VIDEO: When it comes to Israel, Canada's love is blind

VIDEO: When it comes to Israel, Canada's love is blind

Postby Oscar » Sat Jun 06, 2015 12:02 pm

VIDEO: When it comes to Israel, Canada's love is blind

[ http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/scott-v ... love-blind ]

By Scott Vrooman | June 4, 2015

Stephen Harper recently gave a speech in which he said: "Gone are the days when Canadian foreign policy was about nothing more than trying to be liked by every dictator with a vote at the U.N." Unless you're currently a dictator in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain, who our government always wears their special cologne for: "See No Evil, Smell No Evil" by Versace.

Harper went on to say that "Canada will continue to stand by Israel through fire and water." And we proved it last week by opposing a Middle East ban on nuclear weapons, so Israel wouldn't have to give up their peaceful nuclear bombs, which are a crucial deterrent to Iran's nonexistent nuclear bombs. [ . . . . ]

VIDEO
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Re: VIDEO: When it comes to Israel, Canada's love is blind

Postby Oscar » Sun Jun 14, 2015 7:26 am

KURTENBACH: The Israel/Palestine Struggle.

May 20, 2015

To the Editor,

For all human beings who strive for a more peaceful world, especially for those who are opposed to the violence of war, it is exceedingly discouraging and sad to learn that Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel has recently appointed a Minister of Justice who does not believe that Israel should seek peaceful means in an endeavour to settle differences that exist between Israel and the Palestinian citizens of the West Bank and Gaza. This Minister of Justice is a young woman named Ayelet Shaked.

In 2014, as a member of the Habiyet Hahudi, an extremely right-wing Israeli political party, Shaked essentially called for the genocide of Palestinians. She asserted that "the entire Palestinian people is the enemy" and called for its destruction "including its elderly and its women, the cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure."

More recently, Skaked had asked,"Who is the enemy?" Her answer was, The Palestinian people. Why? Ask them, They started! [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... eople.html ] This answer is a gross distortion of the facts.

In 1948, the Zionist military entered what was then known as Palestine, and displaced 700-800 thousand Palestinians citizens. During the next 67 years, Israel has established hundreds of Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The United Nations considers these settlements illegal.

Israeli's Minister of Justice, Shaket, goes on to postulate that, if you have an enemy, a declaration of war against that enemy is not a war crime. It is a moral response!

The power of Israel's enormous stock of modern military equipment, including nuclear weapons and its police force in Gaza, leaves no doubt in the minds of Palestinians that they do not have the ability to protect their property and families from attacks by Israel's military.

Canadians need to be aware that the suggested genocide by Israel against Palestinians may have serious implications for Canada.

Speaking to the members of the Israeli Knesset in 2014, Prime Minister Harper assured Israel, "through fire and water Canada will stand with you."

Does that mean if Israel, led by their Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked, decide to launch a Holocaust on people of Palestine, that Canadians will be obliged to stand with Israel?

Leo Kurtenbach,
Saskatoon, SK
Phone: 306.652.5129
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Re: VIDEO: When it comes to Israel, Canada's love is blind

Postby Oscar » Sun Jun 28, 2015 11:07 am

Law or no law, Canadians better not criticise Israel

[ http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 03880.html ]

Israel is the third rail of Canadian politics.

Antonia Zerbisias 18 May 2015 07:48 GMT | Politics, Middle East, Canada, Stephen Harper, Israel

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WATCH: Inside Story - Boycotting Israel - Video (25 min.)

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Is Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper inching towards criminalising criticism of Israel?

Since first elected in 2006, his Conservative government has been pointing in that direction. Tiny gestures to be sure. But, taken together, they trouble many Canadians.

- - - -SNIP - - - -

Canada stands with Israel

In his speech to the Knesset, the first ever by a Canadian prime minister, Harper received standing ovations for referring to "the new anti-Semitism" and declaring, "through fire and water, Canada will stand with you".

But it was his comments on BDS that captured the attention of free speech advocates here: "As once Jewish businesses were boycotted, some civil-society leaders today call for a boycott of Israel."

No wonder groups such as British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), Independent Jewish Voices, the United Church of Canada and the Quakers have expressed concern over the government's increasing tilt towards redefining anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel.

