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January 31, 2008 UN Rights Chief Vs. Endorsement Of Arab Charter January 28, 2008 LIFT THE BLOCKADE! Israeli Peace Activist Convoy to Gaza Janaury 24, 2008 CONDEMNATION OF ISRAELI WAR CRIMES IN GAZA Joint Statement to the 6th Special Session of the Human Rights Council International Youth and Student Movement for the United Nations and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom [The Independent is one of the UKs major newspapers. Note the amount of information in this article - something rarely found in Canadian newspapers.) Israel has a right to attempt to stop the attacks on its civilian population, but not by any means. International law specifically forbids collective punishment of occupied populations. The Geneva Conventions stipulate that occupying powers have an obligation to supply utilities such as water and power to occupied populations. Israel has attempted to get around this by arguing that it is no longer bound by the law governing the administration of occupied territories because it withdrew its troops from Gaza in 2005. But that is thoroughly unconvincing. Israel still controls Gaza's borders, airspace and territorial waters. The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) and the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) today called on all Canadians and people of conscience everywhere to condemn ongoing Israeli war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, also slammed the killing of Palestinians in other attacks and the closing of border crossings. Neturei Karta: IDF conducting ethnic cleansing in Gaza
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National Council of Canada-Arab Relations |
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Sign Petition to End the Health Crisis in Gaza |
Health Crisis - Gaza Children (video) |
January 20, 2008
Reuters - Gaza power plant begins shutting down
On Friday, Israel's Defence Ministry tightened its Gaza border closure, shutting all crossings to even U.N. humanitarian supplies. Officials said only "humanitarian cases" that received Defence Minister Ehud Barak's approval would go through.
January 19, 2008
NCCAR - Letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Bernier
(Background: On his recent trip to Israel, F.A. Minister Maxime Bernier affirmed that, in Canada's view settlements are "contrary to the peace process," but he refused to say whether the big Jerusalem development of Har Homa qualifies as a settlement. Israel says no. The UN and Washington say yes. Could this have anything to do with the fact that the Minister was accompanied on the trip by members of the Canada-Israel Committee, a powerful pro Israel lobby group? How many other communities send their lobbyists to chaperone the minister?)
Minister, your statements suggest that the government may have two different policies: one for the benefit of concerned Canadians interested in justice and for people in the region with whom Canadians may wish to do business; and another for Israeli media and hard-line members of the pro-Israel Canadian communities. If Canadian policy has indeed changed, as is implied by your declaration on Har Homa, we suggest that you make the necessary modifications on your website to clarify the “new” Canadian policy and announce this in Parliament.
January 15, 2008
G&M - Bernier's silence raises questions
Or is it? Canada's Foreign Minister, Maxime Bernier, seemed unsure yesterday.
Tacitly accepting construction at Har Homa would mark a shift in Canada's position.
A shift would hardly be a first for the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. At the urging of Jewish and pro-Israeli lobby groups, the Conservative government has moved to change its position on 13 separate long-standing United Nations resolutions pertaining to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
January 13, 2008
CJN - Foreign Affairs minister visits Mideast for first time
(Note: A team from the Canada Israel Committe (CIC) lobby group will accompany Bernier. Hell, Canada could save a few bucks by leaving Bernier at home and just sending the CIC...)
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, left, is scheduled to make his first visit to Israel this week.
The six-day trip - Jan. 9 to 14 - will see the minister meet with "a
range of high-ranking officials, political leaders and civil society
representatives," his office said in a statement. A CIC team will be travelling to Israel with the minister.
January 8, 2008
Ongoing ethnic cleansing in the democratic state of Israel...
While Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas were wheeling and dealing at Annapolis, several Israeli government ministries and security agencies were deploying their combined resources in a massive operation aimed at Israel's southern Negev Desert. While the eyes of the world are on the West Bank and Gaza, Israel is in the middle of a campaign to complete the displacement of Palestinian Arabs who are also Israeli citizens.
January 6, 2008
(MUST READ - Israeli apologists never cease to claim that Palestinians teach their children to hate Israel. Israeli mother and peace activist Nurit Peled-Elhanan exposes the hate and dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli textbooks.)
Palestinians, both citizens and those who live under occupation, are never presented as modern, industrious individuals but always stereotypically, in racist vocabulary and racist visuals, as terrorists, as a demographic problem or as third-world 'Oxfam Images' of primitive farmers (Hicks 1980), namely as a developmental burden. Their "inferiority" is presented as a natural condition or their 'lot' and their misfortunes are either a "tragedy", an act of fate, or their own doing. Their tradition is made to signify "backwardness", and their discrimination is represented as a national necessity.