Author: cpaadmin

Air Canada Terminates their Main Contract with Israel Aerospace Industries

Canadian BDS Coalition Declares Partial Victory in #AirCanadaComplicity… Read more

Canadian BDS Coalition Declares Partial Victory in #AirCanadaComplicity Campaign

On November 2, 2017, in a surprise development, the Canadian BDS Coalition was able to declare partial victory in their #AirCanadaComplicity campaign. Following is the official statement that was released by the Coalition wherein they thanked the many grassroots supporters both in Canada and around the world that endorsed the Open Letter campaign; they also pledged to continue to pressure Air Canada to halt any remaining complicity with Israeli war crimes.

Canadian BDS Coalition Statement:
“On November 1, 2017, we were informed in writing by Air Canada management that the 5-year contract with Israel Aerospace Industries Bedek Group for heavy maintenance on its B767 jets had been terminated early. That contract, reported to be worth tens of millions of dollars, was set to run until March 2019.

Air Canada offered no reason for dropping the contract other than to say it was due to a practice of reviewing such “arrangements on a regular basis” with all service providers. Air Canada also claimed in its letter that this process happened in “early 2017” and that the contract was transferred to “another provider in North America”.

However, we need to point out that this new information was only released after our #AirCanadaComplicity campaign was taking off and receiving increasing support both from within Canada and internationally. Unions representing hundreds of thousands of members (and their families) had signed on to the new Open Letter, as had groups in other countries from the U.S. to Norway, France, Germany, Belgium and Ireland to Australia. The Open Letter was a shortened version of a previous official letter to Air Canada, sent 4 months earlier, which received neither an acknowledgement nor an answer.

Air Canada also said in its letter that it still has one smaller contract with IAI, where “in compliance with international safety regulations that apply to all carriers, Bedek provides a certified aircraft engineer to do a check that is required on aircraft prior to departure of regularly scheduled return flights to Canada”. However, they noted that if any substantive problems are found during that check, then Air Canada dispatches its own employees to conduct the work.

They did not address the issue of the Sabra food products being part of the on-board menu on certain flights.

However, the Canadian BDS Coalition is pleased that the largest and most significant element of Air Canada’s involvement with Israel Aerospace Industries has been terminated. Given the recent publicity IAI has received in the international press in the last months, it is not surprising that any company would want to distance themselves from such a partner. First, we heard of a subsidiary of IAI being involved with building the U.S.-Mexico border wall and then just last week, the Israeli press reported that IAI was one of the 190 companies included on the United Nations upcoming blacklist for violating international law by doing business in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Although the issue of maintenance outsourcing is still ongoing and we will continue to pressure Air Canada regarding the carrying of Sabra products and their remaining small contract with IAI, we feel that this is a significant national victory for the #AirCanadaComplicity campaign. The Coalition wishes to thank all our supporters, both here in Canada and abroad, who made the difference in showing that justice for Palestinians can be achieved. The collective will and efforts of our strong movements for social justice cannot be denied!”

#Balfour100

Balfour Declaration: Immoral and Inhumane

By Marion Kawas
(photo from Burj el Barajneh refugee camp)

When I first met Palestinian refugees in camps across Lebanon in the 1970s, both in the south and around Beirut, I was surprised at the frequency with which I heard this statement:

Yes, we are well aware of how Israel and the U.S. are working to dispossess our people, but we ultimately hold Britain responsible for the colonization of Palestine and the resulting ethnic cleansing and continuing Nakba.

But as Theresa May and Benjamin Netanyahu (and others) gather to “celebrate” the destruction and dismemberment of the Palestinian nation, let them beware of the Palestinian will to survive and beware of its hunger and anger (to quote Mahmoud Darwish).

Here we are, 100 years on, in the supposedly enlightened 21st century, and the crude racism of colonialist exploits is still being heralded. Palestine was “a desert, a mosquito-infested swamp”, Palestinians needed to be “civilized”, and as the League of Nations covenant in 1919 noted about countries like Palestine, they “are inhabited by people not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world”.

Such racism was standard for the era, let’s not forget Winston Churchill’s comments on Palestine to the 1937 Peel Commission. Palestine “never will be cultivated by the Arabs”, he said and continued: “I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race…has come in and taken their place.”

Even in Canada, the late Prime Minister Mackenzie King “was effusive with praise for Zionism when he addressed the Ottawa convention of the Zionist Federation of Canada on 4 July 1922…he applauded Britain efforts (Balfour Declaration) in aid of the Zionist cause.”

But to celebrate such obscenities in this day and age, attached to the supremacist notion that you can guarantee a land you don’t own to another not even living there and completely bypass the rights of the indigenous people who have lived there for generations! What an outrage!

As Gideon Levy noted in a recent opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

“There was never anything like it: an empire promising a land that it had not yet conquered to a people not living there, without asking the inhabitants”.

However, the window for such policies is quickly closing. History is on the side of the Palestinians, and support for the Palestinian cause is growing world-wide. May, Netanyahu, and all others who blindly carry on as if the world is still living in the colonial racism of 100 years ago should take note. Palestinians are determined to own their history, their present and their future. They are determined their voices should be the ones heard to explain their narrative. And they are done with false peace plans that act as a cover for further dispossession and false leaders that are only advancing themselves. And they will hold accountable all those who initiated, supported and continue to perpetuate and give cover for the Zionist settler-colonialist project.

