Category: CPA Statements

Open letters and statements to the public from the Canada Palestine Association.

Vancouver, Canada Marks Int’l Day of Solidarity

Two successful events took place this weekend in Vancouver to help commemorate… Read more

Two successful events took place this weekend in Vancouver to help commemorate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
The first was a packed and lively reception on Nov. 28, 2015 that continued the tradition of Vancouver’s annual commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity. The reception also honoured Robert Lovelace, indigenous activist, lecturer and twice a Freedom Flotilla to Gaza sailor, who was in town for several speaking engagements. Both Robert Lovelace and Hanna Kawas, representing Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver, spoke at the reception and encouraged supporters to continue the struggle for Palestinian national and human rights, and the rights of all colonized and oppressed people.
The reception was hosted by BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish, Canada Palestine Association and Seriously Free Speech Committee. Proceeds from the event went to the Tamam Defense Fund, which is helping with the legal expenses of a local Palestinian who is challenging the arbitrary denial of her Jerusalem residency rights by the Israeli occupation authorities.
Photos from the reception 1, 2, 3

(If you would like to contribute to the Tamam Defense Fund, here are the ways to donate.
Please make your cheques payable to:
Canada Palestine Association (write in the Memo: Tamam Defense Fund) and mail to: CPA c/o BC Market, 930 12th St., New Westminster, BC V3M 4K6 (Cheques can also be dropped off at BC Market)
Or donate online)

The second event was on Nov. 27 at the SFU Downtown campus STOLEN LAND: First Nations & Palestinians at the Frontline of Resistance where the audience heard speakers connecting the two indigenous struggles, including the special guest speaker Robert Lovelace. The event started with the powerful message in the Women’s Warrior Song.
That meeting was organised by the Seriously Free Speech Committee, co-sponsored by Canada Palestine Association/BDS Vancouver, Canadian Boat to Gaza, Independent Jewish Voices – Vancouver, South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy, UBC Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights and endorsed by Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign, North West Indigenous Council, Streams of Justice, and United Network for a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel.
See the hasbara article in the local Zionist paper “Jewish Independent” that fabricated history under the misleading title “Co-opting history“, also see our response to this article, Debunking Zionist Hasbara
Photos from the event: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Muffling the Palestinian Narrative in Canada

By Marion Kawas

The Canadian election campaign has another 2 months to go… Read more

By Marion Kawas

The Canadian election campaign has another 2 months to go and it has already become too much to bear. Palestinian activists are either bullied and targeted by our known adversaries or betrayed by our “friends” and told we’re not even allowed to raise our voices. The blatant pro-Israel stands of the current Conservative government are well-known, but the pervasive and bludgeoning reach of the Zionist lobby seems to have reached new heights (or lows). All three major federal parties in Canada need to be sent a loud and clear message that Palestinians and their supporters will not be censored and Palestinian rights are not expendable.
In the last week, the latest round of brouhaha was instigated by the New Democratic Party NDP leadership with the purge of some candidates mildly sympathetic to Palestinian rights. The resulting dissent has put them in damage control mode, especially since many supporters of the Palestinian people have also historically been involved in some way with the NDP which paints itself as the “party of change”. Several people were even deleted from various FaceBook groups (including Rabble) for refusing to drop the challenges on this issue. But the issues of censorship and the need to hear the Palestinian voice have refused to go away. On August 20, the Ontario Civil Liberties Association issued a strongly-worded letter defending the freedom of speech of two of the ex-candidates and noting that what one of them said was common parlance in Israel’s mainstream media. The letter went on to state – “The NDP’s stance in barring any criticism of Israel is undemocratic and wrong. Morgan Wheeldon and Jerry Natanine were not breaking confidence with a democratically-determined party policy platform, or engaged in any such mutiny. They have uttered words critical of Israel, in contexts of democratic discourse.”
Of course Palestine is not the only issue in this election, and Palestinian and Arab Canadians (contrary to some perceptions) are just like everyone else – parents, workers, seniors, disabled etc. with a myriad of concerns . But for supporters of Palestinian rights, the dilemma here is huge. The Zionist lobby are allowed to be “one issue” and have unlimited resources and time to check candidates’ social media accounts for the last 6 years, making any support for Palestine a “red line” issue. Is there no brave voice in the NDP leadership willing to speak out and say this is unacceptable? Sadly, so far, no!
And to ask Palestinian-Canadians and their supporters to vote for a party that is clearly complicit in the trampling of human rights, with the faint hope that after the election things will improve, simply will not cut it. Especially not with the current NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair, who proudly pronounced himself an “ardent supporter of Israel”, even before being elected party leader. Palestinians will not be silenced and after 67 years of dispossession, they no longer believe in hollow promises. So if the NDP leadership wants to own up and say they’ve thrown the Palestinians under the bus as have the other major Canadian political parties, then please be honest and do so. And engage in that debate as to why Palestinian rights (and any discussion of them) are expendable and be judged accordingly.
Does criticizing the NDP (or considering voting for another party, say the Greens) mean you’re supporting Stephen Harper or you don’t want change? Of course not! And frankly, it is arrogant and insulting to everyone’s intelligence to use such fear-mongering tactics. Many pro-Palestinian activists and their organizations have historically supported the NDP at one time or another, but for how long do we join the march to the bottom line no matter the cost, even if it means silence on critical issues? The progressive community expected more from the NDP so this is indeed a bitter pill to swallow.

