Letter to the Editor of the Georgia Straight regarding the targeting of non-combatants

By Gary Keenan. The following letter was published in Vancouver’s Georgia Straight, in the May 30-June 5 2003 issue, in reply to “Letter to editor from Cam Small”, May 22-29 2003

Dear editor:

Of the many reliable sources that refute Cam Small’s assertion that “there has never been any evidence to suggest that [Palestinian] noncombatants are being targeted [by Israeli soldiers]”, I quote from an article by Chris Hedges (former bureau chief for the Dallas Morning News in Jerusalem and Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times), who witnessed children being shot and killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied Gaza Strip: “Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered…but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.”… Read more

Whose Interests Will the Abrogation of the ROR Serve?

By Hanna Kawas (in response to Elias Tuma)*

We are witnessing a calculated campaign of highly publicized attacks on the Palestinian Right of Return (ROR), aimed at confusing, demoralizing, terrorizing (physically and politically) and frustrating the Palestinian refugees and people with the sole purpose of forcing them to abrogate this right. It started with the Camp David “generous offer” and continued with Palestinian advocates such as Sari Nusaybeh, pushing to drop the ROR if Israel met other conditions, as if we are in a Bazaar, and as if what is on the line is vegetables to be traded and not inalienable rights for human beings.… Read more

Letter (2) to the Editor of the Westender, regarding anti-Palestinian letters

By Dr. Rafeh Hulays. The following letter was published in Vancouver’s Westender, in the April 24-30, 2003 issue, in response to “Taking issue with ISM activists”, letters published in the Westender (April 17-23, 2003 issue)

Alan Switzer’s venomous criticism of International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists is a classic example of attacking the messenger. He would actually have us believe that those who put their lives at risk to protect Palestinian civilians victimized daily under Israel’s illegal military occupation are somehow anti-Semitic (an irony considering that Arabs are Semites) and advocates of the “final solution.”… Read more

Letter (1) to the Editor of the Westender, regarding anti-Palestinian letters

By Hanna Kawas. The following letter was published in Vancouver’s Westender, in the April 24-30, 2003 issue, in response to “Taking issue with ISM activists”, letters published in the Westender (April 17-23, 2003 issue)

The Letters published in the Westender (April 17-23 issue), under the title “Taking issue with ISM activists”, are an attempt to divert attention away from the real issues at stake, one of which is Israeli warcrimes against the Palestinians (see Amnesty International report at www.amnesty.org,… Read more

“Dr. Mate reveals a rare courage”, letter to the Editor of the Westender

By Gary Keenan. The following letter was published in Vancouver’s Westender, in the March 20-26, 2003 issue in response to Reply to “‘Urban Legend in his own mind only,” a letter from Dr. Moishe Golubchuk (Mar. 13-19, 2003).

Other than revealing his ignorance, Dr. Moishe Golubchuk’s ad hominem attack against Dr. Gabor Mate’ (who appeared as an Urban Legend in the Feb.… Read more

“Is it Liberalism or Normalization?”, a letter to Al Shurouq

By Hanna Kawas

The Al Shorouq newspaper, in its last two issues, carried a letter from Jack Chivo (an extreme Zionist supremacist), an advertisement for an event for the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), a full report in the second issue about this same event and then publicized another event for the so-called secular “Peretz Center”. With this pretense at objectivity, Al Shorouq has regrettably fallen into the trap of endorsing what the Zionists say, what they do and what they promote.… Read more

Open Letter to the Canadian Prime Minister Regarding the Banning of Moslem Organizations

Dear Prime Minister:

The Canadian government’s announcement to ban the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and the Lebanese group Hizbollah, as “terrorist groups” is ill advised, biased and outrageous.

The two Palestinian groups were formed 20 years after the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967. The Hizbollah group was formed after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the subsequent occupation of large areas of Lebanese territory.… Read more

Open Letter to Prime Minister Jean Chretien

Right Honorable Jean Chretien
Prime Minister of Canada

Dear Prime Minister:

Today marks 36 long years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights of Syria.

While the Canadian Government has maintained publicly that this occupation is illegal and must end, it actions speak otherwise and support this occupation economically and politically. Economically the Canadian government maintains a free trade agreement with Israel, and politically it did not support the significant resolutions that call Israel to task on its illegal policies of house demolitions, illegal settlement building, war crimes and human rights violation of Palestinians including the civilian population of the West Bank and Gaza.… Read more

Why ignore the war on Palestine?

By Hanna Kawas

Why did the Vancouver Nov. 17, 2002 Coalition not want to link the war on the Palestinians with the war on Iraq in all of its publicity (amazingly, some of the publicity did not even mention Iraq)?

This decision to ignore the war on Palestine in its publicity was taken at an organizing committee meeting in October, and passed by a majority vote.… Read more

Boycott the Vancouver Sun and the National Post, letter to supporters of the Palestinian people

By Hanna Kawas. An appeal to the supporters of the Palestinian people to boycott the National Post and the Vancouver Sun for their biased reporting (see below), August 2001

Dear friends of the Palestinian people:

The National Post published on July 30, 2001 an editorial under the title “Anti-racism, in name only”. The Vancouver Sun on July 31, 2001 reprinted the same editorial as a “Guest Editorial” under the title “The West should shun conferences where the racism deck is stacked”.… Read more