Palestine: Where is the parliamentary left?

Why would provincial premiers involve themselves in an international matter? Why doesnt Gary Doer just renogiate NAFTA while he's at it?

I think the reason you're not reading or hearing much on Gaza from Canada's political parties is because federal Parliament was shutdown over a month ago. Steve Harper wasnt quite ready to actually show up for work this soon just weeks after spending $300 million taxpayer dollars on an election. 

I am also pissed at this. A statment that is neutral is the best this country can come up with, disgusting. Sven Robinson did some very good as an MP for Palestinians but he was blasted in the media for it. That might be the reason our present MPs have lost all calcium in their spine.

Write to the NDP. Demand that they do better.

"Layton, Jack - M.P." <[email protected]>
"Paul Dewar - M.P." <[email protected]> (Foreign Affairs Critic)
"Thomas Mulclair - M.P." <[email protected]> (Deputy Leader)

D V wrote:

I think I grasp the roots of leftist antipathy to what must once have been a socialist darling for many of them. I think it appalling and counterproductive that Israel has accepted too close an embrace of its supposed main international benefactor. But I from afar keep from expressing too loudly. And even with your overarching babblestance adhesion, you should be circumspect about your condemnations. It will be hard for me to recover the taste for consulting babble and contributing here.

I think it would be really wonderful if Israel decided to distance itself from the agenda of its primary benefactor, the USA, by refusing US aid. Self-sanctions would be great. Better yet, they could just stop murdering people in Gaza. Had they stuck to the latter policy, most people would never have noticed the little fly speck called Gaza.

As my Serbian workmate says, if we were doing this, they would call it genocide... and oh yeah, he think Israel is doing the right thing. He is mostly just impressed with the hypocrisy.

martin dufresne wrote:

And yet the notion of the diaspora's accountability for its institutions' general support for Israel government's politic was haughtily rejected even here, with the distinction between Jews and Israel forcefully restated. A double standard - where accountability can only be discussed when it makes Jews look good?

Israel and its backers say, "Israel represents the Jewish people."

Jews stand up and say, "No it doesn't!"

Where did you see a double standard, exactly?

If you don't think anti-Israel Jews need to be given an [b][i]inordinate[/i][/b] amount of space in Canada, today, right now, then I think only B'nai B'rith will be happy.

This isn't a double standard. It's an irony of life. No, the Jewish people [b][i]cannot[/i][/b] be blamed for Israel's crimes. And yes, the Jews who vocally condemn Israel [b][i]do[/i][/b] play a vital role in combatting imperialist and Zionist propaganda.

I didn't see any politicians at the rally in Toronto, unless you count Sid Ryan.

As for Jews speaking out against Israeli policies, the sit-in by eight Jewish women was very effective, I think.  

PAJU (Palestinians and Jews United) certainly doesn't set out to silence Palestinian or other Arab voices. I agree that Palestinians, and other people such as Lebanese who have been subjected to Israeli violence of late, should certainly have far more airtime. But it is also important to hear from Jews opposed to the Gaza offensive/warcrime, and in many cases to Zionism itself, so as to break the Zionist's pretention of speaking for the "Jewish community" as a whole and draping their murders and spoliation in the cloak of the dead of the Shoah.

By the way, the head of the Québec-Israel committe, Luciano del Negro, just happens to be the husband of Liberal MP Marlene Jennings... Just saying...

He said we (the coalition for Palestine, including the major trade unions and social movements here) were "morally bankrupt". In a younger day, Del Negro was a leftist, belonged to an immigrant workers' association and worked with the CSN on promoting the organisation of immigrant workers and more staff of immigrant origins within the labour movement itself.

Quoting article in Le Devoir, 10 janvier 2009:

"Le Comité Québec-Israël n’a pas tardé à réagir, dénonçant « la faillite morale » de la coalition formée par des syndicats, des ONG et Québec solidaire « avec des éléments des Frères musulmans dont est issu le Hamas ». Par voie de communiqué, le groupe a soutenu que « la coalition se garde bien de manifester la moindre empathie pour les hommes, les femmes et les enfants israéliens contraints de se terrer plusieurs fois par jour depuis des années dans des abris antibombes ».

