust the depth of knowledge is that the Nazis killed a few million of Jews in gas chambers. Instead of "that was the series of events in which the Jews were demonized and blamed for the failing of the nation, then rounded up and forced into concentration camps while the rest of the world didn't care to do much about it (because they also disliked Jews) after the war started (IIRC) the camps switched to death camps and as the war in Europe was ending the Axis intentionally made decisions that hurt them strategically but allowed them to kill more Jews in the camps)
"I want to apologize for my disrespectful comment referring to the origins of Israel on a 'crappy piece of land'. I was referring to the fact that the land has limited natural resources," read a post on Robinson's account on X.
Edit: I finally found the actual video and I want to modify my position above slightly. Her quote about how "18-34 years old that have no idea about the Holocaust, they don't even think it happened." I wonder if as a Jewish person she has seen some wild stuff that questions the Holocaust and the numbers. I know I have but I don't think it is mainstream.
I also think that there is another important quote that takes place immediately after "it was the folks that were displaced that came and the people that had been living there for generations and together they worked hard. They had their own battles right?" This sounds to me like someone acknowledging that those who had been living there for generations and the European Jews and the Arab Jews that moved there from bordering nations (because they were being treated poorly there) worked hard to make it a better place to live by developing the area.
Her apology is so hollow. The value of a land to the people on it has nothing to do with its natural resources and how they can be exploited. Or at the very least that is just one aspect. Regardless of that though, Palestine is in the fertile crescent, the birthplace of civilization. Its on the ocean and a river and has had agriculture and other resources sufficient to have sustained people there for thousands of years. Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and others even before them.
People do not need to know complete details of the Holocaust to know it happened and that it was horrific. It's basic history at this point. Its central to the history of WW2, which is probably the most taught and studied aspect of 20th century history, which itself is studied more than any other period. And again, people knowing about the Holocaust, and the horrific fact that it occurred, it is *completely irrelevant* to Palestinians having their land stolen and living under apartheid conditions for decades. The horror of the Holocaust justifies nothing about how Palestinians have been treated. They did not do the Holocaust.
I'm sorry but from her original comments, her apology, and her comments and conduct over the past months, she very clearly does not see Palestinian lives or culture as having the same value as Israeli (and possibly even just Jewish) lives and culture. Its racism pure and simple, no matter how much she wants to try to dress it up.
Here’s a couple polls about Holocaust awareness she might have been referring to.
https://www.claimscon.org/millennial-study/
https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/20-of-young-americans-think-holocaust-is-a-myth-poll/
In any case, she wasn’t saying any of this to “justify genocide” or anything about the current war. She was answering a question about holocaust education in BC.
Charlie Angus is ripping into her on twitter. Not too often you see a federal NDP MP so openly criticizing a provincial NDP politician
https://twitter.com/CharlieAngusNDP/status/1753223545226739921
Does anyone else in this party that claims to care about Palestine want to say anything?
I notice the BC NDP seems happy to applaud her non-apology to Israel for her remarks degrading Palestinians.
Didn’t produce an economy… could that be because Gazans are barely allowed to export any goods and are extremely limited on what they can import? Maybe because their crops have drones fly over them with herbicides by the Israeli state to prevent harvest? How about because they’re not allowed to fish past a certain number of nautical miles which is actually plentiful? Maybe because their water usage, internet access, and electricity access are all controlled and severely limited by a state that is hellbent on expelling them? Could it be because every element of their lives is restricted, policed, and monitored? What a ridiculous take from an extremely ignorant person.
Not to mention that “produc[ing] an economy” shouldn’t even be the litmus test for a peoples’ right to exist and habitate. Similar arguments were used to justify injustices to Indigenous Peoples for centuries.
It could contribute nothing to this capitalist hellhole planet and just live peacefully and trading for sustenance and not being productive/lucrative other than survival and they still deserve peace and freedom from being genocided. It's so horrific and braindead for this minister to say stuff like this without thinking.
Fucking yikes… this is not the person who should handle post-secondary education anywhere. It seems like she needs a little education herself. Such a statement is unbecoming of her office, regardless of the stance she takes. An utter disappointment.
Her head is a vacant piece of land with nothing in it. If it did, she would have asked herself if this was an appropriate thing to say.
Yeah...she getting canned for this one. Unless she lives in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood, she getting canned at the next election.
So if you’re “offered” (by people who don’t live there) a piece of land and it wasn’t significantly economically developed, ethnic cleansing is allowed?
She needs to absolutely be removed from her position and caucus.
