The Dominion - Palestine

Khader Adnan's Unpublicized Hunger Strike

stephlaw — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:26:43 +0000

Vigil called on CBC to end the silence

VANCOUVER—Khader Adnan, a Palestinian political prisoner, ended his 66-day hunger strike on February 21, after reaching an agreement with the Israeli government in which he will be released on April 17, four months after he was first detained. During his strike, Adnan lost about one-third of his body weight and put his life in danger, according to a doctor who examined him last week on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights.

There was next to no mention of Adnan's strike in Canadian media, though, according to Vancouver Palestine activists who held a vigil and picket at the CBC building in downtown Vancouver on February 16. The activists were calling for CBC to end its silence about his case.

"Khader Adnan is invisible in Canadian media. We see [Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister] John Baird saying that Israel has no greater friend than Canada, at a time when Khader Adnan is protesting his arbitrary detention without charge, settlements are expanding and the illegal occupation continues," said Khaled Barakat, a Palestinian community activist. "We think it is very important to say that Baird does not speak for all Canadians."

Activists from a number of Vancouver-based organizations, including the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign, Canada Palestine Association, Canadian Boat to Gaza, Independent Jewish Voices, Seriously Free Speech, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, and others joined the picket, where protesters distributed flyers informing the public about Khader Adnan's case, held signs with his image and candles honoring his struggle and sacrifice.

Khader Adnan is a Palestinian political activist, baker, husband and father, and was put into administrative detention by the Israeli occupation military forces. His hunger strike was undertaken to demand the end of administrative detention in Palestine.

Administrative detention is detention without charge, based only on secret evidence, indefinitely renewable by Israeli military judges.

“My husband is dying inside an Israeli jail. The world should make sure I am able to see him,” said Randa Adnan, Khader's wife, before Tuesday's announcement was made. “And it should pressure the Israeli government to release him before it’s too late…Israel denied Khader any fairness or decency…But maybe the rest of humanity will show more mercy."

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had also called for Khader Adnan to be charged or released. Thousands of people around the world called for his release. In Palestine, dozens were injured at protests calling for his release, where they were attacked with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Despite those calls, domestically and internationally, an Israeli military court of appeal upheld Khader’s administrative detention as late as Monday, Feb. 20. That was before Khader struck the agreement for his release in April. He has still not been charged with any crime.

Charlotte Kates is a Palestine solidarity activist with the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territories. This article was originally published by the VMC.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

khader

Khader2

Apartheid Oil

stephlaw — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:58:40 +0000

Crude oil trapped in shale could transform Israel into energy powerhouse

JERUSALEM—Major offshore gas strikes in 2009 and 2010 may soon convert Israel into a gas exporting country with self-sufficient energy. But perhaps more important than the gas under the sea is the mock crude trapped in husk dry sands and rock hard shale, reserves which could push Israel into the upper echelons of recoverable oil on the planet. Israel’s reliance on others for energy supplies has long been a weakness, both economically and militarily.

What promises to be the most energy intensive form of oil recovery on the planet could reinforce Israel's military might, while presenting a new threat to scarce water resources and the climate.

New estimates show that there are 250 billion barrels of recoverable mock (or synthetic) crude oil, possibly even more, in locations throughout Israel. By way of comparison, Canada has just under 200 barrels of oil, including recoverable tar sands while Saudi Arabia is said to have 260 barrels.

The announcement of these major oil finds comes on the heels of the discovery of the contested Leviathan offshore gas field in the Mediterranean Sea, estimated to hold between 16 and 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The Leviathan field was discovered by Texas-based Noble Energy Inc. in June 2010. The discovery is disputed by Lebanon, which brought a complaint to the United Nations alleging Israeli slant drilling off the Lebanese coast following the 2006 aerial war. Further complicating matters is the other major natural gas play in the region, which lies beneath the recognized maritime territory of the Gaza Strip.

“Israel [will] never buy gas from Palestine,” declared Ariel Sharon in 2001, after the Palestinian Authority signed 25-year development leases with European energy companies. Palestinian control over their own gas was challenged in a 2003 Israel Supreme Court case that has yet to be resolved.

British Gas Group was close to striking a development deal on the Gaza deposit, and was planning to pipe gas through to Egypt when, in 2006, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair allegedly intervened to prevent sending the gas south, in the interest of Israel. In the following year, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a proposal to buy the $4 billion worth of gas found in the Gaza deposit, with $1 billion in profits going to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Israeli cabinet approved the proposal, and bypassed the newly-elected Hamas government in Gaza altogether.

The proposal eventually fell through because various military and security advisers warned a gas deal with the PA would pose a security risk to Israel. Soon after, British Gas Group closed their office in Israel and announced on their website that they were “...evaluating options for commercialising the gas.” Perhaps on the advice of retired high-ranking Israeli Defence Forces officials, British Gas Group ceded their field license, so as to no longer involve the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli interest in the Gaza deposit didn’t end then. In November 2008, the Israel Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of National Infrastructures instructed the Israel Electric Corporation to enter into negotiations with British Gas with hopes of purchasing natural gas from British Gas’s offshore concession in Gaza, according to a press release by Boycott Israel UK.

These instructions came approximately one month before Operation Cast Lead, or the Gaza War, and might have played a role in stalling an official Israeli attack on Gaza.

"It is possible that the prospect of a major natural gas transaction with the Palestinians has been a factor in the Israeli cabinet's refusal to launch a Defensive Shield II operation in Gaza,” wrote retired Israeli Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, only months before the Operation Cast Lead bombing of the Gaza Strip.

Together with the Leviathan deposits, the natural gas fields off of Gaza's shores represent reserves that could easily meet Israel's internal electrical energy needs and turn the Zionist state from net importer to an exporter of energy. But the importance of the gas deposits may pale in comparison to the more recent development of technology for recovering tar sands and shale oil. In fact, given the massive energy inputs required to extract oil from shale, the Leviathan and Gazan gas fields may become an integral part of supplying the energy for this massive heavy oil project.

Israel's massive oil shale deposits vary in form from petrified kerogen rock to bituminous formations that have the texture and appearance of the tar sands common to places like Alberta, Canada.

Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI) announced in March 2011 a project to transform shale into oil. The project will use a combination of technologies already in use in Canada's tar sands and newer conceptual technology developed in Colorado's vast oil shale deposits. If it proceeds, the shale oil extraction in Israel project could permanently alter the political and atmospheric climate of the Middle East.

IEI is a subsidiary of the much larger Israeli Data Technologies (IDT), a corporation that already dominates Israel's economic landscape and is led by IDT Chairman Howard Jonas. Along for the ride on this venture are media mogul Rupert Murdoch and former US vice-president Dick Cheney, along with many other notables.

Approximately 15 per cent of the landmass of UN-defined Israel overlays oil shale deposits. In fact, Israel has already exported their know-how to the Alberta tar sands: Ormat, an Israeli firm, has set up shop with patented energy technology in Alberta under the name Opti. Opti teamed up with Nexen in Canada to launch an in-house technique of burning the waste gunk produced through extraction in order to provide energy for the extraction operation itself. At the end of July 2011, Opti (and their interests in Alberta's tar sands) was sold to China National Offshore Oil Corp.

Not unlike the seismic shift that kicked the long dormant Alberta tar sands into high gear following the war on Iraq and cumulative rise in oil prices that coincided with the Katrina disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the latest announcements out of Israel are staggering.

The oil shale proposal that is closest to approval is a short drive southwest of Jerusalem, a pastoral area of Kibbutzes and small villages that historians believe was the backdrop for the biblical battle between David and Goliath. The area doesn't feel anything like the oil boomtown of Fort McMurray, Alberta, or even anything close to much of the Middle East, but more like parts of western Canada's Okanogan Valley.

