January protests against Israeli assault on Gaza

Upcoming protest in Surrey, B.C.

Quote:

SURREY RALLY TO END THE SIEGE ON GAZA & PROTEST ISRAELI WAR CRIMES !

----------------------------
Saturday, January 17, 2009
1:30pm - 4:00pm
Holland Park, 13428 Old Yale Rd, Surrey
Right Across King George Sky Train Station
On facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=69572879128
----------------------------

Please come out this Saturday January 17th to join with the diverse
communities in Surrey who are organizing a rally in solidarity with our
sisters and brothers in Gaza. With the ground invasion starting this week
and a growing number of fatalities, our ongoing support for the people of
Palestine - along with millions of other people of conscience worldwide -
is critical.

This rally is being organized by a network of organizations based in
Surrey including Pakistani Canadian Cultural Association, Pakistan Canada
Association, Gateway Islamic Centre, Fijiyan Community Centre, and BC
Muslims Association, with the support of the network of Vancouver-based
Palestine solidarity groups that have organized the past three rallies.

Let us strengthen our resistance from Vancouver to Surrey and demonstrate
our outrage and collective humanity in response to the latest massacre of
Palestinians.

Contact: Tarik Kyani (PCCA) at [email protected]

p.s. to blake: I hope you don't mind, but I edited the title so we can include current and ongoing protests. 

Cueball, all religions treat women like crap.  You should know this.

That is perjorative generalized crap. Unless you have something specific to rely on that suggests that Hamas is more sexist than any number of political institutions, then I say you are engaging in plain anti-muslim bigotry.

Where are you facts, as opposed to just generalized assertion about religion? 

If Germany were invaded, and Christian Democrats stood against the invasion and occupation, would you be condemning the "violence on both sides"?

Why not condemn the Israeli's on this score, since they elect less women to office per total seat count than the Palestinians do, if that is any measure of attitudes.

Yes, Ghislaine, we all know that you wish there was a protest that would denounce Hamas violence AND Israeli violence.  You've told us this, many, many times.  So don't go if you don't want to go, that's fine with everyone.  Or, start your own protest.  That's generally how it's done.

Michelle wrote:

Yes, Ghislaine, we all know that you wish there was a protest that would denounce Hamas violence AND Israeli violence.  You've told us this, many, many times.  So don't go if you don't want to go, that's fine with everyone.  Or, start your own protest.  That's generally how it's done.

 Yes I have stated this before and I won't again. What I was commenting on this time was my shock that martin would explicitly support violence by Hamas and that no one even was alarmed by this. I don't think I have ever seen this here before. 

War makes uncomfortable bed fellow Ghislaine. And here Hamas is definitely in the right, against the Israeli wrong. It is that simple.

Cueball wrote:

War makes uncomfortable bed fellow Ghislaine. And here Hamas is definitely in the right, against the Israeli wrong. It is that simple.

 Hamas is not in the right. They target civilians. Yes their weapons are way more rudimentary and less precise, but if they could change that they would.

 Can they both not be in the wrong? Palestinian civilians who wish to live in peace deserve better. From my understand and reading, Hamas was elected primarily due to corruption in Fatah. There were no other choices.

I refuse to believe in the anti-Muslim bigotry from counter-protestors at these events that the indiscriminate violence advocated and practiced by Hamas is representative of regular oppressed Palestinian citizens. 

Two wrongs most certainly do not make a right, nor does an eye for an eye or an endless cycle of violence.

Ghislaine wrote:

Cueball wrote:

War makes uncomfortable bed fellow Ghislaine. And here Hamas is definitely in the right, against the Israeli wrong. It is that simple.

 Hamas is not in the right. They target civilians. Yes their weapons are way more rudimentary and less precise, but if they could change that they would.

 Can they both not be in the wrong? Palestinian civilians who wish to live in peace deserve better. From my understand and reading, Hamas was elected primarily due to corruption in Fatah. There were no other choices.

I refuse to believe in the anti-Muslim bigotry from counter-protestors at these events that the indiscriminate violence advocated and practiced by Hamas is representative of regular oppressed Palestinian citizens. 

Two wrongs most certainly do not make a right, nor does an eye for an eye or an endless cycle of violence.

All of that is irrelevant. Numerous national liberation movements have targetted civilians, There is nothing unusual about that. We have targetted civilians for ages. We obliterated Dresden in a single night. Israel does so as a matter of policy.

