The following is an open letter that was sent on Nov. 7, 2011 to John Baird, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister regarding the incident that resulted in the departure of Linda Sobeh Ali, the representative of the "Palestinian Authority" to Ottawa.

Mr. Baird:

We emailed you on Oct. 22, 2011 enquiring about the version of the Palestinian poem read in Arabic by a young Palestinian girl "Palestinian, my name is Palestinian", that was tweeted by Linda Sobeh Ali representative of the "Palestinian Authority" and allegedly stated "destroy the Jews". We informed you that if this was the case, we will "take a stand against anti-Jewish racism." So far we have not received any response from you nor from your Parliamentary Secretary. Does your lack of response to us mean that you are interested only in people who support Israel, rather than those who take a stand against anti-Jewish racism?

We do acknowledge the prompt response of the Globe and Mail Associate Editor, the only media that responded to our enquiries and supplied us with the link to the version that the Palestinian envoy was supposed to have tweeted.

Video link: http://youtu.be/iszbLbUf-OA

We would like to note that the original version of this poem with the correct translation has both a Turkish and English translation under the video (click "Show more"). This version was uploaded to YouTube on 11 Dec 2006 and was seen by 1,264,274 people so far. Both the Turkish and English subtitles correctly translate the Arabic word "Sahyoon" as Zionism and not Jews (Yahood). The one and only inaccurate version (with just 3,550 viewers) was posted and produced by Bokra Lena (Tomorrow Is Ours), and used the correct Turkish version with the Turkish subtitles but superimposed on it different English subtitles, substituting "To a war that will destroy oppression and kill the soul of Zionism" with the words "...& destroy the Jews". We unequivocally denounce this forgery as well as the anti-Jewish hatred it promotes; we believe that equating Zionism with Judaism serves only the anti-Semites, the Zionist lobby and their stooges and objectively hurts the Palestinian people and their struggle. In our statement "Jason Kenney Is Promoting Racism" we noted that "Zionism and anti-Semitism are two faces of the same coin", citing documentation to back up our argument.

It is ironic that you and the Canadian government target a representative of this "Palestinian Authority" which praised you (we don't understand why), worked closely with the Zionist organizations here, and served your government and Israeli policies rather than the interests of the Palestinian people. It seems you do not tolerate even their pretence of serving their own people.

We also would like to express our profound disappointment at the so-called "Palestinian Authority" that no longer speaks for nor represents the vast majority of the Palestinian people and their legitimate aspirations. The Palestinians have thousands of capable, eloquent, knowledgeable and committed people all over the world who are daily defending Palestinian human and national rights and who can effectively challenge the Zionists and their narrative. But the PA makes its decisions without consultation with the Palestinian communities in diaspora, thereby hurting the struggle of the Palestinian people and betraying the tens of thousands of martyrs who fell over the past century, fighting first British colonialism and then Zionist settler colonialism. This PA envoy has moved on, as has her predecessor; however, it is the Palestinian Canadian community and its supporters that are left to deal with the misconceptions created and exploited with this incident.

Canada was the first country to sign the so-called "The Ottawa Protocol on Combating Antisemitism". Both you and the Canadian Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney signed this document on September 19th of this year.

This protocol offers the following as one example of anti-Semitism: "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour." And although the document does make token mention that criticism of Israel is not always anti-Semitic, it then immediately goes on to state..."But singling Israel out for selective condemnation and opprobrium - let alone denying its right to exist or seeking its destruction - is discriminatory and hateful, and not saying so is dishonest."

The Globe and Mail reported, when noting that there was an incorrect English translation in the subtitles for the poem: "Shimon Fogel, chief executive officer of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), which first sent Ms. Sobeh Ali's video tweet to Mr. Baird's office, said both versions are unfit to be circulated by a Palestinian envoy. 'You're speaking to someone who doesn't see a difference,' Mr. Fogel said".

It is clear to us that Mr. Fogel's main concern and yours is not anti-Jewish hatred (anti-Semitism) but rather the defence of Israel. That is why you and your government do not differentiate between Zionism and Judaism; this is why Mr. Fogel insists that he is "someone who doesn't see a difference". This policy of equating Judaism with Zionism does in fact promote anti-Semitism and this is why we ask people of good will especially our Jewish brothers and sisters to challenge those who equate them.

Mr. Baird:

We know about your unconditional support for Israeli war crimes, ethnic cleansing and apartheid and we and hundreds of thinking Canadians have no doubt about your biased policies (see online petition). Frankly, we no longer expect you to treat the Palestinians as human beings. But we believe your policy is (hopefully not intentionally) promoting anti-Semitism in many ways, especially by putting on the shoulders of all Jews every crime Zionism, and its manifestation Israel, is committing against humanity.

For your information, Jews were the first to oppose and fight against Zionism. In 1897 on the occasion of the first Zionist Congress, the Executive Committee of the Association of Rabbis in Germany stated in its anti-Zionist manifesto: "Judaism obligates its adherents to serve with all devotion the Fatherland to which they belong, and to further its national interests with all their heart and strength." (Unease in Zion, Ehud Ben Ezer, Page 22)

Equating all Jews with Zionism is a very dangerous policy and we are concerned that your government is creating an atmosphere of racism against both Jewish Canadians and Palestinians. We are concerned because we care for the dignity and humanity of the Jews and because we and our homeland, Palestine, ended up as the sacrificial lamb for the European Holocaust.

So please Mr. Baird:- don't blame the Jews for the evils of Zionism.

Hanna Kawas, Chairperson, Canada Palestine Association

Related posts:

• Bishops equate Israel’s actions to Holocaust
• Maidhc Ó Cathail – Zionism Unmasked: Chutzpah, thy name is Zionism
• Jeff Gates – ZIONISM UNMASKED: End of Zionism = Peace

By Stephen Lendman * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Momin Khawaja

Canada, like other Western countries and Israel, is partnered in America's War on Islam - a post-9/11 "war on terror" scheme to vilify Muslims as culturally inferior gun-toting terrorists for political advantage. As a result, thousands of innocent victims have been lawlessly persecuted, bogusly charged, imprisoned, tortured, and in some cases extrajudicially murdered in cold blood.

Two previous articles, among many others, explained what all Muslims face.

Mahboob Khawaja, his son Momin and family, are Pakistani Canadians, bogusly targeted for alleged involvement in terrorism.

Dr. Khawaja is an "academic specializing in Strategic Studies with special interests in Western-Islamic Civilizations, Change and Conflict Resolution." His books include "Muslims and the West: Quest for Change and Conflict Resolution," as well as many published articles, his latest titled "Fallacy of the 'War on Terrorism.' " Accurately described as a "self-defeating," inhumane, "cynical framework of greed and tyranny," it shamelessly perceives Muslims "as the culprits waging war against the Christian West."

In fact, the opposite is true. It's been longstanding, then intensified post-9/11 globally, claiming millions of innocent victims, thousands as political prisoners, Canada as culpable as America.

Mahboob explained how he and his family were persecuted, saying:

"It was a combined (American/Canadian/UK) project, my wife and children arrested at gunpoint in Ottawa while I was working in a university in Saudi Arabia. My family home was attacked by 50 - 60 armed (Royal Canadian Mounted Police - RCMP) without any formal search warrant, looking for a bomb," but found nothing.

In fact, Mahboob's door was blown open. Masked RCMP burst in, telling his family to get down on the floor, then asking "Is your house booby-trapped? Where are the explosives?" Of course, there were none nor any booby or other traps.

"Simultaneously, I was arrested in Arabia and jailed for two weeks. The Saudi Intelligence showed me the formal Canadian request, but (Security) Minister (Anne McClellan) and the Government in Ottawa denied" sending it. "The documentary evidence," however, refutes "this public lying." No matter. The damage was done. Canadian and global media reports destroyed his "professional career as a professor in global politics," as well as his son, Momin's, as a software developer.

Government-sponsored media ads and reports vilified him, his wife and children as "terrorists," the same fate as for hundreds of others bogusly portrayed, their lives grievously impaired as a result. A family friend and president of the regional Canada-Pakistan Association, Qamar Masood, believed at the time it was a case of mistaken identity. Importantly, "Just imagine how they're going to live through this ordeal," he said. "And after that, living in a neighborhood with so many eyes looking at them, it's very hard," because of the entire cross they'll forever have to bear.

Mahboob's son, Momin, was falsely accused of a UK bomb plot, a March 31, 2004 Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) report saying he "became the first person charged under Canada's (2001 Anti-Terrorism Act on March 30) when police accused him of terrorist activity in Canada and in England."

Though acquitted on that charge, he was held without trial for over four years, then convicted on October 29, 2008, and sentenced on March 12, 2009, after a bench trial, to ten and a half years (over and above time served) for donating $859 to an Afghan refugee charity, and two other changes, including:

• "making a device" that, in fact, "was to stop cell phone signals in mosques, academic institutions, hospitals," and other facilities from being identified; and
• "attending some (alleged) unknown camp during a visit to Pakistan," the same bogus charge against other innocent victims traveling abroad to Muslim countries, some to visit families, then linking their visits to terror plots or training for involvement in future ones.

Despite the gross injustice, the CBC reported on April 14, 2009 that Canada's federal government appealed the sentence for a longer one, possibly for life on least one of the charges. At trial, "The Crown had sought two life sentences plus an additional sentence of 44 - 58 years," while the defense argued for seven and a half years with "double credit for time already served."

Azra Khawaja (L) and Mahboob Khawaja, parents of Momin Khawaja. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

Surprisingly, he said authorities hadn't proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Momin had any direct knowledge, let alone involvement, an admission that should have mandated acquittal, yet he cowardly refused to release him.

Mahboob said these issues are being appealed, but after six years, Momin is still imprisoned, victimized by Canadian state terrorism like thousands of others in America and globally. In earlier writing, he explained how Canadian Intelligence Agencies and their complicit media terrorize innocent civilians. More on that below.

First, on March 12, 2009, the BBC updated earlier Momin reports, headlining its account "Khawaja: The Canadian connection," saying:

He conspired with four other men "jailed for life in April 2007 for a UK bomb plot linked to al-Qaeda, receiv(ing) a sentence of 10 years and six months" for his alleged role.

A software developer, he "worked in the technical support department of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and had a good knowledge of electronics. Of Pakistani origin, he became fascinated by radical Islamist politics, and its focus on conflicts in the Muslim world." He allegedly "traveled to Pakistan in 2003 and met members of a loose network of jihadi sympathizers - men who believed that violence was legitimate."

These and other charges were alleged at trial, the BBC, like Canadian and US media, accepting them on faith - no matter that they're entirely bogus and should have been thrown out because no credible evidence was presented, only the usual unsubstantiated government version of events, some based on secret evidence unavailable to counsel.

