Author: cpaadmin

We do not need to prove our loyalty!

We were alarmed and shocked when we read your weekly Bulletins July 22 and July 29, 2005. We had thought that forming “Canadians for Jerusalem” to defend the Canadian Government’s position had been an isolated incident, but it seems to us that official CAF policy is sinking further into a policy of collaboration and subjugation to the Canadian establishment.

Let us not fall into the knee-jerk reflex of feeling we have to prove our loyalties. In fact, our loyalties should not be in question, but rather the commitment of our government to ensure that all people in this country are treated fairly and with respect and that its own policies do not endanger its citizens’ well being and safety. It is our legal right to dissent, to criticize and to call the government to account for any harmful policies.

We do NOT have anything to hide and collaboration does NOT benefit the victim. Here are some of the headlines that were in your July 22 Bulletin:

• CAF Meets With the Honourable Monte Kwinter
• CAF Youth – Police Workshop
• Canadian Imams Issue a Statement Condemning Extremism
• Sharia Law and the Globalization of Political Islam Conference, August 12, 2005 (where a self- professed Zionist Muslim will be speaking – ed)

And the July 29 Bulletin went on with:

• CAF Meets with Chief of Police William Blair
• CAF Youth-Police Workshop

Let us start with the Police and Security Services:

A. The Canadian Arab and Muslim communities are not responsible for any act of terror committed by radical Muslim and Arab organizations, the same way we do not hold every individual Canadian responsible for the acts of the Canadian government’s complicity in Israeli state terrorism.

B. No Canadian police nor intelligence organization has any right to harass, intimidate or question our community on the basis of its ethnicity nor its religion; they have every right to investigate suspected criminals or terrorists. OUR COMMUNITY IS NEITHER.

C. If the Canadian local Police, RCMP and CSIS want to follow the trail of who instigates, promotes and cultivates terror organizations, they should follow the path of Canadian Government policies that work as a green house for cultivating terrorism.

D. The Progressive Arab and Muslim community always took a principled stand against all terrorism and warned the Canadian Government against its biased, criminal, anti-humanitarian and anti- international law policies. We always spoke out, contrary to the behaviour of some pro-Canadian Government Arab and Muslim lackeys.

E. Finally and frankly, we do NOT trust the police or any arm of the Canadian Government; the Canadian government has consistently proven it is not a friend of our community or our peoples in the Arab and Muslim world (we will explain that later). If you really care about our community and want to learn about the racist police treatment of minorities and aboriginal natives, it is well documented and an abundance of examples are available. And if anyone is interested in understanding the Police mentality, check the documentary IPPERWASH: A CANADIAN TRAGEDY to be shown on CBC Saturday July 30, 2005 at 10pm ET/PT (http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyemonday/feature_200904.html)

Regarding the Canadian Government, we would like to remind the current “leadership” of CAF about the following:

A. Successive Canadian governments supported and were complicit in Palestinian dispossession, and accordingly are responsible for the ethnic cleansing that befell the Palestinian people. For more details see Birthright Denied: Canadian Complicity in Palestinian Dispossession (Download PDF: birthright_denied.pdf).

B. No Canadian government apologized for it role in this dispossession.

C. Successive Canadian governments supported the Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people.

D. The Canadian Government considers Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation “terrorism”; while at the same time supporting Israeli terrorism with manpower (Canadians publicly enrol in the Israeli Army), financially (giving tax deductions to the Israeli establishment including illegal Zionist settlers and settlements), materially (the Canada-Israel free trade agreement and other loans and benefits), militarily (mostly kept secret as in the Canada-Israel free trade agreement), on the intelligence level( the close coordination between CSIS and the Israeli Mossad) and politically and diplomatically (protecting Israel at international forums and at the UN institutions).

E. The security of Israel is the “core of Canada’s Middle East policy since 1948” (see http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/middle_east/can_policy-en.asp#01 ). This has been the case regardless of Israel’s repeated violations of UN Security Council and general assembly resolutions, the Fourth Geneva convention, international humanitarian laws, and the International Court of Justice ruling.

