Collectif Échec à la guerre et Voix juives indépendantes: À Gaza, un génocide est en cours.. 12-02-2023

 

Depuis une trentaine d'heures, Israël a repris sa guerre génocidaire contre la bande de Gaza.    Nous employons le mot génocidaire à dessein et c'est pour alerter plus largement l'opinion publique québécoise à cet égard que le Collectif a publié ce matin, conjointement avec Voix juives indépendantes–Montréal, une demi-page dans l'édition papier du quotidien Le Devoir sous le titre À l'approche du 75è anniversaire de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l'Homme : À GAZA, UN GÉNOCIDE EST EN COURS ET LE CANADA EN EST COMPLICE. Nous avons également publié un plein écran de trois paragraphes dans l'édition tablette du Devoir, avec un lien vers la déclaration complète sur notre site.   Cliquez ici pour visionner la demi-page complète du Devoir en format PDF   La quasi-totalité des médias corporatifs, au Québec, au Canada et dans tous les pays occidentaux regardent ailleurs pendant que le crime ultime se déroule présentement à Gaza. Faisant fi de la véritable communauté internationale, ils ne rendent pas compte de l'extrême gravité de la situation et des alertes lancées par de nombreux experts à travers le monde et par les rapporteurs spéciaux des Nations Unies. Faisant fi de ce qui se passe dans leurs propres pays, ils ne rendent pas compte non plus du mouvement de solidarité avec le peuple palestinien, d'une ampleur sans précédent, engagé dans des actions quasi-quotidiennes de protestation, dont d'énormes manifestations chaque fin de semaine à Montréal et plusieurs autres villes. Des journalistes du réseau Bell Média ont même révélé que « des producteurs et des rédacteurs en chef de toutes les plateformes de Bell Media, la société mère de CTV, ont dénigré les invités palestiniens [et] ont dit aux employés que les manifestations appelant à un cessez-le-feu ne devaient pas faire l'objet d'un reportage ».   Face à cet aveuglement volontaire des médias grand public, alignés sur les positions du Gouvernement du Canada qui, lui aussi, regarde ailleurs, c'est à nous tous et toutes qu'il incombe de faire connaître la gravité de ce qui se passe présentement à Gaza et la complicité du Canada.   C'est pour cela que le Collectif a décidé qu'il était urgent de faire paraître cette demi-page dans Le Devoir (sans attendre les 2-3 semaines de plus qu'il aurait fallu pour recueillir des signatures et des contributions pour sa publication) et de le faire conjointement avec Voix juives indépendantes–Montréal.   Dans les prochaines semaines, nous allons aussi créer sur notre site Internet un espace où nous documenterons davantage la nature génocidaire de ce qui est présentement en cours à Gaza et les avis de nombreux experts à ce sujet.   Les multiples crimes contre l'humanité et l'entreprise génocidaire actuelle de l'État d'Israël doivent cesser. Exigeons la fin de la complicité canadienne!   Merci de faire circuler dans vos réseaux.   Solidairement, contre la guerre et le militarisme! Martine Eloy et Raymond Legault, pour le Collectif Échec à la guerre

Pour suivre l'actualité du Collectif Échec à la guerre : https://www.facebook.com/echecalaguerre https://echecalaguerre.org Notre adresse postale est : Collectif Échec à la guerre UPS Store 306, # 127 765 rue Beaubien Est Montréal, QC,  H2S 1S8 N.B. Il n'y a pas de bureau du Collectif à cet endroit, ce n'est qu'une adresse postale.   ATTENTION : Si vous relayez ce message à d'autres personnes, assurez-vous de supprimer la portion ci-dessous (dans le message relayé). Sinon, vos destinataires pourraient VOUS désinscrire de cette liste en cliquant sur le dernier lien ! SI VOUS NE SOUHAITEZ PLUS RECEVOIR DE MESSAGES DE CE TYPE, utilisez le lien ci-dessous : Pour vous désinscrire de cette liste

Dear Member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Foreign Affairs Minister, by: Khaled Mouammar

Dear Member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Foreign Affairs Minister

 

A message from: Khaled Mouammar

Jun 28, 2023

 

The Israeli military has an entire territorial division with six brigades on the ground in the occupied West Bank to protect illegal settlers whose mere presence is a war crime according to Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the ICC.