Yet BBC accused Momin of terrorism, saying he returned to Britain "intent on building a bomb," his role being "to help to build the detonator." In fact, a sting, a setup, targeted him at a claimed Heathrow Airport meeting with Omar Khyam, the accused "ringleader." MI5 and London police allegedly monitored it. UK authorities informed Canada's RCMP who arrested Momin on March 29, 2004, claiming they "found documents and papers sympathetic to violent jihadi courses of action" in his home, besides whatever information UK authorities provided, all of it contrived and bogus.

As a result, on October 29, 2008, an Judge Douglas Rutherford "ruled that (Momin) had knowingly participated in the (alleged) foiled plot against several British targets, including a shopping center, nightclub and the gas work." Though bogusly charged and convicted, he's now imprisoned and falsely branded a terrorist, an accusation that will haunt him forever.

An earlier article discussed the bogus London terror plot.

It explained the following, a technique used repeatedly in Britain, Canada, America, and elsewhere. A government cooperator was paid to entrap and testify against targeted Muslims. The so-called London plot (called the Fertilizer Case) used Juniad Babar, a dubious character nicknamed "Supergrass" by Britain's media.

In 2004, he agreed to cooperate with FBI agents after being indicted in June. He then pled guilty to four counts of conspiring to and providing and attempting to provide material support or resources to terrorists. A fifth count involved providing funds, goods, or services to benefit Al-Qaeda. In return for a reduced sentence, he copped a plea, requiring him to provide "substantial assistance," including entrapping and testifying against targeted Muslims, ones authorities want to frame and convict.

London's Fertilizer Case involved a half-ton of ammonium nitrate, allegedly to blow up a London shopping center, nightclub and other targets - bogus charges that nonetheless got targeted "bombers" convicted and imprisoned, including Momin, even though there was no plot and no crime. In his case, "two hired agents of the Canadian intelligence services (charged him) with two counts of 'bomb making' (involvement) in (Britain)," where the other alleged plotters were brought to trial, not him.

Writing earlier about media complicity with authorities, Mahboob quoted British author Adam Curtis saying, "international terrorism is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians" for political advantage. It's "a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services and the international media."

To advance American, UK, Canadian, and Israeli imperialism, their "ruling elite(s) invested heavily to institutionalize animosity towards Muslims and the Arabs. The new 21st century colonial masters view humanity in numbers and digits, not as living moral beings with rights and dignity."

In America, extremist neo-cons "use racism and religious fanaticism to fuel hatred towards Muslims and Islam, and engulf the world with horror of military conquests (and occupations) to further the dictum of" global dominance.

In America, Britain, Canada, Israel, and other Western states, Muslims are treated like sub-humans, vilified as dangerous villains unfit to co-exist with superior Judeo-Christians, a subtle and overt government/media spread message. As a result, nominal democracies act tyrannically, serving privileged elites, not popular interests, and needing enemies to justify expansionist policies, including imperial wars and state-sponsored terrorism to further them.

In an earlier article, Mahboob asked:

"What did Canada achieve (by) destabiliz(ing) the Khawaja family, drain(ing)-out their human energies in arrest, torture and (persecuting them for years) as 'Muslim terrorists'...?" The "demonstrable record (shows) Canada had no incidents of extremism or terrorism at all," putting a lie to government accusations based on an alleged plot that never existed. Authorities even claimed they never raided the Khawaja home even though family members were terrorized and arrested. Possessions were seized, damage done, and hundreds of neighbors saw it.

The plain truth is that Western nations face no Islamic threat. Claiming one is a US-concocted lie. Authorities and media reports viciously spread it to justify state-sponsored terrorism against innocent victims like Mahboob and his family, including son Momin, now imprisoned for being Muslim at the wrong time in Canada.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

Related posts:

• America’s War on Islam
• Nationalism, not Islam, motivates most suicide terrorists
• Gunning for Islam. The Islamophobes: fringe wackos, or rising mass movement?

(Toronto and Montreal, Aug 19, 2010) - Canada's Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) got the message across last week that cutting off mail delivery to Gaza is another abusive measure intended to heighten the suffering and hardship of the besieged residents of the occupied strip.

The Canadaian Boat to Gaza Campaign salutes the union and its workers for their solidarity with our campaign and with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom. We look forward to working with Canada Post and CUPW to facilitate in the best way possible the delivery of mail to Gaza.

"The Canadian Boat to Gaza is eager to carry mail to Gaza if the ban is not lifted soon" said Sandra Ruch, spokesperson for the Canadian Boat to Gaza. "We will make every effort to deliver any mail we get to the postal authorities in Gaza. We ask senders to limit mail they send us to unsealed postcards of greeting and support to loved ones keeping in mind that it, as well as the rest of our cargo, may end up in Israeli hands if our boat is pirated."

CUPW called on Canadians to back efforts to break the siege by sending their Gaza-bound mail via the Canadian Boat to Gaza. The Canadian Boat to Gaza is urging those who wish to break this ban to send with us postcards with messages of support to the besieged strip. Article 25 of the fourth Geneva Convention guarantees the right to personal correspondence with family members under occupation.

"As postal workers, we know very well that cutting off mail creates suffering and hardship for people, who are isolated from their loved ones," said Denis Lemelin, National President of CUPW. "How many more abuses will the people of Gaza have to endure?"

Get the message through. Send your mail with us,
Send your postcards (only) for people in Gaza to
Canadian Boat to Gaza
C.P. 92087, Portobello
Brossard, Quebec
J4W 3K8

Media Contact
Ehab Lotayef
514.941.9792

Stéphan Corriveau
514 586-6810

http://canadaboatgaza.org

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By Dr. Elias Akleh* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Canada had declared the issuance of a "Canada-Israel Diplomatic Relations" commemorative stamp to celebrate 60 years of relations between the two countries. This stamp will serve as a historical witness and reminder, for many future generations in the whole world, of the inhuman, unethical and immoral Canadian association with and support to the ultimate religiously racist, self-worshipping, rogue, international-law-breaking, murdering, genocidal, ecocidal, and terrorist bastard state of Israel.

Israel is established and based on the ultimate supremacist racist ideology. It is a religious ideology that has surpassed all other racist ideologies Man had ever known throughout history. Whereas German Nazism is a social ideology, and Italian Fascism is a political ideology, that can be opposed, debated and debunked, Israel's "God's chosen people in God's promised land" is a supremacist ideology cloaked within a religious cover. Its opposition is labeled atheism, its debate is called blasphemy, and its debunking is claimed a sin. This ideology is, after all, a divine contract between God and Abraham signed by circumcision in the foreskin of Abraham's penis. Jewish Israelis consider themselves God's gift to this world. All other nations, Goyims, non-Jews, are considered animal souls incarnated in human bodies, whose sole purpose of existence is to serve the Jews. One needs only read the Old Testament, the Talmud, Jewish religious books, and Rabbinical texts and pamphlets to learn and to confirm this supremacist ideology.

Israeli Jewish religious supremacy and self-worship beliefs are reflected in their Rabbis' teachings and statements. This religious arrogance is expressed clearly in Rabbi Ginsburgh's justification of the Israeli army murdering Palestinian civilians when he declared that: "Jewish blood and a goy's (gentile's) blood are not the same ... every single cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, and is thus part of God, thus killing isn't murder if the victim is a Gentile." Israeli chief Rabbi Yosef Obadia described Palestinians as cockroaches that should be crushed. Such ideology is the basic fundamental teachings Judaic Yeshivot (religious schools) incorporate in their so-called religious curricula.

Unlike all other countries Israel has no acceptance or tolerance to other religions. Although supremacist Judaism is tolerated and Jews are permitted free worship in every Christian and Moslem country, even in Iran, falsely accused of being fanatic Islamic, Arab Christians and Moslems are harshly rejected, persecuted, and equally ethnically cleansed in "Jewish only Israel". Jews were persecuted by all western Christian countries for the last two thousand years. They found refuge and acceptance only in the Middle Eastern mainly Islamic Arab countries. Yet instead of expressing any form of simple gratitude they have forcefully occupied Palestine. They are now evicting Christian and Moslem Palestinians out of their own country and especially out of their holiest city; Al-Quds (Jerusalem), and are denying them worship in their holy places during their religious holidays. Israel had destroyed hundreds of mosques and bombed and burnt many churches.

Many western Christians are deceived and are misguided by the so-called Zionist-Christianity and Judea-Christianity. These are antithetical terms, for Judaism considers Christianity its arch-enemy. Judaism considers Virgin Mary a whore, and calls Jesus Christ a pervert, Satan, and charlatan. Jews had crucified Jesus for his teachings of loving God, who loves all his creations equally without any favoritism to a specific nation.

Israel is a genocidal state. Israeli Jews like to proudly trace their history back to Moses and his commandments. An objective study of Moses's Five Books reveals that Moses was the most genocidal figure in the history of mankind. He, himself, had broken all his ten commandments. Moses had preached many other commandments that are racist to the core in the form of laws and regulations for the favor of only Jews. He and his racist God had destroyed Egypt seven times. He had ordered his followers to utterly annihilate other nations including babies and pregnant women (Numbers 31:17). Even the homes, the crops, the farm animals of other nations were ordered killed, burnt and destroyed; "you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them; the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusites, just as the Lord your God has commanded you" (Deuteronomy 20: 16-17) Moses ordered the Israelites.

He and his God were genocidal even against their own followers; Moses's God supposedly annihilated the Israelite tribes of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in a fiery earthquake for objecting to Moses's leadership (Numbers 16), and Moses ordered the sons of Levi to murder their Jewish brothers, companions and neighbors (Exodus 32: 27-28). Moses had even killed his brother Aaron (Numbers 20: 23-29), who was allegedly "gathered to his people" at mount Hor.

Moses's genocidal crimes are grotesquely documented in his five books in the Old Testament. The Israelites eventually got fed up with his genocidal frenzy that he "mysteriously", or divinely as they claim, disappeared and no family member of this divine prophet was ever mentioned in the Jewish history since then.

Unfortunately Moses's genocidal commandments had become so fundamental Judaic teachings that all present-day chief Rabbis of Israel are quoting them to incite and to justify Israeli genocide and holocaust of Palestinians. The Old Testaments tells us how Jewish Rabbis and so-called prophets commanded their people, in the name of their God, to annihilate non-Jews, to destroy their cities, to kill their animals, and to cut down their trees.

