A simple criminal trial for assault, with the defense of provocation, would be a picnic compared to what I have gone through.
The Court chose not to deal with the issue of why Chapters employees, if they heard what was going on prior to the "fucking Jew" statement, should not have had a duty to protect their guest. Instead the Court just chose to talk about my inappropriate response to being called a "fucking Jew". What is an appropriate response? Next time I shall just punch the guy in the face, if he says that to me.
The police chose not to charge these fine gentlemen (elevated by the Court to being my "proverbial combatants" - were they invited to participate in some game of combat?). No Jewish or non-Jewish organization made a public statement asking them to do so. The police told me I should drop my complaint or they might charge me with something. I should have asked them to go ahead and charge me.
And after all the effort I put in to seeking a clear judicial pronouncement of what exactly I said that is supposedly racist in Canada and comparable to what was said to me, what do we hear from the Court:
"It appears clear and I find as a fact that Mr. Rotberg said
something in response to
the second heckler's racist epithet that was unpleasant to
listening ears and which
was noted by most such listeners. Reports of the precise
content of his statement
varied.”
Ok, I said something "unpleasant to listening ears" and reports "of the precise content of his statement varied".
What a waste of my time. Next time I punch him in the face.
Instead of an actual judicial finding of what was said, we got caught up in the Small Claims Court process of allowing written statements to be used as evidence. Frankly, I thought the written statements of Chapters' employees were so contradictory of the facts, the chronology of what happened and who said what, the Court would discount them in favour of what we considered was a reatraction by one key employee and oral evidence, of myself and Professor Maoz. Instead the Court talked of "the flavour of my utterence and how I reflected an "us versus them" mentality.
Dammit, it is us versus them. It is me, a lawyer with a 20 year distinguished record as a lawyer, followed by a career developing affordable rental housing in converted heritage buildings for low income working people, heading up a large warehousing company and writing three books in five years, versus people who shout down lectures, saying the author has no "right" to speak, and is a "fucking Jew". Next time I punch him in the face.
Just read the words:
“It seems to me that in the context of how the exchange had
developed, Mr.
Rotberg had launched into references to people from the
to
comments, like his presentation, were focused on those
described as Islamists.
The entire tenor of the exchange, from the perspective of
both the hecklers and
Mr. Rotberg, and therefore of the others in attendance who
heard the exchange,
was an "us and them" outlook on conflict in the
On balance, it appears likely that Mr. Rotberg's intended retort
was directed at
those described as Islamists who come here from the
attempt to define the precise words used. I accept that the
version of those words
recorded by Ms. Al-Halimi and other witnesses may have been
inaccurate in
minor respects, but it appears probable and I find as a fact
that they captured the
flavour of Mr. Rotberg's utterance with reasonable accuracy.
His retort was to
describe a group of people as terrorists and his intent was
that the two hecklers
with whom he had directly engaged in this angry exchange be
included within his
generalization.”
Fellow Canadians, do not try to defend our freedoms from people coming here to take them away, because that is racist. Just surrender now, or punch them in the face.
The Judge chose to repeat certain evidence in his Judgment and ignore certain evidence. He mentioned that I had been President of the Synagogue in Kitchener, but ommitted all the evidence of my years in working in Race Relations, my writing career for the fine multicultural magazine edited by a wonderful Egyptian Muslim lady, called Cross Cultures. All of that was not relevant, but my presidency at the Synagogue was. Draw your own conclusions. If all that work that I did over many years is not relevant, it teaches me something: Next time just punch him in the face.