Category: Media Watch

Letters to the editor from Canada Palestine Association members addressing Palestine in the news.

Canadian Hypocrisy and the UN Security Council Seat

By Marion Kawas

Recently, a strong movement has coalesced opposing the Canadian government’s attempt to gain a seat on the UN Security Council (UNSC). Although progressive groups and individuals have been laying the foundation for this issue since late 2019, it has been thrust into the national spotlight in the last month with various petitions, statements and media coverage in the #NoUNSC4Canada campaign.

For Palestinian activists, this call to refuse to reward the Trudeau government is welcome. Since 1947, Canada has played a negative role at the U.N. regarding the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. From Lester B. Pearson, dubbed the “Balfour of Canada” for his part in preparing and passing the infamous Partition Plan, to the more recent 15 years of anti-Palestinian voting at the UN General Assembly, and all the “refugee resettlement” plans in between, it is fitting that the Canadian government is held accountable at this forum.

Canadian complicity is not just limited to UN votes. From refusing to label Israeli settlement products as such, to branding legitimate pro-Palestinian protest as “anti-Semitic” and smearing the BDS movement, to increasing the scope of the Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement – all of this falls into Canada’s “ironclad” support for Israel (to quote Deputy PM and former FM Chrystia Freeland).

The Chrystia Freeland that reportedly told an audience in Israel well over a year ago that Canada could be “an asset for Israel” on the UNSC. We can only speculate what that would entail, but we can state with certainty it won’t have anything to do with defending the basic human rights of the Palestinians or calling out and denouncing Israel’s institutionalized racism.

Last weekend, PM Justin Trudeau attended an anti-racism rally in Ottawa and scored a photo-op as he “took a knee”, supposedly to show his government’s seriousness in fighting racism and police brutality. However, for many communities, the gesture was worse than hypocritical, it was insulting. For all those who have been on the receiving end of the Canadian government’s racism, be it the Wet’suwet’en and other indigenous people in Turtle Island, be it the marginalized communities of colour in major cities, or the Palestinian people struggling for dignity, they are all well aware of the systemic racism that permeates official Canadian policy.

Palestinians know well the duplicity of Canadian officials. In November, 2019, Trudeau showed his anti-Palestinian racism by rushing to falsely slander student protestors at York as “anti-Semitic” when they challenged the presence of Israeli military reservists on campus. York student activist Moe Alqasem explained:

“We have consistently seen the hypocrisy of the Prime Minister (Justin Trudeau). Trudeau, like other politicians jumped to smear and condemn Palestinian students at York without knowing any of the facts. He has recently taken a knee in a protest that was supposed to be in solidarity with Black people. It’s a performative act, if Trudeau or his government truly cared about Black people then they would be taking measures to ensure their safety and well-being. If he truly cared about Human Rights, then we would have seen a different reaction from him towards the Palestinian students and human rights activists at York University.”

And most recently, after taking weeks to express an opinion, Trudeau finally spoke out about Israel’s new annexation plans. He even claimed to “deplore” them, but he didn’t deplore them enough to consider sanctions against the Israeli government. Even though Canada currently has sanctions against 19 countries (9 of them in the Arab region), so it is a tactic the government is familiar with.

As noted by the Canada Palestine Association chairperson in a statement following Trudeau’s comments:

“If the Canadian government is genuine in this belated expression of opposition to Israel’s illegal policies, then the absolute minimum expected is to impose sanctions on the Israeli government until it respects international law. Actions speak louder than words!”

And by actions, Palestinian activists are looking for concrete steps to curb Israeli war crimes, not glossy photo-ops or hollow gestures and statements. Especially when those statements only seem to be made at the most opportunistic times and are clearly self-serving.

The Canadian government is well aware that it is vulnerable regarding its position and voting record on Palestine at the UN. After all, it is one of the 6 “permanent members” of the Israel Fan Club that overwhelmingly votes, year after year, to disregard Palestinian rights (along with the U.S., Israel, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau). Following letters sent to UN ambassadors through the #NoUNSC4Canada campaign, the Canadian representative felt compelled to send his own letter on June 10th extolling all the things Canada has allegedly done to support Palestinians. As predicted when it happened last November, he bragged about Canada’s single “orphan vote” supporting the resolution on Palestinian self-determination at the UNGA, as proof that Canada can “adapt to changing dynamics” and defend the “two-state solution”. So, a solitary Yes vote in 8 years is supposed to be enough to compensate for the anti-Palestinian assault Canada has indulged in at the UN?

