Category: Featured

Sabra and Shatila massacre: a scar that won’t heal

There are certain profound events in a nation’s history that leave an indelible mark on all its people. The massacre in two Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, Sabra and Shatila, on September 16, 1982 stands as one of those events.

Taking place during the course of the Lebanese civil war, Israeli forces shot flares into the night sky, lighting the way for far-right Lebanese militias to carryout the systematic killing of up to 3500 Palestinian and Lebanese men, women and children. The massacre lasted 48 hours.

Sabra and Shatila signalled the end of an era for the Palestinian resistance movement. An era that grew from the refugee camps in Lebanon and honored Palestinian refugees and their right of return; an era that did not question the value of armed struggle in national liberation; an era that nurtured some of the best of Palestinian cultural and political life; an era that restored Palestinian dignity after the harrowing years that followed the Nakba.

In 1982, the U.S. administration betrayed the written guarantees they had given to the PLO to protect Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps. An article by Palestinian academic Rashid Khalidi in 2017 titled “The United States was responsible for the 1982 massacre of Palestinians in Beirut” studied what guarantees were given by U.S. officials and what they knew at the time. Khalidi also noted in his conclusion that the “ill-considered and morally flawed decisions about the 1982 war that were made by American policy-makers” continue to this day, with the same dangerous repercussions.

Nonetheless, a decade later, the Palestinian leadership agreed to the Oslo Accords, which we now know did immense damage to the Palestinian struggle. Where would the Palestinians stand now if the Oslo Accords had never been ratified, if the First Intifada had continued, if the PLO still inspired unity and stood for all the concepts encompassed in its name?

In 2007, on the 25th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, I wrote a commentary that was presented on the Voice of Palestine radio show in Vancouver. Sadly, its words still ring true; we are still waiting for justice, not only for the victims and survivors of Sabra and Shatila but for all Palestinians.

“It was September 1982. The summer had been brutal, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon being the issue we lived with, woke up to, and went to bed with. There was no internet, and our days were consumed with obtaining even the smallest slivers of news about the Palestinian and Lebanese casualties of the war, that numbered in the tens of thousands. We organized rallies, raised money for humanitarian aid, but none of it could erase or even reduce the emotional turmoil we constantly faced.

And then, as we all debated how and why the PLO forces left Beirut with supposed U.S. guarantees for the safety of civilians, we began to receive the flickering images on our TV screens of piled up and disfigured bodies from Sabra and Shatila. At first, the full horror of it was not immediately realized, and again, it took some time before all the details emerged. At least 3000 civilians (bodies were dumped in mass graves so figures are at best conservative) butchered and mutilated by Lebanese fascist forces with the full support of the occupying Israeli army in manners almost too gruesome to think about. And all of this with American guarantees for civilian safety.

We were like people in shock, numbly going ahead with plans for large protests but knowing at some deeper level, that the tragedy here would take a long time to process.

Many events happened in the aftermath but none brought the smallest amount of justice to the Sabra and Shatila victims. Ariel Sharon was found complicit even by Israeli institutions, but then returned as prime minister some years later. The victims tried to receive some modicum of accountability with their lawsuit in Belgian courts, which was then squashed by pressure from U.S. and other governments. Once again, the massacre of Palestinians was an inconvenient reality, and the memory of it even more inconvenient.”

Perhaps the new normalization/weapons agreements that have just been signed at the White House, one day before the Sabra and Shatila anniversary, will be looked back on by future analysts as marking the end of another era. The era of U.S. hegemony, destruction, and disregard for the lives and livelihood of the Palestinian and Arab peoples. And only then will the scars of the Sabra and Shatila massacre truly begin to heal.

by Marion Kawas
Pubished Sept. 17, 2020 in Mondoweiss

CBC Denies Palestine’s Existence

CBC has confirmed its official language guide dictates:

NO to Palestine as a country, NO to Palestine as an entity, NO to any map with Palestine, NO useage of the term pro-Palestine in generic ways

Are they Palestine-phobic? Or just racist? We have officially asked them to explain their process in arriving at such a sweeping censure of all things Palestine, and await their reply.

