Category: Resources

We will never stop advocating for Palestine!!

Many Palestinians and their supporters are done with explanations. They have no words left. When a live-streamed genocide can be debated for over eight months as to whether it really qualifies as such, there are no words left. 

From Deir Yassin to Jenin, from Kafr Qasem to Sabra and Shatila, from Tel Zaatar to Rafah and Nusseirat, we know what a massacre looks like. It is an insult to play word games with us over whether Palestinians are really being murdered en masse at the altar of Israeli-US hegemony and dominance. 

From Ansar to Sde Teiman, for decades Palestinians have been taken hostage by Israel and held without charge or trial, and brutally tortured and abused. We know what that looks like as well, most Palestinians have at least one family member that has been through the prison mill of either Israel or the surrounding complicit countries. 

And enough of this hyper-focus on anti-Semitism. Yes it exists, and the danger is coming mostly from white supremacist fascist forces. But the constant demand that Palestinians prove that they are not racist against Jewish people, when their struggle is clearly against the Zionist settler colonialist project, has become a way to distract attention from the cruelty and brutality of ongoing Israeli war crimes. 

We also need to address the underlying and deeply entrenched racism that has helped facilitate this genocide. The longevity of the “mass rape” story, despite being debunked repeatedly, has drawn back the curtain on the depth of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab racism in Western societies. 

The Zionist lobby seems to have decided from day one that this particular piece of “atrocity propaganda” would engage the most support and sympathy. This story keeps getting recycled and amplified in the West, partly because it taps into the centuries old Western distrust and stereotypes of “Arab men” – Arab men as bloodthirsty, violent, misogynistic and untrustworthy. 

Professor Rudolph Ware has pointed out that this is an age-old tactic that was (and is still) used against the black community in the U.S., detailing how false rape allegations in the US often led to mass lynchings. He also talked about how the issue of “safety” is weaponized against people of colour, as we are now seeing on many university campuses. 

So, please, do not watch Palestinian babies burn to death and then lecture those same people about how to resist and when to resist. Don’t wring your hands now about the Rafah and Nusseirat massacres if you are in any way complicit in allowing that trajectory to occur. Almost six months ago, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac said during his Christmas message: “Your charity, your words of shock AFTER the genocide, won’t make a difference. Words of regret will not suffice for you. We will not accept your apology after the genocide…”. 

Now is not the time (if one ever existed) for Western supporters to appoint themselves as the moral arbiters on what constitutes acceptable liberation tactics or to lecture Palestinians about “violence”. This can only serve to enable the current ongoing repression in Western countries against pro-Palestine advocates and their message. 

In Canada, one example is the recent arrest and potential “hate charges” against Charlotte Kates from Samidoun, coupled with draconian restrictions on her freedom of expression. Many community groups including Canada Palestine Association, and other organizations like the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), have rallied to challenge this outrage. The BCCLA stated clearly that they are “concerned that the (Criminal) Code is being weaponized to silence particular political speech, namely statements in support of the Palestinian liberation movement including the right to resist Israel’s occupation”. 

Such criminalization often rests heavily on alleged or fabricated connections to group(s) on Canada’s “terrorist list”. Due to pressure from the Zionist lobby over 20 years ago, this list currently includes all of the Palestinian resistance groups and Hezbollah, and that same lobby is now working overtime to have Samidoun included as well. 

At eight and a half months of endless brutality and genocide, we have no energy left to engage in long conversations, in which we are forced to repeatedly justify why Palestinians must and should resist with all means necessary (including armed struggle). We are even expected to justify why they have a right to exist at all, historically and in the future. 

We will no longer march on the path of endless words with little or no return, words that “won’t make a difference”.  The hypocrisy and double standards of the international “rules-based” order has been laid bare for all to see, and we count on the Palestinian resistance struggle to lead us forward. 

By Marion Kawas
Cover photo Michael YC Tseng

Published in Al Mayadeen English: We will never stop advocating for Palestine! | Al Mayadeen English

#Nakba76 Activist Kit: Raise The Flag

Special Offer:
Order one Palestinian flag and a scarf (or two flags) for $15, including shipping to anywhere in Canada. (Also included will be a bonus sticker, small flag or pin.)

Flag is 90 cm x 150 cm, and the scarf has the Palestinian flag/keffiyeh motif plus an image of Al-Aqsa mosque.
Send an e-transfer for $15 to cpavancouver@gmail.com (along with your mailing address in a separate email) to ensure you have what you need to #Stand4Palestine everyday and on Nakba76!