F. The Canadian Government’s military, logistical and economic support for the US imperial ventures in the Middle East (examples: Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine) is well documented and known by our Arab and Muslim communities in Canada and everywhere else.
It is extremely regrettable that at this crucial moment in the history of our community here in Canada, the leadership of CAF has chosen to adopt this policy of unconditional support for whatever the Canadian government and its institutions put forth . Our community needs critical and intelligent responses to measures of racial profiling and discrimination. The Canadian government does not have a good track record on protecting the rights of innocent minorities (the Japanese during WWII, for just one example) and this is the area of greatest danger for our community that should receive the full priority of CAF resources.

We call on CAF and our community to boycott any meetings with the Police or the Security Services.

We call on CAF, for the sake of its own credibility, to publicly disclose what happened with the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services and Toronto’s Chief of Police.

We call on the Arab and Muslim “leadership” including the Imams to denounce all forms of terrorism including US and Israeli state terrorism, and to denounce all those who support and participate in these acts of terrorism and war crimes – and that includes the Canadian Liberal Government.

Hanna Kawas,
Chair, Canada Palestine Association www.cpavancouver.org
Host, Voice of Palestine www.voiceofpalestine.ca

Scroll to the bottom of this post to download PDFs of additional correspondence between Hanna Kawas and Global Television.

Original letter by Hanna Kawas and the automated response from the CRTC:

Global TV ran a show called “Jenin, massacring the truth” on Aug. 11 from 10:00-11:00pm.

The show is one sided, unbalanced, unfactual, and massacres humanity and morality.

This show is total Israeli propaganda; it tries to minimize the war crimes commited by the Israeli occupation forces (Israeli Defence Forces “IDF”) againt the Palestinian civilian population, and by doing so Global became complicit in these war crimes.

This show is part of the multi-million Israeli public relations campaign that tries to cover up the daily atrocities the Israeli forces are commiting against the Palestinian people, in violation of UN resolutions, international law, and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
It ignores the actual reasons for the conflict in Palestine/Israel, which are occupation, illegal Israeli settlements, and treating the Palestinian population as subhumans.

Here are a few Facts about Jenin and what is actually taking place on the ground:

1. The first one who called what happened in Jenin a massacre was then Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres (see the Israeli paper Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/news/peres-calls-idf-operation-in-jenin-a-massacre-1.48297)
   Also see Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/04/09/LatestNews/LatestNews.46578.html.
2. A day later on April 10/ 2002, the Israeli Foreign Ministry started mobilizing for a PR campaign on Jenin (see Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/foreign-ministry-mobilizes-for-pr-campaign-on-jenin-1.48145)
3. On Aug. 8, 2004, Former deputy Mossad director, Shmuel Toledano said the IDF “has entirely lost the sacred value of military ethics following the death and destruction the IDF is spreading at checkpoints” and the IDF “is soulless and merciless” ( See Haaretz “Ex-deputy Mossad director accuses IDF of losing its morality” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/461995.html)

Global should not be above the law because it is powerful and influential. Fabrication and twisting facts to serve pro-Israeli expansionist and aggressive designs should not be tolerated.

The least we demand from Global is to disassociate itself from such an infamy and apologize to the victims of Israeli agression and occupation.

A good start is to show what actually happened showing Mohammed El-Bakri’s documentary “Jenin achieve a very small amount of balance on this at this point in time on Global’s coverage of the Palestine/Israel conflict.

Hanna Kawas
Chairperson, Canada Palestine Association

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Mr. Peter Kent’s answer

Our response to Mr. Kent letter

Silence On Israeli Terrorism Is Complicity

By Hanna Kawas

The Right Honourable Paul Martin
Prime Minister of Canada

Dear Prime Minister:

Over the past ten days, 112 Palestinians were killed, including five just today. So far we did not hear any condemnation from Canada, as a party to the Fourth Geneva Convention, regarding this Israeli terorrism directed against the civilian population of the Palestinian territories. However, during the same period, we did hear threats from the Canadian foreign Minister against UNRWA for employing Hamas members.

