Disinvitation: Tainted by 'Complicity' in Palestinian Suffering in Opposition to Lionizing Hamas

"I was hurt, I was angry. But most of all I was heartbroken."

"I don't believe you hired me because I was a soldier and a cop. While these jobs are part of my story [and I'm very grateful to have had these experiences], they do not define me as a human being."

"As a Jewish woman, I would never be offended if a Palestinian woman were to speak about her obstacles and life journey. I thought that's what women were supposed to do for each other -- listen and support!" 

Bicycle racer Leah Goldstein, Israeli-Canadian

Leah Goldstein in 2005. Photo by Mark van Manen/Vancouver Sun

"Our focus at INSPIRE has been and will always be to create safe spaces to honour, share, and celebrate the remarkable stories of women and nonbinary individuals."

"In recognition of the current situation and the sensitivity of the conflict in the Middle East, the Board of INSPIRE will be changing our keynote speaker."

INSPIRE statement disinviting 55-year-old champion bicyclist from invitation as keynote speaker

"Just another example of the erasure and silencing of Jews going on across Canada and around he world."

"Leaders must speak up against this insidious form of anti-Jewish organizing."

Deborah Lyons, Canadian envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism

Invited as a keynote speaker to an event in Peterborough, Ontario for International Women's Day, an accomplished Israeli-Canadian woman, born in Vancouver to Israeli parents and now a permanent resident of Vernon, British Columbia, was jolted out of her sense of community with other women when she was advised that her speaker-invitation had been retracted, resulting from lobbying of Palestinian women who made it clear to the event organizers they objected to her presence.

Several years ago, this professional bicyclist won the solo category of Race Across America on behalf of her gender, as the first female winner of one of the longest endurance races in the world. Raised in Israel by her Israeli parents, achieving age 18 she had served in the Israel Defense Forces, as a legal obligation for all Israeli men and women obtaining majority age. She returned to Canada in late 1990, but prior to that, she had also served in Israel as a police officer.

 

According to the Jerusalem Post, which had interviewed the event organizers, "a small but growing and extremely vocal group" was behind the unfortunate disinvitation. They had taken umbrage with the issue of Leah Goldstein's military service. Which is a far more polite way of assigning the state of indoctrinated antisemitism to them. 

 

Leah Goldstein (right) during her IDF service. (Courtesy of Leah Goldstein via JTA)

Former ambassador to Israel Deborah Lyons, more recently appointed by the current Liberal-led government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the post of special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism laid out the situation as it truly is: pure antisemitism hard at work. She urged Canadian leaders to 'speak up against this insidious form of anti-Jewish organizing', but on the record it is a faint hope.

Evidently, the group that had protested Ms. Goldstein's invitation to speak at the event, had asked her to comment on her opinion of the Israel-Gaza war. Not that, had she commiserated with the loss of Palestinian life and suggested that the cause of the war was not of Israel's making would have mollified her detractors; in their obvious opinion the IDF and Israel represent a deadly, hostile aggressor; the role of Hamas by invading southern Israel for a brutal romp of rape, slaughter and hostage-taking is to be taken as a noble act by an embattled 'occupied' people.

Only when and where Israel is the principal, is the act of self-defense considered an 'occupation'. Even Israeli police and military preventive tactics seeking to avoid just such savagery with its horrifying sadistic component thrown in for good measure, is the self-protective attempts to secure safety for its citizens from the ravages of Palestinian indoctrinated hate and endemic violence seen as an 'occupation force' denying the attackers their human rights.

 

Leah Goldstein, the 2021 winner of Race Across America, had her invitation to speak at a Canadian women's empowerment event rescinded after Oct. 7 because of her past IDF service. (Screenshot)

 

"If I were to make a statement, I would say that I'm very proud of my training with the IDF, being the first woman to train the commando soldiers."

"So, yes, if they want that kind of statement, I'd be happy to say it."

"But to diss Israel and say, 'It's genocide, we're killing 20,000 innocent children and women and whatnot', it's a freaking war."

"That's what happens."

Leah Goldstein