My Palestinian Mother-in-Law, and the Generation of Survivors

They succeeded in raising successive generations of Palestinians that remain attached to their land, to their culture, to their national identity. This is the real legacy of the Nakba survivors, the fact that their great-grandchildren are still fighting for, and dreaming of, a Free Palestine.

First published in Mondoweiss (by Marion Kawas)

My mother-in-law recently passed away at age 97 surrounded by her extended family. Her generation, and their important historical legacy, is quickly leaving us. Any efforts we can make at recording their stories, in whatever format, will contribute to keeping this part of Palestinian history alive. In that spirit, here are glimpses into the story of Jamileh.

She was the one who introduced me to Palestinian family life and culture. I first met her in Beirut in 1974 who she came to visit her two sons, one of whom I was about to marry. She brought home-made date and walnut maamouls, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and that was the beginning of a long relationship.

She typified most Palestinians of her generation and was twice displaced by the Zionist forces, first during the Nakba from Jaffa and then economically forced to leave the West Bank after the Naksa in 1967. She had 8 kids, multiple grandchildren and great grandchildren, scattered throughout many countries; and although she herself never received much formal education, she was adamant that her children all be properly educated.

The greatest tragedy for all Palestinians in exile is that they are denied the right to be buried in the soil of Palestine, and not allowed to die with dignity in their own homeland.

Born in 1926, her first horrific experience with the Zionist colonizers was during the ethnic cleansing in Jaffa in 1948, prior to the establishment of the Israeli state (while Palestinians were supposedly still under British Mandate “protection”). She was there with my father-in-law due to his work schedule; when the Zionist militias attacked, she was heavily pregnant at the time and remembered fleeing with bullets flying over their heads.

According to Salman Abu Sitta, the renowned Palestinian historian, in his article: Massacres as a weapon of ethnic cleansing during the Nakba :

“From the 1st of April to May 14, 1948, before the settlers’ state was declared and before the British left and before any Arab soldier entered Palestine to save it, the Zionist Invasion essentially conquered Palestine. Its declaration on May 14 was the crowning conclusion of this invasion.”

 “In Jaffa area (Region 4), there was a heavy concentration of atrocities in Jaffa city (8) and around Jaffa (6) in Beit Dajan…Jaffa city, which was designated to be in the ‘Arab State’, was depopulated in addition to twenty two villages in the district.”

The young couple then settled into life in Bethlehem, in the ancestral home. They raised their eight children and like all Palestinians, did their best to build some semblance of a normal family environment.

But Zionism had other plans.

With the 1967 military aggression and the subsequent Israeli military and economic pressure, the family joined the line of refugees crossing the bridge into Jordan. Those pictures you may have seen of young and old on the “Allenby” bridge, carrying young kids and clutching belongings…that was their lived experience.

Jordan brought different stresses for the Palestinian refugee population, as happened throughout the diaspora. Although many Palestinians in Jordan did receive citizenship and constitute a significant portion of the country’s population, this did not necessarily translate into effective support for the Palestinian struggle. Arab regimes had little interest in promoting a progressive liberation struggle, that inherently carried threats to their own dictatorial powers; in fact, many of these regimes actively aided the Zionist cause.

The Black September massacre by Jordanian forces on the Palestinian resistance in 1970-71 was just one example, an aggression that again touched my mother-in-law. She was wounded in the neck during that period, while travelling with her 7-year-old daughter trying to visit relatives.

Her generation faced incredible trauma and dispossession. With little to no support, abandoned by Arab regimes and the international community, they nonetheless persevered. They succeeded in raising successive generations of Palestinians that remain attached to their land, to their culture, to their national identity. This is the real legacy of the Nakba survivors, the fact that their great-grandchildren are still fighting for, and dreaming of, a Free Palestine.

Resources on Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany

  1. 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis
    Paperback – Mar 16, 2010
    By Lenni Brenner
  2. Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany by Faris Yahya
    Original Printing: Palestine Research Center, Beirut, Lebanon, January 1978
    Second Printing: Palestine Distribution Center, Vancouver Canada, October 1980
  3. Zionism in the Age of Dictators
    Copyright 1983 by Lenni Brenner
  4. The Holocaust Victims Accuse
    Copyright 1977 by Reb Moshe Shonfeld
  5. Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponization of Memory in the Service of State and Nation
    By Tony Greenstein, October 2022
    Check the Electronic Intifada podcast interviewing the author on his book “How Zionists collaborated with the Nazis”.

