Dec. 5: International Day in Solidarity with Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War Liberation Cafe: Freedom for our Prisoners! Maritime Labour Centre, 1880 Triumph St. (at Victoria), Vancouver, 1-4 pm. Liberation Cafe: Freedom for our Prisoners! | Facebook
We, in the Canada Palestine Association, denounce the British Columbia (B.C.) and Canadian governments for their colonial violence and their callous disregard of indigenous rights. This past week, additional RCMP troops arrived in unceded Wet’suwet’en territory and have since engaged in violent raids on indigenous land defenders; we demand the immediate release of all those arrested, which included journalists and elders. We know that the struggles of the indigenous people of this land and the indigenous people of Palestine have always been against the supremacist settler colonialist project. We honour the brave resistance of our indigenous sisters and brothers all through their history and know that they believe, as we do, in defending their land to their last breath.
We tell Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C. Premier John Horgan that they are on the wrong side of history, and they will be only remembered for their supremacist and racist legacies.
Activists in Vancouver, who have worked for over a decade on the Boycott Israeli Wines campaign, were recently taken aback to discover that a new market for Israeli settlement wines had opened up in the United Arab Emirates UAE. This was apparently one of the dividends of the “normalization” agreements, or Abraham Accords, that are now over a year old and are fueling greater Israeli-UAE economic ties. Dividends of betraying the Palestinian people and profiting from their suffering.
Be it Dubai Ports World bidding to build ports in Haifa, or illegal Israeli settlement wines being imported into the Emirates, or members of the Dubai royal family visiting the Israel Aerospace Industries pavilion at Expo 2020, or the newly-launched Elbit Systems Emirates, these connections continue to surface. The Israeli Finance Ministry’s deputy chief economist, Lev Drucker, reportedly “sees a potential for more substantial trade levels between the countries, starting at $2 billion and building up to $6.5 billion once cooperation matures”, although financial analysts are more conservative in their estimates.[i]
And it is now evident that allowing this cooperation to “mature” means that there are no barriers to economic trade. Not violations of international law that forbid profiteering off the resources of an occupied people, and not the stained history of the Israeli military industry that literally has the blood of Palestinian and Arab civilians on its hands.
After the Abraham Accords were announced last year, Israeli media was abuzz with reports that Dubai based FAM Holdings had inked a deal with settler company representatives to import wine, tahina, olive oil and honey. Settler Council leader Yossi Dagan was centre stage at the signing ceremony in Dubai; his effusive comments at the time bragged about these new economic ties, repeatedly insisting on using the “Samaria” designation for the occupied West Bank:
“We are opening a new economic page between the best companies in Samaria and FAM. I am very excited and happy with their standing,” he said. “Samaria strives to lead in all areas, and also in export and business development,” Dagan said. “The Samaria area that I represent is located in the Israeli state’s heartland.”
According to the Times of Israel, the Tura Winery based in the illegal settlement of Rechelim, continued in the same vein with this announcement on social media:
“Now it can be revealed: We signed a special cooperation agreement on the distribution of Tura wines and [olive] oils across the UAE,” the company wrote on its Facebook page, together with several pictures of co-owner Vered Ben Sa’adon shaking hands with her new business partner at the signing ceremony in Dubai. “Straight from Rechelim in Israel to the UAE — history!”
Not to be outdone, the head of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce clarified that “the United Arab Emirates has no issue with importing Israeli products manufactured in the West Bank, as it will help boost the Palestinian economy (sic!)…We are an open market in every sense of the word”.
Reportedly, bottles from the Golan Heights Winery, in illegally occupied and annexed Syrian territory, were the first to hit store shelves in Dubai. Yair Shapira, CEO of the Golan Heights Winery, said a year ago that “we are excited to be the Israeli winery that will ‘open the gate’ and introduce the residents and guests of the UAE in Dubai to the Israeli wine industry.” Despite the recent visit of the UAE Foreign Minister to Damascus, it would seem legitimizing Israeli theft of Arab land is still very much “business as usual” for the Emirates.
