Until Return and Freedom! Raise the Palestinian Flag! VANCOUVER, ALL OUT FOR PALESTINE May 14, 1 pm Vancouver Art Gallery Nakba75 Vancouver | Facebook
Join us to mark 75 years of Palestinian dispossession and commemorate the continuing Palestinian resistance, as the Palestinian people refuse to submit to Zionist settler colonialism, aggression, and occupation.
Let’s hold the Palestinian flag high in Vancouver, and also tell the U.S. and Canadian governments that their complicity in Israeli war crimes must end! From Turtle Island to Palestine, Colonization is a Crime! #BoycottApartheidIsrael Come out to send the message: Enough of 75 years of Israeli settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
For more info, please email pymvancouver@gmail.com Organized by Canada Palestine Association, International League of Peoples’ Struggle Canada, Masar Badil, Palestinian Youth Movement, Samidoun, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights UBC and Students for Justice in Palestine SFU
This event is taking place on the unceded and occupied territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) peoples. The organizers stand in full solidarity and support of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination and with the ongoing movements to defend land, water and Indigenous peoples from plunder and settler colonialism.
Vancouver activists are proud to #BoycottApartheidIsrael and to denounce the promotion of illegal Israeli settlement wines in BC Liquor stores. We stand for human rights for all! It is despicable for Israeli lobby groups like B’nai Brith to conflate this with white supremacism. pic.twitter.com/MiOjws66a8
— BDS Vancouver/Canada Palestine Association (@bds_vancouver) April 17, 2023
Any doubts about the agenda of B’nai Brith Canada should be dispelled by this cover photo for their annual audit of “AntiSemitic Incidents”. Clearly they are invested in defending Israel and smearing pro-Palestinian protestors.
We were also horrified to see NDP MP Alistair MacGregor attending the press conference on April 17 to launch this flawed B’nai Brith report, which smacks of anti-Palestinian racism. What part of NDP policy was being implemented with his participation? Certainly not the official stand of ending “all trade…with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine”.
As solidarity organizations with the Palestinian people, we condemn in the strongest terms the brutal Israeli attack on Palestinian worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque on April 5, 2023. We hold the Canadian government and its Western allies, headed by the US, responsible for this atrocity committed by Apartheid Israel. Their unconditional support for Israeli war crimes and their denial of the racist and apartheid nature of the Israeli regime only encourages Israel to continue with its ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people; such support also shields Israel from any accountability.
We are certain that all those who are complicit in Israeli war crimes will be held to account, and justice will prevail. We renew our commitment to support the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation, self-determination, freedom and return.
Canada Palestine Association International League of Peoples’ Struggle, Canada Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masar Badil) Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Join us to mark Palestinian Land Day and call out the BC Government and corporations complicit in war crimes profiteering off Israeli apartheid wines. Major international and Israeli human right groups, including Amnesty International, have determined that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid. Yet the BC government insists to carry Israeli wines in publicly owned BC liquor stores, even though most are linked to the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise. The wines in question are either from the Golan Heights Winery and its joint venture the Galil Winery; or from the Israeli Teperberg Winery, which proudly displays a map on its website showing vineyards in occupied Palestinian territory. More info: https://cpavancouver.org/boycottisraeliwines-campaign/
This event is taking place on the unceded and occupied territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) peoples. The organizers stand in full solidarity and support of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination and with the ongoing movements to defend land, water and Indigenous peoples from plunder and settler colonialism.
The import and sale of Israeli wines in provincial liquor stores across Canada is a microcosm of how apartheid maintains “business as usual”, despite changing political conditions. The war crimes profiteering from the sale of Israeli products has been tracked for many years in BC by #BoycottIsraeliWine campaigners.
Much of the focus has been on the illegal Israeli settlements, be they in the occupied West Bank or annexed Golan, and on the successive provincial and federal governments complicit in legitimizing this plunder of stolen Palestinian natural resources. However, there is also corporate complicity involving the wine distributors that bring the fruits of colonization to local liquor store shelves.
Most Israeli wine distributed to all of Canada’s four western provinces comes through one Vancouver-based company, International Cellars Inc. They promote wines from the Golan Heights Winery and its joint venture, Galil Mountain Winery, as well as the Teperberg 1870 Winery (which openly shows its vineyards in occupied Palestinian territory on its website). In 2007, they launched several Israeli wines in BC government liquor stores under the condition that there would be a separate “Israeli” section; principal director, Norman Gladstone, stated at the time that the BC Liquor Distribution Board (BCLDB) approached him about the project and were very “supportive”. “Normally, it is up to a company like International Cellars to go into each and every liquor store to get them to sell their wines, but, because the BCLDB is so supportive of this venture, ‘the liquor board is doing an initial introduction to 23 stores and our [International Cellars’] sales staff are going out to get it into more stores as well,’ said Gladstone.”
A look at International Cellars wines from other countries brought forth this gem: one of their partner Chilean wineries is owned by the founder of the Golan Heights Winery, Shimshon Welner. Welner Wines website in its “our story” section, proudly shows photos of Welner with former Israeli leaders including Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin.
(Shimshon Welner with Ariel Sharon)
After seeing the hypocrisy of the BC NDP government last year in rushing to pull Russian liquor products off store shelves in just 2 days, while refusing for 14 years to deal with Israeli apartheid wines, it is clear the BC government always was, and is, a full partner in this travesty. A travesty that spans multiple provincial governments, from the Liberals in 2007 to the Horgan NDP government to the current one under Premier David Eby, all promoting the same policy of enabling Israeli war crimes. And anyone who thought that the NDP would take a different stance once in power was sorely disappointed, even though their official party policy is now committed to end “all trade and economic cooperation with illegal settlements in Israel-Palestine”.
Palestinian activists will continue to highlight and hold accountable all those involved in this infamous chain of war crimes profiteering, who play a part in the dispossession and usurpation of Palestine, its natural resources, and its people. Palestinian blood is on all their hands.
