KURTENBACH: Harper's address to Israeli Knesset & More .

[Oscar]

KURTENBACH: Harper's address to the Israeli Knesset

February 8, 2014

To the Editor,

On January 22nd. 2014, our Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed the Israeli Knesset. I listened intently to his every word - and was quite flabbergasted.

Harper was effusive in his support of Israel and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

But there was not one word about the plight of the Palestinian people. They have been, and are being, displaced by the ongoing building of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land which, according to the United Nations (UN), is illegal. The Palestinian people feel powerless in the face of the Israeli military which is the 10th largest on Earth and holds nuclear weapons in its arsenal.

Harper more or less intimated that anyone who criticized Israel's political policies was an anti-Semitic.

Does it follow then that a person who criticizes Harper's political policies is anti-Canadian?

Palestine was a colony of Britain in 1947. In 1948, Britain ceded Palestine to a group of Jewish Zionists and Palestine was renamed Israel. This was probably done to find a safe place for Jewish people who had suffered the horrors and death of the Holocaust under Hitler's Germany during WW2.

The Zionists immediately displaced 700,000 to 800,000 Palestinian people; most were Muslim but some were Christians. Many of them ended up in refugee camps in Jordon, Lebanon and Syria.

During his speech to the Knesset, Harper assured Netanyahu "through fire and water, Canada will stand with you."

Is it possible that Harper was not aware of Netanyahu's long term plans for Israel?

In 1989, Netanyahu was a junior minister in the Israeli coalition government of P.M. Yitzhak Shamir. Speaking to an audience at Bar Ilan University, Netanyahu made the following statement: "Israel should have taken advantage of the suppression of the demonstrations (at China's Tiananmen Square) when the world's attention was focused on what was happening in that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the Territories. However, to my regret, they did not support that policy that I proposed, and which I still propose, should be implemented." -PIWP quotation number 2378 [ http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPS ... aid=134874 ]

It is quite obvious that the wisdom of Martin Luther King applies to the Palestinian/Israeli crisis: "Violence begets violence."

Leo Kurtenbach
Saskatoon, SK
Phone: 306-652-5129

[Oscar]

KURTENBACH: More on the Palestinian/Israeli crisis.

February 21, 2014

To the Editor,

Having recently received more information about the Palestinian/Israeli crisis, I feel compelled to share it with your readers.

You will recall that when our Prime Minister Stephen Harper addressed the Israeli Knesset and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January, Harper stated that, "through fire and water we [Canada] will stand with you". He also cited Israel as a beacon of democracy.

For about 6 years, an Australian newspaper titled "Four Corners" had a lawyer in Israel observing the conditions existing between the Palestinian people living there and the Israeli government.

A Zionist Israeli woman probably best expresses the general feeling for the presence of the Jewish people who settled in the land originally known as Palestine. She acknowledged that there were people living on the land, but then added, "This land was promised to the Jewish nation by God". But she also noted that all the Palestinians would have to do is acknowledge Israeli sovereignty - they would then be just "fine."

However, Australian observers note that the Palestinian people were being subjected to major human injustices: the December 2013 issue of the New Internationalist magazine noted that 5000 Palestinians adults are held in Israeli prisons. The Israeli military regularly invades Palestinian homes at night, yanks terrified children from their beds, allegedly for throwing stones. They are then arraigned to appear before a military court for juveniles at a later date.

Four Corners lawyer stated that, on an annual basis, there are about 700 children subjected to such an injustice. Palestinian teen-age boys don't fare quite as well. They generally are held in prison for an indefinite time, may be bullied, beaten and terrified until they weaken and sign a confession to throwing stones or confronting the Israeli military.

There are many Jewish people in Israel and in other countries who deplore what Netanyahu's powerful military is doing to the Palestinian citizens. It is quite obvious that Netanyahu and his supporters are determined to make life so miserable for most Palestinians that they will simply give up their homes and move away.

But go away to where?

So that PM Netanyahu can go on building his Zionist Jewish settlements, ad infinitum?

So, why is our PM Stephen Harper so "gung ho" to support Israel's present government, "through fire and water, we will stand with you"?

For more information see the Australian video at
[ http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/02/10 ].

Leo Kurtenbach
Saskatoon, SK
Phone: 306-652-5129

[Oscar]

'The Right to Protect' and the loss of Parliament's moral compass

[ http://rabble.ca/news/2014/07/right-to- ... al-compass ]

By Jim Manly July 23, 2014

QUOTE:

“Along with the Conservatives, on July 15 Liberal leader Justin Trudeau commended Israel for accepting a ceasefire agreement and condemned Hamas for rejecting it. He ignored the fact that the ceasefire did not propose any easing of the Israeli blockade, which in itself is an extreme form of violence against the Palestinian people. Trudeau condemned Hamas rocket attacks on civilians without any mention of Israel bombing attacks. He summarized his position by saying, "Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Hamas is a terrorist organization and must cease its rocket attacks immediately."

Elizabeth May has publicly supported a Green Party motion condemning "all illegal Israeli settlement expansion" as an obstacle to the peace process. This deserves commendation, but it does not face up to the urgent issue of Israel's attack upon Gaza and the continuing blockade.

The sad truth is that as the Conservatives have become more and more unbalanced in their support for extremist Israeli actions, opposition parties, fearing a Zionist reaction, have also been thrown off balance. On this key issue they have become nothing more than parrots, sitting in a cage of their own making, chanting, "Israel has a right to defend itself."”