Boycott HP, Shop Apartheid-Free Campaign in Vancouver

Second picket held on Oct. 14, 2017, Vancouver.
Photos from the action, … Read more

Second picket held on Oct. 14, 2017, Vancouver.
Photos from the action, more on Facebook event page.
hp1hp

Vancouver launches the Boycott HP campaign with an informational picket on August 26, 2017 outside Best Buy.
Hewlett Packard companies play a key role in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. They provide technology, equipment and services to the Israeli military and government, including the ID card system that underpin Israel’s apartheid policies and its movement restrictions for Palestinians.
The international Boycott HP campaign has already seen 17 U.S. churches (representing 7 denominations) divest from the company and has also attracted support from student governments.
More info at BDS Movement and American Friends Service Committee
Here is a video on our Facebook page for the Aug. 26 picket.

And on Twitter:

Background Info: Hewlett Packard (HP) companies are known for their computers, printers, and ink cartridges but many people are unaware of HP’s role providing technology for Israel’s military occupation of Palestine and violations of Palestinian human rights. HP has been described as the “Polaroid of our times”, a reference to huge mobilisations against the use of Polaroid technology used for the South African apartheid regime’s passbook system.
• HP provides IT infrastructure and support to Israel’s Prison Service.
• HP companies have contracts to provide information technology infrastructure to the illegal settlements of Modi’in Ilit and Ariel and also have a “development center” in another illegal settlement, Beitar Ilit.
• HP provides the biometric ID cards for Israel that form the basis of rampant and de facto discrimination in housing, employment, marriage, healthcare, education, and policing.

Support human rights and go HP free! Make your back-to-school shopping Apartheid free!
Check out the FB event page for details and photos.

Canada Contravenes The Fourth Geneva Convention

Following is the position of the Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver,… Read more

Following is the position of the Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver, sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency regarding their reversal on the issue of labelling Israeli settlement wines.

Thank you for clarifying the Canadian government position on the Palestinian occupied territories. And thank you for clarifying that according to the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement, Israeli territory includes the Palestinian occupied territories.

Thank you for stating categorically that Canada is engaged in selling illegal goods produced on stolen lands in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention and all internationally recognized laws.

We understand from your most recent statement that the provisions of the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA) supersede those in the “Canadian Policy on Key Issues in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” and specifically those relating to the “Occupied Territories and Settlements” which clearly state: “The Fourth Geneva Convention applies in the occupied territories and establishes Israel’s obligations as an occupying power, … As referred to in UN Security Council Resolutions 446 and 465, Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

You quote the CIFTA (Article 1.4.1b) as a reason for the reversal of your original ruling, which states in defining territory: “with respect to Israel the territory where its customs laws are applied”. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and accordingly the Canadian Government, in accepting and enforcing that definition of Israeli territory, have explicitly recognized Israel sovereignty over these occupied territories.

Your statement exposes the true Canadian government position regarding the occupied territories. It also shows how Canada is empowering Israel to continue with its violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and its flaunting of UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions.

Israeli Violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention

The Israeli government is in violation of many articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention including article 49: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Israel has already planted almost 13% of its population in colonies in the Palestinian occupied territories. Israel is also in violation of article 33 which says: “Pillage is prohibited. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.” The massive transfer of its citizens to the occupied territories has resulted in enormous pillaging of Palestinian lands and its natural resources, including water.

Israeli Violations of the UN Resolutions

The Israeli government has also contravened numerous UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, including 242 which says in its preamble “Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, and then called for the “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”. Resolution 338, another Security Council resolution passed in 1973, “Calls upon the parties concerned to start immediately after the cease-fire the implementation of Security Council resolution 242 (1967) in all of its parts”. FIFTY years and the world is still waiting.

It is clear to all peace-loving people the world over that Canada and the Western countries, led by the US, are empowering Israeli occupation and war crimes. These countries respect UN resolutions only when it serves their (and their client) states’ interests.

It is also clear now, with this new Canadian ruling, that Canada pays lip service only in its declared support to the Fourth Geneva Convention, while empowering and encouraging Israel to violate it.

This explains the voting record of the Canadian government (under different administrations) at the UN general Assembly for at least the past four years. In regards to resolutions on the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories (check our analysis of the Canadian vote for the year 2013), Canada has voted against the following resolutions, amongst 17 in total:

1. The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination
2. Persons displaced as a result of the June 1967 and subsequent hostilities
3. The applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the other occupied Arab territories.
4. Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources

It is abundantly clear that the Canadian government is an active accomplice in Israeli violations of international humanitarian law. Now more than ever, with this explicit acceptance of Israeli sovereignty on Occupied Palestinian and Arab land, the Canadian government is in violation of all international norms and decency.

We will make the Canadian position known to the ICRC and to all contracting parties to the Fourth Geneva convention. And above all, we will make it known to Canadian and international public opinion.

Canada Palestine Association, Vancouver
Check out the article on Palestinechronicle.com