SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1700
October 8, 2016, 12:00 pm–1:00 pm
Presenters:… Read more
SFU Harbour Centre, Room 1700
October 8, 2016, 12:00 pm–1:00 pm
Presenters: Hanna Kawas and Sid Shniad
RSVP for registration: cbanerjee@telus.net
This plenary is just one of many informative sessions at Genocide: The politics of Denial, Forgetting and the Work of Memory
Facebook Event
Podcast of the session
Highlights of flash action and picket to Boycott Israeli Wines, Vancouver,… Read more
Highlights of flash action and picket to Boycott Israeli Wines, Vancouver, August 6, 2016.
Over 79,000 Viewed this video on Facebook.
What’s next for BDS Activists in Canada?
Ontario’s Bill 202, the most direct… Read more
What’s next for BDS Activists in Canada?
Ontario’s Bill 202, the most direct effort so far by Zionist forces in Canada to criminalize support for the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, thankfully failed by a wide margin last week. We know we won’t have long to celebrate though, as new draconian efforts are surely on the horizon. Swift and coordinated activist pushback was critical to this defeat; there were also a myriad of other factors at play, including intra-Zionist squabbles (similar to what is going on now in the Israeli government) and even domestic Canadian politics.
The bill introduced in the Ontario legislature was extreme only in comparison to what we have seen so far in Canada, not when compared to efforts in other countries. Still, the language and penalties were harsh and once again, similar to the anti-BDS motion in Feb, 2016 in the House of Commons, specifically targeted individuals as well as organizations. However, if you read the Hansard text of the House of Commons debate and then followed the Ontario debate, comments by members of the Conservative Party that introduced both actions, were very similar. Even to the point of mentioning and condemning specific activists outside of Canada. None of this should be a surprise to anyone who has followed and advocated for the Palestinian issue in Canada for the last decade.
The bigger question here is how much of the “Harper legacy” will be carried forward when it comes to the BDS movement.
Even within the Zionist forces themselves in Canada, there is disagreement on the best way to proceed. A recent article by Shimon Fogel, the CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, arguably Canada’s most powerful Israel lobby, sheds some light on these issues which probably reflect party loyalties as well (both in Canada and in Israel).
“Second, we must refuse to allow Israel to be clouded by a haze of controversy and defined as a state under siege. While we should not be shy to expose the discrimination and anti-Semitism inherent in the BDS movement, we must be strategic in how we do so. Raising the topic of BDS at moments and in forums in which it is not a real threat provides our adversaries undue profile. It also introduces untold numbers of Canadians – many of whom are motivated by good, though misguided, intentions – to the idea of boycotting Israel……
In contrast, employing aggressive tactics, using ideological language, and attempting to out-shout Israel’s detractors is counter-productive because that approach emphasizes conflict and distracts attention from Israeli contributions. Worse, those who engage in tactics that reasonable observers would see as an effort to silence Israel’s critics risk turning BDS activists into free speech martyrs. Such moves have the potential to turn an otherwise fringe movement into the figurehead of a national conversation on censorship, with Jews cast in the role of censor.” (note the crude switch at the end, suddenly casting all “Jews” in the role of censor -ed.)
Ontario’s Bill 202 was likely introduced to test the waters in a way that wasn’t necessarily designed to have the bill pass, but more to gauge reactions and plan for the next assault. (Legislative condemnations of Israeli Apartheid Week in Canada also started in the Ontario legislature in 2010, before spreading to other provinces and finally coming up in the House of Commons.) Bill 202, pass or fail, also gave plenty of opportunity for grandstanding on the part of Conservative Party legislators, who have so far been leading the charge on this front, both nationally and provincially.
Now to the Liberal Party, who recently formed the Federal government and is also in power in Ontario. They are more than willing to vociferously condemn BDS (examples abound) but have so far not crossed the line into criminalizing support of BDS through a bill. Another curious factor with the Ontario bill was that it was introduced by a Conservative legislator along with a leading Liberal one, although at the end of the day, Liberal MPPs voted against it in overwhelming numbers. Why? And was the timing meant to embarrass Ontario Premier Wynne who was on a mission to Israel at the time drumming up new business opportunities? The bill came to second reading, where it was defeated, on the exact day Premier Wynne was in the occupied West Bank, pretending to be even-handed by meeting with Palestinian Authority officials. Was the Liberal Party affected by all the pushback, which was considerable, that followed their support at the national level of the anti-BDS motion in the House of Commons? And will the Liberal Party move to support criminalization if the right bill is presented? Was that part of the plan here, to see what would possibly be supported in the future?
All of this will unfold in time, but here is what we can state with absolute certainty.
