The Vancouver City Council voted 10-1 Tuesday to ask the Canadian government to cancel the United Nations-sponsored Habitat Conference next year because of the expected attendance of representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the UN General Assembly’s anti-Zionist resolution and anticipated disruption in the city because of the conference.
Mayor Arthur Phillips said he expects confrontation and turbulence during the conference and for this reason does not want it in Vancouver. Alderman Harry Rankin said the conference was a waste of money since Third World countries will be aided in assistance in housing and not by talk, Canadian Urban Affairs Minister Barney Danson, who previously expressed reluctance about Habitat, said the government is totally committed to holding it in Vancouver.
Meanwhile, Wilfred Mahoney, Canadian director of the United Steel Workers of America, and vice-president of the Canadian Labor Congress, has condemned the presence in Canada of a PLO spokesman, Mahoney, head of the largest industrial union in Canada, said he volunteered his statement because it was time for non-Jews to speak out against the PLO presence.
In a related development in Montreal, some 60 Jewish students clashed Tuesday night with game 600 Arab or pro-Arab student at McGill University who had given an ovation to Shafik el Hout vice-chairman of the PLO’s delegation to the United Nations. Arab sympathizers expelled the Jewish students who called Hout “murderer” and “terrorist.”
Hout told the audience “the PLO will try to prevent terrorist acts during the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, but, of course, we cannot give assurances that no acts of violence will take place.” Hinting at Canada’s pro-Israeli bias, he said, “Canada has never been an imperialist country but if it will continue to submit to Zionist pressures, such an attitude will eventually compromise her relations with the Arab world.”
JEWS URGED TO COOL OPPOSITION
In Ottawa yesterday, Danson, who is the only Jew in the Cabinet, commented on the strong opposition in the Jewish community to Hout’s lecture tour in Canada and the expected appearance of the PLO at Habitat. He urged the Jewish community to cool its opposition to the PLO and respect the rights of free speech in Canada, regardless of how offensive Jews find the views expressed by the PLO representatives.
“I understand the very deep and intense feelings,” he said. “But it doesn’t help–in fact, it does the reverse. We (Canadian government) intend to use our influence to strengthen the many positive aspects of the UN and change those areas which we consider negative or even potentially destructive of the UN,” Danson suggested that the militants who are organizing the anti-PLO campaign did not represent the Jewish community.
A UN conference on crime scheduled for Toronto last September was transferred to Geneva after the Canadian government asked that it be deferred when a controversy erupted over the proposed presence of PLO representatives.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