It doesn’t make any sense that an army that can pinpoint suspected Palestinian activists in Nablus, a city of 170,000 people, cannot keep tabs on gangs of settlers operating in an area where the army has full control.

From June 20 to June 24, armed gangs of settlers committed 35 pogroms in the Palestinian villages of Turmus Ayya, Luban al-Gharbiyeh, Burqa, Kufr al-Dik, Birin, Kisan, Husan, Yasuf, Urif, Susya and Umm Safa as well as on the road between Nahalin and Jaba in the occupied West Bank. In many cases, Israeli soldiers accompanied settlers in their rampage and did little to restrain them and in some instances assisted the settlers.

 

Israeli officials pay lip service against settler pogroms in the occupied West Bank while in reality the settlers have always been able to commit these crimes because they have always been backed and protected by Israel’s occupation forces.

Four months after settlers committed a pogrom in the town of Hawara on February 26 torching homes, cars and shops and killing one Palestinian, Israel still has not prosecuted anyone suspected of taking part in the rampage although 17 settlers were suspected of involvement in the pogrom.

 

Military Intelligence can promptly track suspected Palestinian activists in the occupied West Bank and arrest or kill them but they will not arrest or prosecute gangs of settlers going on rampage.

Moreover, settlers are backed and protected by three top government officials who live in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich  who is also Minister responsible for Civil Administration in the West Bank lives in the settlement of Kedumim, Minister of National Missions Orit Strock  and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir live in a settlement in Hebron. All three have expressed support for settlers going on rampage.  So the only difference between this government and past ones is that it is out in the open.

Israel did not hesitate to commit a war crime by moving settlers into the occupied West Bank, to enable it to ultimately annex the West Bank, and its occupation forces are stationed there to protect those settlers. These occupation forces will not raise a hand when settlers attack Palestinians but they are quick to fire at Palestinians who defend themselves from settler attacks.

The temporary status of “occupation” of the Palestinian territories is now a permanent condition in which one state ruled by one group of people rules over another group of people

All the territory west of the Jordan River has constituted since 1967 a single state under Israeli rule, where the land and the people are subject to radically different legal regimes, and Palestinians are permanently treated as a lower caste.

As a result, it is no longer possible to avoid confronting a one-state apartheid reality. Canadian policymakers and analysts who ignore this one-state apartheid reality will be condemned to failure and irrelevance, doing little beyond providing a smokescreen for the entrenchment of the status quo that inflicts racism and pogroms on indigenous Palestinian Semites.

 

Canadian Jews call on Canada to condemn Israeli minister's comments and take action

 

La version française suit For immediate release 2 March 2023–Independent Jewish Voices Canada is calling for immediate action by the Canadian government in response to yesterday’s comments by a senior Israeli minister that the Palestinian town of Huwara should be “wiped out”.  Speaking at a conference hosted by news publication The Marker, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also the minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of civilian affairs in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, said he thinks “the village of Huwara needs to be wiped out” and that “the State of Israel should do it” rather than private citizens. Huwara is a Palestinian town on the outskirts of Nablus surrounded by settlements, long subject to violence from Israeli settlers and orchestrated infrastructure shut-downs from the Israeli government. The Minister’s comments come a few days after Israeli settlers went on a violent rampage in Huwara and neighbouring villages, which has been widely labelled a pogrom, including by the Israeli military general in charge of troops in the West Bank and the former Director of the Anti-Defamation League. 400+ Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Huwara, Zaatara, Burin, and Asira al-Qibliya, burning dozens of homes and killing a 37 year old Palestinian man while wounding hundreds as Israeli forces stood by. The man who was killed, Samih al-Aqtash, had just returned from volunteering in Turkey to help earthquake victims. He was the 67th Palestinian killed by either the Israeli army or vigilante settlers this year alone.   A pogrom is a violent riot with the specific intent to massacre or expel a specific group of people. It emerged as a Yiddish word in the late nineteenth century to describe the attacks on Jews across the Russian empire. We use the word “pogrom” to recognize that Israeli settlers are recreating the kind of targeted, racialized terrorism that targeted Jews in Europe. We use this word to recognize the hypocrisy of claims that Jewish settler riots are protecting Jewish safety.  Many Canadian and Israeli Jews, including many of our members, have ancestors who lived through these horrific, targeted antisemitic riots in Europe. Many of our members are also descended from, or are themselves, survivors of ethnic cleansing and genocide. These atrocities often started with pogroms that were officially ignored or officially enabled.  Yesterday’s comments by Smotrich are a clear validation of Sunday’s pogrom and constitute an explicit call for ethnic cleansing if not outright genocide. To this we say loudly and unequivocally: “not in our name.” What we are witnessing in Israel is shocking, but it is by no means an aberration. Emboldened by the impunity afforded to them by the likes of Canada and other Western governments, the Israeli government and settler groups are simply more explicit about their settler-colonial aims to displace, replace, and keep Palestinians out from the lands they claim. Israel was founded on the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians, known as the Nakba, or "catastrophe", which continues to this day, 75 years later. IJV calls on Canada to clearly articulate what the Israeli government is calling for as ethnic cleansing and condemn Minister Smotrich's comments in the strongest possible terms. Canada cannot claim to be vigilant against ethnic cleansing and genocide while refusing to name Israeli action and incitement to these heinous acts.  IJV also joins calls on the Canadian government to boycott the new far-right Israeli government and to advocate for international protection for the undefended Palestinian people living under Israeli rule. Finally, IJV calls on organizations representing Canadian Jewish communities to loudly condemn the settler pogrom and government officials’ incitements to violence. Our communities need clear moral leadership to hold Israel to account. Israel isn’t shying away from saying it as it is. Neither should Canadians.

