Open Reply to Mr. Shurman, Ontario MPP, Regarding “O Canada or O Israel?”

By Hanna Kawas. The following letter was sent to Ontario MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill), in response to his reply to O Canada or O Israel?

Open Reply to Mr. Shurman, Ontario MPP

I appreciate your courtesy in answering my letter “Is It O Canada or O Israel?”, but I am baffled by your response and your logic. If you are truly concerned for your constituents, you will not hide the truth from them.

Regrettably, as in the debates around your original motion in the Ontario Legislature, you did not substantiate any of your statements in your email. You call for meaningful dialogue that is not prejudicial. I agree that dialogue should not be prejudicial, but I don’t agree that the documented and scientific term “Apartheid” meaning separation is “prejudicial”. However, what is prejudicial is one of the parties believing that they are a superior race and that God gave these superior rights and powers to them. Dialogue should be conducted among equals and with people who believe in equality and human dignity. I also agree with you that this dialogue should not be confined only to campuses, it should include all sectors of the Canadian society, including the Canadian media that does not care to present the Palestinian point of view, nor their suffering nor their “cries of hope”. Have you seen any of the Canadian media report the “cry of hope” of the Christian Palestinians (Dec. 2009) to end the suffering, oppression and occupation of their people?

Perhaps the Ontario legislature should condemn the corporate media for being biased and one-sided towards Israel?!

You repeat in your email that “apartheid is prejudicial to any meaningful dialogue”, that it is “wrong to ascribe such a term to the State of Israel” and that you “reject the use of the word ‘apartheid’ with respect to the democratic State of Israel.” However, again, with no documentation to back your claims.

I tell you, as the victim of Israeli discriminatory polices, Israel is an apartheid state, Israel is not a democracy and exposing Israeli ethnic cleansing and war crimes against the Palestinian people is the duty of every decent human being.

Again I am willing to publicly debate with you and document what I am saying. Are you willing to debate these issues? I offered that in my first open letter, but neither you nor any of the members of the Ontario legislature who voted for your motion responded positively.

Here is a concrete public offer. I am the co-host of the radio show called Voice of Palestine in Vancouver, and we are offering you a segment of 25-30 minutes to explain your position. We broadcast every Tuesday evening for one hour – pick any Tuesday most convenient to you. If you do not feel comfortable with such an interview, we welcome your written response to the questions below and we will publicize them both on the radio and the Internet. Here are some of the questions I would be raising in any interview:

  • The Israeli “Law of Return” applies only to Jews (Israelis or not) and does not apply to the twenty percent of Israeli citizens who are non-Jews, mainly Muslims and Christians. Is this law democratic or discriminatory?
  • The “Absentee law” was used to rob the Palestinian people of their land when Israel was established, and now there is confiscation (robbery) of much of the West Bank land for illegal settlements, roads, the separation (Apartheid) wall and Israeli military bases. Are these actions democratic or are they part of the Ten Commandments “Thou shall not steal”?
  • The Jewish National Fund JNF and its affiliates that control 93% of the total area of Israel does not lease or sell to Christian and Muslim Palestinians. Is this the democratic principles you are talking about and how would you describe these practices?
  • What is the name of the Israeli Jewish author who wrote the book “Israel: An Apartheid State” in 1987?
  • Is a state that allows for discrimination against women democratic? See: Invoking Rosa Parks, Haredi Women Move to Back of the Bus
  • A recent poll in the Jerusalem Post found that 50% of “Jewish Israeli schoolchildren” are against equal rights for Arabs. Do you think this has to do with their education at home, or school or the Israeli society in general?
  • And finally, I might ask you to give only one quote from any Anti-Apartheid South African leader to prove your assertion that “it is also offensive to the millions of black South Africans oppressed by a racist white regime until the early 1990s”

Awaiting your reply,
Hanna Kawas

Subject: RE: Is It “O Canada” or “O Israel”?
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 15:56:01 -0500
From: peter.shurman@pc.ola.org
To: hkawas@msn.com

Thank you for your email regarding the resolution that I presented and debated with my fellow MPPs in the Ontario Legislative Assembly on February 25th.