Today's Israeli Jewish Rabbis are no better than their ancestors. They, too, call for the extermination of Palestinians, the destruction of their towns, the killing of their farm animals and the cutting down of their fruit trees. Israel's former chief Rabbi, Mordechai Elyahu encouraged the Israeli army to mass murder Palestinian civilians; "even murdering a million". The Hasidic Rabbi Manis Friedman urged the Israeli army to murder Palestinian civilians regardless of their age. He declared: "The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: destroy their holy sites, kill men, women, children, and cattle."

Israeli Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the head of a Yishuv in illegal colony of Yitzhar in usurped Palestinian city of Nablus in the Occupied West Bank, had published a religious book distributed to Israeli soldiers before their onslaught against Gaza December 2008. The book called "The King Torah" is based on the halachic (Jewish religious) laws for the killing of non-Jews. Shapiro wrote that "Jews have the right to kill non-Jews in just about every circumstance ... If we kill a gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the (Jewish) seven commandments ... there is nothing wrong with the murder." Jewish Rabbis' disregard to non-Jewish nationals was exposed when Israeli Rabbis and Israeli army officers were caught traffic with human body parts in Palestine and in Haiti.

Before the illegal declaration of Israel, Jewish terrorist groups such as Lehi, Irgun and Haganah had perpetrated many massacres against civilian Palestinians. These terrorist groups merged together to form the terrorist Israeli army. For the last 62 years this terrorist army had committed numerous massacres against all its Arab neighbors; Palestinians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Their murdering and assassination arms have reached far other countries such as South Africa, Sudan, Somalia, Algiers, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and lately Dubai. This so-called most moral army finds its morality in spreading terror through the use of the American most sophisticated weapons against unarmed Arab civilians especially women and children. To understand why Israel had waged so many wars throughout its short history one should know that Israel is an army with a government rather than a government with an army. Its survival depends on perpetual conflict; the real reason for Israel's continuous rejection of all Arab peace initiatives.

Besides crimes against humanity Israel is committing daily crimes against mother earth and against the environment. Israelis keep claiming that they came to a desert and made it bloom. The reverse is true. Part of what is known as the Middle Eastern Fertile Crescent, Palestine is a very fertile land. Its fertility had been for thousands of years the target of all colonial powers. In their genocidal fever the Israelis had uprooted millions of fruit trees, especially olive trees that were cared for by Palestinians for two thousand years.

The 2007 report published by Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem documented that Israel had uprooted 1,000,000 fruit trees in the Occupied West Bank between 1967 and 1999, and an additional 1,405,658 trees from 2000-2006. The building of the Israeli apartheid wall has caused the uprooting of at least another million trees.

Israel's use of nuclear (DU), biological, and chemical weapons during its aggression against Lebanon and Gaza had contaminated earth and rivers. The razing of fertile land, the poisoning of water wells, the destruction of farm land, and the aerial chemical spraying of Palestinian crops and trees, which are part of a deliberate plan to destroy Palestinian economy, are grave crimes against Mother Nature and against the environment.

Israel is the most anti-Semitic country. Arabs are Semites, while the majority of Israeli Jews are Khazars and Germanic. Israeli Jews are not one ethnic nation. Walking through any Israeli city one encounters highly differentiated people, who came from different countries with different backgrounds that have nothing to do with Semitic people. Judaism is a religion that is adopted by people from different parts of the world and rather than an ethnic nationality. Not all Jews are Semitic the same way that not all Moslems are Arabs and not all Christians are part of one particular race.

Since the first Zionist Congress in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland up to this very day, every Zionist leader and every Zionist Rabbi had openly called for the ethnic cleansing and forceful eviction of Palestinian Arabs from Palestine. The Zionist Koenig Memorandum encouraged Israeli army to use terror, assassination, intimidation, eviction and land confiscation among other terrorist tactics to terrorize Palestinians out of their country.

It would take large volumes to enumerate Israel's crimes against humanity and against mother earth. With their at least 200 nuclear bombs and their aggressive posture continuously threatening to bomb their neighbors back to stone age, it is the fanatic self-worshipping Israelis, not the Iranians, who pose the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East and threat to global peace.

With such criminal history I ask descent Canadians whether they really want to associate themselves with such a terrorist state and become a terrorist-sponsoring country. I urge Canadians, specifically, and peace loving people in general, to express their disappointment in Canada's decision to issue such a shameful postal stamp by writing/emailing to the minister responsible for Canada Post Corporation; Mr. John Baird (baird.j@parl.gc.ca) and to Minister of State Rob Merrifield (Merrifield.R@parl.gc.ca).

* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent born in the town of Beit Jala. His family was first evicted from Haifa after the "Nakba" of 1948, then from Beit Jala after the "Nakseh" of 1967. He lives now in the US, and publishes his articles on the web in both English and Arabic.

Related posts:

• ACTION ALERT: Write against issuing Canada-Israel stamp
• IDF, Army of Shame
• Alan Hart – How Zionist lobby stooges in Congress brought shame to their institution

On April 14th, Canada will be issuing a "Canada-Israel Diplomatic Relations" commemorative stamp to celebrate 60 years of relations. In light of on-going occupation, policies of racial segregation and war-crimes against the Palestinian people, we ask what is there to celebrate?

Please take a minute to send the following message to John Baird (baird.j@parl.gc.ca), the Minister responsible for Canada Post Corporation and Rob Merrifield (Merrifield.R@parl.gc.ca), the Minister of State (Transport) to express your anger at Canada Post's joint issue stamp with Israel Post.

CUT AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING INTO YOUR EMAIL:

To: baird.j@parl.gc.ca, Merrifield.R@parl.gc.ca

CC: IgnatM@parl.gc.ca, laytoj@parl.gc.ca, DucepG@parl.gc.ca

Dear Mr. Baird and Mr. Merrifield:

I am writing to express condemnation of your decision to launch a $1.70 "Canada-Israel Diplomatic Relations" joint issue stamp on April 14th. The stamp comes a little more than a year after Israel launched a brutal assault on the Gaza Strip that left 1400 Palestinians, including 320 children, dead. According to the Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, Israel was found responsible for grave violations of international humanitarian law and war-crimes.

Canada Post should be taking the lead from its employees - represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) - in endorsing the call by over 170 Palestinian civil society organization for a comprehensive campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) targeting Israeli institutions complicit with violations of international law. This is a non-violent and effective means of pursuing peace and justice in Israel/Palestine.

Along these lines, it should be noted that Israel Post continues its complicity with the Israeli occupation by servicing Israeli settlements in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and actively promoting Israeli militarism through a series of stamp issues to that end. Furthermore, Israel continues to impede and disrupt mail delivery throughout Palestine, including through its nearly 3 year long siege on the Gaza Strip and its system of nearly 500 checkpoints throughout the West Bank.

I see little reason to 'celebrate' such policies at the expense of tax-payers residing in Canada.

Sincerely,

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• ACTION ALERT- Urgent call for Action on upgrade of the EU- Israel Association Agreement
• ACTION ALERT: FAX ISRAEL
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By Anait Brutian* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the Jews – reminds them who they are ... Anti-Semitism means oppressing Jews even more than they deserve" (New York Times Magazine, February 12, 1995 p. 65). These comments were made by Jay Lefkowitz, an Orthodox Jewish American politician and lawyer, who served as President Bush's Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea ⁽¹⁾. The fact that the comments originated with a lawyer is uncanny, but even more so because of his background in Orthodox Judaism and his status as a Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea. What the comments really demonstrate is that a desirable amount of anti-Semitism – Mr. Lefkowitz needs "a little anti-Semitism, not a lot – whenever absent, can and must be induced by provocation to perpetuate the cause of Zionism.

Mr. Lefkowitz shares this thought with Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, who witnessed anti-Semitism but instead of combating it, openly declared: "In Paris ... I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism" ⁽²⁾. The Dreyfus affair of 1890s that ended with his exoneration and reinstatement, largely through the efforts of French intellectuals headed by Émile Zola, did not meet Herzl's support as much as other political events of the time, notably the election victory of anti-Semitic Karl Lueger in 1895. Lueger's success in Vienna was used by Herzl to develop "a pragmatic strategy of non-resistance to anti-Semitism coupled with emigration of a portion of the Jews to a Jewish state in-the-making" ⁽³⁾. While the Habsburg Emperor refused to confirm Karl Lueger in office – 8 percent of the generals, considered the most loyal supporters of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were Jews – Herzl favoured the confirmation. On November 3, 1895 he met the Prime Minister Count Casimir Badeni and told him to "accommodate Lueger" ⁽⁴⁾.

A similar attitude underlies the events of 1965-1966 described in Rhonda Spivak's Jerusalem Post article of June 19, 2009. In 1965 Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) hired an ex-cop, John Garrity to "infiltrate the Canadian Nazi Party" ⁽⁵⁾. According to Ezra Levant, the event was more than "infiltration" – the CJC "helped organize the fledgling Canadian Nazi Party." Originally, made up of a dozen members with no political agenda, the party was puffed up to fake the status of "a national menace" ⁽⁶⁾. Rabbi Reuven Bulka of CJC dismissed the story: "all the CJC did for the Nazis was buy them a bottle of rum" ⁽⁷⁾. But Garrity did much more than "buy them a bottle of rum." Hired by CJC in September 1965, Garrity was in their employ for 13 months until his article was published in McLean's on October 1, 1966. His "duties," apart from supplying CJC with information on the names of party members and donors ⁽⁸⁾, included among other things, Beattie's personal security: "I'd often have to dash across to wherever Beattie was living to inspect a caller he'd refused to admit to his apartment, to make sure the man wasn't a potential assassin" ⁽⁹⁾.

Before spying for CJC, Garrity had sleuthed on John Beattie for another Jewish group N3, who felt that CJC "was not doing enough to confront the Nazi threat" ⁽¹⁰⁾. Garrity's evaluation of Beattie and his Nazi group does not fit the description of "Nazi threat." "There was just Beattie and a couple of teenagers ... in the Nazi business ... only a dozen active members, plus perhaps 100 unseen supporters ..." ⁽¹¹⁾. He called the group "harmless misfits," which one may assume, was the evaluation he transmitted to his bosses at CJC. CJC was aware of the status of John Beattie, a 24-year-old unemployed clerk that had been "evicted from his fifth apartment in a year for not paying his rent" ⁽¹²⁾. Even if the CJC had not obtained the information through N3, Garrity's characterization of the group and its leader – his testimony should have carried some weight because he acted as bodyguard and chauffeur that paid for Beattie's drinks for more than a year – should have made it sufficiently clear that there was real "Nazi threat." John Beattie's own statement: "I had no car ... Garrity drove me everywhere and Garrity fed me. He bought me lunches and snacks all the time, every day ... and sometimes he'd buy me groceries ... He bought me lots of drinks ... " ⁽¹³⁾ also supports this view.

