Israeli Apartheid Week 2011

Tanya Reinhart - Israeli Apartheid is Much Worse (and vid)

http://southafrica-for-dummies.com/jewish-journalist-tanya-reinhart-israeli-apartheid-is-much-worse-than-south-african-apartheid'

Comparing Israeli Oppression With South African Apartheid  - an Expert Report by Anthony Loewstedt

http://www.palestinereport.ps/article.php?article=839

Far worse than 'apartheid' - ethnic cleansing and genocide

Israel's Apartheid

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2010/03/08/MurrayDobbinIsrael/

Personally, I was under the impression that MARL was supposed to be supportive of the rights and liberties of Manitobans.  You know, like the rights and liberties of student activists in the Palestinian solidarity movement.

I suggest you move it back to Canadian Politics. The OP is about the suppression of free speech, academic freedom, and anti-Israeli-regime activism in Canada.

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The following is from a blog I wrote entitled Canada's 37% Prime Minister which demonstrates how this prime minister has totally reversed my country's longstanding policy with respect to the Palestinian -Israeli conflict and how this was done without any public or parliamentary debate on the issue. Despite this Harper has the audacity to label all of us Canadians who support an "honest broker" policy for Canada in the Middle East as anti Semites. I suppose our Prime Minister has unilaterally decided that all his fellow citizens who do not share his opinion on this issue are not only wrong but evil as well. My response to that kind of intimidation is to suggest to him that a majority of Canadians have long supported a policy of a fair and equitable solution to this conflict that respects both peoples involved. I believe the majority of Canadians still believe this and if as he and the members of party who want to call us anti Semitic for holding such an opinion then they should stop hiding behind their veiled innuendo and say it openly. I am sure that I and a majority of my fellow citizens would be happy to engage you in a debate over your accusations but of course your contempt for reasoned debate or democracy is well know and that is unlikely to happen.

CANADA'S 37% PRIME MINISTER

If one were to identify Stephen Harper's greatest failure as Prime Minister, it would be his inability to act or even to pretend to act as if he were the Prime Minister of all Canadians. It seems Harper cannot bring himself to admit, no matter what, that the issue is that the majority of the electorate might not support the position of his government.

A recent good example of this might be the case of the census where it was clear that the majority consensus of opinion in Canada was that, the legislation of his government notwithstanding, the census should be retained. This national consensus did nothing to deter Harper who simply proceeded on course as if satisfying a few ideological "core" supporters was more important than bending to the wishes of the vast majority of Canadians.

The anti-long gun registration provides another good example of the unwillingness and ungraciousness of Harper to acknowledge that, even when a Parliamentary majority voted to refuse to sanction the dismantling of the long gun registry by the Harper government, it might be acting in accordance with the wishes of the majority of Canadians. Harper's predictable and surly response was to dismiss the parliamentary vote as somehow illegitimate and to proclaim that he would never give up until the long gun registry was destroyed.

Perhaps the most egregious example of all was his recent attempt to infer, in a recent speech to an anti-Semitism conference in Ottawa, that those Canadians who supported the traditional Canadian honest broker policy with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were in essence proponents of or dupes of anti-Semitic forces.

To quote Harper ". . .I know, by the way, because I have the bruises to show for it, that whether it is at the United Nations, or any other international forum, the easy thing to do is simply to just get along and go along with this anti-Israeli rhetoric, to pretend it is just being even-handed, and to excuse oneself with the label of 'honest broker.' There are, after all, a lot more votes, a lot more, in being anti-Israeli than in taking a stand."

What Harper did in this instance, in a effort to try to pretend that Canada's failure to secure a seat at the UN, was due to anti-Semitism and to imply that any Canadian who supported a honest broker role for Canada was either aiding and abetting anti-Semitism or was in fact anti-Semitic themselves.

Many Canadians, perhaps a majority of them including this one, have always supported the longstanding Canadian policy of honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to hear their Prime Minister infer that, in so doing, we were engaging in anti-Semitism was almost beyond the pale. It was especially duplicitous on the part of a Prime Minister who, without any debate of any kind inside or outside of Parliament, has changed our traditional honest broker policy on the Israeli-Palestinian question to one of unequivocal and unilateral support for Israeli. Furthermore, as Thomas Walkom, The Toronto Star columnist, has noted, the Prime Minister did this for no other reason than to gain votes from among the pro-Israel Jewish supporters in Canada.

The notion that the Prime Minister of this country can suggest or slyly imply that those of us Canadians who favour an honest broker role for Canada in the Middle East or even those of us who might even suggest that the state of Israel is the major obstacle to a just two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict , are anti-Semitic is almost too much to take from this unprincipled man

My response to this kind of threat from Mr. Harper is to challenge him to stop hiding behind the veiled rhetoric and dare to call me anti-Semitic for my belief in fair and honest settlement that is long overdue for the Palestinian people. Remember, Mr. Harper, you did not receive anywhere near a majority of votes from the Canadian electorate and some of us have a strong enough belief in the fairness of our fellow Canadian citizens that we will not cease to speak out despite veiled self-serving accusations of anti-Semitism from you notwithstanding. In any case, you are not the kind of Prime Minister who has a great deal of credibility when it comes to respecting or heeding the opinions or rights of anyone other than yourself.

http://gmcsheffrey.blogspot.com/

Is Israel an Apartheid State? South African Study Says Yes

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2011/1/21/937891/-Is-Israel-an-Aparthe...

"International law defines the aim of apartheid as acts against humanity - 'committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.'

The Executive Summary of the report says that the 3 pillars of apartheid in South Africa are all practiced by Israel in the OPT.."

Iran objects to the logo for the 2012 London Olympics, contending it is racist because it resembles the word "Zion" and warning of a possible boycott of the games.

The secretary general of Iran's National Olympic Committee said Iran sent a letter to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge.

The letter claims the 2012 logo spells out "Zion," a biblical term widely recognized to refer to the city of Jerusalem.

In comments carried by the official IRNA news agency Monday, secretary general Bahram Afsharzadeh said the letter urges other Muslim states to oppose the "racist logo."

Here's a new video; shot Monday evening at the Israeli Apartheid 101 workshop at the University of Winnipeg. Howard Davidson presented. Excellent stuff!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4uIfFge64Y

I received the following through another network.  If anyone has a few moments to write a letter in support of Queen's rector Nick Day, they are asked to do so quickly. I include the letter I sent at the bottom - nothing fabulous, but feel free to cut and paste.

Dear Principal Woolf, Queen's Board of Trustees, University Senate, and University Council,

I write a short note in support of Nick Day and academic freedom. Open debate and discussion of the crisis in Israel/Palestine is essential. The Canadian student activists who bring this issue to the national stage should be applauded for their courage.

I have attended Israeli Apartheid Week events in Vancouver over the past few years. I have heard excellent presenters speak movingly about their life experiences; I have heard solid analysis that identifies the system governing relations between Israelis and Palestinians as a form of Apartheid; I have not heard anti-semitism. I wonder: what IAW events has Michael Ignatieff attended?

Nick Day should not be impeached. He publicly addressed the protection of Israeli Apartheid Week as a matter of academic freedom and freedom of expression. As I understand it, this is in accordance with the duties and responsibilities of the Rector's office. To suggest that the Rector must obtain a mandate from the Queen's student body to defend such a basic principle would render the position of Rector meaningless.

Sincerely,

Ripple
Vancouver, BC