In the sunny backyard of a house in a gated community, Lia Tarachansky of the Real News Network interviewed Chagit Tishler about the proposed oil shale project while myself and a Palestinian man from a Jerusalem neighbourhood listened and drank tea.

“It's the biggest license even given to a private company in Israel,” said Tishler, who works with the organization Save Adullam, which is made up of local residents who oppose the IEI pilot project. The license was granted under the Oil Law, said Tishler, which is essentially a free entry law dating from 1952, which prioritizes oil and gas exploration over farms, parks or historical sites.

“The area could be ruined completely. This area is the last area in the centre of Israel that remains an open area and a green area, and has a lot of archaeological sites that are important not only to Israelis but to the rest of the world,” she said, before listing historical sites in the vicinity. Known as the Elah Valley, the area was re-settled only a couple of years after the Nakba in 1948 by primarily North African Mizrahi Jews. To this day, they and others use the valley for food crops and Israeli wine.

IEI's planned operations in the Elah Valley include digging five kilometres of trenches through farms and vineyards to expose the shale rock, which would then be heated until the kerogen and other organic materials held inside it are bled out of the rock, producing a basic crude substance. Much like tar sands bitumen, this substance will still need to go through an upgrading process before refining.

If carried out as planned, IEI’s project would constitute one of the least energy efficient forms of oil production ever devised. Three to five gigawatts of electricity would be used to produce a single barrel of shale-based oil, according to Save Adullam. Heating the shale, which takes place for months at a time, could release at least 15 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. No other extraction process in conventional oil or even tar sands involves a heating process this extensive, nor is any as carbon intensive. This carbon release takes place even before refining, let alone consumption.

Regardless, for Israel, these reserves represent a local supply that cannot be blockaded. IEI states that the petroleum from this shale produces a light synthetic crude nearly perfect for converting to jet fuel.

Thus far, groups like Save Adullam who wish to stop this project have failed to make alliances with other communities living with the threat of oil shale extraction. The focus of Save Adullam is to demand a repeal of the 1952 oil law. Their allies are inside the Knesset and others within the Israeli state, including the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

Though the first lands slated for large scale development projects have religious and biblical resonance, there are also mining projects that will spread across the traditional territory of Bedouin Palestinians in various parts of the Negev Desert. The majority of the surface oil shale, which is similar in composition to the Albertan tar sands, sits in the northern part of the desert. In addition, mining for oil shale, which is burned for electricity, has already taken place in the deep south of the desert, close to Eliat.

The Mishor Rotem Basin is on the west bank of the Dead Sea, and an oil shale deposit straddles both sides of the border between the state of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In 2006 the JNF concluded that Israel was using 25 per cent more water than was sustainable (this includes the almost 90 per cent of the water diverted from Palestinians in the West Bank).

In Zionist settlements and recognized Bedouin villages in the Negev, cancer rates are already considerably higher than in the rest of the Jewish state. Pollution from oil shale developments in any form would undoubtedly contribute to increasing overall contamination. In addition, the bulk of the Negev desert is also a training ground and “free fire zone” for the air force and military—already a massive environmentally destructive force at play.

Israel's laws make it nearly impossible for non-Jewish citizens of Israel to exact equal rights in almost any field, even within Israel. Bedouins are seeing these problems deepen—primarily upon the orders of the JNF, and carried out by riot squads and the IDF—with JNF-led “making the desert bloom” projects, attacking and bulldozing entire villages (some over 25 times in the last year) to facilitate “forest planting”; and forced re-settlement into government planned townships.

Bedouin communities traditionally linked with the land who wish to stop the intrusion of oil shale and its toxic consequences will likely need to think beyond strategies that simply try to undo laws written by the Zionist state, and they aren't likely to find allies in the JNF.

And in yet another parallel to Canada, the vast offshore gas deposits claimed by Israel—mainly but not exclusively the Leviathan field—could serve the same vital role for energy input of oil shale developments that natural gas plays in the Athabasca tar sands. Israel already has a water crisis, but it looks like it might see fit to exacerbate that problem in the push for energy independence.

This article is the first in a four part series examining unconventional oil deposits in the Middle East and North Africa. The series was originally published at http://mediacoop.ca

Israel Jordan Shale Oil Map

Three Weeks in the West Bank

hillarybain — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:48:24 +0000

Resistance, destruction, life in Palestine

WEST BANK—In the wake of the Conservative government funding cuts to NGOs critical of Israel, independent journalist David Parker travelled to the West Bank in April to learn more about the reality of life in Palestine.

Israel maintains a three-year long siege on Gaza, and continues to actively colonize the West Bank, displacing Palestinians, stealing land, and enforcing a matrix of control.

David Parker is Spoken Word Coordinator at CKDU 88.1 in Halifax.

Bil'in

Hebron

Sheikh Jarrah

Beit Hanoun

Al-Walaje

South Hebron Hills

Gilo

Silwan

Khalas! The Fifth Bil'in International Conference on the Popular Struggle

david parker — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:50:04 +0000

Bil'inchildren.JPG

In the name of our prisoners: Non-Violence, Creativity, International Joint Struggle

April 21-23, 2010
Bil'in, West Bank

Closing Statement

During this fifth annual conference, we felt the absence of our friends who are prevented by the occupation's cells and bars from joining us, imprisoned for struggling non-violently for our freedom, activists and leaders of the popular committees Abdullah Abu Rahmah, Ibrahim A'amirah, Adeeb Abu Rahmah, Hassan Moussa, Zaydoun Surour, Ibrahim Burnat, Wael Faqi and all political prisoners.

The conference opened with a message from them written by the imprisoned coordinator of the popular committee of Bili'n, Abdullah Abu Rahme. The message spoke of the need to continue the popular nonviolent struggle and the need for international support.

We felt the absence our beloved Bassem Abu Rahmah, along with the martyrs of Ni'lin and those that have fallen to defend our land and human dignity. We heard from the family of the martyr Bassem Abu Rahma on behalf of the families of the martyrs who stated that the popular struggle must continue until freedom is achieved.

We felt the absence of our brothers and sisters from Gaza who can join us only via video conference due to the occupation's criminal siege of 1.5 million of our people.

All those that were not with us physically were with us every minute in spirit. It is your steadfastness and your sacrifice that fuel and inspire the struggle that will ultimately lead us to our freedom.

Funding Axe Sharpened by Foreign Policy

Moira Peters — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:49:54 +0000

Cuts to NGOs in line with Canada’s stance on Palestine

TORONTO—An internal struggle over funding human rights groups that are critical of Israel was waged behind closed doors at the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, commonly known as Rights and Democracy (R&D).

After a January 7 board meeting, that battle was thrust into the public eye.

A newly appointed member of the board, David Matas, who is also legal counsel for right-wing B'nai B'rith Canada, brought forward a motion to repudiate the funding to one Israeli and two Palestinian human rights groups.

“These organizations were all on the same side: critical of Israel,” he told The Dominion.

Remy Beauregard, President of R&D, had previously supported these grants, but at the meeting he switched his position and the vote passed unanimously, with one abstention.

That night Beauregard died of a heart attack. His widow would blame his death on stress and the “harassment” he suffered at the hands of the board. Four days after his death, nearly the entire staff of the organization wrote a letter demanding that three members of the board resign.

“Your complete misunderstanding of your role as directors of Rights and Democracy makes you unfit to remain on the board of directors," they said. The letter was addressed to the same members of the board who were pushing to have Beauregard removed as president of R&D, and who had written an unfavourable performance review of Beauregard in the Spring of 2009.

While R&D is often perceived as a non-governmental organization (NGO), the federal government funds the group and makes appointments to the Board of Directors. In November, the feds appointed Matas and Michael Van Pelt to the board. This shifted the composition of the board, weighting it in opposition of R&D’s funding to groups in Israel and Palestine.

Warren Allmand, a former president of R&D, believes the Conservatives were stacking the board.