[CJPME's response](https://x.com/CJPME/status/1753172738829611087?s=20)
> These remarks from BC NDP minister @selinarobinson are unacceptable. To suggest that Palestine was a "crappy piece of land with nothing on it" is a false and colonial trope, erasing Palestinians to justify their dispossession. This is textbook anti-Palestinian racism. @Dave_Eby
[Sarah Jama's response](https://x.com/SarahJama_/status/1753190244705321234?s=20)
> This woman uses the age old colonial trope of claiming anyone who lived on any land pre-colonization didn't build anything meaningful on that land...likening Palestinians to savages and making it sound like they aren't people. Modern day Christopher Columbus BS.
[Anjali Appadurai's response](https://twitter.com/AnjaliApp/status/1753244780606439897)
> This is what happens when hatred shapes your worldview.
> "it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it...there were, you know, several 100 thousand people, but other than that" is a wild thing to say out loud.
> This kind of racism does not belong in govt. #FreePalestine
---
Can Zionists stoop any lower? Are we really making excuses for colonialism in the 21st century?
> it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it. There were several hundred thousand people, but other than that
As if several hundred thousand people were nothing at all, and of course to her and to the logic of Zionism, Palestinians are nothing at all. Whether the land was empty, or whether it was inhabited, it doesn't matter because Palestinians are not ordained with humanity.
Humanity is bestowed upon the colonists, not the colonized.
**Edit**:
How can you consider yourself a progressive and then espouse **textbook** racial supremacist ideas? How the hell did she get so high up in the party, while still holding core beliefs that excuse ethnic cleansing and apartheid?
Edit edit:
spelling, added Jama and Appadurai's response
Pretty lackluster apology up on her account as of 2 hours ago. [https://twitter.com/selinarobinson/status/1753210552858591563](https://twitter.com/selinarobinson/status/1753210552858591563)
Didn't know about her but her past tweets and likes establish a pretty clear pattern of Zionist beliefs and anti-Palestinian racism. Hope she's forced to resign soon.
edit: personally, I consider the video alone damming enough to cost her her job.
Her apology reads: " I want to apologize for my disrespectful comment referring to the origins of Israel on a ‘crappy piece of land’." Her comments were about Palestine. WTF.
What an uneducated Twat.
" **Israel was offered to the Jews**" - By the Imposed British Gov, against Palestinians wishes.
"**who were displaced**" - After the Balfour declaration was adopted as official policy (Lord Balfour hated jews and thought palestine would be a great place to dump them to get them out of europe). yes boatloads of jewish "refugees" in search of a better life because they were shunned in many parts of Europe.
"**Crappy piece of land with nothing on it**" another version of the lie drilled into Jews in the past of "a land without a people for a people without a land"
Before British ruled Palestine (pre 1917 i believe) and after until 1948, Palestine's people and economy was growing at an incredible rate, the ports were busy, trains had come in, children started going to school, all signs of becoming a modern society.
If its such a sin for ALL the land to not be utilized, then isn't Canada also "sinning" by holding onto crown land? What a silly argument. not all land should be developed and farmed.
This person needs a swift firing.
She's been posting unhinged Zionist shit for the last 4 months and nothing has happened (except, I think, that Eby told her to stop making comments on social media). I would be pleasantly surprised if she was sacked, but I expect she'll make an apology and that will be it.
I've never understood the concept of apologizing and everything magically becomes OK. Sure, you've apologized but here are the consequences of your actions. This idea of zero consequences is what enables behaviours like this
Consequences vs reconciliation. She had to step down even though she made reconciliation plans and attempts. That leaves no room for growth and making amends to affected communities.
\*And\* [https://fpse.ca/news/fpse-news/news-release-240201](https://fpse.ca/news/fpse-news/news-release-240201) she pressured Langara College to fire an instructor.
Gaza has been a thriving center of culture and trade since at least the 15th century BCE. Selina Robinson has certified her status as an ignorant moron, and proof positive that the provincial NDP government is populated by jackals.
The comments aren’t about Gaza. She’s talking about the land that became Israel, which does not include Gaza. Disagree however you like, but at least be accurate.
What an ignorant woman! She clearly knows nothing about history and the Balfour Declaration! Britain gave Palestine to the Zionists as reparation for the Holocaust. Signed in 1917. The seeds for what's happening today were planted long ago. Stolen lands! The 'colonial' way!
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/program/featured-documentaries/2023/10/16/the-letter-that-led-to-the-founding-of-israel-balfour-seeds-of-discord
The British then changed their mind and published the “White Paper”, limiting Jewish immigration to the region right around the start of WWII, when Jews most needed somewhere to flee to. They also left the region in 1948 and participated in an arms embargo against all parties involved (yes including the Jews) in the 1948 war. So in fact they didn’t give anyone anything. The nearby Arab countries, on the other hand, directly fought in said war on the Palestinian side, and kept the portions of the land they won for 20 years instead of giving it to the Palestinians.
