No. 46

November 27, 2024

November Photo Review

No Letup in Steadfast Support for
Palestinian Resistance

In this issue, the TML Supplement provides reports and photos of actions across Canada in support of the Palestinian people and their resistance in the second half of November. Also in this issue is coverage of international actions throughout November. What is clear is that peoples around the world continue to forcefully demand an end to the U.S./Israeli genocide in Palestine and an end to all complicity by governments, banks, arms manufacturers and private interests. Worldwide, actions continued with great conviction and creativity for the 14th month in a row.

CANADA

November 16 Day of Action Against Companies Supplying Parts
for F-35 Fighter Jets

On November 16, Canadians and Quebeckers held actions from coast to coast at facilities and companies producing parts for the Lockheed Martin flagship fighter jet, the F35, being used by the Israeli Air Force to bomb Gaza and Lebanon. Actions demanded an end to Canada's continuing military support to the U.S./Zionist forces.

Hundreds of anti-war activists and supporters of the Palestinian Resistance joined pickets and other actions from Lunenburg, Dartmouth, and Halifax in Nova Scotia to Victoria, BC, including in Moncton, Montreal, Ottawa, North York, Mississauga, Vaughan, Midland, Cambridge, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver.

Canadian facilities such as Magellan Aerospace in Winnipeg, Gastops in Ottawa, and Stelia Aerospace in Lunenburg produce key components for the F-35. Canadian-made components include horizontal tail assemblies, engine sensors, and shims for weapons bay doors.

Organizers, in preparation for the actions, informed that 100 Canadian companies are manufacturing critical components for Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter which is able to drop 2,000 pound GBU-31 JDAM bombs, used in attacks that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. The Israeli Air Force is bombing residential neighbourhoods, hospitals, and refugee camps in Gaza and southern Lebanon, causing catastrophic civilian casualties and unprecedented destruction. Canada is complicit in this violation of international humanitarian law, the Genocide Convention and Canada's own commitments under the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

Canadians and Quebeckers are demanding that Canada end its complicity in the U.S./Israeli genocide. By demonstrating at the plants that manufacture parts for the F-35 which the U.S. supplies to Israel, they are bringing attention to the Canadian government's false claims that Canada is not supplying military equipment to Israel. Canadians and Quebeckers are calling for an Arms Embargo Now!

Dartmouth

Ottawa

Montreal

Midland

Vaughan

Mississauga

Hamilton

Cambridge

Winnipeg

Calgary

North Vancouver

Canadian Authors Stand Up for Palestine

(Giller Prize Photos: Canlit Responds)

Canadian writers and cultural workers picketed outside Toronto's Park Hyatt Hotel on November 18, the venue of the 30th annual Giller Prize gala. The Giller Foundation presents the award for Canadian fiction, Canada's most lucrative literary prize, at an annual gala. The winner receives $100,000 and the four runners-up each receive $10,000. The protest was the latest action of the literary community to demand that the Giller Foundation cut ties and accept no donations from Scotiabank and other sponsors who are funding the U.S./Zionist genocide in Gaza.

The issue was first raised in November 2023 when protesters disrupted the award ceremony. Three people were arrested for demanding divestment from Scotiabank. More than 2,000 writers, librarians and publishers signed a petition calling for the charges against them to be dropped. Since then the name Scotiabank has been quietly removed from the Prize, known until this year as the Scotiabank Giller Prize, but the foundation is still receiving funds from Scotiabank.

Over the past year authors and other cultural workers have stepped up their actions, including forming Canlit Responds to "defang, delegitimize, and defund institutions who invest in, and profit from, Israel's genocide." Canlit Responds, along with other groups, is part of No Arms in the Arts, a broad coalition of cultural workers who oppose their art being used to launder the image of war profiteers in Canada and abroad. No Arms in the Arts organized an 11-day counter-program to the Scotiabank-funded Hot Docs in Toronto in April which consisted of vigils, direct actions, film screenings, poetry and readings of Palestinian authors and panel discussions.

In July, Canlit Responds sent a letter to the Giller Foundation, signed by 45 authors, informing the Foundation that they were withdrawing their books from consideration for the 2024 Scotiabank Giller Prize. They stated:

"As authors, we cannot abide our work being used to provide cover for sponsors actively investing in arms funding and Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinians. We cannot abide the Giller Foundation's attitude to Palestine solidarity since November 2023: the criminalization of protest, and the silencing and discrediting of their own authors who have stood in solidarity with community organizers and Palestinians. As long as the Giller Foundation continues to receive funding from ANY sponsors who are directly invested in Israel's occupation of Palestine, it will still be complicit in genocide."

In their letter they called on the Giller Foundation to cut ties with Scotiabank, the main funder of the Giller Prize which "has a $500 million investment in Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer responsible for the Hermes drone, cluster bombs, and white phosphorus used against Palestinians." They demanded that no funds be accepted from the Azrieli Foundation which takes it name from David Azrieli, who, as a member of the Seventh Brigade of the Zionist paramilitary organization Haganah, participated in the Nakba. The Azrieli Foundation has donated millions of dollars to organizations like Birthright Israel Foundation of Canada and United Israel Appeal of Canada to promote "immigration to Israel" to expand illegal Zionist settlements on Palestinian lands.

They called on the Giller Foundation to cut ties with Indigo whose owners Heather Reisman and Gerald Schwartz fund the HESEG Foundation which provides incentives in the form of scholarships for "lone soldiers," non-Israeli citizens, to serve in the Israel Occupation Force to displace, terrorize and kill Palestinians. The letter notes that Reisman also co-founded the anti-Palestinian advocacy group Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), and is a major donor to Hillel Ontario, a Zionist student organization on school campuses.