« Par leur mutisme sur les crimes de guerre du Hamas, tant à l’endroit des Israéliens que des Palestiniens, a ajouté le directeur général du Comité Québec-Israël, Luciano G. Del Negro, ces syndicats et Québec solidaire trahissent la tradition humaniste du mouvement syndical et de la gauche démocratique et se font, une fois de plus, comme avec le Hezbollah en 2006, les alliés objectifs d’une organisation djihadiste qui cible délibérément les civils israéliens et réduit cyniquement la population palestinienne à des boucliers humains. »

Del Negro is, of course, the real traitor here. Not the only one, alas.

"M. Dufresne's implication that the prominent position of Jewish activists reflects the Zionist control of the media..."

I am not sure what Hoodeet means by "Jewish activists". Those critical of Israel's politic?Or those supportive of it? Or all. At any rate, there was no such implication in my post.

I am thinking analogically about this issue of "inordinate" representation of "moral icons" from oppressor groups in activist events. The same problem occurs with profeminist men given the red treatment carpet in order to try and break through the dominant antifeminist discourse.When that occurs and I am given a tribune, I try to offset that by acknowledging our collective responsibility for the worst goings-on and progressives' impotence, not denying it with "not I" or parcellary good news or marginal good words. It seems to me that Helen Deutsch's open letter, posted this morning in another thread, addresses this.

The ethical issue seems to turn on taking or not responsibility for what is indeed done in our interest "as men" or, in this case, "as Jews". Speaking up and confronting our respective establishments is acting responsibly, but insisting on the us/them distinction when crirticism finally comes to bear on a collective behaviour (Israel poliricians are overwhelmingly elected by Israel Jews and financed/vindicated by diasporic Jews, are they not?) - and letting liberals use us to displace the voices of the oppressed - is problematic in my view.

Yes, absolutely. We need Jews speaking out against this, and being encouraged to do so - some of the people I know (or knew, sadly Lilan Robinson has died) in PAJU and what is now Independent Jewish Voices/Voix juives indépendantes received death threats and messages of extreme vulgarity for their stance.

We also need more access to media for people of Palestinian and other Arab/Middle Eastern origins.

And basically, everyone we can get who takes the time and has the courage to get involved.

Cripes, was it ever cold yesterday...

If you're an MP and you don't have to touch the issue, there's little to be gained by doing so since whatever you say, you'll be pissing someone off.

True, Doug. But then there are political leaders and would-be political leaders. And what lesson should we take from their silence or weak statements? Or, in otherwords, if they are unwilling to stand up to criticism today, for doing and/or saying the right thing, why should anyone believe they would be prepared to take such a stand tomorrow when they have political power and it really matters?

Quote:

Canada's nominal left-wing party, the New Democratic Party or NDP, has remained all but silent on the Israeli blitzkrieg in Gaza. On Dec. 29 it issued a brief statement, which made a pro forma appeal for an end to all hostilities and failed to condemn the Israeli attack on Gaza. The NDP, it should be recalled, recently repudiated its demand for the immediate withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan in the hopes of forming a coalition government with the big business Liberals.

[url=http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/cana-j10.shtml][color=mediumbl...

I have always believed that the U.S. was militarily defeated by the Vietnamese people in the 60s-70s. But the U.S. voices against aggression were heard far more loudly, and powerfully, all across the world than those of any Vietnamese activists. Did that harm the anti-U.S. effort? Quite the opposite.

[url=http://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2009/01/pilger-israel-gaza-pales... silence of the Western intellectuals[/u][/color][/url]

Quote:

"When the truth is replaced by silence," the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, "the silence is a lie." It may appear that the silence on Gaza is broken. The small cocoons of murdered children, wrapped in green, together with boxes containing their dismembered parents, and the cries of grief and rage of everyone in that death camp by the sea can be witnessed on al-Jazeera and YouTube, even glimpsed on the BBC. But Russia's incorrigible poet was not referring to the ephemera we call news; he was asking why those who knew the why never spoke it, and so denied it. Among the Anglo-American intelligentsia, this is especially striking. It is they who hold the keys to the great storehouses of knowledge: the historiographies and archives that lead us to the why.