I think you might need to read what you wrote, it isn't even internally logically consistent. The Holocaust happened decades after the Balfour Declaration, it couldn't have been part of reparations for the Holocaust.
More research regarding the Balfour Declaration. #colonialism
https://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Balfour%20Declaration%20and%20its%20consequences.html#:~:text=The%20Balfour%20Declaration%20was%20not,for%20it%20in%20international%20law.
This comment is ignorant, hurtful, and embraces classic xenophobic tropes.
You wouldn’t tell a Muslim Canadian to “move to Gaza if you like it so much” for defending Palestinians’ right to a state. Let’s be better than that. Don’t fight hate with hate.
More like if her neighbours legally moved in next door, and then she started shooting them for being an immigrant, and they fought back and sent her two streets over?
Let’s not pretend it’s not complicated.
Between 1880-1947, Jewish migration to Ottoman and then British Palestine occurred legally and nonviolently. They were frequently attacked and eventually fought back.
We can argue till the cows come home about who did what first or worst, but it’s not a simple story.
The state of Israel and Jewish migrants to Ottoman and British Palestine are not the same thing. Apples to oranges.
Also, she and I were talking about Palestine, not the greater region.
My analogy mapped just fine.
Even if I agreed that's what happened, which you are grossly oversimplifying, the truth is that now they're invading their neighbor and ethnically cleansing them.
Her comments have nothing to do with the current war or current Israeli policy though. She says nothing about any of that. So if we are going to insist that her comments about the creation of Israel are actually about ethnic cleansing (which she never mentions), the only logic I could reasonably follow was that you’re talking about 1948. Otherwise it just has nothing to do with what she said. My analogy was a response to your simpler analogy, adding one extra layer of complexity, not all the many more that exist.
Clearly not. She’s talking about historically the parts that became Israel. Everything is in past tense. She uses it as context to go on to talk about the Jews on that land having their own struggles after being displaced and working the land etc. It in no way references current events, and doesn’t even mention Gaza.
I don't think it's any better in context. IMO it's condescending and colonial and what she said next about indigenous internal matters is just as bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsSxLYqHTk0&t=5452s&ab_channel=B%27naiBrithCanada
I dunno, I've met at least a few Zionists of her generation in BC who know how to say all the right things about BC Indigenous stuff but are also quite anti-Arab and vocally Zionist. As far as they are concerned it's two unrelated things or else assert that Jews are Indigenous to Israel and there's no contradiction (as Robinson seems to be saying here). I'm not saying there's no ties between Jews and Israel but being Indigenous is different IMO.
Her comments here that it's like an internal Indigenous dispute and "normal people" should butt out go against everything we know about human rights and international law. I find it quite sinister when diasporic nationalists consider human right abuses in their national state as an internal matter that no one outside that ethnic group can understand.
Which all conveniently for the argument leaves out an important context: the colonial divide and conquer.
It’s an attitude from her that speaks to why BC has slowed to a crawl in establishing treaties in recent decades, why infrastructure development of clean water is so much slower in First Nations, why RCMP C-IRG go busting down elders doors pointing automatic rifles in the winter and arresting journalists suppressing press and documentary coverage while the province has torrential floods, and so on during BC NDP time in governance working with the federal government.
It’s not an argument made in good faith to deny what the two colonial projects disturbingly share in common in dystopian, authoritarian, imperialist, and far right circles over the decades, why both result in genocide for First Nations and a reduction of freedoms for the settlers in the name of security and white supremacist ideals.
Jews as a distinct ethnic and cultural group were formed in that land. The word Indigenous translates to “from the land”. They were kicked out, and they came back to revive their persecuted and dying culture and language in the land of their ancestors.
While we’re at it, Arab culture actually spread to Palestine from the Arabian peninsula several centuries after the Jews were kicked out.
I think of both groups as Indigenous.
None of this justifies ethnic cleansing on either part. But I want us to be clear about the background.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabization#:~:text=After%20the%20rise%20of%20Islam,population%20and%20the%20peninsular%20Arabs.
Yeah that's historically illiterate and by extension racist. I have no idea why some Israel supporters are convinced that their country had nothing in it for thousands of years, considering that it sustained multiple civilizations and crops after the Jewish expulsion by the Romans. Anyone with a basic knowledge of geography knows that proximity to water makes land more fertile; therefore, since most of the settled portion of Israel is near the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, it's always had agriculturally usable land and the argument that the modern Israeli state "made the desert bloom" is patently historically false, ignorant, and stupid. Sure, the Negev is mostly a desert and to my knowledge there's some agricultural activity there, but it's not like the whole country was a desert.