1. BDS has been condemned by all 3 major Canadian parties, something that became crystal clear during the last election campaign. Opposition to these recent motions and bills (when it occurs) is based more on a fleeting commitment to free speech than solid support for the inalienable rights of the Palestinians.
2. More attempts will follow to try and criminalize BDS actions and activists in Canada.
3. The quick and dedicated action to counter the Ontario bill by a wide cross section of supporters played a major part in defeating it, even though the bill may have ultimately failed for a multitude of reasons. And if the bill had passed, it would have put BDS activists in the difficult position of having to invest huge amounts of time and resources to challenge it retroactively.
So, what is the future for BDS activists in Canada? It is excellent news that the Ontario Bill failed and by a wide margin. However, we cannot interpret this to mean we can now put our faith in politicians to protect either freedom of political expression or the rights of the Palestinians. In fact, the national and human rights of the Palestinians were barely mentioned during the Ontario legislature debate. The real strength of the BDS movement is that it is a grassroots initiative, and it does not count on any level of government for its survival. The best way forward is the path we have been following till now – intensify BDS, and keep bringing to the forefront the struggle of the Palestinian people.
by Marion Kawas, member of BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish
This article was also published by the Palestine Chronicle
Update Oct/2015:
Eight months ago, Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver… Read more
Update Oct/2015:
Eight months ago, Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver started the Tamam Defense Fund to help Tamam and Kenza al Zobaidi challenge Israel’s arbitrary denial of their legitimate Jerusalem residency rights. The response of supporters across Canada has been heartening; your support not only helped the family meet the financial costs for the legal process, but also let them know that they are not alone and that many people are committed to standing up to Israel’s outrageous policies that can render a family stateless and status-less.
The current escalating Israeli repression in Palestine, particularly in East Jerusalem, highlights the vulnerability of Palestinians under occupation but also shows Palestinians’ determination to hold onto and cherish their birthright, their heritage and their homeland. The case of Tamam and Kenza has now gone to the next stage in the Israeli legal system, as the Israeli tribunal judge upheld the original Ministry of Interior decision and even ordered the family to pay an extra penalty. They must now spend further time and money in appealing all of this to the Israeli district court, which is both expensive and stressful (the appeal to the district court will cost around $10,000).
We know that your political and financial support has been pivotal in helping to keep this case moving forward and we are asking all friends and supporters to continue with publicizing and donating to this campaign. Please also approach any groups you are part of and ask them to consider making a donation and highlighting the case on their websites and social media. We have been able to raise over $5000 towards the family’s legal fees so far, but more is needed; $4200.00 was already forwarded to the family and over $1300 is currently in our Crowdfunding account. Together we can continue to challenge Israeli ethnic cleansing and finally put a stop to these cruel measures that divide families, separate parents from children and ultimately have the goal of making daily life impossible for Palestinian Jerusalemites.
Please donate generously to this fund which will go towards the al Zobaidis’ legal expenses, and make your checks payable to:
Canada Palestine Association
(write in the Memo: Tamam Defense Fund)
and mail to:
CPA
c/o BC Market
930 12th St., New Westminster, B.C., V3M 4K6
Cheques can also be dropped at BC Market address
Or Donate online
=================================================================================================================
Canada Palestine Association (CPA)-Vancouver is starting a Defense Fund for Tamam and Kenza al Zobaidi (mother and daughter), who were denied their legitimate residency status in Jerusalem by the Israeli occupation authorities and accordingly their birthright. Also, Tamam has now “become, essentially, stateless, and risked falling out of ‘legal’ status in Canada, which would render her unable to work, receive health care or enroll her child…in school” (Electronic Intifada, Oct. 6, 2014). Sobhi and Tamam al Zobaidi are well-known in the Vancouver Palestinian and progressive community and their friends are shocked by this development.
East Jerusalem is recognized by all countries in the world including Canada as illegally occupied territory; in spite of this, Israel continues to act as the rightful owner of Jerusalem against all international humanitarian laws, UN resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel continues with its settler colonialist policy and ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their historic homeland.
Please donate generously to this fund which will go towards the al Zobaidis’ legal expenses, and make your checks payable to:
Canada Palestine Association
(write in the Memo: Tamam Defense Fund)
and mail to:
CPA
c/o BC Market
930 12th St., New Westminster,
B. C., V3M 4K6
Cheques can also be dropped at BC Market address
Or Donate online
For more information on these racist policies towards the indigenous Palestinian people of Jerusalem (both Christians and Muslims), see the report from the Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem:
Revocation of Residency in East Jerusalem
And the report by the Society of St. Yves, Catholic Center for Human Rights, Jerusalem.
The legal status of Palestinians in Jerusalem
(Note: CPA’s work over the past 34 years has been largely undocumented… Read more
(Note: CPA’s work over the past 34 years has been largely undocumented on our website, but we are trying to rectify this.)
