Everyone of my generation knows of the Lone Ranger. He was a really good guy, always coming to the rescue of poor settlers in trouble – brave, strong, principled, only fighting “bad guys”. His mysterious nature, with his white hat, black face mask and self-containment only added to the allure. In actuality the Lone Ranger was never alone, always accompanied by the resourceful but definitely subservient indigenous “Tonto”, who always addressed him as “Kemosabe”. A Mexican friend of mine, well-versed in the ways of settler-colonialism and white male dominance, said that what Tonto was really calling the Lone Ranger, in the subversive way of those so dominated, was “Quien no sabe” – he who does not know. To us children unaware of the necessary script of settler-colonialism, the Lone Ranger was always a hero, and he always came out on top.
Now what about the “Lone Soldier”? How many of you, dear Readers, have heard of him/her/them? This is the name given to those who go from other countries, non-Israelis, to fight in the Israeli army. As Heather Reisman, owner of Indigo, sympathetically describes them, these are soldiers “without families in Israel”. We would do well to learn more about them however, because we give them enormous support every year through our tax system. Every person who pays taxes to the Canadian government supports “lone soldiers”, with money that incentivizes young people to go to Israel and join the military, by providing numerous benefits such as a university education upon their return. In fact, it is very likely that we taxpayers have supported Reisman’s “lone soldiers” project to the tune of about $180 million in the last 20 years.
Here’s how it works: Billionaires Heather Reisman and her husband, Gerry Schwartz, establish a foundation called Heseg Foundation for Lone Soliders, and contribute large sums of money to that foundation every year, for which they get a significant tax receipt. Because they are in such a high income bracket, a much larger percentage of their donations gets written off by CRA than the average person’s charitable donation, as much as 80-90% in their case. This means that for the approximately $200 million they have “donated” to Heseg since 2005, only about
$20 million is their own money. They get back the rest of that money in charitable tax receipts. (Yves Engler, 3 September, 2024)
Here is another mystery. How do they get away with this, given that it is illegal under Canadian tax law to give money to a foreign military? Hmmmm. It seems to me Reisman & Schwartz ought to be able to do whatever they want with their excess money, but why should the rest of us be subsidizing their illegal choices?
Now that Jewish National Fund and the Ne’eman Foundation have lost their charitable status with CRA, we may see CRA responding to complaints about such brazen misuse of our taxpayer money by revoking the charitable status of Heseg Foundation. A formal complaint has been filed by Just Peace Advocates and it is likely that more attention will be given such complaints with public input to CRA by the average taxpayer.
Max Blumberg is a charity law expert in Canada. He says there are a thousand “Jewish charities” in Canada, and Yves Engler, who has been investigating the charitable status of Zionist organizations like the Jewish National Fund for the last 15 years, says it is safe to assume that while many have little to do with Israel, most of those charities have an Israel element. “According to Blumberg, the 1,000 registered “Jewish charities” have a whopping $12 billion in assets. Supposed to donate, not accumulate assets, these groups must be raising two to three billion dollars a year. Just how much of the money supporting Israel are all Canadians covering?” (Engler, 3 September, 2024)
Jewish Currents has a wonderful comic/graphic essay by Solomon Brager, their director of community engagement (When Settler Becomes Native, JD Brager, 2021), which they have republished in this week’s edition (newsletter@jewishcurrents.org. 23 September,2024). It is really worth viewing! In examining the Jewish claims of indigeneity in Israel, the idea is that Jews share common ancestry with the historical inhabitants of Israel and therefore have a claim to exclusive sovereignty over the land of Israel. These claims have the effect of positioning Israel as a de-colonial movement, despite the fact that early Zionist leaders, such as Theodor Herzl, known as “the father of Zionism”, openly recognized that theirs was a colonial enterprise. Brager quotes Herzl’s 1899 address to the first Zionist Federation conference in London: “The Zionist idea, which is a colonizing plan, should be easily and quickly grasped in England.” And indeed it was. Brager’s comic-form essay helps explain the allure Israel may have for many a young Jewish Canadian “lone soldier” in search of a meaningful identity in a secular and divided world. Saying that all Jews are indigenous to Israel ignites a saviour reflex and alleviates the guilt of displacing and killing Palestinians who’ve been continuously resident on the land and are, by all modern understandings of indigeneity, truly the indigenous people of that area.
So, as young idealists travel to Israel lone ranger style, to ride into the fray and dispel the bad guys (the “terrorists”), we Canadians call them “Lone Soldiers” and share complicity in their violence against the Palestinians through our taxpayer subsidies. This is something we can actually refuse to support. The lines are open to CRA.