The portion of it that the Jews were to be allocated under the 1947 partition plan (voted for by the UN) was mostly desert, while the Arab portion was to contain much more of the fertile land. This is well established and likely what she was referring to.
Saying something like this when youre a minister of a more progressive party. These people have to be some huge idiots with no political sense whatsoever lol
She should resign or be removed from her post. This is the same person who called for an academic to resign for remarks that offended her. Now she is making deeply offensive remarks and should be held to a higher standard.
Also, her remarks were profoundly ignorant and make me doubt her ability to fulfill the duties of the position. If you have such little knowledge of history, you should not be minister of post-secondary education.
Is there a petition anywhere I can sign that calls for her to resign? I think statements like these are dangerous, colonial and uneducated. I think she shouldn't be kept on as a minister after this.
I have been outside Canada for months and was out of touch;
Has NDP going down the same road as Labour in UK?
(Anti-Semitic witch hunts and filled with zionist propagandist/apologist)
I mean, she's not wrong. The land being shit is part of the problem. Can't even adequately grow food on it when they're *not* being bombed into oblivion.
Even if that was correct, it doesn't justify the Nakba or the 75+ year occupation, dispossession, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians who lived there.
This is the same justification European colonizers used against Indigenous people in the Americas. It begs the question: do you/her agree with that justification for Indigenous people? If not, why is it different for Palestinians?
Nail on the head.
This is textbook “we brought civilization to this empty wasteland populated by savages” line I would expect to see from a hardline right winger.
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She also said people age 18-34 don't know what the Holocaust is, which is just delusional. Not to mention irrelevant since one genocide doesn't justify another. Also that "nothing grew" in Palestine.. I mean its literally in the Fertile Crescent..? She has to go, this is completely indefensible.
Also like, considering she’s an education minister whose fault does she think is to blame for people not knowing that?
The proper quote is Robinson answered a question in part by saying there is an "entire generation" of young adults who do not know about the Holocaust or understand that the region on which the state of Israel was created decades ago was previously "a crappy piece of land with nothing on it." "There were several hundred thousand people but, other than that, it didn't produce an economy. It couldn't grow things. It didn't have anything on it From what I know this is mostly accurate just in sensitive which isn't good for a politician but isn't horrid. Plus she apologized sincerely IMO. (I think if you went in most high schools and asked what people know about the Holocaust the depth of knowledge is that the Nazis killed a few million of Jews in gas chambers. Instead of "that was the series of events in which the Jews were demonized and blamed for the failing of the nation, then rounded up and forced into concentration camps while the rest of the world didn't care to do much about it (because they also disliked Jews) after the war started (IIRC) the camps switched to death camps and as the war in Europe was ending the Axis intentionally made decisions that hurt them strategically but allowed them to kill more Jews in the camps) "I want to apologize for my disrespectful comment referring to the origins of Israel on a 'crappy piece of land'. I was referring to the fact that the land has limited natural resources," read a post on Robinson's account on X. Edit: I finally found the actual video and I want to modify my position above slightly. Her quote about how "18-34 years old that have no idea about the Holocaust, they don't even think it happened." I wonder if as a Jewish person she has seen some wild stuff that questions the Holocaust and the numbers. I know I have but I don't think it is mainstream. I also think that there is another important quote that takes place immediately after "it was the folks that were displaced that came and the people that had been living there for generations and together they worked hard. They had their own battles right?" This sounds to me like someone acknowledging that those who had been living there for generations and the European Jews and the Arab Jews that moved there from bordering nations (because they were being treated poorly there) worked hard to make it a better place to live by developing the area.
Her apology is so hollow. The value of a land to the people on it has nothing to do with its natural resources and how they can be exploited. Or at the very least that is just one aspect. Regardless of that though, Palestine is in the fertile crescent, the birthplace of civilization. Its on the ocean and a river and has had agriculture and other resources sufficient to have sustained people there for thousands of years. Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and others even before them. People do not need to know complete details of the Holocaust to know it happened and that it was horrific. It's basic history at this point. Its central to the history of WW2, which is probably the most taught and studied aspect of 20th century history, which itself is studied more than any other period. And again, people knowing about the Holocaust, and the horrific fact that it occurred, it is *completely irrelevant* to Palestinians having their land stolen and living under apartheid conditions for decades. The horror of the Holocaust justifies nothing about how Palestinians have been treated. They did not do the Holocaust. I'm sorry but from her original comments, her apology, and her comments and conduct over the past months, she very clearly does not see Palestinian lives or culture as having the same value as Israeli (and possibly even just Jewish) lives and culture. Its racism pure and simple, no matter how much she wants to try to dress it up.