“If you want to effect that kind of change at a place like Rights and Democracy, you look for people who have that point of view. You don't give them instructions; you know what they stand for already,” he said.

The January 7 board meeting was the first since the new government appointments. Different versions of what happened at the meeting emerged: Canadian Press called the meeting “vitriolic,” while Matas, who was at the meeting, called it “calm, polite [and] orderly,” noting the only thing that was “unusual was that two [board members] quit and walked out. ”

Matas said he believes when Beauregard voted in favour of repudiating the grants to the three human rights groups he had genuinely changed his mind.

“When Beauregard went to bed the night, he died with the realization that those three grants which he had spent so much time and effort defending...were wrongly made.” He also suggested a more cynical explanation might be that “Beauregard changed his views because of the shifting composition and majority in the board.”

R&D received over $11 million from the federal government in 2009, and spends millions of dollars on grants and overseas charitable programs. The three grants at the centre of the controversy were for $10,000 each to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group with programs in Occupied Palestinian Terriories, and to Palestinian human rights groups Al Haq, based in the West Bank, and Al Mezan, based in Gaza. These groups all write reports on human rights abuses in Israel and Palestine. B'Tselem recently won an award for its program to facilitate citizen journalism by providing video cameras for Palestinians to document rights abuses and post those videos on YouTube.

All three groups have been criticized by NGO Monitor, an organization whose purpose is to expose the “anti-Israel agendas” of other NGOs. It was originally a joint project of B’nai B'rith International and the Institute for Contemporary Affairs, but Monitor is now an independent NGO.

The repudiation of the three grants took place in the context of a series of events since the Gaza War, a conflict which began in December 2008 and lasted three weeks. During that time, over 1,000 rockets were fired into Israel and numerous airstrikes, missiles and ground troops attacked the Gaza Strip. All sides agree that 13 Israelis and over 1,000 Palestinians died.

After a ceasefire, many groups believed Gaza was suffering a humanitarian crisis. In February 2009, R&D approved the grants to B'Tselem, Al Haq, and Al Mezan. Allmand claims that before dispersing these funds the staff at R&D checked and found the groups “had also received money over the last few years from CIDA [the Canadian International Development Agency] and the Department of Foreign Affairs.”

The United Nations launched a fact-finding mission on the conflict in Gaza in April 2009, and in September it released the Goldstone Report. Human rights groups had contributed much testimony to the report, which accused Israel of war crimes.

NGO Monitor was one of many groups that criticized the report for relying on the testimony from NGOs they consider biased against Israel. Im Tirtzu, an Israeli ultra-nationalist group, recently placed a controversial ad in the Jerusalem Post which targeted the New Israel Fund (NIF), a group that fundraises in the West for human rights groups operating inside Israel, including B'Tselem.

The Israeli government is also cracking down on human rights groups. The Israeli newspaper Haartz reported in January that the Interior Ministry has stopped issuing work visas to foreign nationals who work in NGOs.

In an August 2009 story in US magazine Counterpunch, Jonathan Cook wrote, “Israel's foreign ministry...has issued instructions to all its embassies abroad to question their host governments about whether they fund such activities.”

The Israeli Embassy in Canada refused to comment on this statement.

Other shifts in the funding of Canadian NGOs have taken place. Alternatives—a left-leaning NGO based in Montreal—and KAIROS—a church-based NGO that promotes social justice—have not had their CIDA funding renewed. While Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda claimed the groups did not meet CIDA's new priorities, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney had a different explanation.

On a trip to Israel in December he explained how the Canadian government was combating anti-Semitism.

“We have defunded organizations, most recently KAIROS, who have been taking a leading role in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] Campaign.”

Mary Corkery, Executive Director of KAIROS, said KAIROS is not a leader of the BDS Campaign, and that the group's stance supports some ideas behind the campaign and not others.

“It needs to be taken back,” she said, referring to Kenney's remarks. “The real issue for us is that he said the way he is combating anti-Semitism is by cutting our funding.” KAIROS has asked Kenney for a retraction of his statements. So far none has been made.

“In conversations that we have had with other NGOs it has of course created a chill,” said Corkery. “There is fear of being in support of Palestinian people and groups, who essentially are struggling for land and livelihood.”

Asked which groups were feeling this pressure, she responded, “The chill is such that people don't want to be named.”

“The policy of the Canadian government in terms of Israel and Palestine has changed but there hasn't been a public discussion about that,” said Corkery, referring to the strong pro-Israel stances the Harper government has taken since being elected.

“That has definitely affected [R&D],” she said.

While the controversy at R&D swirls around funding to groups in the Middle East, it remains unclear if this signals an attempt by the Canadian government to align all international NGO funding with government policy.

“I think they are quite open about that; my understanding is that the government wants to align volunteer sector aid ... [with] defence and trade,” said Corkery.

Solidarity activists in Haiti have already seen R&D as advancing Canadian foreign policy agendas. R&D supported and legitimized the 2004 coup that overthrew Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. However, activists in solidarity with Colombia have noted R&D supports groups that denounce both President Uribe and the proposed Canada–Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Matas said he believes the dispute at R&D is specifically about the group's role in the Middle East. “Elsewhere in the world I can't see any change as a result of this controversy. ”

However, with respect to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon—which were led by foreign-funded NGOs—he acknowledged the political objectives of R&D.

“The notion that Canada might be seen to be independent of NGOs it finances through an arm's length organization has become illusory in light of the heightened suspicion of that sort of funding. The political objective of appearance of non-interference intended by the arm's length relationship is no longer attainable through a structure like Rights and Democracy,” he said.

Allmand sees the dispute at R&D as part of the Conservative Government's broader approach.

“Either by refusing or cutting funding, stacking boards, or refusing to cooperate, they’re cutting back on organizations that are supposed to be arm's length,” he said. “They're using these oganizations in partisan ways.”

Tim Groves is an investigative researcher and journalist based in Toronto.

Carmelle Wolfson provided files for this story. Wolfson is a Canadian journalist based in Israel/Palestine and an editor at The Daily Nuisance.

Funding Axe

Identifying Apartheid

Moira Peters — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:09:17 +0000

Canadian students respond to Israel's rights abuses

TORONTO—In the first week of March, Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) will take place in 13 cities across Canada and more than 40 cities internationally.

“When we first organized Israeli Apartheid Week in 2005, I don't think we comprehended this kind of growth,” says longtime Palestine solidarity activist Rafeef Ziadah.

IAW began as a project initiated by the Arab Students Collective at the University of Toronto in 2005. The IAW annual lecture series provides a space for discussion and education surrounding Israeli apartheid policies and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. In its sixth year, IAW has become an international movement, facing opposition as it gains momentum. Discussion themes this year include: BDS successes; “fighting racism, fighting apartheid;” the structural planning—environmental and architectureal—of apartheid; queer and feminist solidarity activism in the anti-apartheid movement; and national liberation movements, with particular focus on North America’s First Nations, Palestine and Venezuela.

In “Eroding Israel’s Legitimacy in the International Arena,” the Reut Institute describes the BDS campaign and IAW on campuses.

“The risk posed is that such campaigns will create an equivalency between Israel and Apartheid-era South Africa that penetrates the mainstream of public and political consciousness.” Apartheid Week organizers and BDS activists in Canada not only stress the similarities of these two systems, but also emphasize the importance of linking apartheid to other forms of systematic discrimination, such as the Canadian state's treatment of Indigenous communities.

Palestinian civil society issued a call for a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, endorsed by over 170 Palestinian parties, organizations and trade unions representing Palestinians in Israel, the Occupied Territories and the global diaspora. Through the application of economic, political and diplomatic pressure on Israel, the BDS movement seeks Israel's compliance with international law and its recognition of the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination, and demands an end to Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and the dismantling of the Wall, the recognition of the fundamental rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, and the protection and promotion of the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands.

