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Rich Wiles, Behind the Wall

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Palestinian Appeal to International Civil Society

Sixty Years of Dispossession and Ethnic Cleansing

Boycott the " Israel at 60" Celebrations!

NO TIME TO CELEBRATE: JEWS REMBEMBER THE NAKBA

 

May 14, 2008

The Guardian (UK) - Hamas condemns the Holocaust

But it should be made clear that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian government in Gaza denies the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history. We condemn it as we condemn every abuse of humanity and all forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender or nationality.

May 11, 2008

Christian Peacemakers Teams - HEBRON: International NGOs rally to rescue Hebron orphanage

[YEP folks, the brave Israeli Defence Forces are shutting an orphanage - for security reasons no doubt.]

Representatives from CPT, UNICEF, UNOCHA, Save the Children UK, Defense for Children International, the YMCA, Relief International and other human rights organizations met in Hebron on 8 May 2008 to help Hebron's orphans and students now living with the fear that the Israeli military will close their homes and schools.

 

May 10, 2008

CTV News - Israel ambassador's comments 'unjustified': critics

"Israeli Ambassador to Canada Alan Baker on Thursday defended comments he made to a national newspaper regarding Canada's Muslim population.

Alan Baker told The Globe and Mail he is concerned Canada's burgeoning Muslim population is shifting this country's policies in the Middle East. The Globe interview appears on the same day Israel celebrates its 60th year of independence.

WRITE TO PARTY LEADERS AND TELL THEM WHAT YOU THINK OF ALAN BAKER'S RACIST COMMENTS. [Addresses and sample letter]

Comment by Toronto Star Columnist Haroon Siddiqui.

May 9, 2008

Ottawa Citizen - Harper condemns criticism of Israel as thinly-veiled anti-Semitism

Some of the criticism brewing in Canada against the state of Israel, including from some members of Parliament, is similar to the attitude of Nazi Germany in the Second World War, Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned yesterday.

(Someone should tell Harper that the old "criticism of Israel is anti-semitism line" just does not fly anymore. Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and scores of other individuals and organizations have described Israel as an apartheid state. The use of the term "anti-semitism" to describe criticism of Israel's brutal and illegal policies towards the Palestinians is also extremely dangerous for Jews as it so dilutes the term that it can desensitize people to real anti-Jewish racism when it does occur.)

Canpalnet (Vancouver) Nakbah ad runs in The Georgia Straight in Vancouver and The Now in Toronto Thursday, May 8

WE CANNOT CELEBRATE

Around the world, plans are being made to mount major celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. But this year also marks 60 years since 750,000 Palestinians were brutally expelled from their homeland in what they refer to as the Nakba or “catastrophe”. Given this history, and the deepening conflict in the region today, we believe there is no grounds for celebration.

May 7, 2008

Montreal Gazette - States creation had ugly side

[Note: The Montreal Gazette is a Canwest newspaper. It should be congratulated for this balanced and truthful article letters@thegazette.canwest.com )

The creation of Israel had an ugly side to it which shouldn't be forgotten or ignored. It is the destruction of a people and the creation of the world's largest refugee population and longest- lasting refugee crisis. Albert Einstein commented on these events, which are at the core of this problem, 60 years ago. In a letter he wrote on April 10, 1948 to the executive director of American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, in response to a request for a meeting, he wrote, "When the real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the terrorist organizations built up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with these misled and criminal people."

May 2, 2008

PAJU - Gaza being starved to death

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has called Israel's blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity.

Speaking at the American University in Cairo, Carter said Palestinians in Gaza were being "starved to death," receiving fewer calories a day than people in the poorest parts of Africa.

Independent (UK) - Blockade puts Gaza on brink of serious food crisis, says UN

Showing that Palestinians are having to spend a higher and higher share of their shrinking incomes on food, the findings are that the proportion of Gazan incomes now going on food is 66 per cent – significantly higher than the 61 per cent recorded for Somalia. Seventy per cent of Gazans are at a "deep poverty" income level of $1.20 (60p) per head per day or less.

April 20, 2008

CAIA - CUPW (National) Passes resolution in support of global campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli Apartheid

This resolution is an extremely significant landmark for the Palestinian solidarity movement in Canada. It represents the first time in North American history that a national union has passed a BDS resolution. The resolution recognizes Israel as an apartheid state and expresses CUPW's support for boycott and divestment from Israel. It was passed almost unanimously after nearly one hour of discussion on the convention floor. CUPW represents more than 50,000 postal workers across Canada...