Independent Jewish Voices Canada Donate to IJV or become a member

Pour diffusion immédiate Le 2 mars 2023 - Voix juives indépendantes Canada (VJI) demande au gouvernement du Canada de prendre des mesures immédiates en réponse aux récents commentaires d’un ministre israélien pour qui le village palestinien de Huwara devrait être « anéanti ». À l’occasion d’une conférence organisée par le journal The Marker, le ministre des Finances, Bezalel Smotrich, qui est également le ministre de la Défense responsable des affaires civiles en Cisjordanie occupée, a déclaré que selon lui, « le village de Huwara doit être anéanti » et que c’est « l’État d’Israël qui devrait le faire », plutôt que de simples citoyens. Petite ville palestinienne située en périphérie de Naplouse et entourée de colonies, Huwara est depuis longtemps soumise à la violence des colons israéliens et aux caprices d’Israël, qui paralyse régulièrement ses infrastructures. Les commentaires du ministre surviennent quelques jours seulement après le violent saccage mené par des colons israéliens à Huwara et dans les villages voisins, un événement qui a été qualifié de pogrom par de nombreux observateurs, dont le général de l’armée israélienne responsable des troupes en Cisjordanie et l’ancien directeur de l’Anti-Defamation League. Une foule de plus de 400 colons israéliens a attaqué les villages palestiniens de Huwara, Zaatara, Burin et Asira al-Qibliya, brûlant des dizaines de maisons, tuant un Palestinien de 37 ans et blessant des centaines de personnes sous le nez des forces israéliennes. L’homme qui a été tué, Samih al-Aqtash, revenait tout juste de Turquie, où il s’était porté volontaire pour venir en aide aux victimes du tremblement de terre. Il est le 67e Palestinien tué par l’armée israélienne ou par des colons cette année. Un pogrom est défini comme une violente attaque menée dans l’intention de massacrer ou d’expulser un groupe de personnes en particulier. Ce terme yiddish est apparu à la fin du XIXe siècle pour désigner les attaques dirigées contre les populations juives sous l’Empire russe. Nous employons le mot « pogrom » pour souligner que les colons israéliens recréent actuellement le même type de terrorisme ciblé et racisé qui a longtemps visé les Juif·ves en Europe. Nous employons aussi ce mot pour souligner l’hypocrisie des affirmations selon lesquelles les attaques menées par des colons juifs servent à préserver la sécurité de la population juive. Un très grand nombre de Juif·ves au Canada et en Israël, dont plusieurs de nos membres, ont des ancêtres qui ont subi d’horribles attaques antisémites ciblées en Europe. Beaucoup de nos membres descendent de survivant·es de l’épuration ethnique et du génocide ou y ont eux-mêmes survécu. Ces atrocités historiques ont souvent commencé par des pogroms que les autorités de l’époque ont ignorés ou officiellement autorisés. Les commentaires formulés hier par Smotrich signalent un appui clair au pogrom de dimanche et constituent un appel explicite au nettoyage ethnique, voire au génocide pur et simple. À cela nous répondons, haut et fort, sans équivoque : « pas en notre nom! » Ce à quoi nous assistons actuellement en Israël a certainement de quoi choquer, mais ce n’est en aucun cas une aberration. Encouragés par l’impunité que leur assurent des pays comme le Canada et d’autres gouvernements occidentaux, le gouvernement israélien et les groupes de colons sont seulement plus directs quant à leurs objectifs de colonisation et leur volonté de déplacer, de remplacer et d’éloigner la population palestinienne des territoires qu’ils revendiquent. Israël est d’ailleurs fondé sur le nettoyage ethnique de 750 000 Palestinien·nes, un événement connu sous le nom de Nakba, la « catastrophe », qui se poursuit jusqu’à ce jour, 75 ans plus tard. IJV demande au Canada de désigner clairement comme du nettoyage ethnique ce que le gouvernement israélien appelle de ses vœux, et de condamner les commentaires du ministre Smotrich dans les termes les plus sévères possible. Le Canada ne peut pas sérieusement se dire vigilant à l’égard du nettoyage ethnique et du génocide, et en même temps refuser de dénoncer les actions d’Israël et son incitation à ces actes odieux. IJV relaie également les appels adressés au gouvernement canadien à boycotter le nouveau gouvernement israélien d’extrême droite et à plaider en faveur d’une protection internationale du peuple palestinien sans défense vivant actuellement sous la domination israélienne. Enfin, IJV appelle les organismes représentant les communautés juives canadiennes à condamner fermement le pogrom mené par les colons et les incitations à la violence lancées par des représentants du gouvernement. Nos communautés doivent incarner un leadership moral clair et demander des comptes à Israël. Israël n’hésite pas à dire les choses telles qu’elles sont. Les Canadien·nes ne devraient pas hésiter non plus.