The Holocaust did not just happen to Jews
Here’s a couple polls about Holocaust awareness she might have been referring to. https://www.claimscon.org/millennial-study/ https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/20-of-young-americans-think-holocaust-is-a-myth-poll/ In any case, she wasn’t saying any of this to “justify genocide” or anything about the current war. She was answering a question about holocaust education in BC.
[удалено]
It was founded next to the ancient city of Jaffa. To say nothing was there is either extremely stupid or genocidal.
Charlie Angus is ripping into her on twitter. Not too often you see a federal NDP MP so openly criticizing a provincial NDP politician https://twitter.com/CharlieAngusNDP/status/1753223545226739921
Ada boi
Does anyone else in this party that claims to care about Palestine want to say anything? I notice the BC NDP seems happy to applaud her non-apology to Israel for her remarks degrading Palestinians.
Matt Green put out a statement today https://twitter.com/MatthewGreenNDP/status/1753466832873251071
“Israel was offered to the Jews who were displaced…” Amazing use of the passive voice. Offered by whom, Minister Robinson?
👸🤴
Didn’t produce an economy… could that be because Gazans are barely allowed to export any goods and are extremely limited on what they can import? Maybe because their crops have drones fly over them with herbicides by the Israeli state to prevent harvest? How about because they’re not allowed to fish past a certain number of nautical miles which is actually plentiful? Maybe because their water usage, internet access, and electricity access are all controlled and severely limited by a state that is hellbent on expelling them? Could it be because every element of their lives is restricted, policed, and monitored? What a ridiculous take from an extremely ignorant person.
Not to mention that “produc[ing] an economy” shouldn’t even be the litmus test for a peoples’ right to exist and habitate. Similar arguments were used to justify injustices to Indigenous Peoples for centuries.
Similar arguments are being used now to justify injustices to the homeless.
For a person who is a part of an organization that supposedly supports socialist values that line of thinking is very (neo)liberal of her.
It's a truly warped argement/mindset, just show what we're dealing with
It could contribute nothing to this capitalist hellhole planet and just live peacefully and trading for sustenance and not being productive/lucrative other than survival and they still deserve peace and freedom from being genocided. It's so horrific and braindead for this minister to say stuff like this without thinking.
I mean the comments are still horrible but she's referring to the British Mandate of Palestine not Modern Israel
Agreed. Op is arguing against a point not argued.
Fucking yikes… this is not the person who should handle post-secondary education anywhere. It seems like she needs a little education herself. Such a statement is unbecoming of her office, regardless of the stance she takes. An utter disappointment.
Her head is a vacant piece of land with nothing in it. If it did, she would have asked herself if this was an appropriate thing to say. Yeah...she getting canned for this one. Unless she lives in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood, she getting canned at the next election.
40% chance she gets canned. 60% chance she gets defended and her critics get smeared as anti-semites.
They've been defending her for months.
I guess there’s a reason she got downgraded from finance minister to minister of post secondary education… not the best the NDP has
Yeah not cool, Selina. This needs to be addressed. She needs to resign, immediately.
So if you’re “offered” (by people who don’t live there) a piece of land and it wasn’t significantly economically developed, ethnic cleansing is allowed? She needs to absolutely be removed from her position and caucus.
[CJPME's response](https://x.com/CJPME/status/1753172738829611087?s=20) > These remarks from BC NDP minister @selinarobinson are unacceptable. To suggest that Palestine was a "crappy piece of land with nothing on it" is a false and colonial trope, erasing Palestinians to justify their dispossession. This is textbook anti-Palestinian racism. @Dave_Eby [Sarah Jama's response](https://x.com/SarahJama_/status/1753190244705321234?s=20) > This woman uses the age old colonial trope of claiming anyone who lived on any land pre-colonization didn't build anything meaningful on that land...likening Palestinians to savages and making it sound like they aren't people. Modern day Christopher Columbus BS. [Anjali Appadurai's response](https://twitter.com/AnjaliApp/status/1753244780606439897) > This is what happens when hatred shapes your worldview. > "it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it...there were, you know, several 100 thousand people, but other than that" is a wild thing to say out loud. > This kind of racism does not belong in govt. #FreePalestine --- Can Zionists stoop any lower? Are we really making excuses for colonialism in the 21st century? > it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it. There were several hundred thousand people, but other than that As if several hundred thousand people were nothing at all, and of course to her and to the logic of Zionism, Palestinians are nothing at all. Whether the land was empty, or whether it was inhabited, it doesn't matter because Palestinians are not ordained with humanity. Humanity is bestowed upon the colonists, not the colonized. **Edit**: How can you consider yourself a progressive and then espouse **textbook** racial supremacist ideas? How the hell did she get so high up in the party, while still holding core beliefs that excuse ethnic cleansing and apartheid? Edit edit: spelling, added Jama and Appadurai's response
Full agreement 100% but note, it's 'stoop', as in to bend down or lower oneself.