Please allow me to remind you of two things.

Firstly, my job as the MPP for Thornhill is to take positions on issues that are of importance to my constituents. I would also add that sometimes we will agree and sometimes we won’t.

Secondly, my argument is a simple one, even though others wish to expand upon it further. Simply put, I argue that the use of the term, “apartheid” is prejudicial to any meaningful dialogue before that dialogue even begins. Until all sides are represented in discussions on campuses and elsewhere, it is clear to me that the current starting point is not a level playing field.

Our objection is not to the discussion of the problems in the Middle East; it is that we reject the use of the word “apartheid” with respect to the democratic State of Israel.

The word, “apartheid” is assumptive and declaratory and assumes certain things. It is wrong to ascribe such a term to the State of Israel.
I stand by the resolution and maintain my motivation for bringing it forward.

Peter Shurman MPP (Thornhill)

O Canada or O Israel?

By Hanna Kawas. The following open letter was sent to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and the Ontario MPPs under the title: Is It “O Canada” or “O Israel”?.

Open Letter to Premier Dalton McGuinty and Ontario MPPs

We learned with concern about the unanimous passing of a motion in the Ontario legislature (30/107 MPPs in attendance) introduced by Progressive Conservative MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill) on Feb. 25, 2010 to condemn the annual Israel Apartheid Week.

Mr. Shurman was quoted as saying that he wants “the name changed. It’s just wrong” and that his resolution is about “moral suasion”, and that the term apartheid is “close to hate speech…hateful” and “odious”. He says he wants a “respectful” debate much more “constructive” than “slinging slurs”.

Finally he concluded “it is also offensive to the millions of black South Africans oppressed by a racist white regime until the early 1990s”

New Democratic MPP Cheri DiNovo (Parkdale-High Park) also claimed that the word apartheid is “inflammatory” and ”used inappropriately in the case of Israel”. “Apartheid does not help the discussion”, she states.

I would like to note that none of the attacks and slanders against the term “Israeli Apartheid” were substantiated or backed by any logical argument or reason. This has become a trend with the “Israeli Hasbara” (Israel Public Diplomacy) and the pro-Israel lobby where events and people, including Jewish Canadians, are arbitrarily slandered simply for exercising their right to free speech.

I am a Palestinian Christian from the Palestinian city of Bethlehem who survived Israel’s “Original Sin” that uprooted two thirds of the Palestinian people and wiped out over four hundred Palestinian towns and villages from the map of the world in 1947/1948. I am also one of the six million refugees who have been waiting for the past sixty-one years to return to their homes, lands and homeland. I am hurt and outraged at the morally bankrupt resolution of your Legislature. It adds insult to injury.

I challenge any one or more from these “honourable members” of the Ontario Legislature who voted for the resolution to a reasonable and rational debate, at anytime.

In the meantime I just want to tell Mr. Shurman, please do NOT speak in the name of the South African people. In contrast to your unfounded assertion (with no proof) that the term Israeli Apartheid is “offensive to the millions of black South Africans”, let me offer you the facts. The South African peoples and leaders are not offended by the Apartheid comparison, they do support the Palestinian struggle for liberation and if anything is offensive to them, it is those who oppress the Palestinian people (the Israeli regime) and the unquestioning supporters of such ethnic cleansing and war crimes.

To back my statement, I am including some quotes from South African leaders showing what they think of Israeli Apartheid. We are certain that your attempt to speak in the name of South Africans is without legitimacy and we also question if you are fairly representing the majority of Canadians. May you and your colleagues at the Ontario Legislature learn some truth, facts and humility and finally please remember that the Canadian national anthem is “O Canada”, not “O Israel”.