Expanded version of this article at Mondoweiss.net

Vancouver marks Palestinian Land Day 1976-2015‏

On March 30, 1976, thousands of Palestinians marched in towns and villages… Read more

On March 30, 1976, thousands of Palestinians marched in towns and villages across the Galilee region, in the north of present-day Israel, to protest Israel’s expropriation of vast tracts of Palestinian land. In coordination with the Israeli military, some 4,000 police officers were dispatched to brutally quell the one-day general strike. At the end of the day, six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by state security forces.
In Vancouver, Canada, on April 3, 1976, local Palestinians added their voices to the outcry over the killings and Israel’s policies of land confiscation (Check out this link). Since that time, Land Day has become a significant event for Palestinians as they commemorate not only their attachment to, and struggle for their homeland, but also to protest continuing Israeli ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.
As Ali Abunimah pointed out in an article on the Electronic Intifada:
“Day of the Land – or Land Day – marked a turning point as the first mass mobilization by Palestinians within Israel against internal colonialism and land theft. Its commemoration is a reaffirmation that the Palestinians who remained in the areas on which Israel was declared in 1948 are an inseparable part of the Palestinian people and their struggle.”

In recent years, Land Day has also been marked by global Days of Action on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions BDS. This year, Vancouver again joins in with Land Day activities by leafleting at a local university campus to highlight Air Canada’s role in supporting Israeli Apartheid and war crimes through its contracting with state owned Israel Aerospace Industries.
As the BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish campaign leaflet states –
“Air Canada recently signed a maintenance agreement for its B787 jets with Israel Aerospace Industries IAI, a military defense company wholly owned by the government of Israel. IAI is the subject of boycotts across Europe and is well-known for its drone technology and production. It is truly shameful that Air Canada is “outsourcing” its maintenance work to this Israeli defense company that is directly responsible for the deaths of Palestinian civilians.”
The campaign also started an on-line petition to Air Canada’s CEO, that set a target of 1000 signatures by Land Day, a target that was met and exceeded. And global support continues to increase as more groups and individuals are outraged by Air Canada’s open complicity with Israeli war crimes.

We call on all supporters of the Palestinian peoples’ struggle for liberation world-wide to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The Western governments have proven over the last seven decades that they are the ones empowering Israeli war crimes; and we certainly can’t count on the Arab regimes, who rather than using their vast resources to challenge Israeli aggression, are busy trying to solidify their own dictatorships and suppress liberation movements across the Arab world.

Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver
———————————————————————————————————————–
Details of Land Day Leafleting
** March 30: Palestinian Day of the Land **
Boycott Israeli Apartheid – Boycott Air Canada

Leafleting at Simon Fraser University
Burnaby Mountain campus
@ convocation hall near Bennett Library entrance
Monday, March 30
11:30 – 1:30pm

Support the Defense Fund for Tamam al Zobaidi and her Family

Update Oct/2015:

Eight months ago, Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver… Read more

Update Oct/2015:

Eight months ago, Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver started the Tamam Defense Fund to help Tamam and Kenza al Zobaidi challenge Israel’s arbitrary denial of their legitimate Jerusalem residency rights. The response of supporters across Canada has been heartening; your support not only helped the family meet the financial costs for the legal process, but also let them know that they are not alone and that many people are committed to standing up to Israel’s outrageous policies that can render a family stateless and status-less.