ICAHD - Born to Demolish

It was another of those routine tragedies that are never publicized. At eight in the morning we at ICAHD (the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) received a call that the Border Police, Israeli police and Jerusalem Municipality bulldozers were massing below the Palestinian village of Anata, poised to begin another day of home demolitions....Tens of thousands of Palestinian families live with demolition orders on their homes, some 22,000 in East Jerusalem alone, where fully a third of Palestinian homes face demolition at any time.

 

 

April 17, 2008

EI - Israel moves to shut Hebron orphanages, schools

HEBRON, 14 April (IRIN) - A Palestinian charity in the West Bank city of Hebron is concerned it will be shut by the Israeli military and forced to close its orphanages and schools, employees at the institution told IRIN.

The Guardian UK - Area C strikes fear into the heart of Palestinians as homes are destroyed

Israelis defend rules that reject 94% of non-Jewish building applications

In the end it came down to a single-page letter, written in Hebrew and Arabic and hand-delivered by an Israeli army officer who knocked at the front door. The letter spelt the imminent destruction of the whitewashed three-storey home and small, tree-lined garden that Bassam Suleiman spent so long saving for and then built with his family a decade ago.

Apriil 14, 2008

Torstar - Ignatieff apologizes for Israeli war crime comment

Deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff came to Holy Blossom Temple last night to apologize for having said as a leadership candidate that Israel had committed a "war crime."

(This is a must read article. After his elaborate apology, Ignatieff sayst that : "instead of using the term "war crime," he might better have noted Israel "may have failed to comply with the Geneva Convention of the laws of war." A spade, by any other name is still a spade. I wonder if he will be called upon to apologize for this part of his apology. )

Full text of Ignatieff's speech at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.

April 11, 2008

Windsor Star - Students solve Mideast crisis

An event meant to shed light on the “crisis in Palestine” was cancelled at the University of Windsor on Tuesday following complaints that it would incite anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli bigotry.

(These Jewish students to think that shutting down free speech is a laughing matter. The flippant title of this article and the concluding quote from the campus radio host ( “So we've decided we are going to solve the Middle East crisis,” said Goldstein to laughter. “And we feel confident that we can do it.”) indicate that they find this coup quite humourous.   They won't find it so funny when Israel goes the way of its  apartheid counterpart South Africa as it inevitably will.

Occupation 101 is an excellent factual documentary. Anyone offended by it should concentrate on condemning Israeli policies rather than shutting down the truth.)

April 5, 2008

Haiven - Jewish dissent not covered by the Canadian media

Maybe I'm just getting old, but in my day newspapers and more broadly "the media" covered international speakers -- especially radical or provocative speakers-- who toured Canada.   .... However Ilan Pappe wasn't the only critic of Israel in the last week who was not covered by the press. There was the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians' first national conference on the weekend.  [See below]

April 4, 2008

Shalom Toronto - Independent Jewish Canadians unite to create alternative to the CJC

More than 100 Jews from 26 cities across Canada met March 28-30 to form an organization committed to promoting real peace and justice in the Middle East. Convened by the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC), the conference brought together Canadian Jews belonging to 18 different groups to offer an alternative to the uncritical support of Israeli policies by the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Canada-Israel Committee and B'nei Brith, as well as those of the Harper government.

( Journalist and author Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine ) delivered the keynote address for the conference. View Videos on Youtube)

Statement adopted by the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians  at its organizational conference in Toronto, March 30, 2008

We have resolved to promote the expression of alternative Jewish voices, particularly with respect to the grave situation in the Middle East, which threatens the future of both Israelis and Palestinians as well as the stability of the whole region.

 

March 31, 2008

Don't Let Canwest SLAPP* Mordecai Briemberg and YOU !

...In Canwest's Writ of Summons Mordecai's name is repeatedly linked to Canada Palestine Support Network, a group that is not even alleged to have anything to do with the parody. They [Canwest] demand a sweeping variety of remedies including an injunction restraining the defendants from "publishing injurious falsehoods by way of newspapers or other publications, on the internet or otherwise".

Is Canwest to be the arbiter of "falsehood"? Imagine the implications of that for the Charter right to free speech. Galileo had a similar problem with the Pope on the question of whether the sun revolved around the earth or vice versa....

This is what has been called a *SLAPP suit- Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. The concept and acronym were coined in the eighties to describe a tactic used by the rich and powerful, governments or corporations, to bully critics and shut down public discussion by threatening dissidents with legal costs and broad prohibitions against speaking out.

March 27, 2008

Ed Corrigan - Should the University of Western Ontario be supporting a racist organization?
University of Western Ontario President Davenport has accepted an award from the Jewish National Fund despite the protest of 36 members of the University of Western Ontario faculty. Many individuals including many Jews, contend that the JNF is a racist organization that discriminates against non-Jews.