According to Ezra Levant, CJC paid $200 per month for 13 consecutive months in fees plus expenditure that included food, transportation and security for Beattie. Describing the bizarre affair, Levant said: "The Canadian Nazi Party was often a party of one ... It wasn't even an organization in any legal sense. It didn't have a bank account. It didn't have a newsletter. It didn't have any formal organization – no bylaws, no constitution." ⁽¹⁴⁾.The source of Levant's information is the report of Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which described Beattie as "a poor leader and organizer" having no more than "50 followers" and "no membership." "It is not believed that Beattie could exert adverse influence on any person other than some supporters of the party and this would only be to a degree" ⁽¹⁵⁾. This profile is substantiated by Beattie's own statement. Explaining the photo of Garrity with a box, referred to as "correspondence" in McLean's article of October 1, 1966, Beattie said: "That box was filled with all of the newspaper clippings about me ... I craved all of the media attention ... I loved it ... " "It wasn't much of a Nazi Party ... There were a few characters who were anti-Jewish maybe four or five who where anti-Semitic. They liked to blame the Jews for everything" ⁽¹⁶⁾.

Even without the RCMP report, ex-cop John Garrity should have known the real rag-tag nature of this "organization." Indeed, one other important role that he played was to ensure that the Canadian Nazi Party would never rise to become a real organization: "I was chosen secret-service chief, with the job of checking applicants for membership. ... I did check about 15 prospective members, and turned down those who seemed intelligent and therefore dangerous" ⁽¹⁷⁾. Ellen Scheinberg of Ontario Jewish Archives acknowledged that Garrity's work in fact destroyed the Nazi Party by eliminating those who would have been useful to the party. To ensure the full trust and cooperation of Beattie, Garrity, on occasion, acted against his former employer N3, whose plan to disrupt a meeting with stink bombs was tipped off to the police by CJC. ⁽¹⁸⁾. Knowing full well that Beattie and his Nazis had never "even contemplated doing anything illegal and all of the violence he witnessed was directed at Beattie, usually by Jewish vigilantes, Garrity helped CJC to turn the Nazi Party into a media sensation: "Sadly, it is the ... anti-Nazi extremists who, in their attempts to destroy Beattie, provide him with most of the publicity he craves. If it weren't for the riots and the assaults and the public protest meetings they hold, there'd be no real news in Beattie" ⁽¹⁹⁾.

Garrity's claim is substantiated through an event involving a rally at Allan Gardens in Toronto on May 30, 1965, where, according to prior announcement, Beattie's supporters would wear swastika armbands. According to Ezra Levant, on May 28, just two days before the planned event, CJC issued a statement that read: "Toronto apparently faces the gross provocation of public Nazi demonstration ... The Canadian Jewish Congress feels that the very threat of attempting such a demonstration ... is insulting and provocative to the great majority of citizens of this city. It indeed poses a threat to the peace and good order of the community ... For the citizens of Toronto, there can be only one response: to condemn completely and unreservedly the acts of the self-styled Nazis, and to bring to bear the weight of an outraged public opinion against the provocations they plan" ⁽²⁰⁾. This statement was issued despite the fact that both CJC and N3 were aware of the fact that Beattie did not have a permit from the City Hall that would allow him to hold a demonstration and give speeches – Beattie had asked Garrity, who had "conveniently forgotten" to obtain the permit. Just as the self-proclaimed "Heinrich Himmler" had "forgotten" all about the permit, so had the CJC and N3 "forgotten" to mention this very important fact to the Jewish community: "The demonstration could have been averted had community leaders, from both Congress and the anti-Nazi organizations, informed the community in advance that Beattie did not have a permit" ⁽²¹⁾.

Ezra Levant claims that CJC "didn't inform the Jewish public of Beattie's not having a permit because it wanted an enraged citizenry to help it in its push for anti-hate laws." "They managed to parlay a second-rate carnival act into the raison d'etre for censorship laws that would otherwise have likely failed to become laws" ⁽²²⁾. Popping-up Beattie with his Nazi Party and creating media frenzy suited CJC, contributing to "convincing the Parliament to give them more 'hate' laws." Beattie's proposed Nazi rally, cunningly anticipated by CJC's May 28 statement, created the "much needed proof" that without censorship laws, public disturbance was unavoidable and law and order could be jeopardized. A crowd made up of 4000 Jewish demonstrators, a riot with violence and eight arrests were the finishing touch to the well-planned CJC masquerade.

Almost half a century ago, in 1952, the then Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, proposed to send a team of saboteurs "to help redeem Jews" in countries where they were "absorbed in sinful self-satisfaction" ⁽²³⁾. The task of these saboteurs "would be to disguise themselves as non-Jews," and plague their targets with anti-Semitic slogans such as "Bloody Jews," "Jews go to Palestine," and so on ⁽²⁴⁾. A similar plot was adopted by Israeli government to force Iraqi Jews to move to Israel. "The rescue" of 125,000, in early 1950s involved "terrorizing the Jews" with planted bombs in the U.S. Information Service library and synagogues, followed by leaflets that urged Jews to "flee to Israel" ⁽²⁵⁾. To combat the perceived anti-Semitism in Iraq, Naeim Giladi joined the Zionist underground. He was caught, tortured and sentenced to death by the authorities. Giladi escaped, fled to Israel and later found out that the anti-Semitism and terrorism that plagued the Iraqi Jews were engineered by the Zionists to trick them to go to Israel ⁽²⁶⁾. While all of these nauseating revelations explain the Zionist mindset, they also demonstrate that their methods haven't changed in time. Today there is a growing Human Rights Industry in Canada, and Ezra Levant's Shakedown takes a deep look at it from its inception to its present-day abuses. Garrity's inflating of the importance of Canadian Nazis, with an explicit purpose of ensuring the censorship laws, established the pattern that was imitated in relation to another rag-tag group, the white supremacist Heritage Front ⁽²⁷⁾.

According to June 29, 2009 editorial of the Montreal Gazette, the Canadian Human Rights Commission defends its "authority to police the Internet – or any other electronic medium – for opinions that are 'likely to' expose people to hatred or contempt" ⁽²⁸⁾. An assault on Free Speech, Section 13 of the Human Rights Act is a censorship provision that prohibits transmissions deemed "offensive" to bureaucratic manipulators. Run by the "fanatical thought police at the Canadian Human Rights Commission" ⁽²⁹⁾, it has been used to attack writers, newspaper columnists, website owners, magazine publishers that have demonstrated the audacity to write on such "contentious issues" as the Israeli aggression, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians and the criminal insanity of Israeli leaders. William A. Cook's article, Anti-Semitism: Silencing the Messenger of Truth with Canada's "Hate Provisions," details the author's "encounter" with "hate crime" – Mr. Cook was "charged before the Council of Human Rights with anti-Semitism by Mr. Harry Abrams with the support of B'nai B'rith of Canada ⁽³⁰⁾. In this and most other cases, the perpetrator of the real crime is the party filing the complaint. To put it differently, there is a real crime but it is directed at the individual who dares SPEAK THE TRUTH.

Since its first enactment, the law sustained two major changes that altered its original intent and turned Section 13 into an instrument for punishing "politically incorrect views." Today this legislation enables the Canadian Human Rights Commission to censor the Internet and harass the public for views that the Thought Police disagrees with ⁽³¹⁾. Unless the public wakes up to the real implications of the law, and challenges its constitutionality, we will see our most cherished FREEDOM OF SPEECH erode in the hands of vindictive manipulators and "social engineers that staff the Human Rights Commission" ⁽³²⁾ and work for the backroom politics of special interest groups that aspire to eradicate FREE THOUGHT and silence FREE SPEECH.

References:
(1) Jay Lefkowitz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Lefkowitz

(2), (3), (4) Lenni Brenner Zionism in the Age of Dictators
http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/zad/zad1.htm

(5), (9), (10), (11), (12), (13), (14), (15), (16), (17), (18), (20), (21), (22) Several Spies and a Bottle of Rum
http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1245184864673&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

(6), (7), (8), (19), (27) Ezra Levant
http://ezralevant.com/2009/04/why-did-the-jewish-congress-bu.html

(23), (24), (25) Anti-Semitism: Zionism's Indispensable Alibi
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2010/03/15/anti-semitism-zionisms-indispensable-alibi/

(26) The Zionist Protection Racket
http://www.savethemales.ca/000889.html

(28) Rights Commission Threatens our Liberty
http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/features/viewpoints/story.html?id=b084ee2b-ed22-4e08-a689-f1c7dc989a51

(29) Stop Section 13
http://www.stopsection13.com/

(30) Anti-Semitism: Silencing the Messenger of Truth with Canada's "Hate Provisions"
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2010/03/15/silencing-the-messenger-of-truth-with-canadas-hate-provisions/

(31), (32) History of Section 13
http://www.stopsection13.com/history_of_sec13.html

* Anait Brutian (B. Mus. with Honours in Theory, McGill University; M. A. in Music Theory, McGill University) is a student in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. Her previous research includes a self-published book entitled: Reconciling Geometry, Rhetoric and Harmony: A Fresh Look at C. P. E. Bach. She is currently working on another book on mathematical paradigms in literature (Old and New Testaments), art, architecture, and music. She can be contacted at anaitbrutian@videotron.ca

No related posts.

Misuse of "antisemitism" illustration by Carlos Latuff

By William A. Cook* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

As an American living under Bush's Military Commission's Act, I feel a bit unnerved when charged with "allegations" of hate crimes issued by Canada's Council on Human Rights, "allegations" made by an unidentified group against the editors of "Peace, Earth and Justice," (PEJ Internet publications), and specifically against certain unidentified authors for articles claimed to be anti-Semitic. One might expect from a democratic government that the accused would be notified of such charges, be provided with the details of the allegations, and offered an opportunity to rebut the points raised.

But no. The charges are made, the Council brings the charges to the editors who are prone to protect the publication by removing the articles, and the goal of the group bringing the charges is accomplished -- silencing the messengers who raise issues of significance that can no longer be seen or read. Such is democracy and the free press in the 21st century.

Thank God for our last domain of free speech, the Internet, and in this instance the Internet publication Dissident Voice. On May 28th, 2007, Kim Petersen wrote "When Monopolization of the Media Fails, then Squash Freedom of Speech." It is there that I found out that I was charged before the Council on Human Rights with anti-Semitism by a Mr. Harry Abrams with the support of the B'nai B'rith of Canada. .