PM Trudeau’s obsession with gaining a UNSC seat, which seemed simple desperate vanity a year ago, has now become much more odious. The Canadian government shocked social and environmental groups by running roughshod over indigenous rights with the militarized Wet’suwet’en standoff for the sake of a pipeline. Then, this same government insisted on supporting Juan Guaido and the attempted “soft coup” in Venezuela. And in February of this year, they sent a letter to the ICC advising against proceeding with war crimes charges against Israel, because Canada “does not recognize a Palestinian state”.

So when arguing for a UNSC seat, Canada says that it has “long supported the creation of a Palestinian state”. But to the ICC, they bluntly say they don’t recognize a Palestinian state. Many people in Canada are fed up with such diplomatic hypocrisy.

And for those who want to wax poetic about the “good old days”, a reminder that one of the final acts Canada engaged in last time it was on the Security Council was to help scuttle an international force to protect Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Canada abstained on a critical resolution at the UN Security Council in December, 2000 that called for sending an international protection force to shield the Palestinian civilian population from Israeli war crimes. This Canadian position was in accordance with the dictates of the US-Israeli policy that opposed such a force. The resolution got eight votes, but it needed nine member states out of fifteen to vote for it in order to be passed. Canada’s abstention helped to defeat the resolution, and accordingly made Canada complicit in the subsequent atrocities against the Palestinians.

This is the record of successive Canadian governments, both at the United Nations and at home. This is a record of shame that should never be rewarded. And for all those who have suffered from this hypocrisy and betrayal, it is personal.

(A version of this article first appeared in the Canadian Dimension.)

Western hypocrisy is empowering Israeli annexation!

There is a recent surge of official voices in the West that are alarmed at the agenda of the new Israeli coalition government. Many western liberal governments are offering slightly more than their usual token objections to Israeli policy, including some European threats of sanctions if Israel implements its new annexation plans.

Is all of this because of concern for the human rights of Palestinians? Or concern for the “rule of law” that they are so fond of referencing?

Or is it because they know that formal Israeli annexation of new chunks of the occupied Palestinian territories will be the final blow to the moribund “two-state solution”? A mirage that for over a quarter of a century has legitimized and fueled the status quo of Israeli settler colonialism and continuing ethnic cleansing, but with “plausible deniability” for many international players.

Once this new annexation is implemented, even though it is really only a legalization of what already exists on the ground, then the “two-state” carrot can no longer be dangled in front of Palestinian and Arab eyes as any type of legitimate approach.

Since the signing of Oslo in 1993, this flawed approach has been a bonanza, not just for successive Israeli governments, but also for many others. How many countries have increased and normalized diplomatic and military cooperation with Israel; how many governments have increased free trade agreements with Israel, in the process blessing the fruits of an illegal occupation; and how many have been able to dismiss legitimate Palestinian resistance and grievances under the ruse of negotiations over the illusory and promised but never delivered “two-state” future?

Annexation by any other name…is still annexation.

All the while in these last 27 years, Israel has at least tripled the number of illegal settlers, pushing Palestinians off their lands, crippling Palestinian agriculture and development, and then killing or injuring Palestinians who dare to protest. All with the blessing of the international community as long as some lip-service is paid to the mantra of the “two-state” solution. As long as one adds some sentence at the end of a press release committing to a “negotiated settlement based on two states”, then support of Israeli military brutality can carry on unexcused.

Not that any of this should come as a surprise. Back in 1992, even before the Oslo Accords were on the table, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was blunt in stating the purpose of such endless negotiations. According to the NY Times, he was quoted “in a published interview…as saying he wanted to drag out peace talks with the Palestinians for a decade while vastly increasing the number of Jewish settlers in Israeli-occupied territories”.

And even if we accept the hypothesis that some analysts are now putting forward that the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority were misled and duped by these Israeli-US schemes, we have to ask: For 27 years?? Perhaps five years, after which the promised Palestinian state was supposed to be implemented. But over a quarter of a century?? Even the late Yasser Arafat finally realized the strategic error involved in the quagmire of the Oslo Accords, a realization that many would argue cost him his life in 2004.

And its not as if there weren’t already precedents for US deception regarding the Palestinian movement. In 1982, then US special envoy Philip Habib guaranteed the safety of people in the refugee camps if the PLO agreed to leave Beirut. Written notes stated: “We also reaffirm the assurances of the United States as regards safety and security…for the camps in Beirut.” And we all know the tragedy that quickly followed, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, where over a thousand unarmed Palestinian men, women and children were butchered and driven out of their homes yet again.

All those now finally finding their voices to criticize Israel’s new annexation plans should know that their words ring hollow, unless they are backed up by significant and concrete steps to hold Israel accountable. The absolute minimum would be sanctions on the government and state of Israel until it respects international law. Imposed immediately! Anything less is just naked deception, aimed at keeping Palestinians under the boot of Zionist colonization permanently.

