Vittorio Arrigoni, killed Friday, April 15 is the first international activist killed by Palestinians in the history of the conflict. Mystery surrounding his kidnapping and death leaves significant questions about the those allegedly responsible, the investigation, and the future of the region.

I didn't know Vittorio Arrigoni, the 36 year-old Italian ISM activist killed on Friday, allegedly by a Salafi resistance group in Gaza. The day he was killed, I put his picture as my Facebook profile, alongside a quote by him from two years prior. The week before, I had the picture of Juliano Mer-Khamis up there, with the following words: ""To be free is to be free first of all of the chains of tradition, religion, nationalism " - Juliano Mer Khamis, 1959 - 2011. How long is long enough to keep their pictures a Facebook profile? If these types of killings are becoming a trend, the answer may be - until the next one is killed.

The reasons for the two men's deaths are very different and the people who killed them very likely did it for very different reasons, but their proximity cannot be ignored. More importantly, the shroud of mystery surrounding their deaths and the impact they will have on the tiny community of Israelis and internationals working and volunteering in the Palestinian territories greys further the ever- present clouds on the horizon.

Originally published at JNews

OTTAWA - It used to be that when you counted Israel’s top allies, the obvious names came to mind: Germany, the UK and, of course, the US. These days, Canada seems determined to soar to the top of that list, confirming the judgment of Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Foreign Minister. While visiting Canada in 2009 he said, “Canada is so friendly that there was no need to convince or explain anything to anyone… We need allies like this in the international arena.”

And again, the current Canadian Prime Minister reaffirmed this relationship in his speech at a conference that equated criticism of Israel with antisemitism, where he declared that “There are, after all, a lot more votes in being anti-Israeli than in taking a stand. But as long as I am prime minister, whether it is at the United Nations, the Francaphonie, or anywhere else, Canada will take that stand, whatever the cost”.

Indeed, while presenting itself as an honest broker, Canada’s been an uncritical friend to Israel, especially since the election of the Conservative minority government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Under his leadership Canadian aid was redirected from UNRWA, the special UN agency that works exclusively with Palestinian refugees. Domestically, funding was cut to KAIROS, a faith-based group falsely connected to the global boycott movement, sending a chill through NGOs dealing with the Middle East conflict.