In an article in the Israeli paper Ha’aretz, Israeli reporter Amira Hass points out how the Canadian government is more concerned about this subject than even the Israeli government:

“Peter Hansen, the commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency in the territories, is being persecuted for having spoken the truth: Members of Hamas work in UNRWA. The Canadian Foreign Affairs Department is concerned and the Israeli Foreign Ministry is not upset over the ‘revelation.'” (What would Israel do without UNRWA? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/485500.html)

Amira Hass sent the following advice to your government.

“If the Canadian Foreign Affairs Department wishes to understand the phenomenon, it ought to consult sociologists and historians of occupying, colonial regimes rather than rely on superficial intelligence reports.”

Not only are you giving a cover to the Israeli atrocities, your goverment’s silence on Israeli war crimes amounts to complicity in them.
You are not serving the strategic interests of the Canadian people, the same way George W. Bush is not serving the the strategic interests of the American people.

Following is a report by Christian Peace Makers Teams, which include Canadian and American citizens, who are truly working for Human Rights, Justice and Peace as well as for the strategic interests of the Canadian and American peoples.

Yours Truly
Hanna Kawas
Chairperson, Canada Palestine Association, www.cpavancouver.org

—–Original Message—–
From: ep@MennoLink.org [mailto:ep@MennoLink.org]On Behalf Of CPTnet
editor, Webster, NY
Sent: October 9, 2004 10:12 AM
To: menno.org.cpt.news@MennoLink.org
Subject: HEBRON URGENT ACTION: Tell Israeli government to stop settler attacks on Palestinian schoolchildren, CPTers and other international accompaniers CPTnet

October 9, 2004

HEBRON URGENT ACTION: Tell Israeli government to stop settler attacks on Palestinian schoolchildren, CPTers and other international accompaniers.

For the second time in ten days, masked men from the Ma’on settlement have attacked internationals who have accompanied Palestinians to and from school. The September 30, 2004 attack resulted in a broken knee and arm for CPTer Kim Lamberty and a punctured lung for CPTer Chris Brown. This afternoon, settlers attacked CPTers Diane Janzen and Diana Zimmerman and Amnesty International field researcher Donatella Rovera with wooden sticks and then attacked a volunteer from Operation Dove, an Italian peace group, breaking his arm (he was videotaping the assault).

Settlers from Ma’on have been trying to drive out the Palestinian residents of this remote area in the Hebron District for years, physically assaulting them, killing their livestock and burning their crops. Because settler harassment of Palestinian children on their way to school in al-Tuwani had become progressively more vicious, CPT, along with Operation Dove and Taayush, an Israeli peace group, set up an accompaniment project, beginning on September 12, 2004.

CPT is asking its supporters to fax or call the Israeli ambassadors to Canada and the U.S., saying they are aware of the attacks on the CPTers. (Canadians, note that Diane Janzen is a Canadian citizen.)

Ask the following questions:

• Why are the Israeli police not protecting Palestinian children traveling to school in al-Tuwani? Note that harassment of the children has been ongoing and that the police appear to be choosing not to prevent further settler attacks on international volunteers
• What steps is the Israeli government taking to prevent these attacks?
• Why do the soldiers and settler security personnel prevent the children from walking on the road near Ma’on settlement to get to school, ignoring the permission the children have received from the Israeli District Coordinating Officer and the Israeli police to walk on that road?
• Does the Ambassador understand how allowing settlers to attack schoolchildren and internationals committed to nonviolence damages Israel’s reputation?

People may also choose to fax Ariel Sharon, noting that he has closely aligned himself with settlers in the past, and asking him what steps he is taking to prevent further attacks. Note that he has ordered one of the Ma’on “outpost” settlements from which the attackers came demolished to appease the Bush administration.

