March 30, 2006
PRESS RELEASE- NCCAR Troubled by Canada 's Decision to Suspend Aid and Ties to Palestinian Authority
NCCAR believes the decision to suspend ties with the PA was taken too hastily. “The PA, President Mahmoud Abbas and even Hamas since its electoral win have made numerous statements about a willingness to negotiate with Israel and a continued commitment to maintaining a ceasefire, which has held for more than a year," explained Mr. Amery. "That Canada was the first western nation to take this measure is surprising as it further undermines Canada 's position as an honest broker in the region and may advance the position of radicals within the Hamas-led PA and undermine moderate actors," he added.
Letters from Canada Palestine Assoc. to Peter McKay and Alexa McDonough regarding their statements (see March 29) on the decision to suspend aid to the Palestinian authority
You call on the new Palestinian Government to recognise the state of Israel and all previous agreements. Which state of Israel are you asking the new Palestinian government to recognise? The state of Israel, since its inception, has refused to define it borders. Israeli first prime minister, David Ben Gurion stated clearly Israel's expansionist programme. In 1954, after Israel had already occupied half of the state assigned for the Palestinians, in UN Resolution # 181, thus taking contol of 78% of historic Palestine, he stated: " To maintain the status quo will not do. We have set up a dynamic state bent upon axpansion" [Rebirth and destiny of Israel, The Philosophical Press, New York, 1954, p.419].
March 29, 2006
JOINT STATEMENT BY MINISTER MACKAY AND MINISTER VERNER ON NEW PALESTINIAN GOVERNMENT AND ASSISTANCE TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
NDP STATEMENT REGARDING SUSPENSION OF DIRECT CANADIAN AID TO THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
Montreal Planet - Joint statement exhibits fundamental racism
There will never be a clearer illustration of the fundamental racism which underpins our government's policy on Palestine than the issuance today of the joint statement. This announcement comes exactly one day after Israel elected a government which has pledged to draw its own (illegal) borders deep into Palestine in total contravention of international law, UN resolutions, the so-called "roadmap" and long standing Canadian policy.
March 27, 2006
Himmelstein - Outing the bashful behemoth
While Israel's Separation Wall goes forward on the ground, wreaking havoc in Palestinian lives, Israel's public relations wall in North America is beginning to crumble.
Much to its dismay, the robust pro-Israel establishment in the United States finds itself increasingly in the public spotlight. This month, it was jolted by a devastating critique of its reach and clout by two heavyweight scholars in international affairs who provide a systematic factual review of the United States-Israel relationship.
March, 26, 2006
Torstar - The potent power of saying no
Hamas is criticized for "not recognizing Israel" but Israel has never explicitly recognized the Palestinians' right to self-determination, and never negotiated with Mahmoud Abbas despite his government's recognition of Israel.
(Jeff Halper, the author of the opinion piece is co-ordinator of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and a candidate for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.)
G&M - A book for all ages
I hardly think Deborah Ellis's Three Wishes , a book of interviews with Palestinian and Israeli kids, is "age inappropriate" for kids in Grades 4 to 6, as the Canadian Jewish Congress claims. The world our kids live in is age inappropriate, but they have to live there. So do schools, libraries and authors.
(Globe and Mail columnist Rick Salutin is Jewish. This is a profound review of the book Three Wishes)
March 23, 2006
Montreal Planet - Canada, a safe haven for war criminals
Despite requests from Canadian human rights groups, Justice Minister Vic Toews and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg, both members of the the pro-Israel lobby group "Canada Israel Freindship Group" are allowing accused war criminal Israeli Lt. Gen. (ret.) General Moshe Ya'alon into Canada today. This despite the fact that he would be arrested for war crimes if he were to set foot in the UK and despite the fact that he is the target of an action accusing him of war crimes in the US.