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“I referred to the Palestinian territories as ‘Palestine,’ we apologize.”

This surreal statement was carried last week on CBC, Canada’s national broadcaster. Why? Because the guest host on The Current had dared to use the word Palestine during an interview. And to make the issue even more ludicrous, the interview was with graphic journalist and war correspondent Joe Sacco on “the themes of colonialism and resource extraction”.

The pro-Israel lobby group Honest Reporting (HR) quickly spun into action to tell CBC that in fact, the use of Palestine goes against CBC’s own language policies. Absurd enough yet??

Apparently, according to HR, this is from CBC’s language guide:

“… there is no modern country of Palestine, although there’s a movement to establish one as part of a two-state peace agreement with Israel. Areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority are considered Palestinian territories: Fatah-run West Bank and Hamas-run Gaza Strip.”

We will assume that this is accurate because the outrageous apology followed the day after the original interview. All of this led HR to gloat on their website about how they keep CBC in check regarding the non-existent Palestine.

And this isn’t the first time that activists have had to deal with CBC’s anti-Palestinian policies. Two years ago, Canada Palestine Association launched a formal complaint with CBC management that went all the way to their Ombudsman Office. It again involved changes in specific language that CBC had made in its reporting on Palestine after a complaint from HR, that time during the beginning of the Great March of Return. And it ended up (albeit through a much longer and winding route) with the same results – CBC stated it changed their reporting in order to more properly follow its own language guidelines. (Even though as regarded one point of terminology, the usage of “Arab Israelis” rather than Palestinians in Israel, the Ombudsman Office admitted there were no written protocols).

We hold CBC accountable for these decisions. The Zionist lobby is simply doing what it is meant to do – promote Israel by all means. Honest Reporting Canada clearly states on its website: “As an organization dedicated to defending Israel against prejudice in the media, we aim to provide educational tools and resources to anyone wishing to advocate for Israel”.

CBC on the other hand, is not doing what it is mandated and entrusted to do. Its “Journalistic Standards and Practices” document commits to accuracy, balance, objectivity and impartiality. And its governance policies are peppered with fine-sounding words like “reflecting differing views…fully and fairly…in a balanced manner…broad range of opinion”.

But just don’t say Palestine, or say that there are Palestinians in Israel. The mind boggles at how a reporter would have to handle a story talking about or with Palestinians under occupation, in exile and in the Galilee.

Never mind that 138 countries recognize Palestine as a state, as does the United Nations and multiple UN organizations. But no, CBC is following the same pattern as successive Canadian governments. Let’s not forget the same reasoning was used by the Trudeau government in claiming the International Criminal Court had no jurisdiction over the charges of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Canada and its institutions are not representing the majority opinion of Canadians and are also completely out of step with international opinion. Its small wonder that they lost the recent bid for a UN Security Council seat.

Not CBC, nor the Canadian government, nor the Israeli government, can deny the existence of Palestine and its people. These churlish and supremacist attempts at erasing Palestinian identity will not succeed and only increase the resolve of the Palestinians and their supporters to fight for justice.

by Marion Kawas

Another version of this article was carried in Canadian Dimension.

Send a letter to CBC management here.

Anti-Palestinian Racism is rampant in aftermath of York Student Protest!

(The coverage of our statement and other updates on Palestine Chronicle).

Last month, Palestinian students and their supporters at York University were thrust into the spotlight after holding a protest against an event that brought former Israeli soldiers to campus. What happened during that evening and the ensuing aftermath have been an eye-opening expose on how the Zionist lobby works to discredit and falsely smear Palestinian activists as “violent” and “anti-Semitic”.  A master class in how alarmist hyperbole, mixed with a dash of blatant fabrications, and then repeated often enough, can become accepted “fact”.