Last year, Liberal party leader Michael Ignatieff delivered a statement accusing Israeli Apartheid Week of going “beyond reasonable criticism into demonization.” The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) has also gone as far as accusing IAW of anti-Semitism. However, in his statement at the coalition’s fourth hearing, Assistant Vice President of Strategic Communications at the University of Toronto Robert Steiner asserted that “there is no evidence of generalized anti-Semitism on our U of T campuses, there is no evidence of Jewish students being systemically harassed and intimidated on our campuses.”

The opposition faced by the BDS movement, whether in the form of verbal harassment at events or bureaucratic hold-ups, is considered a byproduct of the growing international success of the campaign. In 2006, delegates at the CUPE Ontario convention voted almost unanimously on a resolution to support the international campaign against Israel until the right to Palestinian self-determination is recognized.

This support was further solidified in 2009 as the university sector of CUPE passed a motion in support of academic boycott. Over 80 professors and employees at colleges and universities in Quebec have signed a petition calling for a comprehensive campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, including a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Most recently, Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) launched a divestment campaign at Carleton University following the lead of students at Hampshire College in the US, whose work led to the Board of Trustees divesting from six Israeli companies directly involved in human rights violations on February 7, 2009. SAIA's report exposes Carleton University's Pension Fund investments in five companies linked to Israeli's military. Inspired by this example, SAIA groups on Toronto campuses have initiated research with the aim of formulating a divestment plan for York University and the University of Toronto.

IAW organizers say it’s no surprise the movement started in Canada, pointing to Ottawa's blatant support for Israel's apartheid system. On January 12, 2009, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Canada was the sole nation to vote against demanding “urgent international action” to halt Israel's “massive violations” of human rights in Gaza. A recent report by Ottawa's Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) exposes Canadian complicity in equipping American warplanes and attack helicopters used by Israel.

Beyond its allegations of demonization and hatred, the Reut Institute document presented at the 10th Herzliya Conference also admits the growing success of the BDS movement. “Given Israel's dependence on vigorous trade, as well as scientific, academic, and technological engagement with other countries, this movement towards isolating the country may pose a strategic threat.”

Organizers hope this threat will pressure Israel into ending its apartheid policies and practices, as it did in South Africa 16 years ago.

A complete schedule of Israeli Apartheid Week with speaker biographies is available on the website.

Lama Shoufani is an undergraduate student in the Anthropology and Life Sciences departments at the University of Toronto. She is also a volunteer with the Ontario Public Interest Research Group.

Rafah Wall

Prisoners

Jewish Canadians Concerned About Suppression of Criticism of Israel

dawn — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:20:18 +0000

This statement was rejected by both the Toronto Star and the Globe and
Mail (as an op-ed). It is reprinted here in full.

Statement: Jewish Canadians Concerned about Suppression of Criticism of
Israel

We are Jewish Canadians concerned about all expressions of racism,
anti-Semitism, and social injustice. We believe that the Holocaust legacy
"Never again" means never again for all peoples. It is a tragic turn of
history that the State of Israel, with its ideals of democracy and its
dream of being a safe haven for Jewish people, causes immeasurable
suffering and injustice to the Palestinian people.

We are appalled by recent attempts of prominent Jewish organizations and
leading Canadian politicians to silence protest against the State of
Israel. We are alarmed by the escalation of fear tactics. Charges that
those organizing Israel Apartheid Week or supporting an academic boycott
of Israel are anti-Semites promoting hatred bring the anti-Communist
terror of the 1950s vividly to mind. We believe this serves to deflect
attention from Israel's flagrant violations of international humanitarian
law.

Life under Occupation in Ni'lin, Palestine

dawn — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:00:01 +0000

Peaceful actions against the Apartheid Wall* result in Israeli repression

NI'LIN, PALESTINE–The residents of the small Palestinian village of Ni'lin have committed to fighting Israel's Apartheid Wall through regular, non-violent demonstrations. Protests began in the summer of 2008, when Israeli bulldozers began to clear the land in the village's olive groves in preparation for the continued construction of the West Bank barrier,* which runs through their land.

The Israeli army continues to retaliate against peaceful protesters with violence: rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas grenades, sound bombs and, on occasion, live ammunition.

With a population of just 4,700, the shootings of two youth last summer have made the people of Ni'lin more determined than ever to continue to resist the occupation of their land.

The following photographs were taken on July 31, 2008, in Ni'lin, with the exception of one photo, taken in the Ramallah hospital.

*The construction of the West Bank barrier, otherwise known as the Israeli Security Fence, is a "central component in Israel's response to the horrific wave of terrorism emanating from the West Bank," according to the Israeli Ministry of Security. Those who liken the State of Israel's treatment of Palestinians to South Africa's treatment of non-whites during the apartheid era refer to the barrier as the Apartheid Wall, declaring that it restricts the movements of people based on race, and that its construction violates international law. If the barrier is constructed in Ni'lin, it will annex about 618 acres of agricultural land.

Rana Hamadeh is a Palestinian-Canadian student living in Ottawa; she has thrice visited occupied Palestine.

Palestine 01

Palestine 02

Palestine 03

Palestine 05

Palestine 06

Palestine 07

Palestine 10

Palestine 09

Palestine 08

The Globe's War of Words

Stuart Neatby — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:06:04 +0000

I don't normally post letters to the editor, even those with little chance of being published, but I feel that the more that editorials like this are met with flack, the harder it will eventually become to continue reporting the middle east with the same "Paletinians attack, Israel just tries to protect itself" garbage.

Here's hoping you try it out yourself in '09.

To: letters@globeandmail.com

Israeli politicians kill, editorialists provide apologetics. Although your editorial on December 30th ("Responding to Provocation," Dec 30, 2008) may have seemed to your staff to appear "dovish" in its call for pressure from the US, the EU, and the Arab League (although not Canada) for a ceasefire, it is nonetheless a justification of Israel's assault on civilian infrastructure in Gaza. Once again, the assumption has been made that only Israel has the "right" to "make its point" by denying humanitarian aid, turning Gaza into an open-air prison, and then killing 350 people while Hamas, elected by the Palestinian people, has no right to anything other than that of a conquered existence.

In the middle east war, the war of words matters far more than the military battles. Israel is allowed to kill hundreds and injure thousands only because this is considered something that's kind of okay by editorialists around the world. If your editorial staff truly cared about contributing to a peace in the middle east, they would stop providing incomprehensible defenses for Israel's "right to make a point" and start questioning its choice to commit collective punishment, a crime under international law.

Forgotten at the Gaza-Egypt Border

hillarybain — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:53:17 +0000

"His father died this morning," a hotel guest explained, gesturing to Raed, slumped and silent in his chair, face long.

It was Wednesday, August 20 in Sinai's al-Arish, a town about 50 kilometers west of the Gaza-Egypt border. Two days earlier, the approximately 450 Palestinians who had been waiting to enter Gaza were finally supposed to be permitted entry. Days before, the announcement had been made that the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza would open to allow passage into and out of Gaza. Many of the Palestinians at al-Arish had been waiting since the beginning of June for the border to open. Others had been exiled for over a year, outside of Gaza when Egypt sealed the border shut following Hamas' taking control of Gaza in June 2007.

Silenced and out of the international spotlight, the Palestinians waiting in al-Arish said that their plight at the closed crossing is either ignored or politicized. Many were running out of money, while others had completely run out, having waited for the opening of Rafah for weeks without earning an income. Approximately 200 of the Palestinians who waited to re-enter Gaza were in dire financial circumstances, many borrowing money, others begging, some sleeping in the streets.