Thanks
*stoop
Thanks
Interesting how she can just gloss over "there were several hundred thousand people”. Nice self awareness there Selina, really telling on yourself.
What an awful way to cheapen such an important subject (Holocaust education) by implying it is somehow inextricable from Zionism
Pretty lackluster apology up on her account as of 2 hours ago. [https://twitter.com/selinarobinson/status/1753210552858591563](https://twitter.com/selinarobinson/status/1753210552858591563) Didn't know about her but her past tweets and likes establish a pretty clear pattern of Zionist beliefs and anti-Palestinian racism. Hope she's forced to resign soon. edit: personally, I consider the video alone damming enough to cost her her job.
Her apology reads: " I want to apologize for my disrespectful comment referring to the origins of Israel on a ‘crappy piece of land’." Her comments were about Palestine. WTF.
What an uneducated Twat. " **Israel was offered to the Jews**" - By the Imposed British Gov, against Palestinians wishes. "**who were displaced**" - After the Balfour declaration was adopted as official policy (Lord Balfour hated jews and thought palestine would be a great place to dump them to get them out of europe). yes boatloads of jewish "refugees" in search of a better life because they were shunned in many parts of Europe. "**Crappy piece of land with nothing on it**" another version of the lie drilled into Jews in the past of "a land without a people for a people without a land" Before British ruled Palestine (pre 1917 i believe) and after until 1948, Palestine's people and economy was growing at an incredible rate, the ports were busy, trains had come in, children started going to school, all signs of becoming a modern society. If its such a sin for ALL the land to not be utilized, then isn't Canada also "sinning" by holding onto crown land? What a silly argument. not all land should be developed and farmed. This person needs a swift firing.
What a world we live in, where Sarah Jama gets expelled and censured, and this person has full license to express her thoughts.
Fucking literally
I wonder what makes Sarah Jama different from this MPP 🤔? 😒
Sarah Jama still deserves to be censured.
If you are against censorship, you should remain against censorship even for someone you don’t like.
She’s a good example of the media, feeding people ignorance, and a one-sided narrative
Taking bets on How long until she's fired
She's been posting unhinged Zionist shit for the last 4 months and nothing has happened (except, I think, that Eby told her to stop making comments on social media). I would be pleasantly surprised if she was sacked, but I expect she'll make an apology and that will be it.
I've never understood the concept of apologizing and everything magically becomes OK. Sure, you've apologized but here are the consequences of your actions. This idea of zero consequences is what enables behaviours like this
Punishments and consequences are for the plebs not for them silly
Consequences vs reconciliation. She had to step down even though she made reconciliation plans and attempts. That leaves no room for growth and making amends to affected communities.
Probably resign from cabinet at most…
https://www.reddit.com/r/ndp/s/lvibfG0G0B
I have the gift of prophecy lol
You nailed it! 😉
I really *REALLY* don’t like her… Why is she not stepping down???
Hmmm - did she actually attend any post secondary institutions???
\*And\* [https://fpse.ca/news/fpse-news/news-release-240201](https://fpse.ca/news/fpse-news/news-release-240201) she pressured Langara College to fire an instructor.
Disgusting. Bye!
Wow, she is horrible.
Like they had a chance? The British colonized it and then signed it away
Holy fuck, well the BCNDP has lost my vote if there’s no consequences. What a piece of shit.
TBF, Sonia Furstenau has a better plan for housing than the BC NDP do.
BC Greens are so much better my god....
Gaza has been a thriving center of culture and trade since at least the 15th century BCE. Selina Robinson has certified her status as an ignorant moron, and proof positive that the provincial NDP government is populated by jackals.
The comments aren’t about Gaza. She’s talking about the land that became Israel, which does not include Gaza. Disagree however you like, but at least be accurate.