Students Against Israeli Apartheid SAIA-York and the other groups on campus should be commended for not only standing strong despite all the invective thrown at them, but also for forcing the parameters of the follow-up discussion to be broadened. The position of the university administration has changed since the initial reaction, although their false parity of penalizing both SAIA and the Zionist club on campus and their insistence on forced “mediation” is akin to telling Rosa Parks to sit and negotiate with the KKK.

However, York has now also been obliged to call for an independent inquiry into what happened, following a strongly worded letter from Amnesty International. We are certain that if there had not been such significant pushback since day one from so many diverse student and community groups, the university would have proceeded with sanctioning only SAIA and the pro-Palestinian protestors.

We hope that this investigation will deal with the behaviour of Herut Canada and how their Toronto leader, as early as November 22, stated that her security organizer had invited not only the Jewish Defense League, but also “Jewish motorcycle groups” who came out and provided “protection” for the event. Are we to believe that York University, or any post-secondary institute in Canada, approves of student groups bringing members of a motorcycle gang on campus for event security? We can only imagine the howls of indignation if SAIA had invited an “Islamist motorcycle group” (if one existed) to help them with security at their protest.

In fact, one of these biker groups mentioned by the Herut coordinator, Lauren Isaacs, is The Riders of the Covenant. Their FB page states the following: “The ROC seek to unite active, proud motorcycle riders and members of the public in using their combined influence to promote and protect the democratic, Judeo-Christian, civilized western societies way of living.” Really?! This is what York University stands for?

You would expect York University administration to clearly disassociate themselves from such blatant racism, and also denounce those who brought such forces onto campus. But no, they are busy focusing on their phony “facilitated mediation” and bragging about their “commitment to inclusion, respect and diversity”.

Multiple accounts of what happened on November 20th have been published that discredited the Zionist claims; but both the corporate media and politicians, especially PM Justin Trudeau, are maintaining the narrative that it was the student protestors that were “violent” and “anti-Semitic”. Just this past week, Trudeau insisted on repeating his smears during a ceremonial Menorah lighting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Lets reflect for a minute on how this seamless transition between a religious ceremony and an attack on students for exercising their democratic rights is considered acceptable. In fact, Trudeau also used the same occasion to declare how his government’s “enduring friendship with Israel remains”, after receiving criticism for his orphan vote at the United Nations Third Committee last month.

And the media. First the fabrications by the Jerusalem Post about who chanted what at the protest and then further inflammatory headlines and articles by the Toronto Sun, part of the PostMedia conglomerate. Both the Post and the Sun were forced to put revisions on at least one of their stories about what happened, and Canada Palestine Association has now submitted a complaint to the National NewsMedia Council about the Sun reporting.

What happened that night at York, and what followed and will still follow, is a critical test for Palestinian solidarity activism in Canada. The Zionist lobby is clearly becoming increasingly desperate and aggressive in its efforts to discredit and remove the Palestinian voice. This is a watershed moment for all activists – either we stand strong together or be prepared to weather the consequences, perhaps for years to come.

The Canadian media and Canadian politicians, including the PM, are as guilty as the Zionist and pro-Israel lobby in promoting anti-Palestinian racism. We in Canada Palestine Association tell all of them that racism against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims is as repugnant and offensive as any other form of racism.

Jerusalem Post admits to printing false info about York University protest

Anatomy of a Zionist Smear Campaign

By Marion Kawas

On November 20, 2019, Israel advocacy club Herut Canada held a public meeting entitled “Reservists on Duty” at York University in Toronto. The meeting billed itself as a chance to hear from “real Israeli soldiers” about the “Arab-Israeli conflict, BDS and much more”.

Pro-Palestinian groups on campus and their supporters were concerned and outraged that the university administration was even allowing the meeting to go forward and called for a public rally to protest such an event. The Jewish Defense League JDL in Canada quickly announced that they would be on campus to “counter” the rally; despite an official warning from the university administration, the JDL were present, were provocative and violent, and sent one protestor to hospital.