Profiteering off Israeli war crimes and apartheid is morally wrong; activists should not even have to explain to these governments that they are aiding and abetting the pillage of Palestinian and Arab property and resources, which is expressly forbidden in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
However, the tide is turning; all those complicit, be they Arab despotic regimes or duplicitous Western governments and officials, will be held accountable for enabling Israel’s long and bloody history of dispossession of the Palestinians. The Palestinians, and their supporters, will never forget who stood on the wrong side of history and made a mockery of their human rights.
Earlier today, we lost Lee Maracle, an indigenous warrior, a writer, a poet, an activist and a revolutionary. She was strongly internationalist in her perspective and linked the indigenous struggles in Turtle Island to all oppressed peoples of the world. Her longstanding support for the Palestinian people’s struggle against Zionist settler colonialism was an example for all progressive people to follow.
On June 5, 1976, Lee introduced the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish at a packed public meeting for the Palestinian delegation to the UN-Habitat Conference. He read several poems, and she presented the English translation of “Write Down, I am an Arab” for the audience. On more than one occasion, she reminisced fondly about this experience.
Some of her more memorable and principled moments in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle are as follows:
On Oct. 1985, Lee donated a hand-woven Cowichan wool blanket as a raffle prize in support of the Palestine Children’s Hospital in Cairo.
On Jan. 1, 2006, Lee issued a statement criticizing the AFN leadership visit to Israel stating that: “… 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?”
On Jan. 24, 2021, Lee issued a statement after learning of the attempts by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to erase Palestine and the Palestinian national identity.
Lee wrote many poems dedicated to the Palestinian struggle: I am a Palestinian Woman, Songs to a Palestinian Child, Free Palestindians, and Remembering Mahmoud 1976 among others.
Voice of Palestine radio show, based in Vancouver, interviewed Lee several times:
March 11, 2008, a conversation with Lee honouring International Women’s’ Day. Lee spoke about how she had always felt close to the Palestinian people and their struggle and mentioned past solidarity actions that she and her children had participated in. The interview is 31 minutes into the audio.
Feb. 7, 2012, an Interview with Lee about the Global Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier; she detailed the complicity of the Canadian courts in his deportation from Vancouver and the solidarity campaign that was waged at that time. There was discussion of indigenous rights, the similarities of settler colonialist projects including Israel and North America. The interview is 24 minutes into the audio.
Mar. 27, 2012, a conversation and poetry readings with Lee Maracle who joined us over the weekend during a brief visit to Vancouver to talk about the apartheid nature of settler colonialism, both here in Turtle Island and Palestine. She also read several of her moving pieces of poetry, in particular “Remembering Mahmoud” which is dedicated to the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. The interview is 27 minutes into the audio.
Lee’s memory will always live in our hearts, and her tireless work for her people and the victims of settler colonialism will live on forever.
Note: This is just a first step in documenting her indigenous solidarity with the Palestinian people; if you find other solidarity activities for Lee, please let us know and we will add it to this post.
From Turtle Island to Palestine, Colonization is a Crime.
Update, Dec. 13, 2021: Over 25 organizations join statement calling out the BC government for profiting off Israeli war crimes
Don’t Drink with Apartheid: From South Africa to Palestine!
Vancouver, Canada has a long and proud tradition of supporting Palestinian rights and honouring boycott campaigns. For over a decade, activists have been engaging in a boycott of Israeli wines in publicly-owned provincial liquor stores under the slogan – Don’t Drink with Apartheid. The campaign launched in early 2008 after the former Canada Israel Committee announced to much fanfare that it had succeeded in bringing “Israel’s top wineries to British Columbia”.
The initial campaign coincided with Nakba60 and that connection was the foundation of the first public statement. The statement, endorsed by a wide variety of both local and international groups, read:
“On this 60th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, the Israeli government has announced plans to ‘rebrand’ its 60 years of dispossession and ethnic cleansing. Here in B.C., the focus of this ‘rebranding’ is the promotion of wines under an Israeli label in B.C. liquor stores…
We say 60 years of ‘rebranding’ is enough; 60 years of dispossession, exile and the destruction of a whole nation are enough. Send this message to the Israeli government, and to our local and national politicians. As the South African campaigners said many years ago outside BC liquor stores, then as now, DON’T DRINK WITH APARTHEID!”
The link with the South African anti-apartheid campaign was more than just rhetoric. There had previously been an active and diverse group in Vancouver that had stood in front of the exact same liquor stores, leafletting and calling for the removal of South African wines; the slogan of Don’t Drink with Apartheid belonged to them.