Hanna Kawas
Chairperson, Canada Palestine Association, Vancouver
www.cpavancouver.org

South African leaders on Israel and Apartheid

“But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” (Address by President Nelson Mandela at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People)
Nelson Mandela

“I’ve been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.” (Apartheid in the Holy Land)
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

“When I hear, ‘that used to be my home’, it is painfully similar to the treatment in South Africa when coloureds had no rights”. (Desmond Tutu Likens Israeli Actions to Apartheid)
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

”…Israel came to resemble more and more apartheid South Africa at its zenith – even surpassing its brutality, house demolitions, removal of communities, targeted assassinations, massacres, imprisonment and torture of its opponents, collective punishment and the aggression against neighbouring states.” (Ronnie Kasrils Speech at Israeli Apartheid Week 2009)
Former South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils from a speech at Israel Apartheid Week 2009

“But what is interesting is that every black South African that I’ve spoken to who has visited the Palestinian territory has been horrified and has said without hesitation that the system that applies in Palestine is worse.” (Apartheid and Occupation under International Law)
Professor John Dugard, Former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine

“The horrendous dehumanisation of Black South Africans during the erstwhile Apartheid years is a Sunday picnic, compared with what I saw and what I know is happening to the Palestinian people.” (after his visit to Palestine in 2006)
Willie Madisha, former head of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)

“As someone who lived in apartheid South Africa and who has visited Palestine I say with confidence that Israel is an apartheid state. In fact, I believe that some of Israel’s actions make the actions of South Africa’s apartheid regime appear pale by comparison.” (“Israel is an apartheid state”)
Willie Madisha, in a letter supporting CUPE Ontario’s resolution.

“I say with confidence that Israel is an Apartheid state. The trade union movement must move beyond resolutions, otherwise history will look back on us and spit on our graves.” (South African Unions Rally for Palestine)
Willie Madisha, at a trade union conference held in London, England.

“Indeed, for those of us who lived under South African Apartheid and fought for liberation from it and everything that it represented, Palestine reflects in many ways the unfinished business of our own struggle.” (on Apartheid Wall in A-Ram)
Farid Esack, Writer, Visiting Professor at Harvard and Anti-apartheid Spokesperson

“They support Zionism, a version of global racist domination and apartheid based on the doctrine that Jews are superior to Arabs and therefore have a right to oppress them and occupy their country.” (Address By Sidumo Dlamini)
Current COSATU President, Sidumo Dlamini

Boycott Cactus Club

JANUARY 28, 2015 – ISRAELI WINES NO LONGER APPEAR ON THE CACTUS CLUB… Read more

JANUARY 28, 2015 – ISRAELI WINES NO LONGER APPEAR ON THE CACTUS CLUB DRINK MENU

Don’t Drink with Apartheid, It’ll Surely Ruin your Appetite!

Dear Friends:

Cactus Club, a chain of restaurants in Western Canada, is carrying one of the Galil wines labelled from Israel on its wine list. Despite several attempts to engage with their management on this issue (see letter below), they have not even acknowledged receiving our messages; rather, they have chosen to ignore the human rights principles at stake. We must let Cactus Club know that many of its customers find this offensive and that it will affect our decision to patronize their restaurants. Please phone their head office 604-714-2025, email reception@cactusclubcafe.com and comments@cactusclubcafe.com, or go into one of their restaurants and speak with the manager and express your concerns.

January 6, 2011
Richard Jaffray, President and Ceo, Cactus Club

Dear Sir:

Several of your customers have recently brought it to our attention that you are carrying the ’06 Galil Mountain Red Wine, labelled from Israel. You may not be aware that the Galil Winery is a joint venture with the Golan Heights Winery (http://www.galilmountain.co.il/Home/English), which produces wines from grapes grown on stolen Arab land. In fact, as their name would indicate, some of their wineries are located on occupied Syrian land in the Golan Heights. All of this is in direct contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention and stated Canadian policy http://www.international.gc.ca/name-anmo/peace_process-processus_paix/canadian_policy-politique_canadienne.aspx?lang=eng. Nonetheless, the Canadian government has given Israel preferential trading status under the Canada Israel Free Trade Agreement, an agreement that financially enables the Israeli government’s illegal policies and does not even attempt to distinguish products that are from Israeli settlements. As concerned and ethical consumers, however, we cannot wait for the Canadian government to take the lead on this (or for that matter, any other) issue of conscience.