Since neither the Canadian Government or the accusers have seen fit to notify me that I am charged with a "hate crime," I am forced to present my case before the public lest Council members and others made aware of these accusations assume that the allegations are true, a conclusion that could result from such slanderous allegations and cast aspersions on my personal and professional character.

Let me undertake my own defense by quoting from "The Nizkor Project" of the League of Human Rights of B'nai B'rith Canada. "The international community has recognized the need to deal with human rights violations and hate propaganda under the law. The foundation of Canada's hate laws can be found in several international treaties which Canada has ratified. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, established the basic principles upon which subsequent anti-racist legislation would be based, including legislation designed to afford identifiable groups protection against racist attacks. Hate propaganda, the promotion of hatred against identifiable groups, became a criminal offense in Canada in 1970 (Criminal Code, Sections 318-320)." Additionally, Canada adopted the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1966, a convention that requires states "to criminalize hate propaganda and other activities which promote racism."

Canada's acceptance of these international laws and conventions indicates that the state is sensitive to its various populations and the potential for discrimination that can be brought against them. As the Nizkor Project notes: "The premise underlying Canada's anti-hate laws is that in a democratic society, identifiable groups must be protected against racism, including its verbal manifestations, in order not to limit their basic freedoms and thereby their full participation in Canadian society." I agree with Nizkor's assertion that the catalyst for this legislation might well have been the experience of Nazism, "that unchecked racism and hate propaganda could lead even a highly educated, cultured and democratic society to justify the most heinous crimes against humanity."

Now let me turn to the actual sections of the Criminal Code that are applicable here: Section 318: Advocating Genocide and section 319: Defining Genocide. "The criminal act of 'advocating genocide' is defined as supporting or arguing for the killing of members of an 'identifiable group' – persons distinguished by their colour, race, religion or ethnic origin. The intention would be the destruction of members of the targeted group. Any person who promotes genocide is guilty of an indictable offence, and liable to imprisonment..." Section 319 defines genocide as "any acts committed with intent to destroy an identifiable group – such as killing members of the group, or deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction."

Section 319(3) makes explicit acceptable defences that prohibit conviction based on the following: "statements in question are established to be true; were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds it was believed to be true; ....; were expressed in good faith and intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada."

I provide this background to establish this profound truth: my article published by PEJ, "The Hamas Challenge to Israel," provides a disturbing picture of a Prime Minister in Israel who has undertaken, with the collaboration of a distinct minority of like mind, a concerted effort to commit genocide against an identifiable group, the Palestinians, because of "race, ethnicity, and religion," by "promoting the killing of members of the group" and "deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group's physical destruction."

The article was not written specifically for Canadians or any state, but rather to make known to the community of nations the reality of the actions undertaken by Sharon and his government (and subsequently by Ehud Olmert and his administration). Every statement in the litany of accusations made against this man has been substantiated by scholars, journalists, resolutions by the UNSC and the UNGA, and even the International Court of Justice. Nothing in the article condemns the Jews as a people; indeed, the article sympathizes with the Jews as they, like Americans under Bush, must endure racist actions of the Israeli government acting in their name.

The article is in every particular a graphic defense of the Canadian Criminal Code against hate, but hate perpetrated by a hard core Zionist group (See for example statements by Olmert's colleague Avigdor Lieberman) that has aligned itself with the Olmert government to inflict genocidal acts against the Palestinians. Books have been written on this subject. It is not my invention. (See for example, Dr. Uri Davis' Apartheid Israel, Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Cook's "The Rape of Palestine," and most recently this week, Richard Falk's "Slouching toward a Palestinian Holocaust."). I believe that publication of the article provided Canadians with documentable evidence of these heinous acts, information beneficial to the public if they are to become sensitized to the plight of Palestinians and Arabs living within their state. They are the ones at risk. Only through the availability of such information can the Islamophobic hysteria present in America and Canada be blunted.

I will end this piece with two passages from the article in question, an article you cannot now read because an unidentified group has made insidious allegations against this writer, one of a number, without providing him (or them) his due rights before the law, a most slanderous and clandestine way to silence voices one does not wish to hear.

"Shouldn't it be clear by now, today, that Israel and its obedient partner in war crime, the United States, has no intention of seeking peace with the Palestinians? How else maintain an unending war of terror? How else fuel division, hatred, vengeance, retaliation and destruction than to systematically strangle by slow, insidious suffocation the rights of a people declared openly in a mutually accepted Universal Declaration of Human Rights? How else continue expansion and acquisition of another's land than to foster violence with violence and cry aloud to the world your pain even as the cries and torment of the Palestinians are muffled behind a Wall of Fear Sharon leaves as his memorial to a life time of savagery and death?"

"When this Wall of silence is breached, when the truth is made manifest, what the world will see and what Jews around the world will see, is that Sharon has destroyed the moral fiber of Judaism. What Jews suffered under the boots of Nazi Germany – the humiliation, torture, powerlessness, and fear – impressed on them by a racist nation arrogant in their superiority, the Israelis now inflict on the hapless people of Palestine."

* William A. Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California and author of The Rape Of Palestine: Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied, Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy and The Chronicles Of Nefaria. He can be reached at: wcook@laverne.edu.
www.drwilliamacook.com

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By Alan Hart* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

I had to struggle with myself to decide which of two headlines was most appropriate for this article – the one above or “The hard core of lunatics are pulling up the drawbridge”.

A Jewish friend in Canada drew my attention to an article in the Jewish Ledger, an independent weekly newspaper in Westport, Connecticut. The headline over it is “Saving Israel” Expert says American Jews key to Israel’s survival. I have rarely read such dangerous nonsense. It’s the voice of Zionism, deluded as ever, but with more than a hint of panic.

The “expert” quoted is Dr. Daniel Gordis, senior vice president of the Jerusalem-based Shalem Center, which describes itself as a research and education institute. He had addressed a standing-room only crowd of close to 300 in the small sanctuary of Westport’s Conservative Synagogue.

His main point was that Israel has survived all conventional military attacks and frustrated their aims (never mind that Israel’s survival was never in question), and has reduced terrorism to a minor threat, but there is now a threat “that is capable of succeeding and against which Israel has no defense.”

What, according to Gordis, is this new threat?

“The direct assault that Israel is now under by the Arabs via appeals to the world community. This co-ordinated effort aims to delegitimize the Jewish state and cause it to be treated as an international pariah, whose products and scholars will be boycotted and ostracized from the international community.”

Gordis went on to say that in order to survive this new attack, “American Jews must fight in the halls of Congress and on the American campuses. This means getting involved with organizations willing to present Jewish arguments, e.g. The American Israel Political Action Committee, AIPAC.” (Its real title is The American Israel Public Affairs Committee; and “Jewish arguments” is a misrepresentation. Some Jewish arguments are opposed to Zionist arguments. Gordis wants more American Jews to present Zionist arguments).

So according to Gordis the fact that the Zionist (not Jewish) state is now being seen by a still smallish but growing number of people in the Western world as a pariah state is all the fault of the Arabs. To say that I think one has to be either a devilish spin doctor who knows what he is saying is propaganda nonsense, or deluded close to the point of clinical madness.

The real reasons for Israel’s worsening image in the world are the extraordinary self-righteousness of its leaders, their contempt for international law and their policies, policies which currently amount to completing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by stealth. That plus the fact that more and more people are beginning to see Israel for what it really is – the obstacle to peace on terms virtually all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept.

My view is that if more American Jews take Gordis’s advice and become active in support of this Israel, they will not be saving it but assisting it to to commit suicide. They’d also be exposing themselves to a charge of complicity in its crimes.

In an apparent effort to frighten more American Jews into campaigning for Israel right or wrong, Gordis reportedly said this:

“If Israel were to be destroyed, American Jewry would be reduced to the bleak existence they experienced years ago in Poland or Russia.”

I can only guess at what Gordis was seeking to imply with those words. One obvious implication is that he meant something like this. If there was a turning against American Jews, and if Israel did not exist to be a refuge of last resort for them, they would be persecuted and possibly exterminated.

One of my own often stated fears is that, provoked by the Zionist state’s behaviour, there could be another great turning against Jews, possibly starting in America. It follows, or so it seems to me, that the way to stop the monster of anti-Semitism going on the rampage again is not by supporting Israel on its present course as Gordis advocates.

THE way is by making Americans and other Westerners among whom most Jews live aware of the difference between Judaism and Zionism, and thus why it is wrong to blame all Jews everywhere for the crimes of the hardest core Zionist few in Israel. It could also be said, and should be said, that American and other Western Jews could best protect their own real interests by distancing themselves from the monster the Zionist state has become. (And in my view was always bound to become with the failure of the major powers to control it).

Gordis is also in doubt that Israel will have to attack Iran. He reportedly said:

“Israel cannot accept a nuclear-armed Iran because the basic Zionist concept was to relieve Jews of existential threat. The Iranian threat could easily have been stopped by Presidents Bush or Obama, via bombings by the United States Air Force. Since clearly this didn’t and won’t happen, the IDF will have to do it.”

The notion of a nuclear armed Iran posing an existential threat to Israel is beyond crazy. It presumes that a nuclear-armed Iran would launch a first strike against Israel. That would never happen. If it did, the whole of Iran would be obliterated. No Iranian leader is ever going to be that stupid. Not even by mis-calculation.

Zionism is playing up the Iranian threat because a nuclear-armed Iran would change the balance of power in a way that prevented Israel from imposing its will on the region at no significant cost.

On “the war with Islam” Gordis reportedly told his American audience this:

“We are at war with Islam and any denials to the contrary may be politically correct, but are wholly inaccurate. Of course there are Muslims who are not Jihadists, but they represent a small percentage and are irrelevant. Militant Islam is succeeding in Europe, the Middle East and is coming to America.”

So far as I know there were no men and women in white coats to carry Daniel away to the nearest asylum.

The Canadian friend who drew my attention to the article in the Jewish Ledger was Sid Shniad, the co-chair of Independent Jewish Voices. In my thank you e-mail to him I commented, “What expletive deleted nonsense!” He replied, “The hard core of lunatics are pulling up the drawbridge.”

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

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• Grace Halsell – What Christians Don’t Know About Israel
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As members of the Canadian and international film, culture and media arts communities, we are deeply disturbed by the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to host a celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv. We protest that TIFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine.

In 2008, the Israeli government and Canadian partners Sidney Greenberg of Astral Media, David Asper of Canwest Global Communications and Joel Reitman of MIJO Corporation launched “Brand Israel,” a million dollar media and advertising campaign aimed at changing Canadian perceptions of Israel. Brand Israel would take the focus off Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and its aggressive wars, and refocus it on achievements in medicine, science and culture.