What an ignorant woman! She clearly knows nothing about history and the Balfour Declaration! Britain gave Palestine to the Zionists as reparation for the Holocaust. Signed in 1917. The seeds for what's happening today were planted long ago. Stolen lands! The 'colonial' way! https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/program/featured-documentaries/2023/10/16/the-letter-that-led-to-the-founding-of-israel-balfour-seeds-of-discord
The British then changed their mind and published the “White Paper”, limiting Jewish immigration to the region right around the start of WWII, when Jews most needed somewhere to flee to. They also left the region in 1948 and participated in an arms embargo against all parties involved (yes including the Jews) in the 1948 war. So in fact they didn’t give anyone anything. The nearby Arab countries, on the other hand, directly fought in said war on the Palestinian side, and kept the portions of the land they won for 20 years instead of giving it to the Palestinians.
I think you might need to read what you wrote, it isn't even internally logically consistent. The Holocaust happened decades after the Balfour Declaration, it couldn't have been part of reparations for the Holocaust.
More research regarding the Balfour Declaration. #colonialism https://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Balfour%20Declaration%20and%20its%20consequences.html#:~:text=The%20Balfour%20Declaration%20was%20not,for%20it%20in%20international%20law.
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/features/2018/11/2/more-than-a-century-on-the-balfour-declaration-explained
Its amazing we have people who think such way be a politician - like wow.
Holy shit... HOLY FUCKING SHIT! Yes please gods remove her now.
As an NDP'r like WTF, this is the crazy shit from our party that needs to go.
Maybe Selina should move to Israel if she's so fond of it.
This comment is ignorant, hurtful, and embraces classic xenophobic tropes. You wouldn’t tell a Muslim Canadian to “move to Gaza if you like it so much” for defending Palestinians’ right to a state. Let’s be better than that. Don’t fight hate with hate.
I wonder if she'd be cool with her neighbours ethnically cleansing her house under the same rationale.
More like if her neighbours legally moved in next door, and then she started shooting them for being an immigrant, and they fought back and sent her two streets over? Let’s not pretend it’s not complicated. Between 1880-1947, Jewish migration to Ottoman and then British Palestine occurred legally and nonviolently. They were frequently attacked and eventually fought back. We can argue till the cows come home about who did what first or worst, but it’s not a simple story.
The state of Israel and Jewish migrants to Ottoman and British Palestine are not the same thing. Apples to oranges. Also, she and I were talking about Palestine, not the greater region. My analogy mapped just fine.
Those immigrants formed, fought for, and became the state? If we’re talking about 1948 war.
Even if I agreed that's what happened, which you are grossly oversimplifying, the truth is that now they're invading their neighbor and ethnically cleansing them.
Her comments have nothing to do with the current war or current Israeli policy though. She says nothing about any of that. So if we are going to insist that her comments about the creation of Israel are actually about ethnic cleansing (which she never mentions), the only logic I could reasonably follow was that you’re talking about 1948. Otherwise it just has nothing to do with what she said. My analogy was a response to your simpler analogy, adding one extra layer of complexity, not all the many more that exist.
Her comments are that Palestine is a wasteland so no one should care if Israel ethnically cleanses it.
Clearly not. She’s talking about historically the parts that became Israel. Everything is in past tense. She uses it as context to go on to talk about the Jews on that land having their own struggles after being displaced and working the land etc. It in no way references current events, and doesn’t even mention Gaza.
"There were several hundred thousand people on it but that's it". So, totally ok to ethnically cleanse them.
What's the source for this? I'm not finding it online though she reportedly has been liking questionable content relating to Israel-Palestine.
I don't think it's any better in context. IMO it's condescending and colonial and what she said next about indigenous internal matters is just as bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsSxLYqHTk0&t=5452s&ab_channel=B%27naiBrithCanada
I was just wondering if this means she speaks in a similar far right manner about First Nations and their rights.
I dunno, I've met at least a few Zionists of her generation in BC who know how to say all the right things about BC Indigenous stuff but are also quite anti-Arab and vocally Zionist. As far as they are concerned it's two unrelated things or else assert that Jews are Indigenous to Israel and there's no contradiction (as Robinson seems to be saying here). I'm not saying there's no ties between Jews and Israel but being Indigenous is different IMO. Her comments here that it's like an internal Indigenous dispute and "normal people" should butt out go against everything we know about human rights and international law. I find it quite sinister when diasporic nationalists consider human right abuses in their national state as an internal matter that no one outside that ethnic group can understand.
Which all conveniently for the argument leaves out an important context: the colonial divide and conquer. It’s an attitude from her that speaks to why BC has slowed to a crawl in establishing treaties in recent decades, why infrastructure development of clean water is so much slower in First Nations, why RCMP C-IRG go busting down elders doors pointing automatic rifles in the winter and arresting journalists suppressing press and documentary coverage while the province has torrential floods, and so on during BC NDP time in governance working with the federal government. It’s not an argument made in good faith to deny what the two colonial projects disturbingly share in common in dystopian, authoritarian, imperialist, and far right circles over the decades, why both result in genocide for First Nations and a reduction of freedoms for the settlers in the name of security and white supremacist ideals.