By Marion Kawas

This article was published in the Palestine Chronicle under the title:
Western Hypocrisy has Empowered Israeli Annexation

#PalestinianPrisonersDay: Ansar and the Israeli Jailer

Ansar: A Testament to the Ugly Brutality of the Israeli Jailer

By Marion Kawas

April 17th marks a special day in the Palestinian calendar, that of Palestinian Prisoners Day. This year it takes on even more importance as the more than 5000 Palestinian political prisoners are incarcerated with the added threat of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Palestinian prisoners have long played a unique role in the fabric of Palestinian society and its collective resistance. They cross all factional and social barriers, and in many cases, represent the best of several generations of leaders. When some in the Western world repeatedly ask “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?”, we can confidently say that he or she has most likely been imprisoned (or assassinated) by the Israeli state.

Nearly every Palestinian family has a story of at least one member that has been imprisoned either by Israel or a neighbouring complicit regime in the region. As such, the issue of prisoners has historically been a unifying bond for the Palestinian people.  Each prisoner is a microcosm of the Palestinian reality, be they arrested while under occupation, in a refugee camp in exile or under the thumb of the apartheid regime in the Galilee or Naqab.

Today, the political prisoners in Israeli jails comprise members of the legislature, children, and women; they also include over 430 administrative detainees. These are prisoners held without charge or trial for renewable periods of 6 months, who are often then re-arrested after being released. Not only is administrative detention void of due process, it is also profoundly cruel; these prisoners know that upon their eventual release, they can be (and often are) picked up at any moment in the future on the whim of Israeli security officials.

Ansar 1, 11, and 111

The Ansar prison camps run by the Israeli authorities give us a glimpse into the history and brutality of such incarceration. The original Ansar camp was established by the invading Israeli army in south Lebanon in 1982 and was infamous for its vicious treatment of prisoners. It gave birth to the even more notorious Khiam prison camp in Lebanon, that Israel handed over to the then South Lebanon Army. An interesting footnote here is that the “Butcher of Khiam”, Amer Fakhoury, was recently arrested in Lebanon and then magically released in a scandalous miscarriage of justice, praised by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Ansar 11, or the Beach Camp, was established by the Israeli occupation army in Gaza during their time there. And Ansar 111, also known as Ketziot prison, still exists as one of the more gruesome Israeli penal establishments for Palestinian prisoners. It is located in the Naqab/Negev desert and had its peak during the first intifada, at which time it was the largest detention camp run by the Israeli military.

Upon looking at archival reports and footage of the original Ansar camp, one is left with the feeling that it was a testing ground, a blueprint for what the Israeli military would later implement in 1987 in the occupied territories. The collective punishment, the “secret charges” that led to incarceration, all of this was refined and later “meted out” during both Palestinian intifadas.

Several foreign doctors, including Canadian Chris Giannou, were rounded up during mass sweeps in south Lebanon in 1982 and later gave eyewitness testimony at meetings and official hearings. This is a small excerpt of Dr. Giannou’s account:

”All the males were paraded in front of three parked jeeps. In each one was a man with a hood over his head and an Israeli seated beside him. As we walked by, certain people would be singled out and walked away, and ‘X’ or something in Hebrew written on their backs. And, thus, 5,000 or 6,000 people were arrested on simple denunciation by a hooded man.”

Palestinian prisoners, their suffering and their role in the broader society is a constant theme in Palestinian poetry and music. Palestinian-American composer and singer George Kurmoz had a song called “Ansar”, written in memory of the prison camps, which is both haunting and profoundly moving. His work is extremely difficult to track down nowadays, but here are a few of the lyrics of “Ansar” as well as a copy of the song produced specifically for this Prisoners Day by Voice of Palestine, Canada. The translation cannot do justice to the subtlety and complexity of the original version, but it offers some glimpse into the song’s essence.

“They come with the breath of the lonely grave

The bells tell a story of the new dawn

From Ansar, the prison,

From the villages of the hardened arms

From the bodies that vanish, where the screams of martyrs echo loudly,

The roses are my destiny, for the black earth…”

This year, for Prisoners Day 2020, with the concerns of the spread of COVID-19 in such unsanitary and overcrowded facilities, many advocacy and human rights groups are intensifying their efforts to free Palestinian political prisoners. Online and social media campaigns are being launched to put pressure on the Israeli government to finally end the incarceration of so many Palestinians, an abhorrent and inhumane practice that has stolen the best years of successive generations.

