Engler has written frequently on Avi Lewis. https://yvesengler.com/tag/avi-lewis/ , such as https://yvesengler.com/2025/12/08/not-all-candidates-have-strong-positions-on-israels-genocide/#more-7487 .
"...The gulf between our campaign and Courage’s preferred candidate is well-illustrated by Avi Lewis’ silence last October, when the Trudeau government criminalized a grassroots anti-genocide organization in his city. He said nothing as Vancouver’s Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network was placed on the terror list — an anti-Palestinian decision that also poses a serious threat to Canadians’ civil liberties. I have publicly challenged this move again and again..." Samidoun, btw, was mentioned during the recent House Ways and Means Committee hearing on , "Foreign Influence in American Non-profits, Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond <https://waysandmeans.house.gov/2026/02/12/six-key-moments-hearing-on-foreign-influence-in-american-non-profits-unmasking-threats-from-beijing-and-beyond/>," which focused on Neville Roy Singham, Code Pink, the People’s Forum, the ANSWER Coalition, PSL, Tricontinental, BreakThrough News & the Alliance for Global Justice. https://x.com/EnglerYves/status/2022783522000539756?s=20 "Yes, Avi Lewis is a “warmonger”. He’s more hawkish than Jean Chrétien on the NATO proxy war and has been silent on NDP militarism. I began a recent article asking “Is Avi Lewis a war monger? Does he want to prolong the costliest proxy war in Canadian history?” The piece detailed Lewis’ support for sending arms to Ukraine and failure to mention Canada/NATO’s role in provoking the conflict. Lewis’ position is less sensible than former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien who has called for diplomacy and said “Putin made it clear his concern about NATO’s perceived encroachment on parts of the former Soviet Union” largely provoked the war. An individual whose politics I respect posted my article and then defended it from criticism. Eventually, however, he conceded to the pressure announcing that he backed Lewis to lead the NDP, didn’t believe he was a “warmonger” and blamed me for being too harsh. It’s the opposite. In the last few weeks, the NDP Premier of BC and mayor of Toronto have both called for their city/province to host the new “NATO bank”, which will help alliance members reach the new 5% of GDP on war target. Does Lewis have a position on that? Previously, the current NDP premier of Manitoba demanded Ottawa boost military spending to the then 2% of GDP NATO target. Any word from Lewis? While Lewis has (softly) criticized NDP premiers’ position on climate/extractivism, I’ve yet to see that on militarism. Ditto for the federal party. Seven months ago, the NDP released a contradictory statement noting, “Despite repeated promises, they [Liberal and Conservative governments] have been unable to meet Canada’s NATO commitments. New Democrats are committed to ensuring this changes.” Anything from Lewis about the party supporting a huge transfer of public resources to the military? A week ago, interim party leader Don Davies called for Canada to purchase Saab’s Gripen —instead of Lockheed’s F35-fighter jets. Not only did Davies explicitly endorse purchasing fighter jets he ignored how the planned number of jets has grown from 65 under Stephan Harper to 88 under Justin Trudeau and 100+ under Mark Carney. Is Lewis ok with Davies’ position on fighter jets, which Canada has used to bomb Iraq, Yugoslavia and Libya? In a tweet and at last month’s leadership debate in Toronto Rob Ashton praised the Nova Scotia NDP government for subsidizing the billionaire Irving family by procuring surface combatant naval vessels. Did Lewis pushback on Ashton or has he spoken out against the quarter trillion-dollar surface combatant purchase? Has Lewis said anything about competitor Heather McPherson’s participation in the NATO Parliamentary Association? Not to my knowledge, though he’s repeatedly lauded the “magnificent seven” NDP caucus that includes McPherson and another member of the NATO Parliamentary Association. NATO skeletons lurk in his campaign. One of Lewis’ high-profile backers, former MP Libby Davies, voted to bomb Libya in 2011. Has Lewis said anything about the NDP backing two House of Commons resolutions to support the NATO mission that destroyed the north African country? Another supporter, Svend Robinson, was the NDP foreign critic — maybe party’s best ever — who supported the NATO war on Yugoslavia, turning critical only a month into the illegal bombing campaign. Does Lewis have a comment on that? Avi regularly invokes his grandfather David Lewis. The CCF/NDP stalwart was a hardline cold warrior and fanatic Zionist. David Lewis sought to suppress the anti-NATO left from the party. Avi and his surrogates promoted excluding an anti-NATO campaign from the leadership race. In an extreme example, Lewis justified the party blocking me from a Montreal social with my 3-year-old. Eventually Lewis released a statement somewhat critical of my exclusion from the race but only after supporters protested at several of his events. Lewis has stayed silent about the unelected three person vetting committee excluding Bianca Mugyenyi from the race. She ran on a platform calling to “Slash the defense budget” and “Halt procurement of F-35 fighter jets, armed drones, air surveillance equipment, LAVs, APCs and AI for military applications, and other war machinery.” Lewis is less militaristic than Heather McPherson or Rob Ashton (but not than Tony McQuail). But I was overly charitable when asking “Is Avi Lewis a warmonger”. Yes he is. Beginning on Monday I’ll be speaking in Victoria, Powell River, Surrey, Burnaby and Kelowna on the Failure of Social Democracy: NDP militarism and imperialism." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40677): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40677 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117800984/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