Voix juives indépendantes Adhérer ou faire un don

Defending Palestinian rights is against McGill's standards, The university threatens Students over a democratic decision, again! By: Ehab Lotayef*

 Defending Palestinian rights is against McGill's standards

The university threatens Students over a democratic decision, again!

By: Ehab Lotayef*

March 24, 2022

At a time when we are encouraging individuals, groups and bodies to speak up against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and witness bodies, such as sports associations, who have historically distanced themselves from politics, speak up, McGill University is denying it's undergraduate student union (SSMU) the right to democratically take a position in support of a nation that has been occupied for 74 years.

The administration, which has historically bowed to Zionist pressure has done it again (https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/dont-conflate-mcgill-student-politics-with-anti-semitism_a_23273708) now. 

"I have communicated these concerns to the SSMU leadership and advised them to take prompt and appropriate remedial action, consistent with SSMU’s obligations under its Memorandum of Agreement with the University, failing which the University will terminate this Memorandum of Agreement." writes the
Deputy Provost in a message to the whole McGill Community.

This is not the first time the administration threatens the students and forces a change in a position that was voted freely by the student body.  It will not be the last as long as the administration gets away with it. 

At a time when the two most credible independent international human rights groups, Amnesty International (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/) and Human Rights Watch (https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution) both acknowledged that Israel is committing Apartheid against Palestinians, McGill decides to put its head in the sand so that it would not disappoint the Zionist lobby or "members of our community feel unwelcome or rejected".  Why would someone feel that way by a resolution that calls for actions against "corporations and institutions complicit in settler-colonial apartheid against Palestinians"?  Defenders of apartheid?

McGill acknowledges the land rights of Indigenous peoples (https://www.mcgill.ca/equity/initiatives-education/indigenous-initiatives/land-acknowledgement).  What a hollow, meaningless and hypocritical that becomes if the university does not allow expressions of support of the land rights of indigenous peoples all around the world, including Palestinians.

I hope that the SSMU would stand strong and not bow down to the administration and its pressure, whether it is about the University history, about its environmental policies, about international politics, or university governance.

A McGill community in which "all members feel that they can express their identity and their opinion without a fear of being ostracized" WITHOUT EXCEPTION is the real goal.