AI-Canada Stated Zionist Legal Network Coordinator Didn’t Compromise their Commitment to Impartiality
The following letters were exchanged between CPA and Bonnie Harnden, Executive Assistant of Amnesty International Canada in Jan./Feb 2002.
We checked recently with AI-Canada about the status of David Matas and we received the following response on Feb. 24, 2014 from Denise Glasbeek, Information Services Coordinator, Amnesty International, Canadian Section (English-Speaking):
“I don’t have an exact date for when David Matas ceased to work with Amnesty International. It was sometime close to but before 2006, I believe. To clarify, he was not employed at Amnesty International Canada. He was a volunteer with our Legal Network.” We recognize that AI-Canada has increased its engagement with and promotion of Palestinian human rights in recent years, but to our knowledge, although he is no longer involved with them, they have never distanced themselves from David Matas.
Interestingly, Matas was fully informed about the 2002 exchange of letters and even wrote about them in his outrageous 2005 “Hasbara” book “Aftershock: Anti-Zionism & Anti-Semitism”
We started our engagement with AI, Canada in Jan. 2002, by inquiring about the status of David Matas and his involvement with them, and we received the following response from Bonnie Harnden.
________________________________
—– Original Message —–
From: bharnden@…
To: hkawas@…
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 7:25 AM
Subject: David Matas
Dear Hanna,
David Matas is a long-time volunteer member of Amnesty Canada. He is currently the Coordinator of our Legal Network.
David is also very active in a number of other organizations.
Bonnie Harnden
Executive Assistant
AI Canada
_________________________________-
The following letter was sent to Bonnie Harnden, Executive Assistant, AI Canada under the title “A Staunch Supporter of Israel CANNOT be Impartial”
Jan. 19, 2002
From: “hkawas” hkawas@…
To: bharnden@…
Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 1:09 AM
Subject: A Staunch Supporter of Israel CANNOT be Impartial
Bonnie Harnden
Executive Assistant, AI Canada
Dear Bonnie
I was disturbed and saddened to learn that David Matas is still working with Amnesty International – Canada.
Mr. Matas is a staunch supporter and uncritical advocate of Israel and Zionism, and he is also is an apologist for Israeli injustices and atrocities against the Palestinian people.
As a “Senior Legal Counsel” to the B’nai Brith Canada, he recently wrote:
“There may be some who assert the right of return for Palestinians without any awareness of the impact it would have on the Jewish people. Others are aware but either do not care, or worse, support that impact. For those in support, ‘the right of return of the Palestinian people’ is today what the ‘final solution to the Jewish problem’ was in the days of Hitler, a mask of words disguising the end result: a denial of the Jewish people’s right to a national identity in its historic homeland.”
He also stated in the same position paper that:
“Israel has not stripped Palestinians of their nationality in violation of international law”.
And then further stated:
“The non-governmental organizations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both endorsed the claimed right of Palestinians to Israel… In doing so, they have abandoned their human rights mandates and called for a human rights violation.”
(Israel And The Palestinians: Myths and Realities http://www.bnaibrith.ca/institute/articles/dm010730.html)
This leads us to the following questions:
1- If Mr. Matas thinks that Amnesty International calls for “a human rights violation”, why is he still working with AI Canada?
2- Can a man with so much blind loyalty to Israel and the cause of Zionism be impartial?
3- After all these years of his involvement with your organization, why has AI Canada never questioned his impartiality?
4- Can we trust that the campaigns you are conducting are not politically motivated? i.e. Are the campaigns you are conducting against human rights abuses in certain Arab and Moslem countries motivated by human rights principles or by a political pro-Israeli agenda? And what guarantees can you give the public about this question when you have the likes of Mr. David Matas
working as the Coordinator for your Legal Network?
Amnesty International claims that it “is impartial. It does not take sides in political conflicts. It neither supports nor opposes any government or political system.”
If you are true to your principles, we do NOT think Mr. Matas should be involved in the work of Amnesty International in any capacity.
He not only supports a political system, but he supports a political system that denies the suffering of the Palestinian people, their inalienable rights and their HUMANITY.
Yours truly,
Hanna Kawas
Chairperson,
Canada Palestine Association
Vancouver, Canada
________________________________________
Bonnie Harnden’s response:
—– Original Message —–
From: bharnden@…
To: “hkawas” hkawas@…
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 8:31 AM
Subject: Re: A Staunch Supporter of Israel CANNOT be Impartial
Dear Hanna,
David Matas is a longstanding volunteer with Amnesty International. His work with the organization has been in keeping with AI’s commitment to impartiality and independence. Mr. Matas always makes it clear when he is speaking or acting on behalf of AI and when he is doing so on behalf of other organizations. Mr. Matas has no role in developing or presenting Amnesty’s policies or actions in relation to the Middle East.