The introduction of Israeli wines in BC and across Canada was the spearhead of a broader effort to bring Israeli products into Canadian retail outlets, a process expedited by the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement. Thus, it was not surprising that the nascent Boycott Israeli Wines was immediately attacked by the Zionist lobby; and was targeted by the infamous “Buycott Israel”, that called on its supporters to rush out and over-buy whatever product was targeted in the early consumer boycotts. The Canada Israel Committee CIC aggressively came out to harass the Vancouver pickets on multiple occasions in 2008; one of their recruits, after buying his bottle of “Israeli” wine insisted to go to several of the picketers, including a Jewish-American visitor, to say, “I’m going to drink this wine and watch Palestinian mothers on TV crying over their dead children and men”.
Phase two of the campaign was timed to relaunch with the commemoration of Nakba68; by then, social media was a bigger factor in political activism and the Zionist lobby was even more ruthless in its attempts to silence the voices of the campaigners. After an in-store flash action video released in August 2016 quickly garnered tens of thousands of views, hundreds of vicious comments were posted on the Boycott Israeli Wines FB page within the space of 48 hours. The attacks were clearly aimed at shutting down both the page and the campaign in general; others included foul racist language and threats of physical repercussions against those participating in the pickets and action.
Since the Israeli wines are of course certified as kosher, the Zionist lobby attempted to use this issue to deflect criticism and further bolster the bogus “anti-Semitism” smear. However, BC liquor stores carry 13 varieties of kosher wine, only 6 of which come from Israel. The others are sourced from the U.S., France, Spain and Italy; in fact, two of those brands seem to be the best sellers and more popular, according to inventory statistics on the official liquor store website.
Although the campaign was always clear that it was targeting all Israeli wines, the Israeli wines carried in BC stores have consistently been linked to the Israeli settlement enterprise, either in occupied Palestine or the Syrian Golan Heights. The wines currently on shelves are from partners/affiliates of the Golan Heights Winery or the Teperberg Winery, which provides a map on its website showing vineyards in the occupied West Bank. One of the Teperberg vineyards is in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mevo Horon according to the progressive Israeli research group “Who Profits”. This particular settler enclave is in the Latrun area of the occupied Palestinian West Bank and is close to the infamous “Canada Park” built by the Jewish National Fund on the rubble of 3 Palestinian villages with Canadian tax-deductible monies.
Over the years, the Boycott Israeli Wines campaign has grown in BC, and the capital city Victoria has also held multiple pickets with the same message. Stickering campaigns have also been popular and a photo of one such effort caught the attention of Israeli media. Meanwhile, in other parts of Canada, a complaint was launched to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency CFIA regarding the labelling of Israeli settlement wines as “Made in Israel” products. A lengthy legal battle ensued, which first involved a favourable court ruling that stated such labelling was “false, misleading and deceptive”; that judgement was then appealed by the Canadian government, and the issue is now back where it all began – at the desk of CFIA.
Recently, campaigners have organized several Boycott Tours of downtown Vancouver which have included stops at BC Liquor Stores. These actions are bringing the Don’t Drink with Apartheid message to a whole new generation of motivated supporters.
Earlier this year, the New Democratic Party NDP of Canada passed a resolution that committed in part to end “all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine”. As activists noted on April 19, 2021, after sending a letter to the Finance Minister in BC’s NDP provincial government:
The sale of wines from illegal Israeli settlements in BC and Canadian liquor stores has been an ongoing travesty for over a decade; there is no better place for the NDP to implement its new policy (and for)… action to finally be taken on this issue. In September 2018, thirty-one organizations already told the BC government: “We do not wish to be made complicit in these violations of international law”.
However, organizers are not waiting nor hoping for any level of government in Canada to take a bold move on this issue. Not the federal government which, despite the occasional photo-op of diplomatic staff demonstrating “concern” for Palestinians, is deeply complicit in enabling Israel’s accumulated war crimes. And not the BC provincial government which, despite its “progressive” mantle, has already betrayed most of its commitments on the environment and indigenous rights.
Activists are counting on the growing support of people in BC and Canada who are becoming acutely aware of Israeli oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people and are willing to speak out and demand that Israel finally be held accountable!