* Ehab Lotayef is a Canadian IT Manager, poet, writer, and community activist, of Egyptian origin. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering (1981) from Ain-Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. Ehab moved to Canada in 1989, is a father of two and has three grandchildren. Ehab has been working at McGill University, as an IT manager, since 1999.  Before joining McGill, Ehab worked for internationally renowned companies, in Canada and abroad, including Schlumberger, Linotype and Pratt & Whitney.

Ehab is deeply involved in social and community work, including, campaigns against the sanctions and war on Iraq, opposing the blockade of Gaza (organizing and being on board the Freedom Flotilla) and advocating for Native Rights.  Over the years he served on the boards of Egyptian Canadian Coalition for Democracy (Pres.), Muslim Council of Montreal, Muslim Schools of Montreal, the Canadian Arab Federation (V.P.), Fair Vote Canada and the Board of Governors of McGill University; and is currently serving on the Board of Montreal City Mission. Ehab is also a founder and former chairperson of both "Muslim Awareness Week" (MAW) and the "Non a la loi 21" (#NL21) campaign.

No, Palestinian Textbooks Are Not Antisemitic, by: Dr. Assaf David

 Opinion | No, Palestinian Textbooks Are Not Antisemitic

A new study unequivocally refutes the accusation made by right-wing Israeli organizations

Dr. Assaf David
Aug. 10, 2021 

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-no-palestinian-textbooks-are-not-antisemitic-1.10103745

In June, Germany’s Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research published a comprehensive survey of textbooks used in the Palestinian Authority school system. Over the course of 18 months a research team analyzed 156 textbooks and 16 teacher guides published by the Palestinian Education Ministry between 2017 and 2019, as part of a curriculum and textbook reform initiated by the PA for all subjects taught in grades 1-12. The GEI study examined content in Palestinian textbooks addressing hate or violence, the promotion of peace and religious coexistence as well as elements addressing reconciliation, tolerance and the observation of human rights. The research was funded in its entirety by the European Union, and the materials were analyzed on the basis of UNESCO-defined criteria of peace, tolerance and nonviolence in education.

As with any comprehensive study of such a complicated subject, the findings are complex and can be interpreted in various ways.

Conservatives in Europe and in the United States (especially in the U.S. Congress) pounced on it, some of them with a push from anti-Palestinian conservatives in Israel. The reactions from the other side, however, have been few, perhaps because the obsession with Palestinian textbooks is perceived, correctly, as an amusement reserved for the right. But the left cannot exclude itself from the playing field on which the rules of the game and the balance of power between the occupier and its allies on one side and the occupied on the other are determined. I will address the research and its findings while paying attention to the framework defined for it, to what is in it and especially to what is not in it.

First, the research team’s statement, in a press release, that its work provides a “comprehensive and objective analysis” of Palestinian textbooks is puzzling by all accounts. The analysis is indeed very comprehensive, but the extent of its objectivity can only by evaluated by readers with a range of perspectives, not the authors. Such a statement is unusual when voiced by such a reputable textbook research institution as GEI, and raises a creeping suspicion that it is not by chance.

A 200-page report of a study funded by the EU and devoted entirely to examining the textbooks of one side of the conflict – the vanquished side – is inherently flawed. Students in the state education systems in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories do not learn about each other in a vacuum. The balance of power between Israel, which denies the growing violence required to maintain the occupation, and the Palestinians, dictates the framework and the narratives that are taught in each.

The research of Profs. Daniel Bar-Tal and Sami Adwan, whose review and comparison of textbooks on both sides by a joint Israeli/Palestinian research team yielded fascinating findings, is an example of how research on the textbooks of two societies that are involved in an intractable conflict can and should be carried out. It is surprising that an EU-funded study ignores such a necessary comparative methodology, the kind that is reflected even in the doctoral dissertation of Yifat Shasha-Biton, a senior member of a moderate right-wing party who serves as Israel’s education minister.

One-sided objectivity

The very notion of examining only Palestinian textbooks with a fine-tooth comb, while completely ignoring their mirror image in Israeli textbooks, is fundamentally tendentious. It’s hard to believe that political considerations were not involved in the decision, the result in part of ongoing pressure from IMPACT-SE, a conservative Israeli nongovernmental organization, on the EU and on the British government, a contributor to the PA and to the UN Relief and Works Agency – pressure that was also expressed as “assistance” in drawing up EU legislation that includes Palestinian textbooks only.