Many came from countries where they hold work permits, taking vacation time to visit family not seen in years. "We risk losing our jobs and our residency permits," explained Mahmoud, a 28-year-old truck driver now living in Sweden. "Otherwise, we must leave Egypt without having seen our families in Gaza," he said. "We are now merely running on hope and faith that the border will open one day," added 22-year-old Sameh (not his real name), from Gaza's northern Jabaliya refugee camp and formerly a student at one of Cairo's universities.

There appears to be little support from the Palestinian Authority and its diplomats in Cairo. Many Palestinians who arrive to al-Arish have no idea how they can enter Gaza, asking others in the same situation or even foreign journalists for advice and help. The lucky are directed to the PA representative in al-Arish, who adds their name and passport information to the long list of those waiting. Some, however, feel it makes little difference if their name is on the list.

Waiting

"I've been waiting for two months now," said Sameh, the university student who hoped to continue his studies in Gaza. "I put my name on the list right away, but it didn't achieve anything. We've been told repeatedly that the border will open soon, but weeks have passed and here we are still here, wasting our money. No one is looking out for us, not our own representatives, not the Egyptian authorities," he added.

"I've been here since July 23," explained Muhammad, who left Gaza in 1996 to continue his university studies abroad. Recently his mother in Gaza became very ill but doctors were unable to diagnose her ailments. Worse, due to the deteriorated conditions in hospitals and clinics, the lack of medicines and equipment and sufficient staff, she is not a priority case. There are too many more critical patients, including those injured during Israel's frequent pre-truce military operations in Gaza.

Stuck waiting in al-Arish, Muhammad feared his mother would die before he could see her and was frustrated at the game being played with their lives. "My family is the sacrifice of a political problem. We aren't Fatah, Hamas, or any faction. My mother needs help for her condition, but can't get it, and I need to be with her, but can't get in," he said.

Muhammad explained the process of trying to leave Egypt to Gaza: "I went to the Rafah crossing and was told by Egyptian authorities to go back, that the crossing was closed. I returned to al-Arish and gave a copy of my passport to the representative from the Palestinian embassy and was told I must wait. But I have no idea how long they will make me wait, nor how long I can wait. I have a wife and my studies back in Europe."

Jaber was accepted to the Cairo University faculty of medicine in 2005. Since then, he has spent the last three summer vacations trying, and failing, to enter Gaza to see his family. He was not convinced he would succeed before the school year resumed. "I don't think the border will open," he said. "I think I'll spend another year here without seeing my family. It's very difficult staying here, waiting, hoping to see your family but realizing that you can't." He added that he is not alone in his separation from Gaza: "This isn't just my story. I have maybe five other friends also studying at the faculty of medicine who want to go back to Gaza."

When the rumors spread that the border would open, waiting Palestinians packed their bags and headed to the crossing. Most did so in vain, hoping they would be able to show their ID and cross into their homeland. However, the stranded inevitably ended up back at their al-Arish accommodations, waiting for the next rumor.

A handful of medical patients did pass through into Egypt, seeking treatment and then returning home. They held the coveted yellow cards, Egypt's recognition of the ill or injured, the key to the closed border gates. Seven crossed back into Gaza one day, 15 another day, five the last time. But they were a scant fraction of those who needed to return home.

Raed, a 34-year-old Ukraine-trained doctor, and his Ukrainian wife considered trying to return to Gaza in January with their daughter and young baby when the Rafah border wall was torn down by Hamas in a temporary break of the siege. "I need to be near my family, my birthplace. My children need to see their grandparents," Raed explained. He had unsuccessfully tried to enter Gaza a year before and ultimately returned to Ukraine to work. But in January, his newborn baby was too young, he felt, to travel and live in Gaza. He'd wait six months before trying to re-enter.

Entering Gaza became all the more urgent after Raed's father was placed in an intensive care unit due to acute respiratory problems. The family joined the hundreds of others waiting in al-Arish hoping to bid loved ones in Gaza a last goodbye. Raed lost this chance Wednesday, when he learned of his father's passing.

Policy of separation

"Fifty days. I've been waiting here for 50 days now," explains Mahmoud, the truck driver living in Sweden. "I was due to start work two weeks ago, and I keep telling myself I'll leave Egypt tomorrow. But then I hear that maybe the border will open. I can't give up this option. I can't give up my hope."

Meanwhile, Sameh, the university student, spoke of separation, not only between Palestinians in and outside of Gaza, but of Gaza from the West Bank. Referring to the 19 June ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian armed resistance in Gaza, Sameh said: "By enforcing the truce only in Gaza, Israel is trying to enforce the idea of separating Gaza from the West Bank, as two separate states. But West Bank Palestinians are just like us, and we can't ignore the oppression they in the West Bank face under occupation."

On August 30, just before Ramadan began, Egypt finally opened the Rafah crossing for two days, allowing in most of the Palestinians waiting in al-Arish at the time and letting hundreds of Palestinians and Egyptians inside Gaza exit to Egypt. However, this was a one-time measure and not a change in policy. With the Rafah crossing tightly re-sealed, the siege is still firmly in place. The thousands of patients still needing medical care outside of Gaza, the hundreds of students still cut off from their schools abroad, and the countless separated families continue to call for the border to open, and to remain open.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing.

This article was originally published on The Electronic Intifada.

Forgotten at the Gaza-Egypt border

A Long "Hot Winter" and Painful Spring

hillarybain — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:49:46 +0000

Putting a name to Gaza's injured

CAIRO, EGYPT -- Bedridden yet painfully conscious, nearly paralyzed with no feeling from the waist down, 16-year-old Abdul Rahman (nicknamed Abed) is one of the hundreds injured by intense Israeli shelling and firing on Gaza between February 27 and March 3, 2008, during an operation dubbed "Hot Winter" by Israel. According to a World Health Organization report, during this period the Israeli army killed at least 116 Palestinians--nearly half of them civilians and more than a quarter children, including a six-month-old infant and a 20-day-old baby--and injured 350. Later counts tallyed the number killed as over 150, with more than 55 killed in one day alone. Over half the week's fatalities and injuries occurred in and around Jabaliya, the refugee camp where Abed was born and has called home all his life.

At 11 a.m. on March 2, Abed stood on the roof of his family's home, observing as Israeli tanks overran the camp. No curfew had been announced and he was unaware of the presence of soldiers on a neighbouring rooftop. The youth was struck from behind by an Israeli sniper bullet that dug into his spine, destroying three of his vertebrae and leaving him paralyzed and bleeding on the roof, where he lay for 15 minutes before his younger brother found him. The 13-year-old dragged Abed to the stairs and down into the family's home, dodging further sniper fire as he went. The invasion outside continued, preventing ambulances from reaching Abed. Three hours after his injury, the teen was finally taken to a hospital in Gaza City, where doctors, after seeing his injury, were surprised to see the boy was still alive. Unable to provide adequate emergency care in Gaza, they immediately loaded him into an emergency transfer ambulance bound for the Rafah border crossing to Egypt.

With the high number of serious injuries, Rafah crossing--closed virtually continuously since June 2007, when Israel imposed complete closure on Gaza--was opened temporarily to allow some of the wounded passage for treatment in Egyptian hospitals. Due to the siege and its detrimental impact on the availability of essential medicines and functioning equipment, Gaza's own hospitals are not able to meet patients' needs. As one of the more critically injured, Abed was transported to a hospital in al-Arish, roughly 50 kilometres from the Rafah border, and eventually to Cairo's Nasser Hospital, where he arrived 15.5 hours after being shot.

Over four months later, Abed lies gaunt and sickly pale, wondering how this happened to him and waiting for a series of operations that may help him recover. The operations to strengthen the broken vertebrae and plug the bullet wound in Abed's spinal cord have only a minimal probability of success and ‘success’ would still mean being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Dr. Saleh Abu Sobheh, a surgeon who treated Abed in Cairo's Palestine Hospital for a period, is more grimly pragmatic: "Spinal surgery is a highly risky procedure. Abed will be paralyzed for life and will be lucky if he does not suffer brain damage from the operation."