They know that the horror now raining on Gaza has little to do with Hamas or, absurdly, "Israel's right to exist". They know the opposite to be true: that Palestine's right to exist was cancelled 61 years ago and that the expulsion and, if necessary, extinction of the indigenous people was planned and executed by the founders of Israel.

- John Pilger 

Funny, I don't recall the babblers who criticize the government of Zimbabwe tying themselves into knots to avoid being accused of anti-black racism.

Nor do I recall the soul-searching over racial bigotry when it came time to criticize China over Tibet.

And babblers who denounce the government of Sudan don't have to endure lectures about how their criticisms might be mistaken for "islamophobia". 

Yet somehow when it comes to the crimes of Israel we have to make sure our criticisms are "carefully framed" so as to avoid an appearance of anti-semitism. Israel, above all other nations, is supposed to get the kid gloves treatment. 

The difference, of course, is that there is no political and media establishment quick to label any criticism of Zimbabwean policy as anti-black racism.  Neither is there a political and media establishment quick to label any criticism of Chinese policy as racial bigotry.  Nor any political and media establishment quick to label any criticism of Sudanese policy as Islamophobia.

There is a significan political and media establishment quick to label any criticism of Israeli policy - no matter how mild, no matter how nuanced - as anti-Semitism.

I fail to see how it helps to ignore that.  It certainly doesn't help to play into their hands.

So you are perpetuating the lies.

Unionist wrote:

It would not explain their virtually complete silence.  So, something else is going on here, and I think it's exactly the same interests that underly support for, or waffling about, the Afghan "mission", even when most Canadians want out. It's a matter of imperial interest and in part subordination to U.S. policy, for self-serving aims. Those interests explain a lot of seemingly disparate and paradoxical policies.

As I understood it, from listening to presentations on strategic planning for the five, ten and twenty year horizons, the efforts of the Canadian Military in recent years towards "transformation" into more mobile, more lethal, and globally transportable niche capabilities, which were intended to augment American military hegemony, was given the highest priority. New technologies would be explored to take full advantage of networking all aspects of the battle space so that we could play our part in the netcentric warfare that was seen as necessary when conducting full spectrum operations as envisioned in the three block war concept. The blatantly stated purpose of the entire effort, apart from modernization and a desire to fully integrate and participate in areas of common interest with technologically advanced allies, was to provide credibility to our senior brass and politicians around international tables, and more specifically, tables to the south.  But then perhaps it isn't soley about impressing American powerbrokers as much as it is our own masculine desire to identify with the forces of 'good,' as Michael Nenonen outlines in his article below.  In the context of Gaza, even the simple act of voicing the slightest meaningful concern regarding the slaughter of innocent civilians might be considered as contradicting those forces.  If it starts there, where does it end.

Canada’s Mythological Mission in Afghanistan

"The more I listen to Canadian government’s rationales for continuing the combat mission, the more I wonder if they even care whether or not the mission succeeds. While they give some lip service to the supposedly good work that Canadian forces are doing to rebuild Afghanistan..........this rationale seems to matter less than a dogged determination to demonstrate that Canada’s military is tough enough to see the occupation through to the end, regardless of whether that end is bitter or sweet. If so, then this mission isn’t really about Afghanistan at all, nor, perhaps, is it primarily about currying favour with the American government."

That's interesting about Libby Davies. My bet is that Bill Siksay feels much the same. He is the only MP from the NDP who tried to apologize for their party's support in boycotting the next round of UN anti-racism discussions (dubbed Durban II by the right wing).

I went to see what the BQ had to say. Their statement is in French, but it sounds far more hard hitting that what I heard from the Paul Dewar or Bob Rae:

Quote:

Gaza : Harper doit faire sienne la résolution de l’ONU et adopter une approche plus équilibrée

Ottawa,
vendredi 9 janvier 2009 – Le porte-parole du Bloc Québécois en matière
d’Affaires étrangères et député de
Montmagny—L’Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, Paul Crête,
demande au premier ministre du Canada, Stephen Harper, d’adopter une
approche plus équilibrée en rapport au conflit dans la bande de Gaza,
approche qui respecte toutes les dispositions de la résolution adoptée
par le Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies.