March 22, 2006
Ynet - Canada asked to detain former IDF head
Arabs, Jews representing left-wing organizations ask Canadian government to detain former Chief of Staff Yaalon upon his expected arrival in Toronto for suspicion of committing war crimes. Yaalon consults Israeli ambassador in Ottawa, decides make trip anyway
Native author Lee Maracle - On the AFN visit to Palestine
I have been a consistent and clear supporter of the rights of the Palestinian people to their homeland free of Israeli occupation and annihilation since 1972, so it was with much shame and chagrin that I read that the AFN sent a delegation to Israel, to commune with the Israelis and to share culture, language, religion, tradition and values. What a shock! First, this is tantamount to laying a wreath at Vorster's grave in the interest of [honoring apartheid] or traveling to the U.S. to share the values of the Custer Committee celebrating the massacre at Wounded Knee. Just exactly what values is the AFN sharing with the Israeli's?
March 20, 2006
Press Release - Jewish progressives in Canada assert themselves
NEW CANADIAN JEWISH ORGANIZATION URGES HARPER'S CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT NOT TO ABANDON CANADA'S NEUTRAL STANCE ON ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT.
MONTREAL - The Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians, a newly created national umbrella organization of progressive Jewish individuals and groups, would like the Harper government to know that its shifting policy on Israel does not represent the universal wishes of Jewish Canadian.
Messages from Israeli activists - Lina and Checkpoints
In addition to the checkpoint, new apartheid measures are cropping up almost daily in the Salfit area of the West Bank-fences, fences and more fences, for one. Sniper towers, for another. And the latest addition is gates at the entrances to villages, gates that soldiers can close at will. Moreover, some villages that previously had 2 or 3 entrances, have had all but one blocked, which means that a person living at the end of the village where access has been shut off might have to travel kilometers to exit his/her village. APARTHEID is clearly increasing, as are signs of Israel's non-intention to return any of the West Bank to the Palestinians.
March 19, 2006
Amnesty International News release - Jericho Prison Events
Amnesty International also raised its concerns with the UK and US governments about their role in supervising detainees held outside any legal framework and in violation of the provisions of international human rights treaties which the UK and US have ratified and have a duty to uphold – notably Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantee the rights to liberty and fair trial and the corresponding prohibition of arbitrary detention.
March 18, 2006
Haaretz - Avneri likens Ze'evi death to IDF killings; 'Yassin outranked Ze'evi'
Asked by a reporter if he stood by his description of the killing of an Israeli cabinet minister in a Jerusalem hotel as a focused prevention, Avneri replied, "We have killed dozens of people of the stature of cabinet ministers on the other side.
(CPNO comment: Uri Avneri, a former member of the Israeli Knesset and a well known Israeli peace activist, compares Israel's assassination of Palestinian leaders and the assassination of right wing-Israeli cabinet Minister Rehavam Ze'evi. Ze'evi openly advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Territories. In blunt legal parlance Ze'evi was a war criminal who openly advocated ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Torstar - "On books, censorship and political pressure"
The Toronto school board has joined those in York, Essex and Ottawa in restricting access to a book about the Arab-Israeli conflict.... the Canadian Jewish Congress argued that the book is not suitable for young children, and called for its removal from the popular program."
The librarians stood by their choice, backed by the Association of Canadian Publishers, the Writers' Union, the Playwrights Guild, PEN Canada and the Freedom to Read Committee of the Book and Periodical Council.
March 15, 2006
Press Release - European Parliament Development Commission:
THE ASSAULT ON JERICHO PRISON IS A SCANDAL
"The escalation of violence that we are witnessing today with the Israeli army assault on Jericho prison is scandalous. Israel cynically and brutally continues to use force to enter the Palestinian territories, to kill, to brutalise, and to violate any type of legality. This time the Israeli army does not even have the excuse of responding to an attack. What is emerging from Israel's attitude is solely a pitiless and cruel logic of vendetta and of the most brutal colonial domination."
Al Jazeera - Recognising Israel 'is up to the people'
Hamas published a draft of its government programme on its website on Saturday.
The fifth article in the programme says: " The question of recognising Israel is not the jurisdiction of one faction, nor the government, but a decision for the Palestinian people."
