Category: Events

DAY OF ACTION FOR THE FISHERS AND FARMERS OF GAZA, PALESTINE!

Vancouver Rally
Sunday, September 30
1 PM
Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson side)
Robson St. and Hornby St., Vancouver

Join us on September 30 to stand in solidarity with both the farmers and fishers of Palestine as they work to defend their land and sea from occupation and continue their harvest and their livelihoods. Many people in Gaza have always relied on the land and the sea for their livelihood. Generations of Palestinian fishers have worked the sea, and farmers harvested the land, to support their communities and their lives. Today, the fishers and farmers of Gaza are under attack. The Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Palestine has called for international action and solidarity to support fishers and farmers under siege.

Gaza, Palestine lies along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Gaza has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, and under a tight and brutal siege since 2006, denying people and goods access and movement from the small coastal strip, one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Over 70% of the people of Gaza are refugees who have lived in Gaza since the 1948 Nakba – the occupation and ethnic cleansing of most of Palestine.

Gaza’s Fishers: Today, over 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza rely on the sea and the fishing industry for their income and their lives. However, the sea in Gaza and the fishers of Gaza are bearing the brunt of one of the most severe aspects of Israel’s siege on Gaza. Israeli warships constantly patrol Gaza’s shores and have unilaterally declared fishing prohibited outside 3 nautical miles. Tens of millions of dollars of income have been lost and fishers families forced into unemployment and poverty. Fishers who venture to the 3 nautical mile “border” are regularly shot at, their boats seized or damaged, and subject to arrest, detention and imprisonment. In 2012, there have already been hundreds of attacks on fishing boats by Israeli warships. (See video of Gaza fishers under attack)

Gaza’s Farmers: Gaza’s farmers are also subject to an ongoing war against their lives, livelihood and land. Israel has unilaterally declared the northern and eastern edges of the Gaza Strip to be “buffer zones” or “no go zones”, often in some of the most agriculturally proficient areas of the often-dry region, on land farmed by Palestinian families for generations. Anyone who ventures into these areas regularly faces threats to their lives from soldiers, snipers, tanks, helicopters and drones that routinely patrol the area. The “buffer zone” includes 17% of Gaza’s total land mass – but 35% of its agricultural land and 113,000 people. 305 water wells, 197 chicken farms, 377 sheep farms, and over 1000 homes have been destroyed by Israeli occupation military inside the “buffer zone.” (See video of Gaza farmers and fishers resisting occupation)

While Palestinian fishers and farmers are braving gunfire to work their land and sea, the Canadian government of Stephen Harper has nothing but praise for the Israeli state that enforces this siege on Gaza. On March 29, 2006, Canada became the first country in the world to impose a siege on the Palestinian people living in Gaza and the West Bank, declaring cancellation of aid to Palestine. Foreign Minister John Baird recently described Canada as “Israel’s best friend.”

Of course, Israel is not alone in denying indigenous people the right to fish and farm their land – like Israel, Canada was founded upon the theft of indigenous people’s land, a settler colonial reality of genocide and oppression that continues to the present day. Indigenous nations are engaged in constant struggles to defend their fishing rights against attempts to deny their right to fish their own waters commercially, as well as to defend their traditional territories from pipelines and resource extraction.

Join us on September 30 to demand an end to the siege on Gaza’s fishers and farmers, and to demand that the Canadian government end its extensive political, diplomatic and legal support for Israeli apartheid and occupation – and to show the farmers and fishers of Gaza that their struggle echoes around the world.

Initial endorsers include: Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign, Independent Jewish Voices, Gaza’s Ark, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights – UBC, Union of Agricultural Work Committees (Palestine), Canada Palestine Association, Voice of Palestine, Alliance for People’s Health

To endorse the protest, or get involved in organizing, please email vancouver2gaza@gmail.com

More information or flyers? See online

On May 31, 2012, the Jewish National Fund JNF Pacific Region will be holding an evening to support their 2012 project – the “Arava Peace Route”. Similar to the mockery that is Canada Park, the JNF is publicly claiming to be enhancing the environment and supporting a “peace route”, while ethnically cleansing the Palestinian Bedouins from the same Negev region where their “peace route” will “enhance access to and from farmers fields .. (and) will improve security”. The Bedouin village of Al Araqib in the Negev has been destroyed 37 times by Israeli and JNF paramilitary forces, but the Palestinians of the village refuse to surrender, many of them returning time and time again to rebuild (more info at Stop the JNF Campaign).
The JNF uses language like “pioneering” and “security” and “100% Israel” in its publicity for the event. And equally fitting is the guest speaker that JNF Pacific Region is highlighting for the evening:- Dennis Prager from the U.S., who is a close associate of Christian Zionist leader John Hagee and his organization, Christians United for Israel.
Canada Palestine Association is calling on all our supporters to join us and add their voices in telling the JNF that green-washing apartheid is no longer acceptable.
Gather across the street from Schara Tzedeck Synagogue, 3476 Oak St., Vancouver at 6:30 pm on May 31, 2012.

Please join the Facebook page event
——————————-
In a recent interview, Dennis Prager (from the U.S.) seems to feel we need his input on our democratic rights here in B.C. to picket this JNF event. He also describes Israel as “one of the most humane, open and civilized countries on earth”, the same Israel that commits war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
See the article “Dedicated lobbyist for Israel” in the local Zionist paper the “Jewish Independent”:
“Prager has a simple message for those JNF critics who may picket his Vancouver talk, as they have previous JNF and other Israel-related events: ‘You live in a free country, so If you are peaceful, welcome,’ he offered. ‘Having said that, I regard those who protest against Israel or the JNF and other supporters of Israel – one of the most humane, open and civilized countries on earth – as having broken moral compasses. The world is filled [with] barbarism, and they protest against Israel!’.”
Watch You Tube video for the event