Vancouver was a living example of international solidarity in the 1970s and early 80s. Two formations, the Third World Peoples Coalition and then later the Coalition for National Liberation Movements, ensured a clear focus on the voices and leadership representing struggles across the globe. Local groups supported each others’ work and campaigns in a way that was both inspiring and enhanced practical effectiveness.
It was heartening to see that spirit in action again in Vancouver at the Liberation Café on December 5, 2021. Many of the struggles represented in the work over 4 decades ago have coalesced again into a working relationship that makes them all stronger. From Turtle Island to Palestine to the Philippines to Venezuela to India to Chile and beyond, The People United will never be Defeated!!
Cohosts for the eventFree Alex Saab
Facebook video of the great music at the Liberation Cafe!
Joint statement by organizers of Fedayin film showing at UBC:
“The Palestinian Youth Movement-Vancouver, SPHR UBC, and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network – Vancouver planned a film showing of Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight for Thursday, December 2nd, but it was postponed by the university administration on Wednesday, December 1 after a complaint was made about the film by an external, national right-wing Zionist organization.
While the university says that it is conducting a “risk assessment” for “security and safety” on campus, the reality is that its actions mean that a film presenting the Palestinian narrative, and the life and struggle of Georges Abdallah, is not being shown tonight on campus because an official of a Zionist organization sent an email opposing the political content of a film. This film has been screened in multiple venues and university campuses across Canada and around the world and has been selected by multiple prestigious film festivals for screening. UBC is the only venue where such an incident of silencing and suppression has occurred.
During the May 2021 uprisings in Palestine and abroad, academics, labour unions, artists, musicians, journalists, and the international community published statements in support of Palestinian liberation and against the Israeli settler colonial regime. For too long, institutions have been succumbing to Zionist pressure and censoring Palestinian speech. No external Zionist pressure should take importance over the community and Palestinian organizers.
This is a clear threat to academic freedom and an example of discrimination and anti-Palestinian racism. External pressure from a national lobby organization is treated as if it is a higher priority than the well-being of students on campus, particularly Palestinian students and allies of Palestine. University officials did not reach out to Palestinian students and inquire about their well-being or need for support after being targeted by a national right-wing lobby group. Instead, they postponed the film screening to “determine risk.”
We expect that the University of British Columbia will expeditiously complete its risk assessment review and that we will soon announce a new date for the screening. We further expect the university to live up to its obligations to its students and as a centre for higher learning by appropriately dismissing these complaints made by a lobby organization that does not want the Palestinian histories to be told at UBC.
In addition, we expect that the administration provide support to Palestinian students on campus and facilitate the screening of “Fedayin” rather than allowing anti-Palestinian racism to delay, suppress and silence our expression. We will announce the new date for the film at UBC as soon as possible, and we will not stop organizing.
We encourage organizations to screen the film in your local areas, campuses and communities in order to hear the narrative that Zionist lobby groups want to silence: that is, the narrative of the Palestinian people – denied their humanity for over 73 years of ethnic cleansing, yet continuing to struggle for justice, freedom and liberation.
The university taking 30 days to complete a risk assessment is a statement in itself. They chose to listen to Zionist pressure instead of allowing the film screening to proceed and discuss it with the organizers involved.”
Dec. 5: International Day in Solidarity with Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War Liberation Cafe: Freedom for our Prisoners! Maritime Labour Centre, 1880 Triumph St. (at Victoria), Vancouver, 1-4 pm. Liberation Cafe: Freedom for our Prisoners! | Facebook
We, in the Canada Palestine Association, denounce the British Columbia (B.C.) and Canadian governments for their colonial violence and their callous disregard of indigenous rights. This past week, additional RCMP troops arrived in unceded Wet’suwet’en territory and have since engaged in violent raids on indigenous land defenders; we demand the immediate release of all those arrested, which included journalists and elders. We know that the struggles of the indigenous people of this land and the indigenous people of Palestine have always been against the supremacist settler colonialist project. We honour the brave resistance of our indigenous sisters and brothers all through their history and know that they believe, as we do, in defending their land to their last breath.