Published in the Palestine Chronicle under the Title:
Ansar: A Testament to the Ugly Brutality of the Israeli Jailer

Does the Israeli Military Censor impact our News?

By Hanna Kawas

This week marks the two-year anniversary of the Great Return March in Gaza. Two years since the people of Gaza came out in protest to highlight their right of return and right to live in dignity; thousands paid with their lives or limbs for this protest, be they journalists, medics or children. Coverage of the demonstrations in Canada, and in other Western countries, was skewed and predictably pro-Israel. CBC, Canada’s “national” broadcaster, was one of the more egregious examples of this bias, and a campaign was launched to try and hold them to account. However, their reporting on the Great Return March and other incidents since then, most notably the smears against protesters at York University in Ontario, begs the question of how much the Israeli military censor impacts mainstream news coverage in Canada. Here is a just-released open letter that demonstrates how CBC’s coverage, and their justification of such biased reporting, is both “unacceptable and disingenuous”.

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Open Letter to CBC and its Ombudsman:

Two years ago, we made a complaint to CBC and a follow-up to the Ombudsman Office regarding your biased coverage of the Great Return March in Gaza and down-playing of the Israeli military’s murder and maiming of Palestinians during those protests. We also exposed how even the wording and terminology in your reporting was being dictated by Zionist lobby groups.

Since that original complaint and your belated response to it on Sep. 17, 2018, new facts have come to light that support our contention that “CBC is unabashedly supporting Israeli ethnic cleansing, war crimes and Apartheid.”

  1. On March 6, 2020, a report by Israeli reporter Hilo Glazer in the Israeli paper Haaretz showed the true face of Israeli intentions, under the title  ’42 Knees in One Day’: Israeli Snipers Open Up About Shooting Gaza Protesters. It clearly demonstrated that Israeli snipers were shooting Palestinian demonstrators to teach them a lesson, making an example of them to stop people from continuing with their protests.
    “This isn’t a war, it’s a Friday afternoon D.O. [disruption of order]. The goal is not to take down as many as possible, but to make this thing stop as quickly as possible.”
    “We’re not even winning on points. After some time there, in a debriefing, I said: ‘Let me just once take down a kid of 16, even 14, but not with a bullet in the leg – let me blow his head open in front of his whole family and his whole village. Let him spurt blood. And then maybe for a month I won’t have to take off another 20 knees’.”
  2. An opinion piece by Gideon Levy was carried a day later in Haaretz, entitled The Israeli Army Doesn’t Have Snipers on the Gaza Border. It Has Hunters. He stated: “None was court-martialed. Correction: One got seven days in military jail for shooting a sheep. Soldiers in the world’s most moral army don’t shoot sheep. With 200 dead and 8,000 wounded, they think ‘the restraints on us are shameful.’ That is their shame. They are our shame. They, and their commanders. They and the army that orders them to shoot at protesters as if they were ‘ducks who chose to cross the line.’”
  3. On Feb 28, 2019, the Israeli paper Haaretz reported under the title UN Council: Israel Intentionally Shot Children and Journalists in Gaza about the finding of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 Gaza protests. “The commission found that 35 children had been killed, some from direct weapons fire. The commission also noted one case involving a disabled person in a wheelchair and direct fire at journalists who claimed that they were clearly identified as press … the commission also recommended that materials it collected be transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague and that UN members ‘consider imposing individual sanctions, such as a travel ban or an assets freeze, on those identified as responsible by the commission’.”
  4. On March 15, 2019, the Israeli 972 Magazine reported on the Israeli censorship in 2018 (the year the March of Return started):
    “Israel’s military censor prohibited the publication of 363 news articles in 2018, more than six a week, while partially or fully redacting a total of 2,712 news items submitted to it for prior review. According to the data, provided in response to a freedom of information request filed by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Movement for Freedom of Information, the censor barred more news stories from publication in 2018 than in almost any other year this decade.”

Considering all the facts above, we would like to ask you again; was your reporting on the March of Return in Gaza on March 30, 2018 true to your stated values of “Accuracy, Fairness, Balance, Impartiality and Integrity”?

Two years ago, we asked you to look at the Israeli human right organization B’tselem reports “who not only warned in advance that the Israeli military were about to conduct a massacre, but have launched a new public campaign calling on Israeli soldiers to refuse such orders to shoot at unarmed protestors.” Clearly, these reports did not have an impact on your coverage nor your eventual ruling!

Your ruling emphasised the language angle of our complaint, ignoring our concerns about the inaccuracies and bias in your stories, as well as the CBC attempt to minimize Israeli war crimes by highlighting the official Israeli military version of this new alleged “security threat”. Your statement that “The stories reported the facts appropriately as events unfolded…The stories did not violate CBC policy” was and is misleading, unacceptable and disingenuous.