On seeing him in the hospital, one might imagine he had always been a slight, sickly boy, not a youth who used to enjoy football and who lifted weights every day. Activity and sport were some of the things he didn't allow Israel to deny him under the siege. Now he can barely lift a bottle of water.

Samir (who prefers to be known by his first name), an Egyptian accountant and humanitarian, volunteers by helping Palestinian patients from Gaza in Cairo, visiting different hospitals to see that patients are receiving adequate treatment and are able to pay for their care. Samir, who has monitored Abed's case since Abed arrived in Cairo and has consulted with his doctors, explains, "The first operation will be to strengthen his vertebrae with a sort of metal splint." Without reinforcing his vertebrae, even the negligible weight of his now-emaciated mass would put immense pressure on the remaining vertebrae, causing further damage. Samir adds, "The two operations will take place during one week. Samples which two months ago were taken from Abed's spinal cord will be re-injected into the hole left by the bullet." Like Dr. Sobheh, Samir is also worried and he cautions that, "This is highly experimental surgery."

Abed's options are few: to remain bedridden for life or to risk brain damage to try to regain some feeling from his waist down and be able to sit upright. Either way, according to Dr. Sobheh, "People who suffer spinal injuries usually develop respiratory disease." Altogether, there is little hope to coax him through his long days of waiting. He is one of many injured from Gaza who have become numbers that disappear into statistics.

His current caretaker is "Uncle" Rahme, an unrelated Palestinian in Cairo who travelled from Jerusalem to oversee the medical treatment of his two nieces. Although they'd never met, Uncle Rahme took pity on Abed's isolation and dependency. "Of course I am helping Abed. His father isn't allowed to leave Gaza and he has no family here. I'm here, so I do what I can for him. But he's very unhappy to be away from his family--he's not used to that." Since arriving in Cairo, Abed has been transferred to five different hospitals due to considerations in specialized treatment and cost. Uncle Rahme followed Abed from Cairo's Palestine Hospital to al-Farook Hospital in Cairo's Maadi suburb. But in a few weeks, when Uncle Rahme returns to Jerusalem, Abed will be left alone to deal with his injuries and paralysis; Abed's father's attempts at obtaining an exit permit to leave Gaza to be at the boy's side have thus far been denied.

Down the hall from Abed's room at the Palestine Hospital, 34-year-old Ziyad Hashan lies waiting for his intestinal tract to heal enough for a colostomy, a procedure needed as a result of his intestinal injury. His pelvis has begun the slow road to recovery, time being the only medicine. His urethral and bladder injuries were treated surgically in Gaza. He must wait another three months before doctors can perform the colostomy.

Hashan's complicated injuries are the result of an Israeli attack on Khan Yunis in late March. Shortly before 4 a.m. on March 28, Hashan was en route to his parents' house next door to pick up his father for morning prayers. Four shots rang out, one of which hit him in the pelvis from behind. He never made it to the mosque, where his father was already waiting.

The Israeli army maintains, in statements to Hashan's Gaza-based lawyer, that Hashan was caught in a conflict between the army and Palestinian fighters in Gaza. His father, who was permitted to accompany Hashan from Gaza to Cairo for treatment, countered: "There was no shooting. I had left five minutes before Hashan was shot. I heard nothing. He wouldn't have left the house if there was shooting." Instead, he says, Israeli undercover soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes, posing as Palestinians. Hashan noticed nothing unusual.

After Hashan was shot, his father recounted that he and another son had carried Hashan for half a kilometre; ambulances were unable to get nearer as an Israeli fighter plane flew overhead. "Ziyad lost so much blood he nearly died." And yet, Hashan counts himself "lucky" that someone was around to carry him to safety. In the same incident, one neighbour was killed by the shooting and another wounded in the forearm.

Hashan previously worked in ground operations at Gaza's airport until it was shut down by Israel. Since then, he has had trouble putting enough food on the table for his three young children. This will become even more of a concern with his medical expenses, which, once he leaves hospital, will be his burden to bear. Even after surgery, he will need continual check-ups to monitor his situation and healing.

The family's lawyer has contacted an Israeli lawyer who plans to file a complaint against the Israeli army for having shot an unarmed civilian. Hashan, perhaps subdued by his injuries and depression, is less vocal than his father, who illuminates the injustice: "He is just a normal citizen who was going to knock on the door of his parents' house, on his way to pray."

Israel's siege, backed by the US and EU, has more than crippled Gaza and has meant that injured Palestinians like Hashan and Abed, as well as hundreds suffering from cancer and chronic kidney, liver and heart disease, cannot be treated within the confines of Gaza. The Gaza-based Popular Committee Against the Siege lists over 180 Gaza patients who have died over the past year due to unattainable surgery or lack of medicine because of Israeli-imposed closures. Dr. Sobheh points out that, given the circumstances, "the quality of emergency care in Gaza's hospitals is phenomenal." However, he adds, serious surgery and treatment is out of the question. According to Dr. Sobheh, "What we really need to focus on is getting foreign doctors into Gaza. Before the siege, specialists used to visit Gaza's hospitals to share knowledge and techniques with Gaza-based doctors." Since the siege, this has become impossible.

Back in their respective Cairo hospital beds awaiting surgery, Abed and Hashan are just two of the "faceless victims," testimony to the agony of Palestinians in Gaza confronting continued military attacks and a cruel siege that has largely been ignored and minimized by the international community. Abed hopes one day to sit in a wheelchair with his father by his side, and like Hashan, wants to see an end to Israel's siege and the attacks that brought them here.

This article was originally published on The Electronic Intifada

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities.

Abdul Rahman

See No Evil

hillarybain — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 09:37:15 +0000

Canada removes Israel from list of countries suspected of using torture

“The Israelis tied my hands, blindfolded and then beat me all the way to the interrogation center. I was then cuffed to a chair for four days where interrogators prevented me from sleeping. I was tied in painful stress positions, and on one occasion the agents grabbed me while I was cuffed to the chair and shook me severely, I passed out when they started shaking me by the head,” said “Samer” a former student union activist at Birzeit University who was arrested in 2006.

This isn’t torture, according to Foreign Affairs Canada and the Harper government. The Canadian government used to list Israel and the United States as countries suspected of using torture in its diplomatic manual Torture Awareness Workshop Reference Materials. On January 19, 2008, though, shortly after this became public, the two countries were dropped from the list with an expression of regret and embarrassment from then-foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier.

For tortured Palestinians, and Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, however, Bernier’s expression of regret and embarrassment should instead be directed at the federal government's weak stance on Israeli torture. Sarit Michaeli, a spokesperson for the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, believes the international community has an obligation to act against torture. “We are very concerned about the Canadian government removing Israel from this list,” she said.

On January 21, B'Tselem sent a message to Bernier protesting Israel's removal from the list of countries suspected of torture. According to Foreign Affairs spokesperson Rodney Moore, the government has no record of receiving B'tselem's letter.

"The minister made it clear that this was not a position of government policy," stated Moore in referrence to Israel being listed in the manual. "The minister said in his statement that this was an embarrassment," he added, refusing to elaborate on why Israel was originally in the manual or the reasons for the country’s removal from it.

B’tselem’s comments were echoed by Amnesty International Canada (AIC), the human rights organization that obtained the diplomatic manual on torture before releasing it to the press. “We are disappointed that Canada would take countries off the list for diplomatic reasons,” said Paul Champ, AIC’s attorney who obtained the document. “Torture is a very serious issue and if there’s evidence, the Canadian government needs to deal with it.” Champ explained the manual was for training consul officers and, in the case of Israel, to bring claims of torture to their attention.

Last year, B’tselem, along with the Israeli individual liberties group HaMoked, released a report which documented the pervasiveness of Israeli torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees. The document reported that two-thirds of interview subjects said they’d experienced beatings, painful binding, humiliation and denial of basic needs at the hands of security forces personnel.

