Palestine, Israel and Canada
Israel’s invasion of Gaza is a monstrous act of barbarism and we add our voices to the international condemnation of this murderous aggression.
For people who live in Canada, it is not enough to condemn Israeli atrocities. We must also repudiate the support for Israel’s assault by the Canadian federal government and the other major political parties. The Tory government echoes the Israeli government’s public relations spin. Treasury Board head Vic Toews made the Tory stance plain: “Defence of Israel is not a political choice for our government, it is a moral imperative.” The Liberal position is in essence the same. Many NDP politicians have placed themselves in the camp of supporters of Israeli state policy. The federal NDP call for a “balanced approach” to the crisis is obfuscation: can one imagine a more unbalanced situation than Israel’s occupation and war against the Palestinians of Gaza, with a ratio of Palestinian to Israeli dead of almost 100:1?
It needs to be said clearly: the immediate cause of the crisis is the brutal Israeli siege of Gaza that makes it, as its residents say, the world’s largest open-air prison. Sporadic rocket fire into Israel has been a response to this oppression.
All supporters of peace and social justice should not only call for an immediate and unconditional end to the assault, the withdrawal of Israeli troops, and an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza but also build the growing campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. We encourage you to read Solidarity with Palestine: Crisis Responses and Movement Building , an article by Toronto activist Kole Kilibarda that discusses building the BDS campaign in Canada.
We also call for the reaffirmation of support for the right of the Palestinian nation to determine its own future, including the right of refugees to return and the right to resist. The Palestinian people are clear that this means the right to establish an independent state. The territories under Palestinian administration in the West Bank – under Israeli occupation and divided by Israel’s apartheid wall – and Gaza do not represent such a state.
The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza must end, but it is not the roots of the crisis in the region. These lie in the way that Israel was established as a colonial-settler state through the large-scale ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs in 1947-48, a state whose rulers have been eager partners of Western imperialism. Israel denies equal rights to Arab citizens, while offering full citizenship to Jews from anywhere in the world.
Such an apartheid state, established on the backs of Palestine’s indigenous population, is fundamentally illegitimate. The same is true of the Canadian state, founded on the conquest of indigenous peoples and later of Quebec and denying both the right to national self-determination.
No genuine peace is possible without a complete end to the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and the transformation of Israel into a state in which all residents have equal rights. Where does hope for change lie? We agree with Palestinian-American writer Bashir Abu-Manneh: “Mass Palestinian and Arab mobilization and organisation is the only way forward. Active political participation can guarantee that what Palestinians are fighting for today is what they will be getting tomorrow, without being fooled or lied to by one elite group or another… no armed struggle by Palestinians can ever defeat Israel militarily. But popular mass struggle like the first year of the first Intifada can certainly defeat it politically. It can also create better conditions for Palestinians to achieve their much needed independence, national freedom, and sovereignty. Gaza should become yet another lesson for Israel in Palestine’s will to freedom. Let’s make sure it will.”
Executive of the New Socialist Group
2009-01-16