Contacts

[Note: The fax numbers for the Israeli embassy in Ottawa and for Prime Minister Sharon were not picking up as of 2:00 on Saturday, possibly because of the Jewish Sabbath. Try sending on Sunday or Monday.)

Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Haim Divon (Ottawa)
Fax: 613-237-8865 Phone: 613-567-6450

Israeli Ambassador to the United States (Washington,DC)
Fax: 202-364-5607 Phone:202-364-5500

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
Fax: 011-972-2-651-263

By Hanna Kawas, Chairperson of the Canada Palestine Association, who was born in Bethlehem in 1948,
the year of the Palestinian Nakba. The following message was sent to the American people.

Open Message from a Bethlehemite Palestinian to the American people
including our Arab American community members

You are in the midst of a massive brain-washing campaign conducted by the institutions of the US government, the mainstream media and the multinational corporations. The objective of this campaign is to divert your attention from the real issues facing your day to day life to the abstract notion of WAR ON TERROR that creates a new boogeyman (after the fall of the first boogeyman the Soviet “evil” empire). So please allow me to suggest to you what are the real issues at stake during this election and what are some of the consequences of your vote.

• If you believe that the US empire should control (by all means and using any pretext) the world’s natural resources, including oil reserves,  Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• If you believe that the International Monetary Fund should dictate (under the name of democracy) the policies of the poor nations worldwide and decide which government should rule over them in service of the empire and not for the welfare of the indigenous people of that country, Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• If you are a racist and believe that an American life is the only life that is worth weeping over and that any other life is not worth to be mentioned let alone valued, Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• If you support the immediate massive profits of multinationals over the future of the environment, the planet and the future of your children, Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• If you think that your government should determine the fate of the people of Chile, Colombia, Vietnam, Iran, El-Salvador, North Korea, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Eastern Europe, Philippines, Iraq, Argentina, Sudan, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Haiti and Palestine (to mention just a few), and if you think that the people of these countries do NOT deserve to determine their destiny (which is by the way against US president Wilson’s declared principles of January 18, 1918), Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• If you are a masochist who can take the pain of unemployment, no universal medical care, no decent welfare programmes and no decent pension plan, and at the same time support the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars on wars that kill your fellow human beings, Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• If you think that the Iraqi people are savages and do not deserve to be treated as human beings, and that the two wars and the murderous sanctions in between them that killed one and a half million Iraqi people were justified, Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• If you want the US empire to continue its military, economic and political support for Israeli occupation, oppression and war crimes against the Palestinian people, Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• If you want to be hated even more around the world, and jeopardize the future of your country, your children and grandchildren, Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• If you want to be party to the war mongering of the Empire which uses and distorts Christianity and all other human principles, and if you want to oppose all the humanitarian teachings that promote love, equality and respect for human life, Then vote for George W. Bush or John Kerry.
• And if you want your country to become the new supremacist empire in which the government institutionalizes racial profiling, enslaves people and discriminates against people of colour, Then vote for the traditional parties who have been leading your country down the road of neo-fascism.

If you decide to vote for one of the two evils just because that one is allegedly the lesser evil, don’t expect any decent person to value a soul that chose evil. The lesser of two evils is EVIL nonetheless.

Who should you be voting for?

If you value and love Justice, Peace, Freedom, Democracy, Humanity, Decency, the environment and our planet before profits and self interest, you will be voting for the messenger of the people, Ralph Nader, who dedicated all his life to promoting the interests of ALL humans and OUR environment.

Even if Nader will not win the election this time, you will be voting your conscience and you will empower yourself and give hope for a real change in the near future. Also you will be reclaiming your humanity in the eyes of the people of the world.

For the sake of our future as human race, I hope you choose not to shoot yourself in the foot and not to shoot us (the people of the third world) in the heart.

And finally if you vote to continue the US aggression, occupation and globalization, be sure that the people of the world will escalate and globalize their Intifada, resistance and struggles for freedom and self dignity. In that case, please, please do NOT ever ask why the world hates AMERICA.

Yours truly
Hanna Kawas
A citizen of this Empire-traumatized World