We are urging this change of your company policy, which claims to be committed to education and continuous learning, for two reasons:

First, Palestinian civil society has called for the international community to boycott Israeli products until Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights regarding all occupied Arab lands;

Second, the UN Human Rights Norms for Business, unanimously adopted in 2003, prohibits transnational corporations and other business entities from profiting from violations of international humanitarian law (Art. 3), and also prohibits them from using suppliers who do not respect human rights norms (Art. 4.). Profiting from occupation is immoral and bad business.

Your restaurant is being used to advance an illegal occupation and annexation of the Golan Heights. Even the Israeli peace bloc Gush Shalom includes all the Golan Heights wines on their national boycott list of settlement products, under the heading “A Penny to the settlements is a Penny against Peace” http://gush-shalom.org.toibillboard.info/boycott_eng.htm

Your actions are also rewarding Israeli occupation, ethnic cleansing and war crimes that are committed daily by the Israeli Government against the Palestinian and other Arab peoples. Many respected human rights groups, including most recently Human Rights Watch, have condemned Israeli government actions in the occupied Palestinian territories as violations of international law and systematic discrimination. http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/12/18/israelwest-bank-separate-and-unequal.

We urge you to rethink your wine list selection and we are willing to meet at anytime to talk further about this issue. Please be aware that we take this matter very seriously, and will go forward with a public education campaign if necessary, emphasizing why Israeli occupation and militarism hurts us all.

Thank you.

Yours truly,
Hanna Kawas,
Chair, Canada Palestine Association

Christmas Message 2009 – To the Canadian People

From a Bethlehemite

Successive Canadian governments have supported the Zionist project, the creation and maintenance of the state of Israel, and the accompanying military expansion and trampling of Palestinian human and national rights. In 1947 Canadian representatives played a major role in formulating and passing the UN Partition Plan for Palestine [Resolution 181 (II)]. Lester B. Pearson, then the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, was instrumental in ensuring the passage of the Partition Resolution and Supreme Court of Canada Justice, Ivan C. Rand, was a central figure in drafting it. As such, Canada must be held directly responsible for the dispossession of the Palestinian people and the ensuing suffering of the Palestinian refugees.

Dissenting voices at the time warned of the consequences of such Canadian complicity. The Canadian Arab Friendship League called the partition vote an act of betrayal by “the selfish interests of so-called ‘Big Nations’” which broke, ignored, or forgot their promises to the Arab people. M.S. Massoud, president of the league, told the Montreal Optimist Club that the Arab world “would ‘remember’ Lester B. Pearson and Justice Rand … who … did their utmost to impose upon Arabs the infamous partition scheme.” (1)

And Sir Zufrallah Khan, the representative of Pakistan to the UN further warned Western powers after the resolution was passed in his address to the 128th UN General Assembly by saying: “Empires rise and fall …We much fear that the beneficence, if any, to which partition may lead will be small in comparison to the mischief which it might inaugurate.”(2)

When the head of the Iraqi delegation to the UN, Mohommed Fadhel Jamali, asked Lester Pearson during the debate in 1947: “Mr Pearson, do you believe that the act of partitioning Palestine against the will of its inhabitants is an act dictated by conscience and law?” (Pearson) answered frankly, “Dr Jamali, politics doesn’t know conscience or law unless they are supported by power. As for us today, we are obliged to comply with the policy of the U.S.A. in what she decides on Palestine.”(3)

Canada insisted in 1947 to take the side of U.S. “power and might” rather than the side of “conscience and law”. Accordingly, the Arab and Muslim world witnessed upheavals, one after another for the past sixty-two years: revolutions, counter-revolutions, civil wars, Arab Israeli wars and countless Israeli aggressions, massacres and war crimes. Now, following and in large measure due to their interventionist policies especially in this region, the U.S. Empire is in decline.

