Archives Nov 05-canpalnet-ottawa

The official political leadership of Israel's more than one million Palestinian citizens issued a manifesto in Nazareth last week demanding a raft of changes to end the systematic discrimination exercised against non-Jews by the state since its creation nearly six decades ago.

At first glance the announcement that the Israeli government has approved construction of a new illegal settlement in the West Bank [source] would seem to contradict recent statements by PM Olmert and other cabinet members that appear to signal Israel is open to new peace negotiations with Palestinian PM Abbas [source]. However, there are a number of similar instances where Israel has chosen, just as peace talks or a truce were about make progress, to take hostile actions, assassinations, etc., that provoke Palestinian violence, with the consequence of delaying or destroying negotiations.

On clear example (of many) is the assassination of Mahmud Abu Hunud, a senior Hamas leader, five years ago. Yediot Aharonot, Israel's biggest mass-circulation paper, Nov. 25, 2001, carried a commentary by Alex Fishman that was sharply critical of the killing, insisting that the move was done for the purpose of ending a Hamas-delared
truce.

It appears Israel is jerking the US around - or the tail is wagging the dog in the popular metaphor - and the US doesn' t get the joke. Jimmy Carter is right in his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid when he says the debate about US support for Israel is censored in the US media.

Carl Reynolds
Sherwood, Oregon

There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist". From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to acknowledge that it was "right" that the Holocaust happened -- that the Holocaust (or, in the Palestinian case, the Nakba) was morally justified.

.....What the Peace Now researchers found is that state organs stole private lands from Palestinians living in the West Bank. The report found that state bodies broke the law, ignored Supreme Court decisions and behaved dishonestly, and certainly unethically. Peace Now claimed that 130 settlements were established, fully or partially, on private lands. Note: These are properties that the state recognized as private land, not private properties that were declared to be state land.

In two days, a third of humanity will gather to celebrate the birth pains of a Palestinian refugee in Bethlehem - but two millennia later, another mother in another glorified stable in this rubble-strewn, locked-down town is trying not to howl.

The National Council on Canada-Arab Relations (NCCAR) considers Prime Minister Stephen Harper's latest statement in reference to the conflict on the Middle East inaccurate, reckless and detrimental to Canadian interests.

Stopthewall.org - Christmas against the Apartheid Wall

Each year before Christmas, believers and activists alike take the occasion to raise awareness about the occupation of Palestine, in particular its devastating effects on Bethlehem.

Haaretz - Woman beaten on Jerusalem bus for refusing to move to rear seat

(Comment: Pro-Israel advocates are very fond of telling us that women are not treated equally in Arab countries. Here is an enlightening article about women in Isarel.)

A woman who reported a vicious attack by an ad-hoc "modesty patrol" on a Jerusalem bus last month is now lining up support for her case and may be included in a petition to the High Court of Justice over the legality of sex-segregated buses.

What Carter is arguing is that the best interests of Israel and the United States are not served by the current policies. Some still cling to the fantasy that holding on to land in the West Bank will improve Israeli security, but, as the recent war with Hezbollah conclusively showed, increasing sophistication of military technologies makes holding land no serious barrier for those who wish to send rockets and bombs hundreds of miles away.

Despite the brouhaha from the Israeli lobby, the boycott and anti-apartheid campaign are picking up steam at home and around the world with such noteworthy supporters as Jimmy Carter.

NDP Foreign Affairs and International Development Critic Alexa McDonough (Halifax) today expressed deep disappointment that the federal Conservative government has not yet responded to the UN's recent $450 million emergency appeal for humanitarian aid for the Palestinians – the largest ever for the Palestinians.

Deployment of an effective international human rights monitoring mechanism;
The investigation and and prosecution through the excercise of universal jurisdiction of those responsible for crimes under international law;
Immediate halting of the sale or transfer of weapons to all parties in the conflict;
Concrete provisions to ensure the removal of Israeli settlements from the Occupied Territories, the dismantling of the fence/wall inside the West Bank, ending the closures and in the long term a fair solution to the refugee question.

L.A. Times - Speaking frankly about Israel and Palestine

The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations — but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize any policies of the Israeli government is because of the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices.

Haaretz - Israeli official 'not sorry' Tutu's Beit Hanun mission canceled

Israeli diplomatic sources said last night they were not sorry that the United Nation's fact-finding mission to investigate Israeli-Palestinian violence in Beit Hanoun was canceled.

The mission, headed by Nobel laureate and former Cape Town archbishop Desmond Tutu, came to investigate the killing of 19 Palestinian civilians in Beit Hanoun at the beginning of November.

The sources said that the six-member delegation was "one-sided and cynical."

Also, a flyer targeting Mr. Rae was circulated among some delegates during the convention. It attacked him for having delivered a speech to the Jewish National Fund, a group it accused of "war crimes" and "ethnic cleansing."

Comment: These flyers were indeed in very bad taste but Dion and the CJC can condemn all they want, Canadians have a right to know. The issue here should not be the flyers but the Raes.

Bob Rae's wife is VP of the CJC, a propaganda organization that has influenced our politicians and media with money and fear for years in order to advance the cause of a foreign state that is in violation of 65 UN Resolutions.

Bob Rae spoke at the Jewish National Fund dinner. This is an organization that has been key in establishing an apartheid regime over the Palestinian people. (Read more on the JNF here and here.)

The Azzeh apartment directly faces an Israeli military watchtower which is built on top of the Israeli annexation wall built illegally on Palestinian land. Ayed told us how much everyone feared the Israeli snipers in the tower. Yesterday, Ayed's 12 year old nephew Miras was shot through the back by an Israeli sniper from that tower.

Our family is shocked, deeply saddened…and words cannot express our outrage that the “civilised world” does nothing to end Israel's ugly, brutal, immoral and illegal occupation. (Carolle, Montreal)

(A must read article on thereport of the Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker.)

Baker says simply: In order to stop the war in Iraq and start a reconciliation with the Arab world, the US must bring about the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He does not say explicitly that peace must be imposed on Israel, but that is the obvious implication.

The Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) condemns the attempt by the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) to disparage and defame CAF. Contrary to what the CJC claimed, CAF did not produce a flyer attacking Bob Rae nor was it involved in sending it to parliamentarians or distributing it at the recent Federal Liberal Leadership Convention . However, CAF believes that Canadians have the right to know the factual information provided in the email by Ron Saba of Montreal Planet Magazine and his right to denounce Israeli apartheid and criticize those who support it.

New Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, whose riding of St. Laurent-Cartierville has large Jewish and Arab communities, both traditionally supportive of the party, has endeavoured to walk a fine line on the Middle East. ...

Dion was critical of Harper's support of Israel during last summer's conflict with Hezbollah, calling for a more even-handed approach, because of Canada's friendship with Lebanon as well as with Israel, and urging an immediate ceasefire.

Felton - Bad news for The Lobby means good news for the rest of us

As years go, 2006 has been dismal for Canada politically. On almost every front, the country's reputation, civil liberties and self-respect have taken a shellacking...
However, all is not bleak. The unexpected selection this month of Quebec MP Stéphane Dion as Liberal leader is the first good political news Canadians have had in a long time, and reason to be at least cautiously optimistic about 2007.

(Although charges were stayed the threat of arrest once again sent an Israeli official running.)