Attack and Support

As long ago as mid-April its burgeoning success became the springboard for a wholesale attack by Aba Gefen, Consul-General of Israel at Toronto, in an address to Beth Tzedec Synagogue. This prompted the Toronto Globe and Mail’s April 24 editorial against Dr. Gefen’s charges and innuendoes:

” . . . that there is a massive conspiracy to annihilate the people of his country and that an unstated number of readily identifiable Canadians are participating in it.

”He accuses this group of joining forces with the Soviet Union in a campaign aimed at fanning the flames of war. He says these Canadians are unhappy that Jewish boys are not being slaughtered today. He implies they are disseminating the Hitler line, they are peddling the propaganda of genocide in the name of a large Canadian religious institution.

”These are flagrantly abusive statements in themselves but they arouse special concern because they have been uttered by a man who has been sent to Toronto by the Israeli Government and, therefore must be assumed to be speaking for the Israeli Government.

”In light of Dr. Gefen’s official position, External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp should ask the Ambassador from Israel if these charges can be substantiated or explained. If the Government of Israel believes that there is a significant number of Canadians working in an unholy alliance against Israel then he should document his case. Identified advocates of genocide would not be popular in Canada and we find it difficult to believe that the United Church would give them a platform.”

(Forrest is editor of the United Church Observer.)

‘Banning’ Attempt

Perhaps the biggest publicity the book has received, however, was the announcement by Coles Bookstores that they were removing it from their 29 outlets across Canada as “an absolute non-seller.” This made the headlines almost coincidentally with the announcement of its reaching the best-seller list!

This action, noted the Toronto Star, “lends color to Mr. Forrest’s claim that there is a pattern in Canada of ‘suppressing criticism’ of Israel.” Three-to-six-column headlines proclaimed, “Book critical of Israel disappears from Coles,” “Israel book ban ‘smells’” and “Book criticizing Israel still sold by most shops.” Buckley’s bookstore advertised, “We do not suppress books however truthful they may be,” and offered a dollar discount on The unHoly Land “to all who believed that book banning died with Hitler.” Even reviewers who disagreed with Forrest deplored the ‘ban’.

Jewish Backing

Amidst these attacks and defenses, Forrest delcared, “It’s hard to get a book published and sold on this topic. The most heartening thing since the book appeared is the number of Jewish people who’ve backed me up publicly.” He noted also that younger Jews, especially in universities, are open to his position. “There is some hope,” he added, “in young Israelis and young Arabs, many of whom share the same view that the Palestinians have been wronged, and that the great hope of the future is for Israel to acknowledge the wrong and correct it.”

The Calgary Herald stated: “Dr. Forrest thinks a lot of Jews have been embarrassed by the attacks on the book from some Zionists and the action of Coles. He says a group of Jewish book stores in Toronto have ordered an extra supply of the book and they want him to autograph some at a promotion party.”

Attempts to find a U.S. publisher have so far been unsuccessful. One publisher —whose candor deserves anonymity —told us, “I agree in general with its thesis but I couldn’t deal with the problems it would create for me.” This seems to imply that freedom of dissent is much more hazardous in the USA than in Canada. Could that possibly be true?

UnHOLY LAND NOW AVAILABLE IN STATES

Because of difficulties encountered by Americans in securing copies of A.C. Forrest’s Canadian bestseller, The unHoly Land, we’ve made a wholesale purchase from the publishers, McClelland & Steward. We are passing along our savings to LINK readers to whom we offer this $6.95 volume at $4.50 postpaid (checks payable to AMEU). The following review by Marc Raboy, which appeared in the Montreal Star,” may help you decide whether or not to place an order.

The governments of the United States and Israel are in the process of making the Middle East “the next Vietnam,” according to one of Canada’s leading critics of Zionism, Rev. A.C. Forrest.

Israel is being held up as the new Western bulwark against Communism by Zionists trying to exploit the anti-Communism feelings of North Americans. The results will be disastrous, the editor of the 400,000 circulation United Church Observer said in an interview yesterday.

”Anyone who doesn’t see the Middle East against the background of Southeast Asia doesn’t see it at all,” said Dr. Forrest, who has lived and traveled extensively in Israel and the Arab countries.

The veteran journalist-churchman feels Canadians are being systematically misinformed about the Middle East, preventing them from pressuring for a just peace.

In an effort to help “get the truth about the Middle East out to the world,” Dr. Forrest has just completed a book based on his firsthand observations, “The Unholy Land.”

His documented conclusions are a strong indictment of Israeli policies and Western collaboration:

—The partition of Palestine was a “grave injustice” to the Palestinian Arabs, which must be redressed before there will be peace;

—Many of the Palestinian refugees were “ruthlessly driven out” in the processing of building a Jewish state, and did not simply flee in panic;

—The Palestinians are not being kept as “political pawns” by the Arab states, but are determined to resist assimilation and return home;

—Arabs who remain in Israel are exploited and repressed by a “racist and aggressive state.”

Dr. Forrest submits to his readers that any objective student of the Middle East would reach the same conclusions by studying United Nations documents, visiting the area for a length of time, and talking to experts and common people on both sides.

”Admittedly, this is an adventure beyond the reach of the average citizen, but the institutions whose responsibility to provide such information—the media —have abdicated,” Dr. Forrest said.

”When I first became interested in the subject,” he wrote in the introduction to “The Unholy Land,” ”I suppose I was mildly anti-Arab. Certainly, like almost everyone else, I was pro-Israeli . . . I suppose I was rather typical of reasonably intelligent, fairly well-informed, well-intentioned, churchgoing, newspaper-reading Westerners.”

Ten months living in Beirut with junkets to Jordan, Syria, Egypt and four side trips to Israel, changed his position, and he returned to Canada as a critic of Zionism.

As a result, “the roof fell in on me. This was something a Christian minister just did not do.”

Dr. Forrest was “startled and depressed” to be vilified as an anti-Semite.

”In Canada, I’m considered very pro-Arab and very anti-Israel, but in the Arab community they are critical of me because I say there has to be a compromise,” he said.

Dr. Forrest supports the UN’s resolution of Nov. 22, 1967, calling for Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied after the six-day war, without regulating the Palestinian crisis springing from the hostilities of 1948.

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