The French resistance to the German occupation assassinated French prostitutes who worked with German soldiers. Does this violence against women, mean that the French resistance should not have been supported against the German occupation? 

Where the two sides differ is that one is defensive, and the other offensive. Palestinians have lived under occupation and military law for more that 40 years. They are fighting the occupier. Thier relative war crimes does not change this fact. This is a null equation, except for the scale of the violence perpetrated by the occupier, something that is always available to the occupier over the occupied. 

Ability, is in fact the thing that defines the relationship between the occupied and the occupier. It is not just the thought that counts, sorry.

What is left over after the null equation of mutual violence, and mutual war crimes, is the occupation. And in this regard the two position are not at all equitable. Israel persists in continuing the essential crime, which generates all the crime that follows, by imposing martial law and occupation.

This is exacibated by shere scale and ruthlessness of the execution, far beyond the means of the occupied to resist.

Cueball, just one point. Many have pointed out in other threads (and factually so) that Hamas is not completely organic, but has been funded and encouraged by Israel. 

I don't think that Hamas is ideologically "Islamic Fundamentalist" in the manner which it is often understood. I think this is a surface reading of the situation, and one which has been consciously promoted by the western interests to which they are opposed. Hamas comes into existance first and foremost as an aspect of the Palestinian resistance to occupation, unlike say, Osama bin Laden's outfit, which has an entirely different social relationship to Afghanistan, than Hamas does to the Palestinian people.

In this it is organic, whereas OBL's group is imposed (actually by the CIA) so it does not have a real relationship to the people, whom it proposes to represent. Therefore, Hamas, is not merely an expression of ideology, but also a real movement, which represents its constituency directly, and is comprised of that constituency, and therefore influenced by that constituency.

One might look at the Taliban, in a similar light, but when one does so, one sees that the culural framework, and tradition that informed the Taliban is based in PashtunWali, and this is completely different that the more cosmopolitan and educated culture of the Arabs of Palestine. Both movements express their specific root cultural traditions, and these are substantially different.

There is another thing to: Reminding ourselves that Hamas is an organic reaction to the Israeli occupation, one notes that the resistance to the occupation is informed with a long history of left wing ideas, "pan-Arabism" and so forth, and these view are deeply ingrained in the resistance, and not so easily removed from the "revolutionary culture". Left-secularism, is in fact a set of ideas that informs the culture of Hamas directly because it is an outcropping of the same revolutionary movement, unlike the Taliban which was a direct reaction to foreign occupation by "the left", and a rejection of those ideas.

So for instance, when one of the Hamas MP's (a woman) made a call for Hijab to be worn, she was almost immediatly made to qualify the statement by saying that such a call was not meant to be an "injunction," but encouragement. The very presence of women in the organization, and running as MP's, not to mention the over effort to win women to the organization as participants and voters directly contradicts the norm of the general consensus of what Islamic fundamentalism is, especially in relationship to women.

And cueball, I definitely agree with you about the differences between Hamas (and Hezbollah!, perhaps even more so) and Al Qaida or even the Taliban (though I think the latter is a clumsy reference to many indigenous groups opposing imperialism).

Quote:

Canada must stand for human rights, and not defend war crimes.

Somehow me think that these people are not against palestinian monsters war crimes of sending rockets into babies beds in Israel. They probably think that is ok because they are anti jewish, like most people on the left nowadays. People at babble are all anti-jewish for supporting this. Shame!

[img]http://www.americaspartyrental.com/store/sc_images/products/332_image.jp... [IMG]http://i33.tinypic.com/8yxpig.jpg[/IMG]

Quote:

* Demonstration: End Israeli Apartheid! End the siege on Gaza!

--------------------
SUNDAY JANUARY 25th
13h00 carré Cabot
corner St. Catherine | Atwater
(metro Atwater)
Montreal, Quebec
--------------------

http://www.tadamon.ca/post/2638

Around the world, major demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine are taking place, from Europe, to the Middle East, to Latin America. In response to the Israeli military invasion into the Gaza Strip, the grassroots movement in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for
liberation has been reignited.

Since December 27th, over 800 Palestinians have been killed and approximately 4000 injured, the majority civilians, sparking international outrage against Israel. Israeli military actions have consistently targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure throughout Gaza, a war crime under international law; from U.N. schools, to apartment buildings, nowhere in Gaza is now safe from Israeli military aggression.

