Month: December 2009

Christmas Message 2009 – To the Canadian People

From a Bethlehemite

Successive Canadian governments have supported the Zionist project, the creation and maintenance of the state of Israel, and the accompanying military expansion and trampling of Palestinian human and national rights. In 1947 Canadian representatives played a major role in formulating and passing the UN Partition Plan for Palestine [Resolution 181 (II)]. Lester B. Pearson, then the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, was instrumental in ensuring the passage of the Partition Resolution and Supreme Court of Canada Justice, Ivan C. Rand, was a central figure in drafting it. As such, Canada must be held directly responsible for the dispossession of the Palestinian people and the ensuing suffering of the Palestinian refugees.

Dissenting voices at the time warned of the consequences of such Canadian complicity. The Canadian Arab Friendship League called the partition vote an act of betrayal by “the selfish interests of so-called ‘Big Nations’” which broke, ignored, or forgot their promises to the Arab people. M.S. Massoud, president of the league, told the Montreal Optimist Club that the Arab world “would ‘remember’ Lester B. Pearson and Justice Rand … who … did their utmost to impose upon Arabs the infamous partition scheme.” (1)

And Sir Zufrallah Khan, the representative of Pakistan to the UN further warned Western powers after the resolution was passed in his address to the 128th UN General Assembly by saying: “Empires rise and fall …We much fear that the beneficence, if any, to which partition may lead will be small in comparison to the mischief which it might inaugurate.”(2)

When the head of the Iraqi delegation to the UN, Mohommed Fadhel Jamali, asked Lester Pearson during the debate in 1947: “Mr Pearson, do you believe that the act of partitioning Palestine against the will of its inhabitants is an act dictated by conscience and law?” (Pearson) answered frankly, “Dr Jamali, politics doesn’t know conscience or law unless they are supported by power. As for us today, we are obliged to comply with the policy of the U.S.A. in what she decides on Palestine.”(3)

Canada insisted in 1947 to take the side of U.S. “power and might” rather than the side of “conscience and law”. Accordingly, the Arab and Muslim world witnessed upheavals, one after another for the past sixty-two years: revolutions, counter-revolutions, civil wars, Arab Israeli wars and countless Israeli aggressions, massacres and war crimes. Now, following and in large measure due to their interventionist policies especially in this region, the U.S. Empire is in decline.

The Israel lobby and its supporters are increasingly aggressive and strident in their efforts to maintain the old status quo and to criminalize and silence any legitimate criticism of Israeli policies. Earlier this year some pro-Zionist Canadian politicians (most notably cabinet minister Jason Kenney) from the Conservative, Liberal and NDP parties formed the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism CPCCA and asked for feedback from the public. They received an “impressive volume of submissions” (4) from people and organizations that said criticizing Israel is NOT anti-Semitic, according to Mark Freiman, the national president of the Canadian Jewish Congress (who probably knows the inside workings of the CPCCA more than anyone else). However, because the CPCCA is so “democratic” and “unbiased”, they have yet to invite anyone to represent this point of view in their public hearings.

Recently, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler also exposed that the Canadian delegation to the Anti-Racism Conference in Durban, South Africa that was headed by Hedy Fry remained at the conference “at the request of the Israeli government”(5). Obviously such people are not serving the interests of the Canadian people and Canada. They are serving the Zionists and the Israeli state’s interests.

Occupying other nations, exploiting other people’s natural resources, suppressing other peoples’ freedoms by imposing dictatorships and supporting the murder of millions, engaging in ethnic cleansing and war crimes all over the world with superior military might is not Christian, nor ethical nor human.

On this Christmas, to all those who believe in the true teachings of Jesus Christ, who believe in human dignity, human rights and freedom for all, we wish a Merry Christmas. And to all those who have supported and continue to support aggression, war crimes and ethnic cleansing, humanity will remember and hold them accountable and history will not be kind to their memory.

We call on the Canadian people to support “conscience and law”, to support peace with justice, and to say loudly and clearly that Canadians will break this shameful history of complicity with Palestinian dispossession and betrayal of the Palestinian people.

Next Year in a Free and Peaceful Bethlehem:

A Bethlehem without walls, without Apartheid, without oppression

Hanna Kawas
Dec. 24, 2009
Chairperson, Canada Palestine Association, Vancouver www.cpavancouver.org
Co-Host Voice of Palestine www.voiceofpalestine.ca

1- Canadian Arab vol. III 7/8/9 as quoted by David J Bercuson in Canada and the birth of Israel page 135, 136
2- Bitter Harvest, Sami Hadawi page 71 (Forth Printing March 1983)
3- http://physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/Fadhel.html
4- http://www.jewishindependent.ca/archives/Dec09/archives09Dec11-01.html
5- https://www.cjnews.com/news/liberals-tories-wrangle-canadas-role-durban

MP Irwin Cotler: “Canada remained (at Durban I) at the request of the Israeli government”

From a Facebook post on Dec. 4, 2009:

The loyalty war for Israel between the two main Canadian parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, is heating up and in the process, exposing many facts. One of them is that Canada stayed at the Durban I conference not to further the anti racism agenda, but “at the request of the Israeli government” to further another country’s agenda in implementing apartheid, ethnic cleansing and war crimes against the Palestinian people.
And for the first time the Zionists seemed to have discovered that the Conservative Party policy “plays up dangerous stereotypes” and concretely promotes antisemitism against all Jews, Zionists or not (see below).