One of the leaders of the one-sided criticism of Palestinian textbooks in the European Parliament is Monika Hohlmeier, a conservative MEP from Germany. The pressure for such a study began effectively in a proposal she pushed through the EU Committee on Budgetary Control in 2018 that focused solely on criticizing the Palestinian textbooks and curricula. In these circumstances, the GEI research team’s insistence on its “objectivity” is mere whistling in the dark.

Given that the study’s objective is to focus on the response of the occupied population to the violence of the occupier, our only option is to make the best of a bad situation and extract from it a few important findings and insights for the benefit of the fight against the occupation and the pursuit of Palestinian independence.

One of the important things about the study is the team’s clear determination that the characterization of Palestinian textbooks in the studies published by IMPACT-SE suffer from “generalising and exaggerated conclusions based on methodological shortcomings” (p. 15). In contrast, binational comparative studies of Palestinian and Israeli textbooks, including that of Bar-Tal and Adwan, are mentioned favorably. We can only hope that the editors of the Ynet news website, who in recent years have given IMPACT-SE a broad platform, remember this in the future.

The research team offers a passing reference to the Palestinian Education Ministry’s determination that international law permits resistance – by implication, violent resistance – to an occupying power (p. 20). This is a very complex legal issue, and it is impossible to analyze the attitude to it in the Palestinian textbooks without addressing it seriously. It seems that the team tried to have it both ways and failed. In any event, its recognition of the occupation and of the legitimacy of resisting it, at least nonviolently, stands out as a lone voice in the wilderness of conservative studies generated by Israeli organizations, led by IMPACT-SE. These organizations have never heard of the Israeli occupation in the territories, apparently, and therefore cannot recognize the legitimacy of any form of resistance.

The distinction among different types of resistance, and between violent resistance directed against an army versus that targeting civilians, is a good beginning for any future examination of Palestinian textbooks, and GEI did well to find a place for it, even if cautiously and indistinctly. It is nevertheless hard not to wonder about the discovery of the “narrative of resistance” to the occupation and the “antagonism towards Israel” in the textbooks.

Sympathy for the occupier?

Did the researchers forget that the occupation is more present than ever, and that every day Israel works very hard, directly and through its settler emissaries, to tarnish its image in the eyes of the Palestinians in the territories? In these circumstances, is it possible to expect narratives sympathetic to Israel?

Finally, and perhaps most important: The study’s findings unequivocally refute the exaggerated and overgeneralized accusations by conservative Israeli organizations about antisemitism and incitement to violence in Palestinian textbooks. It reveals “numerous instances [in which] the textbooks call for tolerance, mercy, forgiveness and justice” and distinguishes among various types of Palestinian criticism of Israel and among textbooks in various subjects (such as religious studies).

Palestinian textbooks do contain examples of antisemitism, incitement to violence, glorification of violence and dehumanization of Jews or Israelis, but according to the researchers their frequency is limited. But this bears repeating: The Palestinian nation would have to be a saint for its textbooks to be completely free of such examples, in light of the expanding occupation, the widespread dispossession and the dehumanization from the Israeli side, which are supported by the enormous resources that are at the disposal of the strong party in the conflict.

Given the inherent limitations of the study, and the framework imposed on it, these are important insights that should set a minimum threshold for future research on the subject. It would be better, of course, for these studies to be comparative and deeply rooted in the context of the occupation, in order to deserve the descriptor “objective.”

Assaf David is the director of the Israel in the Middle East research cluster at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and co-founder and academic director of the Forum for Regional Thinking.

PM Trudeau: Blaming victims and exonerating war criminals undermines the fight against racism; by: Khaled Mouammar

An open letter from Khaled Mouammar a prominent activist  Palestinian Canadian to Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada 

PM Trudeau: Blaming victims and exonerating war criminals undermines the fight against racism

The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau,

Prime Minister of Canada

 

One can only commend your government’s initiative to hold the antisemitism and Islamophobia summits and your commitment to stand up for hatred and intolerance in all its forms.