An article in Canadian Jewish News quotes Israeli consul general Amir Gissin as saying that Toronto would be the test city for a promotion that could then be deployed around the world. According to Gissin, the culmination of the campaign would be a major Israeli presence at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. (Andy Levy-Alzenkopf, “Brand Israel set to launch in GTA,” Canadian Jewish News, August 28, 2008.)

In 2009, TIFF announced that it would inaugurate its new City to City program with a focus on Tel Aviv. According to program notes by Festival co-director and City to City programmer Cameron Bailey, “The ten films in this year’s City to City programme will showcase the complex currents running through today’s Tel Aviv. Celebrating its 100th birthday in 2009, Tel Aviv is a young, dynamic city that, like Toronto, celebrates its diversity.”

The emphasis on ‘diversity’ in City to City is empty given the absence of Palestinian filmmakers in the program. Furthermore, what this description does not say is that Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages, and that the city of Jaffa, Palestine’s main cultural hub until 1948, was annexed to Tel Aviv after the mass exiling of the Palestinian population.

This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the Tel Aviv/Jaffa area who currently live in refugee camps in the Occupied Territories or who have been dispersed to other countries, including Canada. Looking at modern, sophisticated Tel Aviv without also considering the city’s past and the realities of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip, would be like rhapsodizing about the beauty and elegant lifestyles in white-only Cape Town or Johannesburg during apartheid without acknowledging the corresponding black townships of Khayelitsha and Soweto.

We do not protest the individual Israeli filmmakers included in City to City, nor do we in any way suggest that Israeli films should be unwelcome at TIFF. However, especially in the wake of this year’s brutal assault on Gaza, we object to the use of such an important international festival in staging a propaganda campaign on behalf of what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann have all characterized as an apartheid regime.

This letter was drafted by the following ad hoc committee: Udi Aloni, filmmaker, Israel; Elle Flanders, filmmaker, Canada; Richard Fung, video artist, Canada; John Greyson, filmmaker, Canada; Naomi Klein, writer and filmmaker, Canada; Kathy Wazana, filmmaker, Canada; Cynthia Wright, writer and academic, Canada; b h Yael, film and video artist, Canada

endorsed by:

Ahmad Abdalla, Filmmaker, Egypt
Hany Abu-Assad, Filmmaker, Palestine
Mark Achbar, Filmmaker, Canada
Zackie Achmat, AIDS activist, South Africa
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, Filmmaker, Jerusalem
Anthony Arnove, Publisher and Producer, USA
Ruba Atiyeh, Documentary Director, Lebanon
Joslyn Barnes, Writer and Producer, USA
Harry Belafonte, Musician/Actor, USA
John Berger, Author, France
Dionne Brand, Poet/Writer, Canada
Daniel Boyarin, Professor, USA
Judith Butler, Professor, USA
David Byrne, Musician, USA
Noam Chomsky, Professor, USA
Julie Christie, Actor, USA
Guy Davidi Director, Israel
Na-iem Dollie, Journalist/Writer, South Africa
Igor Drljaca, Filmmaker, Canada
Eve Ensler, Playwright, Author, USA
Eyal Eithcowich, Director, Israel
Lynne Fernie, Filmmaker and Programmer, Canada
Sophie Fiennes, Filmmaker, UK
Peter Fitting, Professor, Canada
Jane Fonda, Actor and Author, USA
Danny Glover, Filmmaker and Actor, USA
Noam Gonick, Director, Canada
Malcolm Guy, Filmmaker, Canada
Rawi Hage, Writer, Canada
Anne Henderson, Filmmaker, Canada
Mike Hoolboom, Filmmaker, Canada
Annemarie Jacir, Filmmaker, Palestine
Gordon Jackson, Jazz Musician, South Africa
Fredric Jameson, Literary Critic, USA
Juliano Mer Khamis, Filmmaker, Jenin/Haifa
Bonnie Sherr Klein Filmmaker, Canada
Joy Kogawa, Writer, Canada
Paul Laverty, Producer, UK
Min Sook Lee, Filmmaker, Canada
Paul Lee, Filmmaker, Canada
Yael Lerer, publisher, Tel Aviv
Mark Levine, Professor, USA
Jack Lewis, Filmmaker, South Africa
Ken Loach, Filmmaker, UK
Arab Lotfi, Filmmaker, Egypt/Lebanon
Kyo Maclear, Author, Toronto
Mahmood Mamdani, Professor, USA
Fatima Mawas, Filmmaker, Australia
Anne McClintock, Professor, USA
Tessa McWatt, Author, Canada and UK
Viggo Mortensen, Actor, USA
Cornelius Moore, Film Distributor, USA
Yousry Nasrallah, Director, Egypt
Joan Nestle, Writer, USA
Rebecca O’Brien, Producer, UK
Pratibha Parmar, Producer/Director, UK
Anand Patwardhan, Documentary Film Maker, India
Jeremy Pikser, Screenwriter, USA
John Pilger, Filmmaker, UK
Shai Carmeli Pollak, Filmmaker, Israel
Ian Iqbal Rashid, Filmmaker, Canada
Judy Rebick, Professor, Canada
David Reeb, Artist, Tel Aviv
B. Ruby Rich, Critic and Professor, USA
Wallace Shawn, Playwright, Actor, USA
Eyal Sivan, Filmmaker and Scholar, Paris/London/Sderot
Elia Suleiman, Fimmlaker, Nazareth/Paris/New York
Eran Torbiner, Filmmaker, Israel
Alice Walker, Writer, USA
Thomas Waugh, Professor, Canada
Christian Wiener Freso, President – Union of Peruvian Filmmakers, Peru
Debra Zimmerman, Executive Director Women Make Movies, USA
Howard Zinn, Writer, USA
Slavoj Zizek, Professor, Slovenia

To add your name to this letter, please send your name, occupation and country to tiff.letter@gmail.com

Source: Tadamon

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Canada's leaders swoon over Israel

By ROSIE DIMANNO

Have you hugged a Jew today?

Couldn't hurt, on any day, given some worrisome trends in Canada - though less here than in Europe - to demonize both Jews and Israel, particularly via the rubric of anti-Zionism, which anybody with half a brain recognizes for what it is: The same old anti-Semitism tarted up in sleazy pedantic finery.
But yesterday, at the Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda synagogue in North York, the most astonishing thing happened. Leaders of Canada's political parties got all gushy and goopy, practically falling over one another to show they love Jews - and Israel - best.

How gratifying this must have been for those assembled, and a wider constituency that has found itself besieged anew, bewildered and alarmed by the increasing brazenness of Jew-bashing in this country, a toxic debate that finds fertile soil in the political sludge of the Middle East.

There was Prime Minister Stephen Harper using the occasion to announce a new bill that would allow victims to sue perpetrators and sponsors of terrorism - whether individuals, organizations or foreign states - through Canadian courts, civilly.

And there was Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, sounding rather ticked that the Tories had thus pre-empted a private member's bill on that very issue, which justice critic Irwin Cotler had planned to introduce in the Commons.

Jack Layton had no such bill in his back pocket - perhaps left it in his other pants - but was adamant that New Democrats stood four-square with the Canadian Jewish Congress as human-rights advocates, whilst denying that new-wave anti-Semitism is a phenomenon of the modern left.

The Green party's Elizabeth May extolled Israel as "an exemplar of democracy" in the Middle East, while claiming violence in the region is fuelled by "petro-dollars to petro-dictators." The Bloc called in sick and was excused.

Of course, this was the 29th plenary assembly of the CJC and none of the invited speakers would dare wrangle with their hosts on the details. But beyond the core consensus of a two-state solution in the Middle East, it's always the details that kibosh any proposals for ending the Palestinian conflict, securing Israel's security, or civilizing the discussion.

Harper was there to accept the prestigious Saul Hayes Human Rights award, named for a former CJC executive director, the first time it's been given to a sitting PM. The standing ovation lasted for several minutes. While traditionally tilting Liberal, many Canadian Jews now embrace Harper as Israel's staunchest defender.

"I am troubled, very troubled, by the degree in which opposition to the government of Israel has become, in some circles, an intellectual cover for anti-Semitic discourse," Harper said, to rousing cheers.

"It is all too common nowadays for people to claim to support Israel and the Jewish people. Yet when Israel is attacked for the umpteenth time, because its enemies refuse to accept the right of the Jewish state to exist, these same people are quick to condemn Israel and accuse it of war crimes and to demand that it unilaterally suspend its right to self-defence.

"You will not hear that kind of double-talk from our government - ever."

While certainly not all Jewish Canadians support Israel's conduct, the Harper government has been widely praised for being among the first to cut aid to the Palestians following the election of terrorist-designated Hamas, withdraw from Durban II and refuse to sign a francophone nation summit anti-Israel resolution.

Ignatieff yesterday conceded no ground to Harper's Tories on steadfastness with Israel.

First he teed off on Iran, "a dreadful regime that uses a great religion and then poisons the wellspring of generosity in that great religion with statements inspired by hatred. This is a state seeking weapons of mass destruction. This is a member of the UN denying another member of the UN the right to exist. Canada cannot be silent when one state denies another state their right to exist. Canada cannot be silent when a president of a state denies the Holocaust. And we cannot be in the room when the president of a state engages in vicious lies. Denial of the Holocaust is an unacceptable moral disgrace."

Ignatieff reminded that his father was a Canadian diplomat who served on the UN committee that recommended partitioning Palestine - "a plan accepted by Jews, but rejected by the Arab world. Too much violence has followed."

Five months ago, Ignatieff drew intense criticism for refusing to assail Israel's protracted military assault on Gaza, in response to incessant rocketing of Israeli towns. "I was proud to stand with Israel, my party was proud to stand with Israel, during that hour of trial."

As an elected politician, Ignatieff added, he is required to represent and listen to all factions. "But it does not mean agreeing with everyone and there are some lines I cannot cross. I cannot be neutral between a member of the UN and a terrorist organization. I cannot be neutral between democracy and terror. I cannot be neutral with historical facts. I cannot meet groups or appear on platforms with groups that have links or connections to terror.

"I cannot say one thing in a synagogue and another in a mosque."

But Ignatieff, sensing electoral drifts ahead, warned against exploitation of solidarity with Israel as a partisan political wedge.

"It is reckless, reckless, for leaders to try to score points by branding one another as anti-Israel, to try to claim votes by claiming a monopoly on support for Israel. The true interests of Israel will not be served if Israel becomes a domestic political football in this country."

Sounded a lot like third-and-long yesterday, though.

Source: The Star

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By Karin Friedemann

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad has made a formal complaint to the Canadian government regarding the intention of Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum to collaborate with the Israel Antiquities Authority to host "Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World" from June 27 to January 3, 2010.