The JDL head even posted a video of himself during their counter-demo saying “We’re getting the job done here at York University, the JDL is here in force, we’ll do what we have to do…”; screenshots of FB posts from JDL supporters or members bragged about how “one of my boys knocked one of their guys out”. Never Again Canada, a leading pro-Israel group, posted a video on their FB of this injured person with the Islamophobic intro: “Dirty screeching Islamist banseeshes unconscious on the floor…”

However, despite all of this open admission of violence and shocking racism, Canadian politicians including PM Justin Trudeau have leapt to the defense of the JDL provocateurs, not the students and their right to protest.

The Zionist lobby went into overdrive as soon as the event finished and tried to take hold of the narrative. The first reports tried to emphasize how “violent” the students and their supporters were (even though it was one of their numbers who suffered a concussion) and repeatedly misrepresented the chant of “Viva, viva, intifada”, claiming it was somehow a slogan calling for the destruction of Israel.

However, the campaign to rewrite what happened at York really took off after a Jerusalem Post story was posted on November 21, 2019 (then dated Nov. 23 and revised Nov. 26), that opened with the following in the original version:

“’Intifada, Intifada, go back to the ovens,’ 600 violent, pro-Palestinian protesters chanted at Jewish students on Wednesday during a pro-Israel event at York University.”

And note the parameters here: 600 violent protestors (a coordinated action by the whole rally) chanting at “Jewish students”.

Almost every story written by pro-Israel commentators after that referenced this Jerusalem Post report, flaunting it as evidence of the nasty type of “anti-Semitism” inherent in Palestinian events. And it is a serious and dangerous accusation, one that you would think would require fact-checking and proof before printing.

I double-checked with the Jerusalem Post regarding any verification for the claim in their story. The author of the article replied in an email: “One of the speakers who was there – Shar Leyb – told me that this was chanted by the group while they were setting up for their event. I have a recording of him telling me this from when we spoke on Thursday afternoon.”

So there you have it. No hard proof, nothing but anecdotal and second-hand evidence from one extremely biased source with a very specific agenda.

And then, mysteriously, a few hours after my first email to Jerusalem Post, there appeared an updated version of the article with an editors note at the bottom saying: “A mistake in editing accidentally attributed the chant “Intifada, Intifada, go back to the ovens” to all of the protestors at the event. This was not the case. The comment was made by a handful of protestors to some of the organizers.”

A mistake in editing!! So clearly the first claim was bogus, false and could not be verified. Are we to believe the new version, which again will be solely based on the word of the same speaker from the event? The damage has been done, the smear was repeated and repeated, and a half-hearted revision five days after the first story will not undue the harm that has been caused. This is journalism at its worst; it is dangerous and shows no regard for the consequences of such a smear campaign. It also cheapens and distracts from the real acts of anti-Semitism.

It is incumbent on the Jerusalem Post to release this audio recording they claim to have, because we need to clarify how this dangerous fabrication came about. Was it from the speaker, Shar Leyb, or was it from the newspaper staff itself?

Multiple groups and individuals from diverse backgrounds who were at the event, including the Palestinian students, a member of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, folks from Christian Peacemakers Team and CUPE 3903 to mention just a few, had already strongly disagreed with these reports of what took place. Furthermore no video evidence had been produced to back up the claim; lawyer Dimitri Lascaris wrote a comprehensive blog piece that carefully documented and refuted the accusations of the Israel lobby.

He said in a follow up email: “I was not there but I have spoken to numerous participants and have viewed over 50 distinct video clips of the event, including videos posted on Never Again Canada and by other promoters of Israel. I heard no such language in any of the videos. Moreover, if in fact the group chanted this and a pro-Israel person in the crowd heard it, it is inconceivable that there would not be a recording of it. Surely someone would have shot a video of this and shared it widely on social media and with the Jerusalem Post.”

The events at York University have already taken on an international dimension with coverage from media in Lebanon; there was also a joint statement of support issued by the South African Union of Students and BDS South Africa in which they condemned “the recent violence against human rights defenders at York University in Canada.”

