Archives Novemberr 2006-canpalnet-ottawa

As Stephen Harper takes satisfaction in the NATO decision to free up a few more troops for deployment in southern Afghanistan, Canada seems oblivious to a major reassessment underway in Washington and elsewhere away from the military and cultural confrontations with the Muslim world.

"Attendees in designer suits and evening gowns strolling into the Fairmont Royal York on November 19 were greeted by Palestine solidarity activists chanting "Turn the tide, end Israeli apartheid."

The gala, hosted by Canadian Friends of Haifa University, was a fundraiser for the study of racism and anti-Semitism. Tickets to the affair, which were tax deductible, started at $500.

According to the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) and the Jewish group Not In Our Name (NION), protestors targeted the event to draw attention to the occupation and to the Israeli checkpoints that prevent Palestian students from attending classes. "

Jerusalem Post - Honor the agreement you signed

A little over a year ago, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn, Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz, the PA's Muhammad Dahlan and the EU reached an agreement to allow Palestinians free movement in and out of the Gaza Strip.

The Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) signed on November 15, 2005 promised Palestinians freedom of movement of people and goods. A detailed fact sheet published by the Palestinian Monitoring Group shows that since last year, none of the agreement's provisions have been fully implemented by Israel.

The situation in Palestine is worsening daily, violence and terror exercised by the Israeli Army against civil populations accompanied by further colonization, strategically aim at depriving Palestinians of all conditions to create a viable State within its 1967 borders and Jerusalem as its capital. The situation is also depriving them of any freedom of movement and access to natural resources, being closed within the wall as they are.

United Church calls on Canada to condemn Middle East violence

The Moderator of The United Church of Canada is calling on the Canadian government to condemn unequivocally the killing of almost 500 innocent Palestinian civilians since July 2006, and to call for an end to the ongoing siege of Gaza.

"The violation of human rights I think in this territory is massive," Arbour said at Beit Hanoun. "The call for protection has to be answered. We cannot continue to see civilians, who are not the authors of their own misfortune, suffer to the extent of what I see." Her comments in Gaza angered Israeli officials, and prompted a critical statement yesterday from B'nai Brith Canada, which called her fact-finding mission "yet another attempt by the UN body to delegitimize the Jewish state."

(B'nai Brith once again shows its determination to stiffle any bit of truth about the situation in Palestine.)

A 19-year old Swedish human rights worker had her cheekbone broken by a Jewish extremist in Hebron today. Earlier the same day at least five Palestinians, including a 3-year-old child, were injured by the settler-supporting extremists, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The Israeli army, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the attacks.

It is ironic that while the last Liberal and the current Conservative governments find fault with UN resolutions' wording and claim to want balance, they see no imbalance in their implicit support of Israeli daily violations of the most basic rights of Palestinians, of international law, including humanitarian law. Following the logic used by both governments, it seems that words in resolutions are more lethal than the bombs and missiles that rain on Palestinians, and should therefore be used with greater care. Are we still in 1984?

NDP Foreign Affairs and International Development Critic, Alexa McDonough (Halifax) today urged Israel to end its military offensive and withdraw from Gaza.

“Ongoing military attacks are wreaking destruction and havoc in Gaza. Israeli assaults have caused hundreds of civilian deaths with no improvement in Israeli or Palestinian security,” said McDonough.

Israel's deputy prime minister on Saturday said Israel should assassinate the Hamas leadership, ignore Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and walk away from international peace efforts.

Comment: Meanwhile some Canadian Parliamentarians are urging the government to withdraw from UNHRC arguing that it is biased against Israel....

Liberal Parliamentarians for Israel urge Conservative government to withdraw from the UNHRC

"The UN General Assembly on Friday night overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the errant shelling of a Beit Hanun house which killed some 20 Palestinians.

Representatives of 156 countries voted in favor of the resolution, seven objected and six abstained.

Voting "no" were the United States, Israel, Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau. Abstaining were Canada, Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu."

...A remarkable opportunity for peace was created by the Palestinian Declaration of Independence because therein the PNC officially endorsed a two-state solution in order to resolve the basic conflict....

This Palestinian Declaration of Independence explicitly accepted the UN General Assembly's Partition Resolution 181(II) of 1947, which called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the former Mandate for Palestine, together with an international trusteeship for the City of Jerusalem.

(This is a must read article that debunks the myth that the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel. No doubt some do not and never will, providing Zionists with an excuse for their ongoing genocidal war against all Palestinians. Until western governments hold Israel to the same standards as Palestinians, the human rights abuses will continue.)

Al-Haq is cooperating with solicitor Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers firm (PIL) as part of its efforts to secure the implementation of the July 2004 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion that found Israel's construction of the Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) to be contrary to international law.

(Comment: This is an important initiative. Members of the U.N. and signatories to the Geneva Conventions are obligated to uphold these agreements. Canada, Britain and the entire so-called civilized world have chosen not to abide by their responsibilities as they apply to Israel/Palestine. Public Interest Lawyers in the UK aims to ensure that their country abides by the international treaties that it has signed.)

It isn't the only cause of spiralling tensions between the West and the Muslim world but, symbolically, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the root of the divide. Unless it is solved quickly, says a high-powered international group of statesmen and scholars, all other efforts to end the mutual fear and suspicion will meet, at best, with limited success.

As Israeli continues its brutal assault on the Gaza Strip, Montrealers took the streets to voice solidarity with the Palestinian people. Hundreds of demonstrators marched through the heart of Montreal reflecting growing international outrage toward the latest attack on Gaza.

