[R-G] Protests denounce Israeli assault on Gaza and Canadian government complicity

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/cana-j13.shtml

Protests denounce Israeli assault on Gaza and Canadian government  
complicity
By Éric Marquis
13 January 2009

Demonstrations were held in cities across Canada last Saturday to  
denounce the Israeli state’s onslaught against the subjugated  
Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip.

The demonstrators voiced their outrage at the horrors—death, hunger,  
deprivation, and the threat of disease—that Israel is inflicting on  
the people of Gaza and at the complicity of Washington and Canada’s  
Conservative government.

More than 10,000 people took to the streets of some 15 Canadian  
cities, including several thousand respectively in Toronto, Montreal,  
and Ottawa and hundreds in other cities including Victoria, Vancouver,  
Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City and Halifax.

Demo in TorontoProtesters in Toronto denounced Prime Minister Stephen  
Harper and his minority Conservative government for their support for  
the Israeli assault on Gaza

Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario division of the Canadian Union of  
Public Employees (CUPE), told the approximately 4,000 protesters who  
had rallied outside the Israeli consulate in Toronto that Israel has  
committed war crimes and atrocities in Gaza. Ryan has been witch- 
hunted by the right-wing press for his trenchant criticisms of Israel.

Another speaker at the Toronto rally was a Holocaust survivor. She  
said that while some survivors shout “Never again for the Jews!,” the  
watchword ought to be “Never again for humanity!”

Canadian Arab Federation representative Ali Mallah denounced remarks  
made by Conservative Environment Minister John Baird at a pro-Israel  
rally last Thursday. “John Baird was quoted as saying the resisters in  
Palestine are cowards,” noted Mallah.

Demo in MontrealAs many as 5,000 braved bitterly cold weather in  
Montreal last Saturday to condemn Israel's assault on Gaza

In Montreal, as many as 5,000 marched in bitterly cold weather to  
condemn Israel’s assault on Gaza and the unconditional support that  
has been given it by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and  
his government. A popular placard and chant was “Isräel terroriste;  
Harper-Bush complices” (Israeli terrorist; Harper-Bush accomplices).

The protestors in Montreal included workers and their families and  
students. Many of them were Arab Canadians. There were also supporters  
of several Jewish groups.

The demonstration was organized by the Coalition élargie pour la paix  
et la justice en Palestine (The Enlarged Coalition of Peace and  
Justice in Palestine), a coalition dominated by Quebec’s major union  
federations (the QFL, CNTU and CSQ) and which includes a large number  
of other groups including Québec solidaire, a self-avowed left- 
sovereignist, (i.e., pro-Quebec independence) party.

While often denouncing in scathing terms US and Canadian government  
complicity in the Israeli attack on Gaza, the organizers of the  
Montreal protest, and those held elsewhere in Canada, advanced the  
perspective that imperialist war could be halted and the oppression of  
the Palestinian people overcome by placing pressure on the  
“international community,” by which they mean the US, the European  
Union and other great powers, the Arab bourgeois governments, and  
imperialist-dominated institutions like the UN.

In opposition to this perspective, supporters of the Socialist  
Equality Party (Canada) distributed statements from the World  
Socialist Web Site that explained that the only true ally of the  
Palestinian masses is the international working class and that the  
defeat of imperialism and Zionism requires the united mobilization of  
the working class of all countries, including Arab and Jewish workers,  
against capitalism.

Speaking to the Montreal protest, Confederation of National Trade  
Unions President Claudette Charbonneau urged the Canadian government  
to take advantage of Barack Obama’s assumption of the US presidency to  
convince Washington to “play a less partisan role and to contribute to  
a just, durable peace.” She added that Ottawa should not “hide behind  
the old policies of the Bush administration.”

Amir Khadir, the co-leader of Québec solidaire and since last month  
its first and only Member of the Quebec National Assembly, joined  
other speakers in calling on the great powers to press for a  
ceasefire. Like Charbonneau, Khadir was scrupulous in equating the  
violence of the US-armed Israel Defence Forces and the actions of  
Hamas, condemning both equally. Declared Kahdir, “The international  
community has responsibility to put an end to a conflict that is  
bruising the Palestinian people, but that is also holding the Israeli  
population hostage.”

“Harper and Obama and the rest of the international community must,”  
continued Khadir, “force Israel to sit down and negotiate with the  
Palestinians in good faith.”

The reality is that the Harper Conservative government, the official  
opposition Liberals and the Canadian corporate media have all rallied  
behind Israel. This has included opposing a ceasefire until Israel has  
obtained all its objectives in Gaza, laying all blame for the conflict  
and for the large number of civilians killed by Israeli air strikes  
and artillery barrages on Hamas, and otherwise apologizing for Israeli  
war crimes.

Last Thursday, the new Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff, reiterated  
his and his party’s support for the Israeli assault on Gaza,  
denouncing Hamas, which won Palestinian Authority elections in 2006,  
as a “terrorist organization” and asserting Israel’s right to kill  
scores of Palestinians daily until Hamas cedes to its demands.

That same day, Conservative ministers, including Baird and Peter Kent,  
the minister of state for foreign affairs, were out in force at pro- 
Israel rallies. Canada, Kent told a rally organized by Zionist  
organizations in Toronto, is "unequivocal in supporting Israel's right  
to defend itself"—that is, in upholding Israel’s “right” to pummel  
Gaza and inflict massive civilian casualties.

As for Obama, his silence on the Israeli assault denotes consent, a  
consent that is entirely in keeping with declarations he made during  
the US election campaign. Speaking before the American Israel Public  
Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the principal pro-Israel lobby in  
Washington, the day after he clinched the Democratic Party  
presidential nomination, Obama vowed he would never negotiate with  
Hamas and other Islamic and nationalist groups that refuse to  
recognize the state of Israel. “Israel’s security,” Obama proclaimed,  
“is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable.”

Most of the demonstrators with whom SEP supporters spoke thought the  
protests would have little impact on Canadian and US state policy, but  
that it was important to voice their outrage at the crimes being  
visited upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli state with the  
support of Washington and Ottawa, with a view to promoting public  
awareness.

Mounim, a business administration student, said he had come to the  
protest, “so as to stop the massacre in Gaza. I have come so the  
population can learn the truth. The media tell us nothing about this  
conflict that has persisted for years, and when they do it is simply  
to show pictures of people in the streets protesting.

“All the governments of the world except that of [Venezuelan  
President] Chavez support Israel. It is for that reason there is no  
action against Israel. In any case, Israel won’t respect the demands  
of the United Nations.”

For more on the Canadian government’s and establishment’s role in  
backing the Israeli state’s assault on Gaza see: Canada’s government  
and opposition trumpet Israel’s “right” to wage endless war in Gaza.