 

I am a Palestinian refugee who was forced to leave my country in 1948 and have not been allowed since then to return to my homeland because I am a Christian. Yet any Jew, like Irwin Cotler Canada’s Special Envoy, or convert to Judaism, like Annamie Paul of the Green Party, may move there and become a citizen.

 

You stated at the Antisemitism Summit that Canada is committed to the two-state solution and supports peace and security for both Israel and the Palestinians.

 

The Palestinians are under Israeli occupation and have no state and no army, while Israel is a state that possesses nuclear weapons and whose military is more powerful than Canada’s military.

 

In your speech you referred to the recent violence in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and Israel and laid the blame on the Palestinian victims who have been suffering for decades under an oppressive and illegal Israeli military occupation.

 

Your statement ignored the fact that the violence was triggered by Israel’s plan to illegally evict nearly 1500 indigenous Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem and illegally replace them with Jewish colonists. This was followed by the Israeli police attacking and arresting hundreds of worshippers at the Al-Aksa Mosque compound during the Holy Month of Ramadan and setting fire to the compound.

 

By glossing over the actions of the Israeli police in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the attacks by armed mobs against Palestinian citizens in Arab-minority cities in Israel, and the heavy bombardment of residential areas in Gaza by the Israeli army, you appear to place no value on the lives of the 256 Palestinians who were killed, including 66 children and 40 women, and the 2000 who were wounded, of whom over 600 were children and 400 women.

 

Furthermore, between June 2014 and June 2021, 3,395 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military forces - 2,941 in the Gaza Strip and 435 in the West Bank - including 804 children and 374 women.  Over the same time period, at least 104,486 Palestinians have been injured, mostly as a consequence of tear gas inhalation, rubber bullets, live ammunition, tear gas canisters, physical assault, and air-launched and surface-launched explosive weapons. Yet none of these assaults and crimes against the Palestinian people warranted any mention in your speech.

 

Canada’s Charter enshrines fundamental freedoms and equal rights for all citizens regardless of their religion, race, ethnicity, gender or political opinion.

 

I was therefore baffled to hear you say that Canada has shared democratic values with Israel - a state that Human Rights Watch found has laws and policies that grant superior rights to its Jewish citizens over its two million Christian and Muslim Palestinian citizens, and that denies fundamental freedoms and basic human rights to the five million Palestinians under occupation in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

 

Canada takes pride in supporting international law and being a strong advocate for a rules-based international order.

 

According to Chapter 1, Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations it is illegal for countries to annex occupied territories acquired by military force.

 

When Russia occupied and annexed  the Crimea in 2014 and granted citizenship to the inhabitants,  the UN and international community, including Canada, condemned the move as a dangerous violation of international law and Canada imposed sanctions within days.

 

Israel militarily occupied East Jerusalem in June 1967 and it officially annexed it in July 1980 and has not so far granted citizenship to the 380 thousand Palestinian inhabitants; however, Canada has not yet imposed any sanctions on Israel.

 

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an Occupying Power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, and as well prohibits the deportations of protected persons from occupied territory.

 

Article 8 of the 1998 ICC Statute, also asserts that the transfer by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies constitutes a war crime.

 

As of 2017, more than 620,000 Israelis live in over 200 settlements in the West Bank. Of those, 209,270 live in settlements in East Jerusalem and 413,400 live in other parts of the West Bank.

 

Canada is a signatory of the 49th Geneva Convention and the 1998 ICC Statute, both of which assert Israel is committing a war crime. Yet you have taken no action against Israel and you proudly state that we share democratic values with a state that is committing “the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” against 7 million indigenous Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

 

Worryingly, the repeated reference to Israel in your speech may be interpreted as endorsing Israel’s false claim that it represents Jews worldwide, which is as preposterous as former apartheid South Africa claiming that it represented white Christians worldwide. Such conflation may be exploited by racists and misguided persons to blame Jews for Israel’s war crimes and its crime against humanity being committed against 7 million Christian and Muslim Palestinian subjects.

 

Disgracefully, your government’s policy appears to be based on bigotry against indigenous Palestinians, who are Arabs and predominantly Muslims, and continues to tolerate and even justify Israel’s racist laws and policies that view indigenous Palestinians as inferior human beings, thus emboldening Israel to persecute them with impunity.

 

Khaled Mouammar

Ontario,  Canada