Anti-Zionism: Cornerstone of Palestine Solidarity

(Photo of 1975 Vancouver protest against Moshe Dayan)

In 1976, the late Shafik al-Hout sat in the living room of a house in Vancouver, Canada with local supporters and passionately tried to mobilize them to be active for Palestine. Give the Palestinian people whatever you can, he said, “even if its just your smile”. Shafik was known for his eloquent speaking and this comment was part truth, part sarcasm and part tragedy.
Al-Hout was in Vancouver as the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization PLO delegation to the UN Habitat Conference that year. His keynote speech to a public meeting, where he was joined on the stage by Mahmoud Darweesh and indigenous poet Lee Maracle, was one of the most moving presentations by a Palestinian guest speaker in Vancouver in 45 years. (Of course, the PLO of 1976 actually symbolized the spirit of what its name meant – Palestine and Liberation!)

The fact that Al-Hout even made it to Vancouver at all was an achievement. The Canadian government of the day had the previous year refused to allow a PLO delegation to attend another UN Conference in Toronto (forcing the relocation of the conference). And the year after, even the Vancouver City Council unsuccessfully made moves (which were later reversed) to have the Habitat Conference cancelled. Once the reality of the conference proceeding became evident, a wide swath of federal Canadian politicians and officials as well as the Israeli ambassador to Canada, rushed to declare that the Conference must be “non political” and not become an “anti-Israel forum”.

In one aspect, regarding the breadth of public support for the Palestinian cause, things have definitely improved. However, this broader support has till now often been more diluted and less principled that what constituted Palestinian solidarity in 1976. There is no longer the same strong leadership by the Palestinian Canadian community to drive the solidarity work as before, a reflection of the serious divisions in the Palestinian movement in general as well as the constant psychological pounding in the West on “terrorism” that imbues all levels of life for Arabs, Palestinians and Moslems in Canada. Groups that were presenting language skill programs have had their funding rescinded and been viciously smeared because the government did not approve of their politics. The heavy-handed moves by Canadian Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney in 2009-2012 against the Canadian Arab Federation, Palestine House and others highlight some of the more blatant examples of creating a climate of censorship with harsh penalties for those who do not tow the government line.

This absence of leadership by Palestinians themselves in work done in their names has been exploited by many liberal (some of them well-meaning) forces who place themselves as the arbiters on what is acceptable, where compromise is necessary and especially what principles, if any, may constitute a red line.
Palestinian activists sadly note that ideas and positions they have been promoting for years that were constantly rebuffed, suddenly become more acceptable when they are espoused by a Western progressive, or even better by a celebrity or a Jewish progressive.

This is not to say that there haven’t been extremely positive developments, like the statement last month by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in the U.S. that “unequivocally opposed Zionism”.
Or Gideon Levy’s new article in the Israeli paper Haaretz stating that “Its Leftism or Zionism…you can’t have both”.

Zionism was coined on the model of the European settler colonialist movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and shared the same basis of racism, supremacy and disregard for the indigenous peoples. And Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, wrote in his book The Jewish State in 1896: “We should there form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.”
Since its founding 120 years ago, Zionism has always claimed that it represents all Jews and that Israel is the “Jewish homeland”. The recent Israeli “Nation-State” law is the clear manifestation of this ideology, although the world for the past seventy years was duped (many willingly) with the Israeli slogan of being “the only democracy in the M.E.”. The new law is also meant to redefine anti-Semitism by claiming that since Israel represents the Jews, any criticism, repudiation or hatred of Israeli brutal, racist and genocidal policies must therefore be treated as anti-Semitism.
This recent questioning of the roots and trajectory of Zionism is welcome, long overdue and hopefully signals the beginning of a growing trend. We look forward to the day when other progressive Jewish groups, in Canada and elsewhere, follow the lead of Jewish Voice for Peace on this issue and publicly acknowledge, as JVP did, that Zionism is counter to the ideals of “justice, equality and freedom for all people.”

Perhaps then progressive Palestinian groups will no longer be vilified for taking a clear anti-Zionist position, for stating that they, as the direct victims of Zionism, have an inalienable right to denounce their oppressor and his ideology. Perhaps then Palestinian groups will no longer be labelled as extremist, or as divisive, or as marginalizing themselves, when they call on their supporters to also oppose the ideology that has driven their nation and people to dispossession and turned their lives into a living hell under apartheid, occupation or in exile.
And perhaps then, Palestinian groups will not be expected to show gratitude for “just a smile” or the empty gestures of opportunist politicians or the crumbs of charity. Palestinians will, however, always remember and be grateful for the genuine allies who have been practicing solid and effective international solidarity and support.

 (By Marion Kawas)
This article was published in Palestine Chronicle