The current escalating Israeli repression in Palestine, particularly in East Jerusalem, highlights the vulnerability of Palestinians under occupation but also shows Palestinians’ determination to hold onto and cherish their birthright, their heritage and their homeland. The case of Tamam and Kenza has now gone to the next stage in the Israeli legal system, as the Israeli tribunal judge upheld the original Ministry of Interior decision and even ordered the family to pay an extra penalty. They must now spend further time and money in appealing all of this to the Israeli district court, which is both expensive and stressful (the appeal to the district court will cost around $10,000).

We know that your political and financial support has been pivotal in helping to keep this case moving forward and we are asking all friends and supporters to continue with publicizing and donating to this campaign. Please also approach any groups you are part of and ask them to consider making a donation and highlighting the case on their websites and social media. We have been able to raise over $5000 towards the family’s legal fees so far, but more is needed; $4200.00 was already forwarded to the family and over $1300 is currently in our Crowdfunding account. Together we can continue to challenge Israeli ethnic cleansing and finally put a stop to these cruel measures that divide families, separate parents from children and ultimately have the goal of making daily life impossible for Palestinian Jerusalemites.

Please donate generously to this fund which will go towards the al Zobaidis’ legal expenses, and make your checks payable to:
Canada Palestine Association
(write in the Memo: Tamam Defense Fund)
and mail to:
CPA
c/o BC Market
930 12th St., New Westminster, B.C., V3M 4K6

Cheques can also be dropped at BC Market address
Or Donate online

=================================================================================================================

Canada Palestine Association (CPA)-Vancouver is starting a Defense Fund for Tamam and Kenza al Zobaidi (mother and daughter), who were denied their legitimate residency status in Jerusalem by the Israeli occupation authorities and accordingly their birthright. Also, Tamam has now “become, essentially, stateless, and risked falling out of ‘legal’ status in Canada, which would render her unable to work, receive health care or enroll her child…in school” (Electronic Intifada, Oct. 6, 2014). Sobhi and Tamam al Zobaidi are well-known in the Vancouver Palestinian and progressive community and their friends are shocked by this development.

East Jerusalem is recognized by all countries in the world including Canada as illegally occupied territory; in spite of this, Israel continues to act as the rightful owner of Jerusalem against all international humanitarian laws, UN resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel continues with its settler colonialist policy and ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their historic homeland.

Please donate generously to this fund which will go towards the al Zobaidis’ legal expenses, and make your checks payable to:
Canada Palestine Association
(write in the Memo: Tamam Defense Fund)
and mail to:
CPA
c/o BC Market
930 12th St., New Westminster,
B. C., V3M 4K6

Cheques can also be dropped at BC Market address
Or Donate online

For more information on these racist policies towards the indigenous Palestinian people of Jerusalem (both Christians and Muslims), see the report from the Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem:
Revocation of Residency in East Jerusalem
And the report by the Society of St. Yves, Catholic Center for Human Rights, Jerusalem.
The legal status of Palestinians in Jerusalem

Past Correspondence with Amnesty International, Canada regarding David Matas

(Note: CPA’s work over the past 34 years has been largely undocumented… Read more

(Note: CPA’s work over the past 34 years has been largely undocumented on our website, but we are trying to rectify this.)

AI-Canada Stated Zionist Legal Network Coordinator Didn’t Compromise their Commitment to Impartiality

The following letters were exchanged between CPA and Bonnie Harnden, Executive Assistant of Amnesty International Canada in Jan./Feb 2002.
We checked recently with AI-Canada about the status of David Matas and we received the following response on Feb. 24, 2014 from Denise Glasbeek, Information Services Coordinator, Amnesty International, Canadian Section (English-Speaking):
“I don’t have an exact date for when David Matas ceased to work with Amnesty International. It was sometime close to but before 2006, I believe. To clarify, he was not employed at Amnesty International Canada. He was a volunteer with our Legal Network.” We recognize that AI-Canada has increased its engagement with and promotion of Palestinian human rights in recent years, but to our knowledge, although he is no longer involved with them, they have never distanced themselves from David Matas.
Interestingly, Matas was fully informed about the 2002 exchange of letters and even wrote about them in his outrageous 2005 “Hasbara” book “Aftershock: Anti-Zionism & Anti-Semitism”