We tell Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and B.C. Premier John Horgan that they are on the wrong side of history, and they will be only remembered for their supremacist and racist legacies.
Activists in Vancouver, who have worked for over a decade on the Boycott Israeli Wines campaign, were recently taken aback to discover that a new market for Israeli settlement wines had opened up in the United Arab Emirates UAE. This was apparently one of the dividends of the “normalization” agreements, or Abraham Accords, that are now over a year old and are fueling greater Israeli-UAE economic ties. Dividends of betraying the Palestinian people and profiting from their suffering.
Be it Dubai Ports World bidding to build ports in Haifa, or illegal Israeli settlement wines being imported into the Emirates, or members of the Dubai royal family visiting the Israel Aerospace Industries pavilion at Expo 2020, or the newly-launched Elbit Systems Emirates, these connections continue to surface. The Israeli Finance Ministry’s deputy chief economist, Lev Drucker, reportedly “sees a potential for more substantial trade levels between the countries, starting at $2 billion and building up to $6.5 billion once cooperation matures”, although financial analysts are more conservative in their estimates.[i]
And it is now evident that allowing this cooperation to “mature” means that there are no barriers to economic trade. Not violations of international law that forbid profiteering off the resources of an occupied people, and not the stained history of the Israeli military industry that literally has the blood of Palestinian and Arab civilians on its hands.
After the Abraham Accords were announced last year, Israeli media was abuzz with reports that Dubai based FAM Holdings had inked a deal with settler company representatives to import wine, tahina, olive oil and honey. Settler Council leader Yossi Dagan was centre stage at the signing ceremony in Dubai; his effusive comments at the time bragged about these new economic ties, repeatedly insisting on using the “Samaria” designation for the occupied West Bank:
“We are opening a new economic page between the best companies in Samaria and FAM. I am very excited and happy with their standing,” he said. “Samaria strives to lead in all areas, and also in export and business development,” Dagan said. “The Samaria area that I represent is located in the Israeli state’s heartland.”
According to the Times of Israel, the Tura Winery based in the illegal settlement of Rechelim, continued in the same vein with this announcement on social media:
“Now it can be revealed: We signed a special cooperation agreement on the distribution of Tura wines and [olive] oils across the UAE,” the company wrote on its Facebook page, together with several pictures of co-owner Vered Ben Sa’adon shaking hands with her new business partner at the signing ceremony in Dubai. “Straight from Rechelim in Israel to the UAE — history!”
Not to be outdone, the head of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce clarified that “the United Arab Emirates has no issue with importing Israeli products manufactured in the West Bank, as it will help boost the Palestinian economy (sic!)…We are an open market in every sense of the word”.
Reportedly, bottles from the Golan Heights Winery, in illegally occupied and annexed Syrian territory, were the first to hit store shelves in Dubai. Yair Shapira, CEO of the Golan Heights Winery, said a year ago that “we are excited to be the Israeli winery that will ‘open the gate’ and introduce the residents and guests of the UAE in Dubai to the Israeli wine industry.” Despite the recent visit of the UAE Foreign Minister to Damascus, it would seem legitimizing Israeli theft of Arab land is still very much “business as usual” for the Emirates.
Profiteering off Israeli war crimes and apartheid is morally wrong; activists should not even have to explain to these governments that they are aiding and abetting the pillage of Palestinian and Arab property and resources, which is expressly forbidden in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
However, the tide is turning; all those complicit, be they Arab despotic regimes or duplicitous Western governments and officials, will be held accountable for enabling Israel’s long and bloody history of dispossession of the Palestinians. The Palestinians, and their supporters, will never forget who stood on the wrong side of history and made a mockery of their human rights.