Palestinian Archaeological Department Director-General Hamdan Taha explains, "The exhibition would entail exhibiting or displaying artifacts removed from the Palestinian territories... I think it is important that Canadian institutions would be responsible and act in accordance with Canada's obligations."

The Israeli exhibition violates international conventions or protocols that Canada has ratified and that protect cultural property during armed conflict. The State of Israel seized the Jordanian-owned Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem in 1967 to take possession of the scrolls and has continued to loot similar Palestinian cultural property from the Occupied Territories ever since. Under the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the 1954 Hague Convention along with its two associated protocols, Canada is legally obliged "to take appropriate steps to recover and return any such cultural property" at the request of the wronged party.

The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition is part of Israel's effort to re-brand itself. According to The Economist, American Jewish groups and Israeli diplomats are trying to create the perception of Israel as "hip, cool, cultured, fun and creative." The campaign has included placing sexually suggestive advertisements in Maxim and other men's magazines.

Harvard Professor Stephen Walt suggests in his Foreign Policy blog that the re-branding effort is foredoomed to failure: "Restoring Israel's image in the West isn't a matter of spin or PR or `re-branding;' it's a matter of abandoning the policies that have cost it the sympathy it once enjoyed. It's really just about that simple."

The archaeological component of the propaganda campaign, however, uses subliminal suggestion to bypass such political arguments. A top Israeli re-branding advocate argues, "[Let's] get to that first stage when people associate Israel with science and music and archaeology...Then we'll take it from there."

In Facts on the Ground Columbia Professor Nadia Abu Al Haj writes, "In the context of Israel and Palestine, archaeology emerged as a central scientific discipline because of the manner in which colonial settlement was configured in a language of, and a belief in, Jewish national return." Even though asserting ownership to a country after absence of 2000 years is preposterous, Israel's theft of Palestine from the native population is popularly legitimised through the claim that today's Jews descend from inhabitants of Greco-Roman Judea.

According to New York Times Reporters Ethan Bonner and Isabel Kershner in "Parks Fortify Israel's Claim to Jerusalem," "[There] is a battle for historical legitimacy. As part of the effort, archaeologists are finding indisputable evidence of ancient Jewish life here."

This claim is nonsense.

Intellectuals of Jewish origin in 19th century Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, invented their folk narratives `retrospectively,' out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people, argues Tel Aviv University Professor Shlomo Sand, author of How and When the Jewish People Was Invented.

There is no single founder population for modern Jewry any more than there is a single founder population for modern Christians or modern Muslims. Late ancient and early medieval texts describe an ethnically diverse collection of communities associated with proselytizing pre-Rabbinic Judaism.

In English to use the word Jew is anachronistic before the 10th century when medieval Rabbinic Judaism crystallised thanks to the efforts of Saadyah Gaon (Sa`îd bin Yûsuf al-Fayyûmi) and his colleagues.

With the revolutionary codification of Rabbinic law these communities became part of a vast trade network that spanned the Christian and Muslim world and that extended into China and began to exchange members on a large scale. The main population-exporting region seems to have been located in territories near the Black Sea.

Current genetic anthropological findings based on DNA analysis indicate that the male ancestors of Yiddish Jewry were of Eastern European and non-Levantine Southwest Asian origin while the female ancestors were Eastern Europeans.

Sand admits, "[The] chances that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Judaic people are much greater than the chances that you or I [meaning Israeli Jews] are its descendents."

The Palestinians' ancestors created the Hasmonean Kingdom, composed the Hebrew Bible, followed Jesus, wrote the New Testament, compiled the Mishnah, and redacted the Jerusalem Talmud. The Palestinian people constitute the living link to the earliest beginnings of the heritage from the Torah and Gospel.

Zionists are almost pitiable, for they are so ashamed of their own history that they have usurped one belonging to another people. When the Israeli government sends the Dead Sea Scrolls to Canada, by its own law Canada must turn them over to their rightful owners - the Palestinian people.

Karin Friedemann is a Boston-based writer on Middle East affairs and US politics. She is Director of the Division on Muslim Civil Rights and Liberties for the National Association of Muslim American Women.

Source: Khaleej Times

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How Those Who Kill Can Enter Canada While Those Who Save Lives Are Barred
By Joshua Blakeney

World renowned, award winning journalist John Pilger commented on George Galloway's autobiography: "Galloway's work has saved countless lives, particularly in Iraq". This is an accurate statement about the record of the five-times elected British MP who was described by Canadian Minister for Immigration Jason Kenny as "a threat to Canada's security" and subsequently banned from entering Canada during March of this year. Juxtaposing the blood-soaked records of George W Bush and Bill Clinton - especially in relation to Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Somalia and elsewhere - with the unimpeachable record of George Galloway MP, the patent rudderless and deceptive nature of the current Canadian government and its media accomplices becomes transparent. The Canadian government evidently embraces the inane ethos: "if your going to kill, make sure you kill millions." In other words, the tin pot tyrants like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein are to be demonized, subjected to show trials and marketed as a ‘threat', while those who massacre and torture millions like Bush, Clinton, Rice and Cheney are to be venerated, ingratiated and granted VIP treatment if they choose to come to Canada at any time during their lucrative speaking tours.

The Canadian parliament in its history has never stood in such public execration as it does contemporarily for both its tacit and overt support for some of the worst mass murderers ever to afflict humanity. War criminals emanating from Canada's behemoth southern neighbour are apparently welcome to spread their malicious propaganda, leaving with a hansom speaker's fee, all for the pleasure of the wealthy few who can afford the ticket to enter the Gestapo protected venues. In the past eight weeks there have been visits by George W Bush to Calgary (hosted by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce), Condoleezza Rice to Calgary (hosted by the so called U of C School of Public Policy) and imminently George W Bush and Bill Clinton plan to descend upon Canada again, as if it were merely the fifty-first state of the U.S.A, rather than a sovereign country with its own laws and international obligations.

If Canada is indeed still a sovereign country certainly many of us are finding the boundaries opaque at best.

The most criminal and supine of all - and to whom we must channel a large portion of our anger and contempt - are the ‘mainstream' media who invariably negate their duty and responsibility to expose the tyrants' records and to educate the public on the democratically enshrined laws which the current minority government are perpetually glossing over (unless it serves them to do otherwise as was the case with the erudite George Galloway MP in March). The supine, docility of the press has allowed radical extremists such as Bush and Clinton to appear as misunderstood, sophisticated statesmen who had to make ‘difficult decisions' in a ‘dangerous world', whilst peace activists like George Galloway MP are unanimously demonized, traduced and portrayed as a ‘threat to Canadian security.' The Globe and Mail have printed (on a daily basis) a half-page advertisement for the Bush-Clinton visit boasting their affiliation with the event alongside the infamous Bennett Jones legal firm and many other collaborationist conglomerates who seek to make Canada a safe-haven for self-confessed torturers and war criminals. Contrastingly George Galloway MP, who was banned from entering Canada because he delivered wheel chairs, medicine and much needed food supplies to the starving captives of the Gaza ghetto, was described by the National Post's Jonathan Kay as: "Anti-Israel, Anti-American, pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah", all of which are untrue as is evidenced by Galloway's own statements in parliament and in his biweekly radio show in which he confutes such chimeras regularly. Galloway doesn't support Hamas he supports Al-Fatah. Galloway recognizes Israel's right to exist and is widely respected by many Jewish groups throughout the world. As for Hezbollah, Galloway simply expounds the truism that the political force is widely supported by the Lebanese people and that Lebanese democracy should be respected not undermined. He equally promotes bringing home the troops from the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq so that the young U.S. soldiers could be home and safe rather than at war and in danger. How ‘anti-American' is that? Perhaps Jonathan Kay's warped definition of being pro-American equates to supporting the inept, draft-dodging leaders who order young, impressionable men and women into illegal conflagrations? The pseudo-liberal Kay then fascistically advised that if Galloway entered Canada: "then (opponents should) have police on hand to apprehend him" (http://bit.ly/WEKIb).

Getting accused of supporting terrorism by a government and its bought-and-paid-for media who are prepared to roll out the red carpet for Bush (twice in eight weeks), Rice and Clinton is a bit like getting told to sit up straight by the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Bush, the self-confessed torturer and sadist, should either be barred from entering Canada as Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows for, or if he enters Canada, according the Lawyers Against the War: "the Attorney General of Canada must prosecute him for torture or provide consent to private prosecution", as Canada's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act equally allows for. The Canadian government's recent ‘Canada's Program on Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes: Tenth Annual Report' had the ostensible commitment: "to deny safe haven in Canada to war criminals, that is, individuals who may have been either directly involved or complicit in the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide." The report concludes: "Canada has proven to be a pioneer in the development of a world-class war crimes program. Its coordinated approach and initiative in the realm of international cooperation and outreach has earned the War Crimes Program acclaim in the global community. Strong legislation reflects the Government of Canada's determination to hold suspected perpetrators of war crimes accountable for their actions"

(see: http://bit.ly/UKA57).

The propaganda surrounding Clinton's legacy has allowed a misperception to coagulate that he was a ‘dove' and ‘the best U.S. president ever'. It must be acknowledged that there exists a plethora of incriminating justifications for banning Clinton from entering the country based on his own illegal rapacity. Some of these include the use of proscribed weapons of mass destruction and the deliberate destruction of Yugoslavian "hospitals and health-care centers, public housing, infrastructure vital to the well-being of civilians, refineries, warehouses, agricultural facilities, schools, roads and railways." (See: http://bit.ly/7VsKy)

George Galloway's courageous solidarity with the Palestinian people by leading the convoy of aide to the Gaza ghetto was a self-styled method of raising awareness about unspoken Holocausts which the media obediently censor from the public domain. Galloway led a similar convoy (this time in a red London bus) to beleaguered Iraq during the 1990s when western governments, spurred on by Clinton, were punishing the Iraqi people with sanctions for having a dictator which western governments had themselves installed, funded and armed to the teeth with chemical and biological weapons. Galloway's humanism thus warrants the kind comments opined by John Pilger that: "Galloway's work has saved countless lives, particularly in Iraq." As Galloway stated: "I've met Saddam Hussein, exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald met him to sell him guns and maps the better to target those guns, and I met him to bring an end to sanctions and suffering and war" (see: http://www.guba.com/watch/3000067165). Just as Galloway's sanctions busting in Iraq was an attempt to alleviate U.S. (Clinton) imposed suffering, which killed a child every six minutes, so the recent convoy of aide was warmly received by the captives of the Gaza ghetto who are starving as a result of Israeli illegality. Thus the canards of ‘anti-Israel', ‘pro-Hamas' etc, disseminated by the popinjay, armchair warrior Jonathan Kay were, as to be expected, no more than squalid propaganda as is customary from the guttersnipe media outlet which he genuflects at the behest of.