According to Gadi Zohar, the former chief of Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank and former head of the Israeli Army Intelligence’s Terror Research Department, Israelis “have to fight for our lives, not for anybody’s reports.” Zohar contends that Israel shouldn’t be called a state that tortures because of its “special situation in fighting terrorism. When you have to make decisions about saving lives and someone suffering, then one should suffer,” he argued.

In the office of the Israeli prime minister, spokesperson Mark Regev is terse and clear. "Torture is illegal in Israel," said Regev, referring to Israel's 1999 Supreme Court decision. "Nobody, not the Prime Minister's office, the Defense Establishment, nobody is above the law."

Despite Israel’s claim not to torture, the story of violent and tormenting ill-treatment by Israeli officials during detention is common in the Occupied Territories. According to Mahmud Sehwail, the general director of the Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for victims of Torture in Ramallah, there was little change after the 1999 Israeli High Court ruling that partly barred torture. Sehwail said that 90 per cent of Palestinian detainees have been tortured or ill-treated. The main switch after 1999, he explained, was from more physical to more psychological forms of torture. Sechwail also noted the ruling’s torture loophole, allowing for “physical pressure” to be applied in “ticking time bomb” cases.

Samer, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his privacy, also relayed experiences of psychological torture, discussing how Israeli Security Agents (ISA) claimed to have arrested his mother and sister, threatening to rape them if he didn’t confess. Samer said he has suffered from back pain and diminished eyesight as well as psychological trauma since his detention. While his experiences are more severe than most detainees, they are not uncommon.

Hammad Selaman described the Israeli army coming to his door at two in the morning to arrest him when he was 17. Freed as part of Israel’s token release of 429 prisoners in November 2007, he says he was charged with being a member of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas’ political movement considered an illegal organization by Israel. Describing being blindfolded and put on the floor of an army jeep, he said the soldiers kicked and beat him all the way to the detention centre. Selaman highlighted that the soldiers unleashed dogs on him in the jeep.

After arriving at the centre where he said he was held for a month, he described being taken to a small room where soldiers beat him again. “I was then taken to a bigger room where I was blindfolded and cuffed to a chair for 10 hours waiting for interrogation. I could hear other prisoners screaming from the torture.”

While the Harper government is evasive and the Liberals refused an interview, the New Democratic Party’s Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar is cautious in his response, primarily targeting the government for not acting on their information.

“The government has to stop shutting up its bureaucrats when they come out with important information,” he said, highlighting that both Canada and Israel haven’t signed the UN convention against torture. Shying away from condemning the Israeli government, Dewar said that Samer and Selaman’s experiences sounded like torture, but he hasn’t seen B’tselem’s report and doesn’t know if Israel’s actions would meet the criteria to be listed as a state that tortures.

While Canadian politicians distance themselves from publicly confronting Israel over its detention policies, many Palestinians who've passed through Israeli custody say that torture doesn't end in the interrogation room but continues in prison after sentencing.

Jihad Maher Shalapi was 16 when he says he was arrested at Nablus' Huwwara checkpoint. He was beaten all the way to interrogation and then severely beaten after refusing to sign a confession in Hebrew which he didn't understand. "The interrogator started screaming at me, beating me and kicking my head against the door. I was forced to stand on my tiptoes squatting in a stress position for half an hour at a time."

A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine at the time of arrest, he said he was caught with two homemade explosives intended for a retaliation attack after the Israeli military carried out the extrajudicial assassination of his uncle. He was sentenced to a year in prison by an Israeli military court where he says extreme mistreatment continued. Released in October 2007, he described the regular use of tear gas by guards in the prison yard which would blow into the cells. He also highlighted cell block raids where the army would discharge tear gas into cells, then rushing in to beat prisoners with batons. Similar stories of prison were also relayed by Samer and Selaman.

With a Canadian election on the horizon, the NDP has said the issue of torture will be part of the party’s human rights platform. However, Dewar was vague as to how the issue will be addressed. Regardless of the muted response in Canada to the descriptions of Israeli torture, Shalapi, Selaman and Samer have called on the Canadian government to place Israel back in the manual and take concrete diplomatic action to end Israeli torture.

Jesse Rosenfeld is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah. To learn more, check out his blog.

A version of this story was originally published in NOW Magazine.

Protester in Palestine

Grass stains on Canada’s hands

hillarybain — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:28:58 +0000

Why are Canadians subsidizing a park built on razed Palestinian towns?

Walking through the peace and tranquility of ‘Canada Park’ with Israeli families picnicking around you, it’s nearly impossible to tell that you’re in the occupied West Bank, treading on the site of two destroyed and evicted villages from the 1967 war.

Established in 1973 through donations fundraised by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in Canada, Ayalon/Canada Park sits on top of the Palestinian villages of Imwas and Yalo, just off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway. Nearby, the Jewish settlement of Modi’in sits on top of the Palestinian village of Beit Nouba, also demolished in 1967. In Canada, the JNF, which enjoys charitable status, is fundraising for "renewal and development" of the park.

Ahmad Abu Gaush is an Imwas refugee and current head of the Imwas association, which demands the right to return for the displaced villagers. In a Ramallah coffee shop, he describes the terror and confusion of the early hours of June 5, 1967.

"My family left an hour before the soldiers reached us... We walked through the mountains for 32 kilometres with no food or water until we reached Ramallah," he says, adding that when the soldiers arrived they ordered everyone to leave the village, firing their weapons in the air.

Now 54, Abu Gaush was 14 when he was forced to flee his home. As we look at photos of Imwas before it was destroyed, he reminisces about the calm beauty of his village and how he feels Israel stole his childhood. He says that when his older brother tried to return with several hundred villagers a week after the war, they were stopped before they got to Beit Nouba and ordered back, after which he maintains the army destroyed what remained of the villages.

Growing up in Ramallah, Gaush says that West Bank Palestinians were able to visit the village until 1991. After the First Gulf War, however, the Israeli military erected a checkpoint, barring displaced villagers from visiting their land.

“When returning to the park, I had mixed feelings. It’s very hard, standing on the ruins of where you used to live while seeing people laughing, eating and enjoying themselves,” he says. Israel’s wall now encompasses the park and it has become virtually cut off to West Bank Palestinian access.

John Reynolds, a legal researcher with the independent Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, argues that displacement and destruction of the three villages located in the Latroun Valley constitutes a war crime. “The forcible transfer of people from their villages and the destruction of those villages are defined as a grave breach of the Geneva Convention, which is in the category of the most heinous war crimes,” he says.

While the maps of pre- and post-1967 Israel indicate otherwise, the JNF has argued that the park was within the borders of Israel in 1948, and donors are not informed of the political controversy surrounding the park. Al-Haq’s claim “is ludicrous and has no foundational basis in law,” Executive Director Joe Rabinovitch says, rejecting the statements and sworn affidavits of displaced villagers. Questioning the need for the park to acknowledge the existence of the villages, he maintains they were destroyed for security reasons. “There were Palestinians lobbing shells onto the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway,” he argues, though asked if this occurred in the 1948 or 1967 wars he answers, “I don’t know.”

Al-Haq has officially released a report about the Latroun Valley and Canada Park, contending that the Israeli government, JNF Canada and the Canadian government bear responsibility in violating international law and human rights. The report, which was shown to villagers on December 3, combines their affidavits, recorded testimony of soldiers serving during the displacement, maps, photos and legal analysis.

“The state of Israel bears the primary responsibility for the human rights violation. The JNF also has legal responsibilities as a charitable organization and NGO, not only to Canadian charitable laws but also international law,” Reynolds argues. He adds that the Canadian government also holds some responsibility because the money to build Canada Park came through government-subsidized tax exemptions.