We started our engagement with AI, Canada in Jan. 2002, by inquiring about the status of David Matas and his involvement with them, and we received the following response from Bonnie Harnden.
________________________________

—– Original Message —–
From: bharnden@…
To: hkawas@…
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 7:25 AM
Subject: David Matas

Dear Hanna,
David Matas is a long-time volunteer member of Amnesty Canada. He is currently the Coordinator of our Legal Network.
David is also very active in a number of other organizations.
Bonnie Harnden
Executive Assistant
AI Canada
_________________________________-
The following letter was sent to Bonnie Harnden, Executive Assistant, AI Canada under the title “A Staunch Supporter of Israel CANNOT be Impartial”
Jan. 19, 2002
From: “hkawas” hkawas@…
To: bharnden@…
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 1:09 AM
Subject: A Staunch Supporter of Israel CANNOT be Impartial

Bonnie Harnden
Executive Assistant, AI Canada

Dear Bonnie

I was disturbed and saddened to learn that David Matas is still working with Amnesty International – Canada.
Mr. Matas is a staunch supporter and uncritical advocate of Israel and Zionism, and he is also is an apologist for Israeli injustices and atrocities against the Palestinian people.

As a “Senior Legal Counsel” to the B’nai Brith Canada, he recently wrote:

“There may be some who assert the right of return for Palestinians without any awareness of the impact it would have on the Jewish people. Others are aware but either do not care, or worse, support that impact. For those in support, ‘the right of return of the Palestinian people’ is today what the ‘final solution to the Jewish problem’ was in the days of Hitler, a mask of words disguising the end result: a denial of the Jewish people’s right to a national identity in its historic homeland.”
He also stated in the same position paper that:
“Israel has not stripped Palestinians of their nationality in violation of international law”.
And then further stated:
“The non-governmental organizations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both endorsed the claimed right of Palestinians to Israel… In doing so, they have abandoned their human rights mandates and called for a human rights violation.”
(Israel And The Palestinians: Myths and Realities http://www.bnaibrith.ca/institute/articles/dm010730.html)

This leads us to the following questions:

1- If Mr. Matas thinks that Amnesty International calls for “a human rights violation”, why is he still working with AI Canada?
2- Can a man with so much blind loyalty to Israel and the cause of Zionism be impartial?
3- After all these years of his involvement with your organization, why has AI Canada never questioned his impartiality?
4- Can we trust that the campaigns you are conducting are not politically motivated? i.e. Are the campaigns you are conducting against human rights abuses in certain Arab and Moslem countries motivated by human rights principles or by a political pro-Israeli agenda? And what guarantees can you give the public about this question when you have the likes of Mr. David Matas
working as the Coordinator for your Legal Network?

Amnesty International claims that it “is impartial. It does not take sides in political conflicts. It neither supports nor opposes any government or political system.”

If you are true to your principles, we do NOT think Mr. Matas should be involved in the work of Amnesty International in any capacity.
He not only supports a political system, but he supports a political system that denies the suffering of the Palestinian people, their inalienable rights and their HUMANITY.

Yours truly,

Hanna Kawas
Chairperson,
Canada Palestine Association
Vancouver, Canada
________________________________________
Bonnie Harnden’s response:

—– Original Message —–
From: bharnden@…
To: “hkawas” hkawas@…
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 8:31 AM
Subject: Re: A Staunch Supporter of Israel CANNOT be Impartial

Dear Hanna,

David Matas is a longstanding volunteer with Amnesty International. His work with the organization has been in keeping with AI’s commitment to impartiality and independence. Mr. Matas always makes it clear when he is speaking or acting on behalf of AI and when he is doing so on behalf of other organizations. Mr. Matas has no role in developing or presenting Amnesty’s policies or actions in relation to the Middle East.

Amnesty’s work on human rights concerns in the Middle East has always been scrupulously impartial, and not influenced by political considerations. In Israel, the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian Authority the organization has spoken out frequently and very publicly with respect to human rights abuses attributable to Israeli forces, the Palestinian Authority and armed groups. Those reports are available on our website.