The effect of Kay's and others of his ilk's disinformation is highly pernicious and corrosive for a young democracy like Canada's. The truth about George Galloway was concealed and his reputation in Canada was hence besmirched which then allowed his message of peace and anti-imperialism to be diluted which (no surprises) benefits Kay's own perceived agenda of legitimizing the aggressive warfare which Canada's government are deeply complicit in contemporarily. As part of the same hidden agenda, Bush and Clinton's blood soaked records are obediently concealed by the likes of Kay, and the credibly accused war criminals are being glorified rather than arrested. These hidden agendas and disinformation campaigns prevent the Canadian people from imbibing the realities of the world which has the ultimate effect of allowing the U.S. regime to continue its atrophy of democracy uninhibited.

On April 28th 2009, Professor Anthony J Hall (University of Lethbridge) courageously confronted the baneful Jonathan Kay at a speaking engagement in Montreal (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez1sY5g8_Uo). Dr Hall asked Kay why he uses anonymous sources (such as the anonymous, peddler of propaganda ‘Blackrod' blogger) to commit character-assassination upon respected dissenters such as former Liberal candidate Leslie Hughes who's only real crime was that she dared to cross the invisible boundaries which Kay's National Post, CBC, The Globe and Mail and the rest of the 'mainstream' media are the gate-keepers for. Dr Hall described Kay's efforts as "questionable...shoddy journalism" and accused him of being a "radical, extremist...with access to a large audience through CanWest Global." Whilst Professor Hall was doing all Canadians a service by challenging the National Post's chief propagandist, an interlocutor shouted at Kay: "you are covering up for mass murder...you should go on trial for propaganda and disinformation...you should go on trial like Joseph Goebbels did." At which point Professor Hall invoked international law and the Nuremburg Principles educating the infelicitous Jonathan Kay: "the role of the press in dehumanizing whole populations, preparing public opinion for aggressive warfare, that is what you are a part of, he (the interlocutor) is correct, you are part of the propaganda machinery of aggressive war and incidentally that is outlawed in the UN...we've read your columns for years...the War on Terror is based on psychological warfare...and you have been a very intricate part of that machinery of aggressive warfare." Prof Hall also challenged Kay on his complicity in the disinformation campaign against George Galloway to which Kay replied unabashedly: "I said he was a toxic clown", exposing the lack of intellectual rigor which one can expect from his supposed journalism.

It is clear that Canada is increasingly perceived to be a 'safe haven' for self-confessed tortures and war criminals who have committed what at Nuremburg - reflecting upon the unilateralism and genocidal practices of Nazism - was defined as "the ultimate war crime" of aggressive war. If the ahistorical, Goebellian normalizing of those who have committed the "ultimate war crime" perpetuates from Canada's apologetic government and media then it is the people who will be forced to attempt citizens arrests upon those who are either self-confessed violators of international law, or are credibly accused so, as the Canadian domestic law allows for. One such attempt has already been mounted in Canada by the courageous activist Splitting the Sky who sought to break the police lines in Calgary to conduct a citizens arrest against the self-confessed criminal George W Bush on March 17th. Professor of International Law Francis A Boyle in his book Protesting Power: War Resistance and Law has advised those of us who oppose the impunity afforded to war criminals to deputize ourselves and attempt to implement Canadian law which we respect, unlike Steven Harper and Jason Kenny who have eviscerated the legal system. Splitting the Sky will embark upon a five day trial in March 2010 where, in reality, he will not be in the mindset of the accused, but rather that of the accuser, not the criminal but the interrogator. He was attempting prevent Canada from becoming a safe haven for mass murderers and self-confessed tortures and was arrested for doing so. If the police are aiding and abetting the self-confessed torturers and mass murderers are we to stand by and watch? As Pastor Niemoller regretfully opined: "In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. And then they came for me and by that time there was no one left to speak up." They came for the ‘Communists' during the Cold War - and massacred them in their millions - now they have come for the Arabs and Muslims and massacred them in their millions, who will be next?

© Copyright Joshua Blakeney, Global Research, 2009

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This idiotic ban shames Canada:

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EI Illustration

Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper's government publicly supported Israel's brutal assault on Gaza and voted alone at the UN Human Rights Committee in defense of Israel's actions three weeks ago. Now Canada has taken over Israeli diplomacy. Literally.

In solidarity with Gaza, Venezuela expelled Israel's ambassador at the start of the bombardment and then broke off all diplomatic relations two weeks later. Israel need not worry since Ottawa plans to help out. On 29 January, The Jerusalem Post reported that "Israel's interests in Caracas will now be represented by the Canadian Embassy." This means Canada is officially Israel, at least in Venezuela.

Prior to the recent bombing in Gaza, the Harper government made it abundantly clear that it would support Israel no matter what that country did. It publicly endorsed Israel's 2006 attack on Lebanon, voted against a host of UN resolutions supporting Palestinian rights and in January 2008 refused to criticize illegal Israeli settlement construction at Har Homa near Jerusalem (even Washington publicly criticized these settlements). Canada was also the first country (after Israel) to cut off financial aid to the elected Hamas government and Ottawa has provided millions of dollars as well as personnel to create a US-trained Palestinian police force to act as a counterweight to the Hamas government and to oversee Israel's occupation.

Harper's support for Israel is extreme, but despite what many well-meaning commentators claim, it is not a break from Canada's role as an "honest broker" in the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is a long history of Canadian support for Zionism, a European settler ideology that has violently dispossessed Palestinians for more than six decades.

The idea for a Middle Eastern Jewish homeland to serve Western imperial interests has a long history in Canada. Since at least the 1870s Christian Zionists called for their biblical prophesies to be fulfilled under British auspices. By November 1915, Solicitor General (and then Prime Minister) Arthur Meighen publicly proclaimed, "I think I can speak for those of the Christian faith when I express the wish that God speed the day when the land of your [Jewish] forefathers shall be yours again. This task I hope will be performed by that champion of liberty the world over -- the British Empire." Two decades later Prime Minister RB Bennett began a national radio broadcast of the United Palestine Appeal with a speech about how the Balfour declaration and British control over Palestine was a step towards Biblical prophecies. "Scriptural prophecy is being fulfilled," he noted. "The restoration of Zion has begun."

During the 1947 UN negotiations over the British mandate of historic Palestine, Canada played an important role in creating Israel. Lester Pearson (then under-secretary of state for External Affairs) who chaired two different UN committees dealing with the mandate and Supreme Court Justice Ivan C. Rand, a member of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), played central roles in the negotiations that led to partition. In State in the Making, David Horowitz (the first governor of the Bank of Israel and first director general of Israel's ministry of finance) writes: "It may be said that Canada more than any other country played a decisive part in all stages of the UNO [United Nations Organization] discussions of Palestine."

The UN's 1948 partition plan gave the new Jewish state the majority of Palestine despite the Jewish population owning roughly seven percent of the land and representing a third of the population. Rand's assistant on UNSCOP, Leon Mayrand, provides a window into the dominant mindset at External Affairs: "The Arabs were bound to be vocal opponents of partition but they should not be taken too seriously. The great majority were not yet committed nationalists and the Arab chiefs could be appeased through financial concessions, especially if these accompanied a clearly declared will to impose a settlement whatever the means necessary." A dissident within External Affairs, the department's only Middle East expert, Elizabeth MacCallum, claimed Ottawa supported partition, "because we didn't give two hoots for democracy."

Above all else support for partition was driven by a geostrategic worldview. An internal report circulated at External Affairs explained: "The plan of partition gives to the western powers the opportunity to establish an independent, progressive Jewish state in the Eastern Mediterranean with close economic and cultural ties with the West generally and in particular with the United States." The Ottawa mandarins largely supported Israel as a possible western outpost in the heart of the (oil-producing) Middle East.

When the first Palestinian intifada broke out in 1987, then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney told the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) that Israel's brutal suppression of rock throwing Palestinian youth was handling the situation with "restraint." When questioned by a CBC reporter about the similarity between the plight of Palestinians and Blacks in South Africa, Mulroney replied that any comparison between Israel and South Africa was "false and odious and should never be mentioned in the same breath."

A decade later, Ottawa signed a free trade agreement with Israel. It was only Canada's fourth free trade agreement. Begun January 1997, the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement includes the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of where Israel's custom laws are applied.

The political motivation for supporting Israel has not changed significantly over the years. The government in Ottawa today receives limited electoral support from the Jewish community, but is close to a right-wing Christian Zionist movement. Most importantly, the Harper government strongly supports Western (US-led) imperialism in the Middle East. This is why Canada has taken over Israeli diplomacy in Venezuela.

Yves Engler is the author of the forthcoming Canada on the World Stage: A Force for Good or Bad Actor? and other books. He can be reached at yvesengler@hotmail.com

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Quebec university profs & workers demand an academic boycott of Israel:

We are a group of teachers and employees at Quebec colleges and universities who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, and with the people of Gaza who have suffered through the Israeli siege as targets of Israel’s brutal military attack. It will take more than ceasefires to bring a just and lasting peace in Palestine and Israel.

In the wake of the Israeli bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza, the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees has urged academics around the world to support a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

We support this call to boycott Israeli academic institutions. We place it in a wider campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions.

The fight against apartheid in South Africa was supported through boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. We support a similar strategy against the Israeli state.

We will undertake actions in our own institutions to pressure them to participate in a boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign that aims for a just and lasting settlement for the Palestinian people.

We strongly condemn the Canadian government’s position on the ongoing conflict in Gaza and its bilateral trade agreements that help sustain Israeli military actions. The Harper government consistently supports the government of Israel, which uses weapons causing mass destruction on a mainly civilian population, including attacks on children and schools. It has violated interna-tional prohibitions against collective punishment by blockading the Gaza strip.

We call on the Harper government to re-evaluate its policies and to unequivocally condemn the Israeli siege and assault on Gaza, which constitute serious violations of international and humanitarian law..

We also urge that all economic relations between Israel and the governments of Canada and Quebec - including trade agreements - be suspended until there is not only a just and lasting peace for the Palestinian people, but that Israel, in compliance with international law, recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.

Abridged text of the declaration "

Un cessez-le-feu ne suffira pas pour concretiser la paix entre Palestine et Israel", signed by 80 professors and employees of Québec universities and published in Le Devoir on Jan. 24, 2009.

by PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity)
WWW.PAJUMONTREAL.ORG

www.boycottisraelinternational.org

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