Looking around the park, the only visible signs of previous inhabitants is a crumbling cemetery with Arabic engraved on the stones and a series of old stone village walls. On some of the walls at the entrance to the park are rows of plaques commemorating Canadian donors such as the City of Ottawa, the Metropolitan Toronto Police Department, former Ontario-premier Bill Davis, and Toronto city councillor Joe Pantalone, who helped make the park possible.

There is no visible sign postage about the villages that pre-date Canada Park or their inhabitants. Eitan Bronstein, however, is not surprised. Bronstein works with Zochrot, a mainly Jewish Israeli organization that educates the Israeli public on the creation of Palestinian Refugees in 1948 and 1967.

“For Israel, it’s better not to show the history because if you know the history, you have to take responsibility. It’s easier for Israel and the JNF to keep the myth about blooming the desert,” says Bronstein. Often, he adds, people get angry when confronted with this history.

Wandering Canada Park, many people I speak with have no idea that villages had ever existed or that the park is officially in the West Bank. Only one person from a nearby kibbutz knew the park's history, acknowledging many of the kibbutz residents boycotted the park because of the evictions, before returning to her picnic.

Jesse Rosenfeld is a freelance journalist based in Ramallah. He writes for NOW Magazine and the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

A version of this article was originally published in the December 20, 2007 issue of Now Magazine

Canada Park 1

Canada Park 2

Open letter to the Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québecois

Stefan Christoff — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:20:29 +0000

308438968_173c08b5a1 copy.jpg

With this letter I would like to officially withdraw as a member of the jury for the 2008 Prize of the Alex and Ruth Dworkin Foundation for the Promotion of Tolerance through Cinema (2008 Prix annuel de la Fondation Alex et Ruth Dworkin pour la promotion de la tolérance à travers le cinéma) at the Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québecois.

For those who may not be aware, this prize, which includes a grant of $5000, “goes to a producer representing the production team which has best demonstrated, in the winning work, a message of comprehension and tolerance”.

I accepted the invitation from the Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québecois to join this year’s jury in good faith. But after examining in more detail the political and financial basis of the prize I must refuse to have my name associated with it. Behind this noble sounding “award for tolerance” hides a story of intolerance, division and discrimination.

Firstly, I quit the jury because the Prix annuel de la Fondation Alex and Ruth Dworkin is an initiative of the Congrès juif canadien, Région du Québec, an organization which I consider to be a vehicle for the Israeli propaganda machine and fundamentally intolerant of dissent and difference, particularly when it comes to Israeli government policies.

One case in point is the refusal of the national leadership of the Congrès juif canadian (CJC) to accept a recent membership application from the Alliance of Concerned Jewish Canadians (ACJC).

ACJC members “joined together to create a cross-Canada alliance of Jewish anti-occupation forces… whose views are not represented by the government of Israel or by the uncritical positions taken by the leadership of the major Jewish organizations in Canada.”

People Power in Gaza

dru — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:21:36 +0000

Palestinians descend on border, break Israeli blockade

Prior to the US invasion of Iraq, interviewer David Barsamian asked Noam Chomsky what ordinary Americans could do to stop the war. Chomsky answered, "In some parts of the world people never ask, 'what can we do?' They simply do it."

For someone who was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, Chomsky's seemingly oblique response required no further elucidation.

When Gazans recently stormed the strip's sealed border with Egypt, Chomsky's comment returned to mind, along with memories of the still relevant--and haunting--past.

In 1989, the Bureej refugee camp was experiencing a strict military curfew, as punishment for the killing of one Israeli soldier. The soldier's car had broken down in front of the camp while he was on his way home to a Jewish settlement. Bureej had previously lost hundreds of its people to the Israeli army and killing the soldier was an unsurprising act of retaliation.

In the weeks that followed, scores of Palestinians in Bureej were murdered and hundreds of homes were demolished. The killing spree generated little media coverage in Israel.

I lived with my family in an adjacent refugee camp, Nuseirat, at the time. Characterised by extreme poverty, it was a natural home for much of the Palestinian resistance movement. Our house was located a few feet away from what was known as the 'Graveyard of the Martyrs'. It was an area of high elevation that the local children often used to watch the movement of Israeli tanks as they began their daily incursion into the camp. We whistled or yelled every time we spotted the soldiers, and used sign language to communicate as we hid behind the simple graves.

Although watching, yelling and whistling were the only means of response at our disposal, they were far from safe. My friends Ala, Raed, Wael and others were all killed in these daily encounters

During Bureej's most lethal curfew, the sound of explosions coming from the doomed camp reached us at Nuseirat. The people of my camp became engulfed in endless discussions which were neither factional nor theoretical. People were being brutally murdered, injured or impoverished, while the Red Cross was blocked from accessing the camp. Something had to be done.

And all of a sudden it was. Not as a result of any polemic endorsed by intellectuals or "action calls" initiated at conferences, but as an unstructured, spur-of-the-moment act undertaken by a few women in my refugee camp. They simply started a march into Bureej, and were soon joined by other women, children and men. Within an hour, thousands of refugees made their way into the besieged neighbouring camp. "What's the worst they could do?" a neighbour asked, trying to collect his courage before joining the march. "The soldiers will not be able to kill more than a hundred before we overpower them."

Israeli soldiers stood dumbfounded before the chanting multitudes. While many marchers were wounded only one was killed. The soldiers eventually retreated to their barricades. UN vehicles and Red Cross ambulances sheltered themselves amidst the crowd and together they broke the siege.

I still remember the scene of Bureej residents first opening the shutters of their windows, then carefully cracking their doors, stepping out of their homes in a state of disbelief breaking into joy. My memory--of the chants, the tears, the dead being rushed to be buried, the wounded hauled on the many hands that came to the rescue, the strangers sharing food and good wishes--reaffirms the event as one of the greatest acts of human solidarity I have witnessed.

The scene was to be repeated time and again, during the first and Second Palestinian Uprising: ordinary people carrying out what seemed like an ordinary act in response to extraordinary injustice.

The father who lost his son to free Bureej told the crowd: "I am happy that my son died so that many more could live."

Later than day, our refugee camp fell under a most strict military curfew, to relive Bureej's recent nightmare. We were neither surprised nor regretful. We had known the right thing to do and "we simply did it."

Now Palestinian women, once more, have led Palestinian civil society in a most meaningful and rewarding way. Just when Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak was being congratulated for successfully starving Palestinians in Gaza to submission, ordinary women led a march to break the tight siege imposed on Gaza.

On Tuesday, January 22, they descended on the Gaza-Egypt border and what followed was a moment of pride and shame: pride for those ever-dignified people refusing to surrender, and shame that the so-called international community allowed the humiliation of an entire people to the extent that forced hungry mothers to brave batons, tear gas and military police in order to perform such basic acts as buying food, medicine and milk.

The next day, the courage of these women inspired the same audacity that the original batch of women in my refugee camp inspired nearly twenty years ago. Nearly half of the Gaza Strip population crossed the border in a collective push for mere survival. And when people march in unison, there is no worldly force, however deadly, that can block their way.

This "largest jailbreak in history", as one commentator described it, will be carved in Palestinian and world memory for years to come. In some circles it will be endlessly analysed, but for Palestinians in Gaza, it is beyond rationalization: it simply had to be done.

Armies can be defeated but human spirit cannot be subdued. Gaza's act of collective courage is one of the greatest acts of civil disobedience of our time, akin to civil rights marches in America during the 1960's, South Africa's anti-Apartheid struggle, and more recently the protests in Burma.

Palestinian people have succeeded where politics and thousands of international appeals have failed. They took matters into their own hands and they prevailed. While this is hardly the end of Gaza's suffering, it is a reminder that people's power to act is just too significant to be overlooked.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).

Gazans cross into Egypt to buy supplies

Israeli Patrol in Gaza