Many activist and community groups in Canada are calling for PM Justin Trudeau to stop slandering the student protest as “anti-Semitic” and “violent”, and are also calling on the York university administration to better protect students. This behaviour from politicians and officials is dangerous and inflammatory; it can and most likely will lead to further anti-Palestinian racism and targeting of student activists. How sad that once again, as in Gaza, the Israel lobby succeeds in convincing others to blame the victim for the violence inflicted on them.

As noted by Canada Palestine Association in their statement to the Canadian PM:

“It is not racist to protest against the occupation army that daily humiliates and subjugates our people. It is not racist to protest against the Israeli military that earlier this month murdered 9 members of the same family in Gaza, and then claimed it was a “mistake”.

It is legitimate for Palestinians and their supporters to ask the Israeli military, press, and government: how many mistakes will Palestinians be forced to endure, how many mistakes will be allowed for the pro-Israel hasbara?

What happened at York University, both during and after the Nov. 20 meeting, is a microcosm of developments in the Palestinian solidarity movement: support is building, people are pushing back and challenging the Zionist lobby narrative, and pro-Israel groups and the Israeli government themselves are becoming increasingly desperate in their efforts to stop the cracks in their crumbling hegemony over public opinion.

This article was carried in Palestine Chronicle.

Tell PM Justin Trudeau: Stop slandering Palestinian students!

Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver is outraged at the dangerous accusations that are being circulated after the events on November 20, 2019 at York University.

In the evening of November 20th, an Israel advocacy club at York University hosted an event featuring former IDF soldiers. The meeting billed itself as a chance to hear from “real Israeli soldiers” about the “Arab-Israeli conflict, BDS and much more”.

Pro-Palestinian groups on campus and their supporters were, not surprisingly, outraged and called for a rally to protest such an event. The Canadian Jewish Defense League JDL then publicly announced it was planning to be at the York campus to “counter” the planned protest. Even the university administration felt compelled to warn the JDL in an official letter “to not engage in inappropriate behaviour”. 

What transpired that night is already known – the protest went ahead, the JDL was on campus and insisted on being violent and disruptive, and one pro-Palestinian supporter was sent to hospital. However, the response after has been more shameful than what actually took place.

The Zionist lobby rushed to focus in on allegations that it was the pro-Palestinian protesters that were violent and “anti-Semitic”, and even claimed that the chant of “Intifada, intifada, go back to the ovens” was part of the protest (but offered no proof). Multiple witnesses at the scene have stated they observed no such behaviour and others who have viewed most of the videos that have been posted from the evening (and there are many) made the same observation. They also point out that if any evidence existed, it would surely have been made public by now.

And CUPE 3903 from York, whose member was the one sent to hospital, also issued an official and strongly-worded statement slamming the university administration for its failure to protect its students and employees.

But none of this seems to have stemmed the tide of once more blaming the victim for what befalls them. As in Gaza, where Palestinians are routinely blamed for “bringing Israeli violence on themselves”, so goes the narrative at York University. Never mind that the JDL head posted a video of himself during their counter-demo saying “We’re getting the job done here at York University, the JDL is here in force, we’ll do what we have to do…” or that screenshots of FB posts from JDL supporters or members bragged about how “one of my boys knocked one of their guys out”.

First the university administration took a one-sided position, right wing politicians like Ontario premier Doug Ford got in on the act, and finally PM Justin Trudeau joined in on November 22 tweeting his condemnation of the students.

We call on all Palestinian community and solidarity organizations to speak out about this threat to our right to protest, our right to our lived narrative and our right to bring the Palestinian story forward. We also call for an apology from PM Trudeau. It is not racist to protest against the occupation army that daily humiliates and subjugates our people. It is not racist to protest against the Israeli military that earlier this month murdered 9 members of the same family in Gaza, and then claimed it was a “mistake”.

What is RACIST is to side with Israeli war crimes, ethnic cleansing and terrorism. What is RACIST is to blame the Palestinians, the victims, and then tell them they have no right to raise their voices against their oppression.