Join us for a major demonstration building on previous protests which have united tens of thousands in Montreal in solidarity with Palestine and against Israeli apartheid. Join us to denounce the ongoing Israeli
occupation in Palestine and to continue to build the solidarity movement with Palestine.

On the streets in Montreal we will call for an immediate end to the ongoing assault on Gaza, and to the direct complicity of the US and Canadian governments with the Israeli war crimes currently taking place.

The complicity of the Canadian government has been extremely clear, outlined in statements from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon, who have consistently defended Israel's war
crimes, whether against civilians in Lebanon in 2006 or in Palestine in 2008.

Both the governments of Quebec and Canada stand in direct complicity with the Israeli apartheid system, which systematically discriminates against the indigenous Palestinian population. The Quebecois and Canadian
governments have recently heightened bilateral relations with Israel, increasing bilateral economic, military and political links. This fall, Jean Charest's Liberal government inked a bilateral trade deal with Israel, an action which stands in stark contrast to the growing
international calls for an economic boycott of the Israeli government in light of ongoing Israeli war crimes and systematic discrimination in Palestine.

At this moment, we must instead reaffirm our commitment to continue mobilizing friends and allies in progressive social movements to respond to the call by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations for a comprehensive international campaign of boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS).

Join us on the streets in Montreal in solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza and to call for an end to Israeli apartheid!

Initiated by
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) and Tadamon! Montreal

---

Tadamon! Montreal
tel: 514 664 1036
email: info[at]tadamon.ca

Tadamon! [« Solidarité! » en arabe], est un collectif d'activistes montréalais, solidaire des luttes pour l'autodétermination, l'égalité et la justice au Moyen-Orient et dans les communautés de la diaspora à
Montréal et ailleurs. Tadamon! participe activement à plusieurs campagnes politiques au Canada, dont la campagne de Boycott, sanctions et désinvestissement (BDS) contre l'État d'apartheid israélien. Tadamon! est un groupe de travail du GRIPQ-Concordia et du GRIPQ-McGill.
http://www.tadamon.ca/

Tadamon! (Arabic for "solidarity"), is a Montreal-based collective which works in solidarity with struggles for self-determination, equality and justice in the ‘Middle East' and in diaspora communities in Montreal and
beyond. Tadamon! ongoing political campaigns operating in Canada, including the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israeli apartheid state. Tadamon! is a working group of QPIRG-Concordia and QPIRG-McGill. http://www.tadamon.ca/[/quote]

 

just to collate in this thread, copied from elsewhere;

____________________

http://www.peacealliancewinnipeg.ca/2009/01/protests-against-the-israeli-attacks-on-gaza-to-continue/ 

Peace Alliance Winnipeg, the Canada Palestine Support Network (Winnipeg Chapter) and Canadian Muslims for Palestine will hold a rally at the corner of Water Avenue and Main Street (in front of the Canadian Grain Commission Building) on Saturday, at 2:00 p.m., to call on the Federal Government to work actively for a ceasefire and for peace in the Middle East. Rallies will be held at there every Saturday at 2:00 p.m. until further notice.

Where: Canadian Grain Commission Building (Water Ave. and Main St.)

When: Saturday, Jan. 17 and each successive Saturday until further notice

Time: 2:00 p.m.

_____________________

from Before the Mast's post

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/activism/edmonton-rally-gaza

Rally for Gaza
Saturday, January 17, 2009
1:00 p.m., Churchill Square

Protest against injustice! Bring signs, banners, flags, and your
voice! Organized by ECAWAR in conjunction with the Canada Palestine
Cultural Association.

http://www.ecawar.org 

bump

Left Turn wrote:

Coverage would have been better if they showed a clip of Gabor Mate's insightful analysis, but the mainstream media is not about to give voice to speakers who debunk the dominant pro-Israeli narrative of the msm.

Fortunately, this 2002 op-ed piece by Dr. Gabor Maté is still available on the G&M website:

[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20021212... doesn't define Jews - it divides us[/color][/url]

Quote:

The Palestinians continue to be disenfranchised, dispossessed and humiliated. Mr. Rose, Dr. Berger and Mr. Ruby, were they to drop their self-generated fear of leftist anti-Semitism, would be inspired by the words of the Israeli officer who chose this week to join dozens of his comrades in jail rather than serve in an army of brutal occupation: "I will do my time in a visible prison for a few months for refusing to enlist in Israel's academy for prison guards: the IDF, Israel's 'Defense Forces' which have been imprisoning an entire people for 35 years."