Amnesty’s work on human rights concerns in the Middle East has always been scrupulously impartial, and not influenced by political considerations. In Israel, the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian Authority the organization has spoken out frequently and very publicly with respect to human rights abuses attributable to Israeli forces, the Palestinian Authority and armed groups. Those reports are available on our website.
Bonnie Harnden
Executive Assistant
AI Canada
________________________________________
Our final response to Bonnie Harnden, under the title “Amnesty International-Canada Violates the Principles of Human Rights” Feb. 15, 2002
From: hkawas
To: bharnden@…
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 11:25 PM
Subject: Amnesty International-Canada Violates the Principles of Human Rights
Bonnie Harnden
Amnesty International Canada
We in the Canada Palestine Association are outraged that David Matas, a self declared violator of Palestinian human rights, is allowed to work in Amnesty International – Canada. Human rights are universal, and a violator of human rights in one country can not be a defender of human rights anywhere else.
What is even more incomprehensible is that Matas has publicly criticized Amnesty for its support of the Palestinian right of return, accusing you of having “abandoned (your) human rights mandate”, and yet he continues to work with you and you continue to involve him in a position of trust. The principles of human rights do not lend themselves to such opportunism.
1- Mr. David Matas supports Zionism as an exclusive ideology that allows any Jew to automatically gain Israeli citizenship regardless of his/her birth place, while at the same time he vehemently denies a native of Palestine and her/his descendants the right of return to their homeland.
2- Mr. Matas DENIES the direct responsibility of the Zionist movement for the mass expulsion of the majority of the Palestinian people and the subsequent tragedy of the Palestinian dispossession. Many historians, including Israelis, have documented this direct Israeli responsibility.
“The Jewish military advantage was translated into an act of mass expulsion of more than half of the Palestinian population. The Israeli forces, apart from rare exceptions, expelled the Palestinians from every village and town they occupied. In some cases, this expulsion was accompanied by massacres as was the cases in Lydda, Ramleh, Dawimiyya, Sa’sa, Ein Zietun and other
places. Expulsion also was accompanied by rape, looting and confiscation.”
Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe in “The Link”, January-March, 1998.
3- Mr. Matas not only defends the apartheid nature of the state of Israel, he also justifies it and believes that Israel should be the state of the Jewish people only and not of ALL its citizens. He supports the exclusive “Jewish character of the State of Israel” and “the preservation of the cultural identity of the Jewish people” in Israel.
a- On that basis, he thereby supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the state of Israel which was created according to the UN Partition Plan of Nov. 29, 1947, with a population of 50 percent Jewish and 50 percent Arab
Palestinians on 56 per cent of historic Palestine.
b- Mr. Matas believes that any natural demographic change inside Israel should be stopped by all means similar to what happened in 1947/1948.
c. He also supports all the Israeli laws and regulations that make Israel an exclusionary state and not secular for all of its citizens. The basic law, the law of return and the Jewish National Fund regulations are but a few examples.
4- Mr. Matas says the Holocaust “was global, not just European. It had a Middle East dimension, because of the failure of the states of the Middle East to offer protection to Jewish refugees”. Accordingly, he concludes that Palestinians should share in the “obligation to remedy these wrongs (of the Nazis)”, presumably by giving away their country. This is the utmost in victimizing the victim. Canada and the U.S. were two of the worst countries in turning away Jewish refugees during that period, but Mr. Matas hasn’t called for the state of Israel to be established in New York or on Vancouver Island. We refer him to the book, “The Holocaust, Victims Accuse”, published 1977 by the Orthodox Jewish group Neturei Karta, to fill the gaps in his rather selective analysis.
These are just a few examples of what David Matas stands for, and we do not understand how AI-Canada can claim that it is committed to “impartiality and independence” if it allows such a person to coordinate its legal network, and especially when this coordinator thinks that AI called for “a human rights violation” when it supported the Palestinians’ inalienable human rights.
We urge AI-Canada to:
1- Stop working with people like David Matas who call and work for violations of other peoples’ human and national rights.
2- To start a campaign to call on the Canadian government to stop the tax-deductible status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) that discriminates on the basis of religion. The JNF and its subsidiaries control around 93 per cent of the land in Israel. This land is set aside for the exclusive use of Jews only, and the 20 per cent Muslim and Christian Israeli minority cannot buy nor even lease this land.
As a Canadian human rights organization, you do not want Canada to be an accessory to such discrimination.
In the meantime, however, we feel obliged to condemn AI-Canada and expose your hypocritical practices to all peace and human rights activists.
We will urge all those who are concerned with the universality of human rights to protest AI-Canada’s practices.
Yours truly
Hanna Kawas
Chairperson,
Canada Palestine Association, Vancouver, B.C.
