In the News May 14

74th Anniversary of Al-Nakba – The Catastrophe

Canada Palestine Association Calls to Oppose Criminalization of Support for Palestine

The Canada Palestine Association has issued a statement and launched a letter writing campaign to oppose ongoing attempts by Zionist organizations to block the work of activists to support the people of Palestine and their resistance to Israel’s war crimes and ongoing occupation. The letter is reprinted below:

I am writing to you to express my outrage at the recent campaign in Canada to smear Palestinian activists and their supporters. Last week, the National Post (NP) ran an online article about Palestinian-Canadian writer Khaled Barakat and the advocacy organization Samidoun. On April 30, the same article was splashed across their front page of their paper and has since been referenced in the Canadian Senate and the Jerusalem Post.

A year ago, 35 concerned organizations issued a statement detailing their rejection of attempts to criminalize Samidoun, a Palestinian advocacy group for prisoners, by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA). At that time, they asked: Should Canada’s policies on these important issues be decided by what the Israeli government and its lobby dictates?

The renewed and highly inflammatory charges all seem to rely on the one article first carried in the National Post. Shockingly, the author of that article even admitted in his own blog on April 29 that he was first approached by B’nai Brith with their “files” on the subject. He also thanked CIJA in that same blog entry for their assistance.

Is this smear campaign an effort to divert attention from the multiple student union resolutions in support of Palestine at major Canadian universities? Or an effort to distract from the growing number of organizations that have expressly condemned Israeli practices as apartheid, such as Amnesty International? Or a distraction to cover up Israel’s continuing ethnic cleansing, most recently in the villages of Masafer Yatta?

Please note that the French government recently tried to ban a Palestinian support group, “Collectif Palestine Vaincra,” but have already been forced by their own courts to suspend that decision.

I join with the 50 organizations that have signed a statement to tell the Canadian government that the old smear tactics of “trial by fire” are not acceptable. Palestinian-Canadians and their supporters are frankly sick and tired of being the target of racist and defamatory attacks every time they speak up for the Palestinian peoples’ national and human rights.

For individuals and organizations wishing to sign the letter, click here.

TML Daily, posted May 14, 2022.