The Israel lobby and its supporters are increasingly aggressive and strident in their efforts to maintain the old status quo and to criminalize and silence any legitimate criticism of Israeli policies. Earlier this year some pro-Zionist Canadian politicians (most notably cabinet minister Jason Kenney) from the Conservative, Liberal and NDP parties formed the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism CPCCA and asked for feedback from the public. They received an “impressive volume of submissions” (4) from people and organizations that said criticizing Israel is NOT anti-Semitic, according to Mark Freiman, the national president of the Canadian Jewish Congress (who probably knows the inside workings of the CPCCA more than anyone else). However, because the CPCCA is so “democratic” and “unbiased”, they have yet to invite anyone to represent this point of view in their public hearings.

Recently, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler also exposed that the Canadian delegation to the Anti-Racism Conference in Durban, South Africa that was headed by Hedy Fry remained at the conference “at the request of the Israeli government”(5). Obviously such people are not serving the interests of the Canadian people and Canada. They are serving the Zionists and the Israeli state’s interests.

Occupying other nations, exploiting other people’s natural resources, suppressing other peoples’ freedoms by imposing dictatorships and supporting the murder of millions, engaging in ethnic cleansing and war crimes all over the world with superior military might is not Christian, nor ethical nor human.

On this Christmas, to all those who believe in the true teachings of Jesus Christ, who believe in human dignity, human rights and freedom for all, we wish a Merry Christmas. And to all those who have supported and continue to support aggression, war crimes and ethnic cleansing, humanity will remember and hold them accountable and history will not be kind to their memory.

We call on the Canadian people to support “conscience and law”, to support peace with justice, and to say loudly and clearly that Canadians will break this shameful history of complicity with Palestinian dispossession and betrayal of the Palestinian people.

Next Year in a Free and Peaceful Bethlehem:

A Bethlehem without walls, without Apartheid, without oppression

Hanna Kawas
Dec. 24, 2009
Chairperson, Canada Palestine Association, Vancouver www.cpavancouver.org
Co-Host Voice of Palestine www.voiceofpalestine.ca

1- Canadian Arab vol. III 7/8/9 as quoted by David J Bercuson in Canada and the birth of Israel page 135, 136
2- Bitter Harvest, Sami Hadawi page 71 (Forth Printing March 1983)
3- http://physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/Fadhel.html
4- http://www.jewishindependent.ca/archives/Dec09/archives09Dec11-01.html
5- https://www.cjnews.com/news/liberals-tories-wrangle-canadas-role-durban

MP Irwin Cotler: “Canada remained (at Durban I) at the request of the Israeli government”

From a Facebook post on Dec. 4, 2009:

The loyalty war for Israel between the two main Canadian parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, is heating up and in the process, exposing many facts. One of them is that Canada stayed at the Durban I conference not to further the anti racism agenda, but “at the request of the Israeli government” to further another country’s agenda in implementing apartheid, ethnic cleansing and war crimes against the Palestinian people.
And for the first time the Zionists seemed to have discovered that the Conservative Party policy “plays up dangerous stereotypes” and concretely promotes antisemitism against all Jews, Zionists or not (see below).

Hanna
————————————————————–
http://www.jewishindependent.ca/archives/Dec09/archives09Dec04-11.html