Torstar - Mideast book off limits to younger students
The Toronto District School Board has joined the York public board in declaring Three Wishes by Deborah Ellis inappropriate for younger children. Older elementary students in Toronto will have to borrow copies from a librarian or teacher's office as it will no longer be stocked on school library shelves, said board chair Sheila Ward yesterday.
The decision comes in light of a letter earlier this year from the Canadian Jewish Congress, asking school boards to remove Three Wishes from the list of recommended readings from the Ontario Library Association's Silver Birch Awards.
March 13, 2006
CIC Media Communiqué - Harper government's U.N. NO vote on Palestinian Right of Return goes against Canadian values
The Canadian Islamic Congress has expressed disappointment and concern that the Canadian delegation voted on Friday against the first resolution concerning Palestinian welfare to come before the United Nations since Stephen Harper's Conservative government took office. (See G&M article on Canada's UN vote.)
Also, on Friday, March 11, 2006, Canada voted against a resolution critical of Israel in the Commission on the Status of Women. Last year, Canada abstained from the same resolution, which condemns Israel for its treatment of Palestinian women. (CTV.Ca and UN Commission on the Status of Women)
Ynet - Don't say you didn't know
Twice a day, every day small groups of [Israeli] women (up to five members) set out for checkpoints around the West Bank, from Jenin in the north, to Hebron in the south.....
We want to highlight the violence, the moral deterioration, the lack of free movement, the persecution and violation of the Palestinians' most fundamental human rights. The group was founded in February, 2001.
At the end of each vigil we write a detailed report, in Hebrew and English, of everything we've seen and heard, and post it on our website. Many of us also carry cameras, and our annual reports and other publications are distributed to government bodies, Knesset members, legal and security officials, and local and foreign media.
March 12, 2006
Torstar - Editorial misled, but word `manipulative' went too far
CLARIFICATION
In a column Feb. 28 about the need for caution when using Web sources, Toronto Star media writer Antonia Zerbisias pointed to a Globe and Mail editorial about Hamas published Feb. 15, 2006. The Globe editorial encouraged readers to "take a look at a video presented on the Hamas website this week," then quoted from the video of two suicide bombers, date stamped 2004. The editorial urged the federal government to withhold aid from the newly-elected Hamas government until Hamas renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist.
No web address was provided. In response to a reader's request for the address, the editorial writer sent the link to his source. It was not "the Hamas website" noted in the editorial but the website of Palestinian Media Watch, an organization based in Israel and directed by Itamar Marcus, who lives in Efrat, a West Bank settlement. The PMW's source for the video was a site classified as one of hundreds of Hamas supporter sites and not as an official Hamas site, the Star has been advised. In her column Zerbisias fairly concluded the Globe editorial misled readers about the source of the video. The column also suggested the editorial may have been manipulative, a description the Star regrets.
(Click here for original G&M article. See Canpalnet-Ottawa, Feb. 23, Sabawi - Editorial Delusions at the Globe and Mail: Hamas and the Missing Video for background.)
CP - Jewish Congress-paid trip to Israel has national chief on defensive
Mitzi Brown, a Labrador Inuit who is now a Toronto-based student and journalist, has seen first-hand the squalor of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
"The (assembly) may want to paint it as a cultural exchange, but it sends the message that they represent the views of indigenous people in Canada and that they side with Israel in this conflict." Fontaine does not speak for all aboriginal people and he should focus on problems at home, she said.
March 11, 2006
Haaretz - UN expert: Jewish settlers 'terrorize' Palestinians
Jewish settlers are able to "terrorize" Palestinians with impunity, intimidating children on their way to school and destroying farmers' trees and crops, a United Nations expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict said in a report.
G&M - MacKay retreats on money for Hamas
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay tried to get Ottawa 's Middle Eastern policy back in sync yesterday with a clarification saying Canadian aid to the Palestinian Authority is still under review and is subject to conditions set by Prime Minister Stephen Harper last month.