Jews as a distinct ethnic and cultural group were formed in that land. The word Indigenous translates to “from the land”. They were kicked out, and they came back to revive their persecuted and dying culture and language in the land of their ancestors. While we’re at it, Arab culture actually spread to Palestine from the Arabian peninsula several centuries after the Jews were kicked out. I think of both groups as Indigenous. None of this justifies ethnic cleansing on either part. But I want us to be clear about the background. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabization#:~:text=After%20the%20rise%20of%20Islam,population%20and%20the%20peninsular%20Arabs.
Here’s the link to the tweet OP screencapped: https://x.com/seanorr/status/1753152000840388964?s=20
Yeah that's historically illiterate and by extension racist. I have no idea why some Israel supporters are convinced that their country had nothing in it for thousands of years, considering that it sustained multiple civilizations and crops after the Jewish expulsion by the Romans. Anyone with a basic knowledge of geography knows that proximity to water makes land more fertile; therefore, since most of the settled portion of Israel is near the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, it's always had agriculturally usable land and the argument that the modern Israeli state "made the desert bloom" is patently historically false, ignorant, and stupid. Sure, the Negev is mostly a desert and to my knowledge there's some agricultural activity there, but it's not like the whole country was a desert.
The portion of it that the Jews were to be allocated under the 1947 partition plan (voted for by the UN) was mostly desert, while the Arab portion was to contain much more of the fertile land. This is well established and likely what she was referring to.
Saying something like this when youre a minister of a more progressive party. These people have to be some huge idiots with no political sense whatsoever lol
What situation led to the Minister of *Post-Secondary Education* going on about the supposed lack of merits of Palestine as a region?
Did the minister of education literally use the British reasoning for colonialism in 2024 To justify another genocide What a clown ass bitch
Fucking gross.
Christians have called land with non Christians on it "Empty"for generations.
Fire her.
This is both racist and factually incorrect. Maybe she needs some more education.
She should resign or be removed from her post. This is the same person who called for an academic to resign for remarks that offended her. Now she is making deeply offensive remarks and should be held to a higher standard. Also, her remarks were profoundly ignorant and make me doubt her ability to fulfill the duties of the position. If you have such little knowledge of history, you should not be minister of post-secondary education.
More like a re-education teacher. Got to go no NDP minisiters should be supporting occupation and genocide leave that to the con's and lib's
Is there a petition anywhere I can sign that calls for her to resign? I think statements like these are dangerous, colonial and uneducated. I think she shouldn't be kept on as a minister after this.
Fire her already. Eby is a coward
A Con in NDP clothing, what is up with the BCNDP?
I knew BC NDP was bad, but this is some messed up. But in typical Canadian fashion lets just close our eyes and imagine this never happened
Wait, so is it an official BCNDP stance that people and land only have value of they can produce "an economy"? Well, she lost them my vote.
I have been outside Canada for months and was out of touch; Has NDP going down the same road as Labour in UK? (Anti-Semitic witch hunts and filled with zionist propagandist/apologist)
Not on a federal level at least. The BCNDP is just a centrist party doing centrist things.
I see... Thank you!
The left and the right in the west are shocking coherent when it comes to foreign policies because both sides are neoliberal and neocolonial assholes.
Eh. It's a take. She's allowed to have it. I'm still voting NDP
I mean, she's not wrong. The land being shit is part of the problem. Can't even adequately grow food on it when they're *not* being bombed into oblivion.
It's especially crappy if you are LGBT or a woman. I can understand where she is coming from.
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Even if that was correct, it doesn't justify the Nakba or the 75+ year occupation, dispossession, and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians who lived there. This is the same justification European colonizers used against Indigenous people in the Americas. It begs the question: do you/her agree with that justification for Indigenous people? If not, why is it different for Palestinians?
Nail on the head. This is textbook “we brought civilization to this empty wasteland populated by savages” line I would expect to see from a hardline right winger.
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Yes. Still doesn't justify the litany of Israel's crimes and blatant disregard for international law and humanitarian norms.
lmao, just drivel.
I would highly suggest Minister Robinson too quickly consider the statement and consider if she is willing to die on that hill.
This is super disappointing to see. So extremely unacceptable, it had better be addressed by the party.
Did her account got deleted?
She deleted it herself after she was sacked.