December 4, 2009
Get rid of 10-percenters
Editorial
A recent flyer sent out by Conservative members of Parliament, promoting their party’s Israel record at the expense of the Liberals, has put the Jewish community at the centre of controversy.
MPs are allowed to send – with free postage – flyers to up to 10 percent of the voters in a riding outside their own. These so-called “10-percenters” cost taxpayers about $10 million a year. Their benefits are less clear.
Liberal MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett apologized recently for her 10-percenter that attacked the Conservatives’ handling of the H1N1 (swine) flu among First Nations communities with the slogan “No vaccines, just body bags” and a picture of body bags and a sick aboriginal child. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq chastised Bennett and told CBC, “First Nations communities should not be used as punching bags for a political party.”
Perhaps not to be outdone in the fear-mongering-among-vulnerable-minorities department, the Conservatives recently sent out a flyer to several Liberal ridings with large numbers of Jewish voters, including ones in Quebec, Toronto and Winnipeg.
On one side of the flyer asking which federal political leader “is on the right track to represent and defend the values of Canada’s Jewish community?” there are two columns, each with three points. On the left, the Conservatives: “Led the world in refusing participation in Durban II hate-fest against Israel”; “Insisted on banning Hezbollah and led the world in defunding Hamas-led Palestinian Authority”; “Strongly backed Israel’s right to self-defence against Hezbollah during 2006 conflict.” On the right, the Liberals: “Willingly participated in overtly anti-Semitic Durban I”; “Opposed defunding Hamas and asked that Hezbollah be delisted as a terrorist organization”; “Michael Ignatieff accused Israel of committing war crimes during 2006 conflict.”
It is true that the Conservatives have been unambiguously supportive of Israel and have strongly condemned anti-Semitism. Under Stephen Harper’s leadership, for example, Canada joined the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. The Conservatives have spent millions on the Jewish community, as part of the security infrastructure pilot program (though B’nai Brith Canada (BBC) notes in its annual anti-Semitism report that the Liberals made a pre-election pledge of $75 million for a similar program, which BBC considered “clearly a more realistic figure” than the Conservatives’ $3 million) and the federal government will provide Lubavitch B.C. with $633,300 from the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund to renovate the Lubavitch Centre (the B.C. government and Lubavitch B.C. will each invest an identical amount).
Wouldn’t it have been nice to see a positive 10-percenter promoting these achievements? Instead, the recent flyer comes so close to mistruths that, as of Monday, House of Commons Speaker Peter Milliken ruled the flyer had breached the Parliamentary privileges of Liberal MP Irwin Cotler (to whose riding flyers were sent) and the House was set to vote on sending Cotler’s complaint to the Procedure and House Affairs Committee for an inquiry.
For example, it was the Liberal party that designated Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations in 2002, thereby making the financing of them illegal. While the Canadian delegation under the Liberals went “willingly” to Durban I, there was no indication that it would turn into the hate-fest it did and, according to Cotler, once it turned ugly, Canada remained at the request of the Israeli government. Finally, Ignatieff did accuse Israel of war crimes, though he did apologize and has since repeated his and his party’s strong support for Israel, calling in a speech to Canadian Jewish Congress for “all parties to be genuine defenders of Israel.”
Where does this leave us as Jews? Well, most of us were probably already familiar with the record of the Conservatives and Liberals on Israel. So what was the purpose of sending the flyer?
One of the results has been to bring to the national public stage divisions within the Jewish community. More than 100 Jews signed a letter of protest to the Harper government, supporting the Liberals’ record. Among the signatories was David Matas, senior legal counsel of BBC. Meanwhile, Frank Dimant, BBC chief executive officer, told the CBC that “he doesn’t interpret the pamphlets as accusing the Liberals of anti-Semitism. Rather, he said, they seem to accurately recount the fact that on several key issues, the Conservatives ‘were more in tune with the Jewish community’ than the Liberals.”
Even if that’s the case, one has to wonder at all the money and effort spent on the Jewish community, which makes up less than one percent of the Canadian population. The attention generates conflicting feelings. It feels great to have such strong supporters of Israel in Parliament, but so much attention to gaining Jewish votes (as if Jews are one-issue voters) could backfire, as it plays up dangerous stereotypes, not the least of which are that Jews control the world’s political institutions and that Jews have a double loyalty, first to Israel, second to their country of residence.
Such messaging, no matter how unintentional, should concern us. As should the messaging that a government doesn’t care about its First Nations citizens. As should any such propagandizing by any political party – especially with taxpayer dollars. Whatever the initial purpose of these 10-percenters was, it’s time to get rid of them.