"People have contacted us now for years saying they're concerned about how the government is discussing it, how the government is classifying it, is it possible that there are any laws on the books that they could use to attempt to silence people making statements?"

Micheal Vonn, a lawyer and policy director for BCCLA, told Al Jazeera English: "Critics of the policies of the state of Israel in Canada have felt the chill of this discussion for a long time."

It's possible that the Conservatives will never actually pass laws to make criticism of Israel illegal. But then they don't really have to. All they need do is put up the signposts - and Canadians will take care to avoid the political quicksand.
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Antonia Zerbisias is an award-winning Canadian journalist. She has been a reporter and TV host for the Toronto Star, the CBC, as well as the Montreal correspondent for Variety trade paper.


++++++++++++++++++


Canadian aboriginal activist stands up to Israel


[ http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 51799.html ]

Canadian First Nations chief boards Gaza flotilla to protest against worldwide scourge of colonialism.

“Lovelace sees the parallels between Palestine and Canada's First Nations. Land theft, occupation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, containment, and restriction of movement…”

Antonia Zerbisias 26 Jun 2015 08:40 GMT

Robert Lovelace is still haunted by the Palestinian refugees in the grainy newsreels he saw as a boy.
. . .
Lovelace, 67, is an aboriginal activist and semi-retired Global Development Studies professor at Queen's University just south of his ancestral land in Ontario. [ http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2008- ... ning-prof/ ]

A father of eight, he has stood up against governments and corporations which have attempted to mine his people's land, contaminate their water and plunder their sacred wild rice beds.

Standing up to Israel

Now he is standing up to Israel [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teQKGfgUKds ] as he makes his way to Gaza on the third Freedom Flotilla. [ https://www.freedomflotilla.org/ ] It's a peaceful civil armada with some 50 crew and passengers from about 20 countries, sailing to focus world attention on the 1.8 million Palestinians illegally trapped by Israel in the Gaza Strip.

Lovelace is aboard the lead vessel, the Marianne of Gothenberg that left the Sicilian port of Messina late last Friday. [ https://www.facebook.com/CanadaBoatGaza ]
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Joining him and the international cast of activists, academics, and politicians are retired Quebec labour organiser Christian Martel, who is representing the province's biggest trade unions as well as a number of NGOs, Montreal-based Ehab Lotayef, an engineer and writer who also sailed on the Tahrir, and Kevin Neish, who was on board the Mavi Marmara when nine Turkish activists were killed during a violent attack by Israel.
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Not surprisingly, Lovelace sees the parallels between Palestine and Canada's First Nations. Land theft, occupation, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, containment, and restriction of movement … all the elements are there.

"I recognise that the kind of colonialism that took place here in Canada, in the United States and much of the Americas is much like what's going on in the Middle East today with the creation of Israel and the displacement of the Palestinian people," he says. "Basically we're wards of the state. I think Palestinians find themselves in the same position. They can't say no
[to the coloniser]."
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But not so much in Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Canada. His enthusiastic embrace of Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel is both political and personal. That's why his government has threatened to make criticism of Israel and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement illegal.
[ http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 03880.html ]

"The fear of being smeared with labels can't stop us," Heap insists, adding that many Canadians fear speaking out. "If we were afraid of the label, we would just stay home and be quiet which is of course what the Harper government would like."

As for Harper's attitude towards Canada's indigenous population, it can best be described as disdain. To him, it is an obstacle in his plan to turn the country into a petro-state, as more and more First Nations people rise up against pipelines. Harper refuses to examine the estimated 1,100 cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls. And, this month, his
government all but ignored the recommendations of the extraordinary six-year Truth and Reconciliation Commission that delved into the horrors of the government-sanctioned church-run schools into which generations of aboriginal children were forced. [ http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3 ]

"Colonialism is a worldwide scourge," concludes Lovelace. "It has been going on for hundreds of years. And the outcomes are now hitting really full force: the poverty, the displaced people, the migrants. It's time for all aboriginal people to stand up and to recognise that our liberation, our freedom and our justice are tied together with all the peoples in the world who are oppressed, whether they live in Mexico, or Latin America, the United States, or in Africa or in the Middle East or in the Far East."
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Antonia Zerbisias is an award-winning Canadian journalist. She has been a reporter and TV host for the Toronto Star, the CBC, as well as the Montreal correspondent for Variety trade paper.
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