ACJC - Jewish Alliance Condemns Feiglin Visit

The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians is troubled by the visit to Canada this Thursday by extremist Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin who is to attend a $180 a plate fundraising dinner for the Jewish Defence League, an extremist organization with questionable links. This will be Feiglin's second visit to Canada in the past year.  Earlier this month, the leader of the extremist "Jewish Leadership" faction of Likud was banned from the United Kingdom by British Home Secretary Jaqui Smith because, in the estimation of the British government, Feiglin is "seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK."

More on Feiglin and JDL.....

NOW Toronto - Temple Tempest

Meanwhile, Bernie Farber, chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress, casts doubt on the re-emergent Jewish Defense League's ability to be anything but a marginal force in Canada.

Farber says his organization had “serious concerns” about the JDL in the past in regard to its “highly inappropriate, even racist” language.

“They have come back again, as I understand it, a different version of what they were. As long as they maintain the peace, as long as they do not engage in racist language or hate or violate Canadian law, they have the right to exist. They will not in any way be connected to the mainstream, nor do they want to be, from what I understand.”

Michael Neumann, a Trent University philosophy professor and the author of The Case Against Israel, also warns against getting diverted by fears of JDL ultranationalism.

“Hell, if I'm going to be concerned about violent or extremist Jews, I'll be concerned about the Israel Defense Forces. By far the greatest threat to peace are the lobbying efforts of impeccably well-behaved, well-connected Zionists and the decent but fence-sitting Jews who allow these lobbyists to speak in their name.”

March 22, 2008

Globe and Mail - CanWest's latest battle: a 'fake newspaper'

(Mordecai Briemberg, the founder of Canpalnet (Vancouver) is the target of Canwest's latest lawsuit.)

...the dispute revolves around tension over opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Furthermore, CanWest's statement of claim filed last December against defendants that include political activist Mordecai Briemberg, alleges that the conspiracy was motivated by hostility aimed at the Asper family, who are principal shareholders in CanWest and strong supporters of Israel.

March 21, 2008

Dr. Keith Martin - Canada Must Address Immediate Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

The Canadian Government has done little to address the immediate humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Its 1.5 million residents are frequently without water, electricity, or fuel and are living in what the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) refers to as "a prolonged and persistent socio-economic crisis." In fact, conditions are now the worst seen since the 1960s.

(Dr. Keith Martin MD is the Liberal Member of Parliament for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca and the Official Opposition Critic for International Development. )

 

Condemnation of Israeli military action in Gaza.

Oxfam, Amnesty International, UNICEF, HRW....

March 18, 2008

Western News - Tolerance and Social Justice Incompatible with Award, say University Professors

Is it appropriate for a university president to accept an award for promoting tolerance and diversity from an organization whose own policies and practices have been called 'racist' and 'discriminatory' by respected human rights organizations and leading newspapers?

Thirty-six professors at Western and its affiliated colleges, including the four of us, recently posed this question to President Paul Davenport.

Update- March 13 - Davenport says his decision is final - “I hope my colleagues and the community at large, whether they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian or Hindi, will respect my decision and understand my goal is not to cause divisions at Western or in London – but rather to accept this award as recognition of the commitment by Western, as well as myself, to celebrating diversity and promoting tolerance and free speech.”

 

March 11, 2008

Canadian Jewish Groups speak out against Israeli siege of Gaza

I represent both the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians, a pan-Canadian Jewish coalition, and Not In Our Name, an Ottawa organization of Jews. ...

Today, I join many other Jews across Canada and the world, who are revolted and ashamed by what many consider the Israeli government's atrocities, war crimes, and violations of international law against Palestinian people.

 

March 8, 2008

CPNO - University of Western Ontario President to be honoured by JNF of Canada

The Jewish National Funds (JNF) bylaws and operations were deemed to represent racial discrimination by the UN Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (see Item 11 of 1998 UN Report) and by the Attorney General of Israel in 2005.

The Negev Dinners held throughout Canada masquerade as occasions to honour prominent individuals for their contributions to their community. They are actually a multi-million dollar tax deductible scams to raise money to support Israeli apartheid policies. Funds raised from JNF activities in Canada have actually gone to build Canada Park in Israel on lands confiscated from Palestinians after the 1967 war. (View CBC documentary on Canada Park.)

It is unacceptable that the President of a publicly funded university support or be associated in any way with an organization that practices institutionalized racial discrimination. 

Letters to University of Western Ontario President Dr. Paul Davenport protesting his attendance at the Negev dinner to raise funds for the JNF.