Bonnie Harnden
Executive Assistant
AI Canada
________________________________________
Our final response to Bonnie Harnden, under the title “Amnesty International-Canada Violates the Principles of Human Rights” Feb. 15, 2002
From: hkawas
To: bharnden@…
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 11:25 PM
Subject: Amnesty International-Canada Violates the Principles of Human Rights

Bonnie Harnden
Amnesty International Canada

We in the Canada Palestine Association are outraged that David Matas, a self declared violator of Palestinian human rights, is allowed to work in Amnesty International – Canada. Human rights are universal, and a violator of human rights in one country can not be a defender of human rights anywhere else.
What is even more incomprehensible is that Matas has publicly criticized Amnesty for its support of the Palestinian right of return, accusing you of having “abandoned (your) human rights mandate”, and yet he continues to work with you and you continue to involve him in a position of trust. The principles of human rights do not lend themselves to such opportunism.

1- Mr. David Matas supports Zionism as an exclusive ideology that allows any Jew to automatically gain Israeli citizenship regardless of his/her birth place, while at the same time he vehemently denies a native of Palestine and her/his descendants the right of return to their homeland.

2- Mr. Matas DENIES the direct responsibility of the Zionist movement for the mass expulsion of the majority of the Palestinian people and the subsequent tragedy of the Palestinian dispossession. Many historians, including Israelis, have documented this direct Israeli responsibility.

“The Jewish military advantage was translated into an act of mass expulsion of more than half of the Palestinian population. The Israeli forces, apart from rare exceptions, expelled the Palestinians from every village and town they occupied. In some cases, this expulsion was accompanied by massacres as was the cases in Lydda, Ramleh, Dawimiyya, Sa’sa, Ein Zietun and other
places. Expulsion also was accompanied by rape, looting and confiscation.”
Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe in “The Link”, January-March, 1998.

3- Mr. Matas not only defends the apartheid nature of the state of Israel, he also justifies it and believes that Israel should be the state of the Jewish people only and not of ALL its citizens. He supports the exclusive “Jewish character of the State of Israel” and “the preservation of the cultural identity of the Jewish people” in Israel.

a- On that basis, he thereby supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the state of Israel which was created according to the UN Partition Plan of Nov. 29, 1947, with a population of 50 percent Jewish and 50 percent Arab
Palestinians on 56 per cent of historic Palestine.
b- Mr. Matas believes that any natural demographic change inside Israel should be stopped by all means similar to what happened in 1947/1948.
c. He also supports all the Israeli laws and regulations that make Israel an exclusionary state and not secular for all of its citizens. The basic law, the law of return and the Jewish National Fund regulations are but a few examples.

4- Mr. Matas says the Holocaust “was global, not just European. It had a Middle East dimension, because of the failure of the states of the Middle East to offer protection to Jewish refugees”. Accordingly, he concludes that Palestinians should share in the “obligation to remedy these wrongs (of the Nazis)”, presumably by giving away their country. This is the utmost in victimizing the victim. Canada and the U.S. were two of the worst countries in turning away Jewish refugees during that period, but Mr. Matas hasn’t called for the state of Israel to be established in New York or on Vancouver Island. We refer him to the book, “The Holocaust, Victims Accuse”, published 1977 by the Orthodox Jewish group Neturei Karta, to fill the gaps in his rather selective analysis.

These are just a few examples of what David Matas stands for, and we do not understand how AI-Canada can claim that it is committed to “impartiality and independence” if it allows such a person to coordinate its legal network, and especially when this coordinator thinks that AI called for “a human rights violation” when it supported the Palestinians’ inalienable human rights.

We urge AI-Canada to:
1- Stop working with people like David Matas who call and work for violations of other peoples’ human and national rights.
2- To start a campaign to call on the Canadian government to stop the tax-deductible status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) that discriminates on the basis of religion. The JNF and its subsidiaries control around 93 per cent of the land in Israel. This land is set aside for the exclusive use of Jews only, and the 20 per cent Muslim and Christian Israeli minority cannot buy nor even lease this land.
As a Canadian human rights organization, you do not want Canada to be an accessory to such discrimination.

In the meantime, however, we feel obliged to condemn AI-Canada and expose your hypocritical practices to all peace and human rights activists.
We will urge all those who are concerned with the universality of human rights to protest AI-Canada’s practices.

Yours truly

Hanna Kawas
Chairperson,
Canada Palestine Association, Vancouver, B.C.