Finally, we would like you to address several issues:

  1. Considering the facts that are mentioned above, do you trust Israeli military statements? And will you continue to report them without verification?
  2. Can you tell us and the Canadian public (who has a right to know), if CBC stories are subjected to Israeli censorship? Are you under the same rules the Israeli press are subjected to? And if the Israeli military censor does demand changes to one of your stories, are you forbidden from telling your Canadian public that your story was censored?
  3. The (not so honest) “Honest Reporting” is an Israeli lobby group who are effectively playing the role of the Israeli censor in Canada; its objective is to implement the Israeli Hasbara 3 D’s. Distract from the truth, Distort the message and Defame the messenger. Will you again jump to immediately “implement” their “suggestions” to your stories?
    And please don’t tell us CBC is not influenced nor “beholden“ to the Israeli lobby, we regret to tell you that much of the Canadian political establishment allows themselves to be bullied by their intimidations and blackmail. The recent false allegations against pro-Palestinian students at York university and the defamation of Dimitri Lascaris by major Canadian political figures, including the Prime Minister, are just two small examples.

We would all do well to take a lesson in morality, humanity and objectivity regarding the Palestinian genocide, from archbishop Desmond Tutu, the renowned fighter against South African apartheid and racism, who said:

 “Those who turn a blind eye to injustice actually perpetuate injustice. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Article carried in Palestine Chronicle

Canada Wants to Be ‘Asset for Israel’ at the UNSC

By Hanna Kawas

Canada Palestine Association has compiled a study of Canada’s 2019 voting record at the United Nations on resolutions that document and censure Israeli violations of international law.

There was much fanfare made about Canada’s orphan “yes” vote at the UN General Assembly this year on “The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination” resolution. But in the broader context of the other 17 resolutions calling out Israel’s war crimes, that Canada either voted against (15) or abstained on (2), this lone vote can only be seen as deceptive and hypocritical.

Justin Trudeau, explaining his government’s vote to Canadian Zionists, stated:

“The government felt that it was important to reiterate its commitment to a two-states-for-two-peoples solution at a time when its prospects appear increasingly under threat”.

However, if the Trudeau government was really committed to a “two-states-for-two-peoples solution”, it is inconceivable that at the same time they also voted against:

  1. A resolution to support the work of the “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” that affirms the UN “has a permanent responsibility towards the question of Palestine until the question is resolved in all its aspects”;
  2. The “Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine” resolution that calls “on Member States not to recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including with regards to Jerusalem”;
  3. “The Syrian Golan” resolution that “Demands once more that Israel withdraw from all the occupied Syrian Golan to the line of 4 June 1967 in implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions”;
  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” resolution;
  5. The resolution that condemns the “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan” and reaffirms the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force”; and
  6. The resolution concerning “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” that expresses “grave concern about the continuing systematic violation of the human rights of the Palestinian people by Israel”.

And finally, why would Canada vote against a resolution to uphold the rights of “Persons displaced as a result of the June 1967 and subsequent hostilities”, unless it supports Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and the “Greater Israel Project”?!

Some observers have speculated that Canada’s lone vote was motivated by Trudeau’s desire to obtain a seat on the UN Security Council. Over a year ago, then Foreign and now Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland was quoted as follows during a visit to Israel:

“She also mentioned Canada’s current bid for one of 10 non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council for 2021-2022, which she hoped would allow Canada to serve as an ‘asset for Israel and… strengthen our collaboration’.”

So, this is what Canada plans to do if it gets sufficient votes for a seat, be an “asset for Israel”?

Canada is relying on the votes, and possible lobbying, of some Arab reactionary regimes to get the backing required for the Security Council seat; one example is Jordan.

Just last month during a visit, “Jordan’s King Abdullah II told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the Middle Eastern kingdom supports Canada’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council”. This was according to Jordan’s ambassador to Canada, Majed Alqatarneh, who also said Jordan “believes it is important that Canada have a seat on the Security Council”.

Canada also seems to be counting on the support of certain diplomatic circles from the US; former U.S. ambassador to Ottawa, Bruce Heyman stated:

“For me, today, when the U.N. General Assembly is all together, a Canadian seat on the U.N. Security Council is more important than ever”.

We tell Mr. Trudeau that instead of your objective of getting a seat at the UN Security Council, you may end up with a seat in front of the ICC. If the “two-states-for-two-peoples solution…prospects appear increasingly under threat”, it is because of Canada’s (and others) unconditional support for Israeli occupation, war crimes, and apartheid.

Published by The Palestine Chronicle