His written statement was issued one day after the new Conservative minister said "some Canadian aid will continue" to the Palestinian Authority on the basis of third-party assurances from Russia that the money would not be diverted for military purposes or to finance terrorism by Hamas.
Yesterday, Mr. MacKay was back on script after Jewish and Israeli support groups sought clarification.
Guardian - Hamas says peace possible at Moscow talks
Russia's controversial talks with the new Palestinian Hamas leadership opened yesterday with the radical Islamic group saying peace was possible with Israel if it returned to its pre-1967 borders and allowed Palestinian refugees to return home.
March 7, 2006
Al Jazeera - Hamas rejects al-Qaida reprimand
Hamas has rejected al-Qaida criticism for taking part in the Palestinian elections, saying the movement had contested the polls on the basis of "Islam as the solution".
We are a movement that neither brands other Muslims as infidels, nor abandons them. We are a movement that lives with the people in a real world and try to attract them to Islam through wisdom and good advice.
Daily Star - Gazan Christians have faith in their relations with Hamas
Hamas knows that Palestinian society contains many different shapes, ideas and political colors, and knows also that if it were to try to force the whole of society to act against their beliefs and against their will, it will lose in the long run," he said.
As Christians, "we are sharing the same problems, the same suffering from the [Israeli] occupation, the high rate of unemployment, the bad economic situation.
March 5, 2006
CRIN - Over 200 Palestinian Children Arrested in Two Months
Israeli occupation forces are arresting scores of Palestinian children each week, bringing the number of juveniles currently held in appalling conditions in Israeli detention centres and prisons to new record levels.
MEDIA COMMUNIQUÉ - CIC asks why Canadian media are silent after Nazareth church attacked by Jewish extremists
Following Friday's attack on a Nazareth church, the Canadian Islamic Congress is speaking out in support of Palestinian Christians whose precarious minority status in Israel is almost completely ignored by the rest of the world.
"Why didn't the Canadian media cover this story?" asked today's CIC statement.
TorStar - Students upset at proposed book ban
A 9-year-old student and others are upset that school board officials have decided a non-fiction book on Middle East troubles is unfit for reading by youngsters.
(CPNO note - The horror of the Holocaust however is not considered unsuitable for children 8 to 11 years old. Could there be another motive here?)
March 3, 2006
Greg Felton - Globe and Mail 's anti-Hamas editorial reveals plagiarism, prejudice and Israeli servitude
So long as Gee penned his poisoned prattle under his own name he risked only his own reputation. Now, in his capacity as editorial page editor, Gee's zionist hubris has tainted the reputation of the entire paper. At issue is Gee's Feb. 15 editorial “See Hamas for what it is,” ...
Haaretz - IDF officers: We have less freedom than terrorists
Senior Israel Defense Forces officers are outraged over the army's decision to prevent one of their number from traveling to Britain for fear he might be arrested as a war criminal, charging that leading Hamas terrorists now enjoy more freedom of movement than IDF officers.
March 1, 2006
Canada Palestine Association - Letter to Globe and Mail on Israeli state terrorism
....assassination of the Swedish nobleman, Count Folke Bernadotte, a UN mediator, on Sept. 17, 1948...... The first act of air piracy in the history of civil aviation was carried out by Israel in 1954, when a civilian Syrian airliner was forced down in Tel Aviv....The first act of shooting down a civilian airliner was deliberately carried out by Israel when a Libyan airliner was shot down by Israeli jet fighters over Sinai in February 1973.....In June 1967, Israeli forces attacked the U.S. spy ship USS Liberty, and strafed rescue boats, killing 35 and injuring 170 U.S. servicemen, in an attempt to conceal its own secret communications, and again tried to blame it on the Egyptians..... In 1940, Menachem Begin's Irgun Zwei Leumi terrorist gang bombed the ship Patria in Haifa harbor, killing 240 Jewish refugees, so as to put the blame on the British for political gain.