« Le décret d’un cessez-le-feu est urgent pour mettre fin aux
souffrances des populations civiles et il doit constituer une priorité
absolue. Le conflit a déjà fait plus de 750 morts et 3000 blessés et le
bilan s’alourdit d’heure en heure. C’est un drame épouvantable. Le
gouvernement canadien doit absolument se joindre aux pays qui
travaillent afin d’identifier les conditions permettant un
cessez-le-feu immédiat et durable menant au retrait complet des troupes
israéliennes de la bande de Gaza », a lancé Paul Crête.

« Stephen Harper doit prendre position afin que cessent toutes les
violences à l’endroit des populations civiles. Il est clair que les
tirs de roquettes sur le territoire israélien doivent cesser, mais il
faut dénoncer du même souffle la réplique de l’armée israélienne, qui
est disproportionnée et inacceptable. Le gouvernement canadien doit
également travailler pour faire en sorte que l’aide humanitaire soit
dispensée sur l’ensemble du territoire de la bande de Gaza, et ce, sans
restriction », a poursuivi le député de
Montmagny—L’Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.

Le porte-parole du Bloc Québécois a enfin rappelé que le Bloc
Québécois milite depuis longtemps pour favoriser la mise en place des
conditions qui permettront une paix durable entre les peuples
palestinien et israélien. « Dans l’immédiat, il est nécessaire
d’envoyer au plus tôt une force d’interposition qui veillera à la
protection des populations civiles et à l’acheminement de l’aide
humanitaire. Le Canada doit incidemment apporter une contribution
supplémentaire en termes d’aide humanitaire afin de pallier l’ampleur
de la situation. À plus long terme, un règlement pacifique passe
toutefois par la fin de l’occupation militaire et la fin des colonies
en territoire occupé, un règlement satisfaisant pour toutes les parties
concernant autant l’annexion de Jérusalem-Est que la question des
réfugiés, ainsi qu’un règlement global qui reconnaît à Israël le droit
d’exister à l’intérieur de frontières sûres et reconnues tout en
assurant la création d’un État palestinien indépendant et viable », a
conclu Paul Crête.

http://www.blocquebecois.org/fr/manchette_detail.asp?ID=9926287

I'm wandering if the IDF has a magic cut-off number for casualties. News reports tonight suggested that their assault in Gaza is almost complete. Are they trying to ensure that the death count doesn't reach 1,000? Is there some concept of too much blood on their hands or do they recognize that more than ever, people around the globe are reacting to their aggression with the same anger and dismay they displayed for the US and their invasion of Iraq.

It's garbage.

Perhaps you missed the part where Layton said:

"The CONTINUING AIRSTRIKES by Israel on civilians in the Gaza strip .... are serving to compound the existing civilian disaster and further HARM chances for a negotiated PEACE."

And,

"We call on the Government of Canada to immediately call for an END to the AERIAL BOMBING OF GAZA, the BLOCKADE of aid to civilians and the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel."

And,

"The Government of Canada should also work to ensure that MEDICAL AND FOOD AID is provided to the civilians of GAZA through U.N. agencies. . ."

So I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Exactly what do you think the Canadian government can do regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

The answer is not one damn thing, whether it is left or right. 

The rocket attacks will continue.

The IDF will attack any facility or unarmed peacemaker if it believes it is for the security of Israel.

There is only one country which can have an influence on Israeli actions, and I don't expect there to be a significant change, that alters the Israeli actions. Nor is there anything the US could do to stop the rocket attacks.

I have heard that these rockets are a cry for help....

But no help will be coming, and even a United Canadian position will not change this fact.

Let alone that Canada has no enforcement capability nor any credibility with Israel.

We could start by following the lead of Venezuela and expelling the Israeli ambassador.