24.com (South Africa) SA slams Israeli attack on Gaza

South Africa accused Israel on Wednesday of being in violation of international law and the Geneva Convention by shelling a town in the Gaza Strip. Deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad condemned Israeli shelling of civilian homes in the town of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning when 18 Palestinians, including women and children, died and more than 40 were injured.

(What a difference 20 years make! In the 80s, who would have thought that South Africa could take a moral stand while Canada supports an Apartheid state.)

The Security Council this afternoon failed to adopt a resolution condemning Israeli military operations in Gaza “which have caused loss of civilian life”, as well as Palestinian rocket fire into Israel, while calling for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and a cessation of violence from both parties in the conflict. ....

Speaking prior to action on the draft, the United States representative said that the text did not display an even-handed characterization of the events in Gaza and was politically motivated.

Israeli artillery shells struck a residential neighborhood in Beit Hanun, Gaza Strip, early Wednesday morning, killing 18 civilians, including 7 minors, and wounding some 40 others. The Israeli military contended that the artillery fire was aimed at the place from which Qassam rockets were fired at Ashkelon yesterday, an area about half a kilometer from where the shells actually landed.

On November 8th, the Harper government issued a statement on the killing of civilians in Gaza, two days later it issued a statement on the killing of civilians in Sri Lanka.

The double standard could not be more blatant: while the government condemns the killing of civilians and cites international law in regards to Sri Lanka, it is only "concerned" about civilian casualties in Gaza and calls upon the Palestinian Authority (i.e. the victim) to take steps to curb that violence. This is the same Palestinian Authority which has been unable to pay its employees for 8 months and to which the Harper government cut-off aid after the democratic election of an Hamas led government.

While the government condemns an Hamas official for encouraging attacks on Israel, there has been no comment about Ehud Olmert's admission to his government of Avigdor Lieberman a member of the Knesset who advocates the expulsion of Israeli Arabs from Israel.

The National Council on Canada-Arab Relations (NCCAR) calls on Canada to strongly condemn the ongoing Israeli offensive that has led to the senseless loss of civilian lives in the Gaza Strip, and urge Israel to immediately halt its military campaign and allow for the safe passage of much-needed humanitarian aid.

The lives of Jewish Canadians, as well as the lives of Israelis, have been adversely affected by the policies carried out by the various governments of Israel. Despite growing international opposition to these policies, Israel continues to pursue a primarily military strategy while claiming to speak in the name of Jewish people around the world. In the absence of an alternative public Jewish voice, all Jewish people are tainted by default with the fallout from such policies.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) deplores the death on 3 November of two Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedics in the Gaza Strip and is deeply shocked and saddened by this event.

The two died from injuries received while performing their life-saving humanitarian work during a military operation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The ICRC is appalled by this failure to protect personnel engaged in emergency medical duties. The individuals concerned and their means of transport were clearly marked with a distinctive emblem conferring the protection of the Geneva Conventions.

The army has come in to root out the militants. Hundreds of men have been rounded up and questioned, and some have been taken away to Israel.

But in Beit Hanoun they will argue that much of the rocket fire has nothing to do with people from the town. They are just unlucky enough to live in the zone that militants use to launch their attacks.

Mahmoud, the father of 12 from Beit Hanoun, said that any ordinary person trying to stop a rocket being fired would risk being shot - accused of collaborating with the Israeli enemy.

ITN News UK - Israeli tanks and troops fire on unarmed women and children in the town of Beit Hanoun, Gaza. Watch video.

The confrontation came on day three of an increasingly bloody Israel Defense Forces campaign the army says is aimed at ending the launching of homemade Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel.

(Comment: The "army says" the campaign is aimed at ending the launching of homemade rockets into Israel. After months, no years, Israel's powerful and well-equipped army has been completely unsuccessful in stopping these attacks. Is that really the goal? And if indeed it is the goal, the method has obviously not been successful. Israel's belligerent policies have united all Palestinians behind the militants and even pushed the women to take to the streets. While Palestinian attacks on civilians within Israel are to be unequivocally condemned, Israel's reaction is also immoral and futile. After 60 years of suppressing the Palestinian people, it is time Israel tried dialogue, justice and respect for human rights if it truly wants peace.)

“The Secretary-General urges Israel to exercise maximum restraint, do their utmost to protect civilians and to refrain from further escalating an already grave situation. He also calls on Palestinian militants to stop firing rockets against Israeli civilian targets,” the statement added.

Palestine House views with the utmost al arm Israel 's invasion of the northern Gaza Strip that began on the morning of 1 November. Eyewitness reports indicate that Israeli troops and tanks have occupied the town of Beit Hanoun and surrounding areas under the cover of helicopter fire.

Palestine House is extremely concerned that this recent invasion foreshadows a further acceleration of Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian civilian population. From 29 September 2000 to October 16 2006 , 4266 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military or settlers. This is equivalent to approximately two Palestinians killed every single day of the last six years.

Canadian Foreign minister Peter MacKay delivered a pro-Israel speech several days ago at a Bonds Gala event in Montreal.

MacKay made it clear that a threat on Israel meant a threat on Canada in his speech at an event honoring Canadian businessman Ralph Benatar, one of Canada’s veteran leaders of the North American Jewish community.

Meanwhile, our friend in the Middle East violates Lebanese airspace. Is it just for fun or another provocation......

CTV News - Israel jets stage mock raids over Beirut

Israeli fighter jets staged mock raids over Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut and two southern towns on Tuesday in the heaviest show of air power over Lebanon since an August ceasefire ended the war between Israel and the guerrillas.