In conclusion the authors stated: "We urge our peers and other authors to join us in withdrawing their work and their labour from the Giller Prize and Foundation – until such time as all our demands are met."

Besides the authors who withdrew their books from the competition, two of the judges also withdrew. On September 26 the Toronto Star published an open letter from eight former Giller Prize winners – Suzette Mayr (2022), Johanna Skibsrud (2010), Michael Ondaatje (2000), Lynn Coady (2013), Madeleine Thien (2016), Omar El Akkad (2021), Sean Michaels (2014) and Sarah Bernstein (2023) urging the Giller Prize to end its relations with corporate entities responsible for funding the genocide against the Palestinians and for Scotiabank and other corporations to divest from companies whose products are being used in mass killing of Palestinians.

On the evening of November 18, besides the picket outside the 2024 Giller Prize ceremony in Toronto a Boycott Giller counter-gala took place across the street, one of several simultaneous events nationwide -– the No Arms In The Arts Tour -– including Vancouver, Winnipeg, Fredericton and Halifax, at which authors boycotting the Giller Prize read and celebrated the works of Palestinian writers. They pledged to boycott the Giller Prize until the foundation drops its sponsors complicit in Israel's genocide in Palestine.

Student Strike for Palestine November 21-22

Students across Quebec and Canada took part in mass strikes on November 21 and 22 in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon. In Quebec, organizers reported that an estimated 50,000 students in 42 universities and CEGEPs took part across Quebec. Actions across Canada took place at universities from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, with walkouts, teach-ins and other actions on those days. All of it was part of worldwide student actions to stand with Palestine and Lebanon against U.S./Israeli genocide and aggression.

The largest student actions took place in Montreal. At Dawson College students rallied on the campus where classes for 10,000 students were cancelled for the day on November 21. In the afternoon hundreds of striking Dawson and McGill University students joined striking students at Concordia University, demanding that their universities divest from companies which participate in the U.S./Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people. They also called on the Canadian government to stop providing arms for Israel and take a clear stand against the genocide.

Students reiterated their demands for their institutions to divest from Israel, cease academic partnerships with Israeli institutions, end partnerships with arms makers and defence companies, as well as condemning the use of police on their campuses to carry out repression of those supporting Palestine and opposing genocide.

Youth and students across North America have long been in the forefront of the fight for educational institutions to cut ties with and end support for the Israeli Zionist regime as a contribution to ending the occupation of Palestine.

Montreal

McGill students

Teach-in at University of Quebec at Montreal

Toronto

Student strike for Palestine at Humber College (left) and York University, November21

University of Toronto, Scarborough

Mass Actions for Palestine Continue

National Capital Region

Hundreds of people answered the call "We will not be silenced" on Saturday, November 23, at the Human Rights Monument in Ottawa. In their call for the demonstration, organizers pointed out: "Last Monday, images of the siege of Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of Gaza were released, showing men forced to stand in their underwear, blindfolded, and marched to their deaths. The Occupation is carrying out massacres in Gaza and in Lebanon at the same time, with the death toll rising every second. Here, we were subjected to a despicable display of police violence against our community, preventing us from exercising our right to protest. This was not just an attack on our bodies, but an attack on our values, our right to peaceful assembly and on the Palestinian cause. We cannot and will not be intimidated into silence as the Canadian government continues to arm and support this genocide. We will not be pushed aside! We stand with Gaza side by side!"

As people arrived at the Human Rights Monument, it was obvious that the Ottawa police had ramped up its numbers, backed by the Ontario Provincial Police, with at least 10 police vans lined up on one of the side streets. People discussed why, after over a year of taking to the streets of Ottawa to demand an end to the genocide, authorities had decided to "clamp down" on protestors. A couple showed images of their son, one of the people who was brutalized on Monday, as four officers jumped him and pushed his face into the concrete. They discussed the events of the past weeks –- the ICC arrest warrants for war criminals Netanyahu and Gallant, and two U.S./NATO war-mongering events, the Halifax International Security Forum and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Montreal.

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Youth Movement, addressing the matter of the ICC arrest warrants and of the increased police brutality, said: "These arrest warrants are the direct result of we the people coming together, speaking out, disrupting and protesting in our streets week after week, day after day, and this is exactly why Canada and the Ottawa police want to shut us down."

Referring to Monday's march, which was intended to be a downtown tour of weapons manufacturers complicit in genocide, she said: "We can only ask ourselves who gave Ottawa police orders that evening. Was it Lockheed Martin? Was it the Zionist Embassy?" She also pointed out that law enforcement in Canada takes trips to Israel to train and build relationships with Zionists and that members of the Ottawa Police Service had gone on a five-day trip to Israel to study Israeli police procedures. "These procedures are used against Palestinians in their homeland and, back here, they are used against us as we protest a genocide committed by wanted criminals," she said.

People marched on the sidewalk up to Wellington, then took to the street and marched, as they have done for over a year, through the Byward Market. When they arrived in front of the U.S. Embassy, the police moved in and "kettled" demonstrators, including young children. This so-called form of "crowd control" is a very dangerous tactic where people are surrounded, then shoved by police and ordered to "move that way" when it is impossible to move any which way and there is a risk of falling against one another and of causing serious injury.

People continued nevertheless to march in a spirit of defiance, and many then gathered at the Ottawa police station to demand the release of a young woman who had been arrested during the march.

The following morning, a call was given by Palestinian organizers to gather at the Ottawa police station, where Sarah, a well-known and beloved spokesperson of the Palestinian Youth Movement, had just been arrested. Sarah went to the Ottawa police station to attend to the person who had been arrested the day before, and was herself arrested on trumped-up charges of "mischief, illegal assembly, and counseling others to cause mischief." People expressed their support for her in front of the police station, chanting "50,000 people dead, and you're arresting us instead!" and demanding her immediate release.