Hanna
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http://www.jewishindependent.ca/archives/Dec09/archives09Dec04-11.html

December 4, 2009
Get rid of 10-percenters
Editorial
A recent flyer sent out by Conservative members of Parliament, promoting their party’s Israel record at the expense of the Liberals, has put the Jewish community at the centre of controversy.
MPs are allowed to send – with free postage – flyers to up to 10 percent of the voters in a riding outside their own. These so-called “10-percenters” cost taxpayers about $10 million a year. Their benefits are less clear.
Liberal MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett apologized recently for her 10-percenter that attacked the Conservatives’ handling of the H1N1 (swine) flu among First Nations communities with the slogan “No vaccines, just body bags” and a picture of body bags and a sick aboriginal child. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq chastised Bennett and told CBC, “First Nations communities should not be used as punching bags for a political party.”
Perhaps not to be outdone in the fear-mongering-among-vulnerable-minorities department, the Conservatives recently sent out a flyer to several Liberal ridings with large numbers of Jewish voters, including ones in Quebec, Toronto and Winnipeg.
On one side of the flyer asking which federal political leader “is on the right track to represent and defend the values of Canada’s Jewish community?” there are two columns, each with three points. On the left, the Conservatives: “Led the world in refusing participation in Durban II hate-fest against Israel”; “Insisted on banning Hezbollah and led the world in defunding Hamas-led Palestinian Authority”; “Strongly backed Israel’s right to self-defence against Hezbollah during 2006 conflict.” On the right, the Liberals: “Willingly participated in overtly anti-Semitic Durban I”; “Opposed defunding Hamas and asked that Hezbollah be delisted as a terrorist organization”; “Michael Ignatieff accused Israel of committing war crimes during 2006 conflict.”
It is true that the Conservatives have been unambiguously supportive of Israel and have strongly condemned anti-Semitism. Under Stephen Harper’s leadership, for example, Canada joined the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. The Conservatives have spent millions on the Jewish community, as part of the security infrastructure pilot program (though B’nai Brith Canada (BBC) notes in its annual anti-Semitism report that the Liberals made a pre-election pledge of $75 million for a similar program, which BBC considered “clearly a more realistic figure” than the Conservatives’ $3 million) and the federal government will provide Lubavitch B.C. with $633,300 from the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund to renovate the Lubavitch Centre (the B.C. government and Lubavitch B.C. will each invest an identical amount).
Wouldn’t it have been nice to see a positive 10-percenter promoting these achievements? Instead, the recent flyer comes so close to mistruths that, as of Monday, House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken ruled the flyer had breached the Parliamentary privileges of Liberal MP Irwin Cotler (to whose riding flyers were sent) and the House was set to vote on sending Cotler’s complaint to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee for an inquiry.
For example, it was the Liberal party that designated Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations in 2002, thereby making the financing of them illegal. While the Canadian delegation under the Liberals went “willingly” to Durban I, there was no indication that it would turn into the hate-fest it did and, according to Cotler, once it turned ugly, Canada remained at the request of the Israeli government. Finally, Ignatieff did accuse Israel of war crimes, though he did apologize and has since repeated his and his party’s strong support for Israel, calling in a speech to Canadian Jewish Congress for “all parties to be genuine defenders of Israel.”
Where does this leave us as Jews? Well, most of us were probably already familiar with the record of the Conservatives and Liberals on Israel. So what was the purpose of sending the flyer?
One of the results has been to bring to the national public stage divisions within the Jewish community. More than 100 Jews signed a letter of protest to the Harper government, supporting the Liberals’ record. Among the signatories was David Matas, senior legal counsel of BBC. Meanwhile, Frank Dimant, BBC chief executive officer, told the CBC that “he doesn’t interpret the pamphlets as accusing the Liberals of anti-Semitism. Rather, he said, they seem to accurately recount the fact that on several key issues, the Conservatives ‘were more in tune with the Jewish community’ than the Liberals.”
Even if that’s the case, one has to wonder at all the money and effort spent on the Jewish community, which makes up less than one percent of the Canadian population. The attention generates conflicting feelings. It feels great to have such strong supporters of Israel in Parliament, but so much attention to gaining Jewish votes (as if Jews are one-issue voters) could backfire, as it plays up dangerous stereotypes, not the least of which are that Jews control the world’s political institutions and that Jews have a double loyalty, first to Israel, second to their country of residence.
Such messaging, no matter how unintentional, should concern us. As should the messaging that a government doesn’t care about its First Nations citizens. As should any such propagandizing by any political party – especially with taxpayer dollars. Whatever the initial purpose of these 10-percenters was, it’s time to get rid of them.