 

March 4, 2008

UN News Centre - UN rights chief urges probe into Gaza killings

...While recognizing Israel's right to defend itself, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour condemned the IDF's “disproportionate use of force,” in a statement issued today in Geneva.

“Israel, as the occupying power, bears a particular responsibility under international human rights and humanitarian law to protect the civilian population and civilian installations in Gaza,” the statement added.

M-E On-line - Canada's Response to Israel's Actions in Gaza

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier issued a news release expressing his concern about the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip. ...

What is truly deplorable is Canada's use of fine sounding rhetoric to camouflage its essentially unfailing support for Israel. ...

Canada should call on Israel to accept the Hamas offer of ‘hudna' if it truly believes, as it says, that “A cessation of violence and an improvement of the situation on the ground are key to progress.” Would not a truce be a good place to start?

March 1, 2008

Reuters - U.N. chief condemns Israel after bloody day in Gaza

GAZA (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israel for using "excessive" force in the Gaza Strip and demanded a halt to its offensive after troops killed 61 people on the bloodiest day for Palestinians since the 1980s.

Addressing an emergency session of the Security Council in New York after four days of fighting in which 96 Palestinians have been killed, many of them civilians, Ban also called on Gaza's Islamist militants to stop firing rockets.

 

February 28, 2008

Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE): Letter to PM Harper re siege of Gaza

The situation in the Gaza Strip is having a huge humanitarian impact. Therefore, we urge the .Canadian government to petition the Israeli government to lift its sanctions and cease its apparent siege of the region.

February 21, 2008

CPNO - United for Student Rights to hold public forum to address banning of "Israeli Apartheid" by McMaster administration

United for Studnt Rights (U4SR) is holding a Public Forum to discuss the
recent shocking decision by McMaster Student Union (MSU) and administration to unequivocally ban on campus the usage of the phrase "Israeli Apartheid". ...

At every point, Palestinian solidarity views have been presented as anti-Semitic and a matter of hate crimes. The most recent decision by the Provost is a ramping up of longstanding attempts to criminalize the views of students who oppose Zionist violations of the human and national rights of Palestinians.

Action and letters to McMaster protesting this suppression of freedom of speech.

Toronto Star - Still no answers on bombing of UN post

Politically, every Canadian death in Afghanistan is tragic. Supporters as well as opponents of the war mourn those killed. The dead acquire heroic status.

But Canadian Forces Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener was not lucky enough to die in Afghanistan. Politically, his death two years ago in Lebanon is - to Ottawa at least - more embarrassing than tragic. ...

This wasn't your classic case of friendly fire, where a pilot makes a split-second decision and mistakenly attacks his own. As the board of inquiry points out, the bomb that killed Hess-von Kruedener was part of a
seven-hour attack on July 25, 2006, that saw Israel lob 14 aerial bombs and 19 artillery rounds at the clearly marked UN post.


February 9, 2008

Daily Star - Canada whitewashes the death of its own

Canada's official report on the deaths of four United Nations peacekeepers - including a Canadian officer - at Israeli hands during the summer 2006 war in Lebanon is a slap in the face to those who died and their families, to those who wear the same uniforms, and to those who selflessly serve the UN around the world.

CBC News - UN officer reported Israeli war crimes before deadly bombing: widow

A United Nations military observer sent e-mails home to Canada reporting that Israel was bombing schools and waging "a campaign of terror against the Lebanese people" shortly before he was killed by an Israeli bomb in Lebanon, said his widow....

...In a statement issued Wednesday, Hess-von Kruedener called on the House of Commons to debate the findings of the board of inquiry report through the foreign minister, and take the issue to the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly.

She also asked the public to get involved by writing their MPs.

February 6, 2008

Canada condemns suicide attack in Israel

OTTAWA (AFP) - Canada vehemently condemned Monday's suicide attack in Israel and said it should not be allowed to derail the Middle East peace process.

[But the Harper government says nothing about the starvation of 1.5 million Gazans and the continuing land confiscation, extrajudicial assassination and and checkpoints in the West Bank.]

February 2, 2008

CPNO - United Church m oderator calls on Prime Minister to Help End Gaza Siege

Toronto :  In a letter sent yesterday to Stephen Harper, the Moderator of The United Church of Canada has called on the Prime Minister to use the weight of his office, and the influence of Canada's strong relationship with Israel, to call on the Israeli government to end the siege of Gaza.

 

 

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As a Canadian, I urge the Government of Canada to uphold the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding civilian populations under military occupation. Canada must:

• demand the dismantling of illegal settlements and an end to the Israeli occupation;

• ban the sale of Israeli Bonds and suspend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement until Israel complies with international law;

• call for economic and political sanctions by the global community in response to Israel’s continuing violations of international law.


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