A few days prior to Israel’s Memorial Day (April 27th), Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy (seen here last November meeting with a Canadian delegation in Tel Aviv) asks “Why Didn’t You Tell Us About the Palestinian Village of Tantura?” Read more… (more…)
Holocaust Memorial ceremony in Ottawa on April 21st. Canadian Jews remain traumatized by the memory of the 6 million Jews who were deliberately murdered by Nazis. A recent survey of Canadian Jews by the Environics Institute shows the memory of the horrors of the Holocaust looms large in their attachment to the State of Israel. But it also showed some surprising differences between Canadian Jews and their American counterparts. Read more… (more…)
April 17th is Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. There are an estimated 4,520 Palestinian prisoners in crowded Israeli jails, including men, women and children as young as 14. In the face of well-founded concerns that COVID is spreading in its prisons, a global outcry is rising demanding Israel release Palestinian prisoners, particularly women and children and those held without charge under so-called “administrative detention”. So far, Canada, which claims to be a “friend of the Palestinian people” has not shown any interest. Read more…
There once was a time in which Christian, Muslim and Jewish Palestinians were neighbours and friends, remembers Samia Khoury. That was before the establishment of Israel in 1948. Since then, Israel has not let anything, even the coronavirus pandemic, get in the way of its ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people. Mrs. Khoury is the former president of the Palestinian YWCA and member of the Beirzeit University Board of Trustees. Read her letter about what Israel is doing this Easter under the cover of the COVID crisis. … (more…)
At a time when every Canadian is nervously waiting for Corona to cause hurt to us or our loved ones and even to our country, its hard to keep in mind that it could be (and no doubt will be) worse for others. How do we balance our need for self protection with our desire to show solidarity to others? A Montreal disaster nurse who is a longtime human rights activist talks about international solidarity in the time of COVID. See the video interview here… (more…)
