NCCAR’s opinion piece entitled “Time to End Israel’s Free Ride” was published in Embassy today.

Embassy is Canada’s influential foreign policy newspaper. With a weekly readership of over 60,000 it is the forum for debate on international issues for politicians, foreign policy experts, diplomats, aid workers, the military, leaders in trade and business and immigrant communities in Canada.

NCCAR was invited by Embassy to provide an opinion on Canada and Canadian policy in the aftermath of the raids on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in order to provide an alternative opinion to that by B’nai Brith.

The article is reprinted below with permission from Embassy where it originally appeared in the June 9th, 2010 issue . The original article can be found by clicking here. Subscription is required to access certain articles.

Time to end Israel’s free ride

(The following article has been written by the board of the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations. The board comprises Bob Aloneissi, David Comerford, Doug Daniels, Michel De Salaberry, Sanabel ElRayes, Ahmad Jawad, Mark Khoury, Peter Larson, John Menzies and Rula Odeh)

In the immediate wake of the illegal Israeli assault on the Gaza aid flotilla and the killing of human rights activists sailing under the flag of another sovereign state, world outrage was directed at Israel for this act of aggression. From Canada came the most anaemic of remarks, our prime minister offering nothing more than tepid regret for “this situation”. One would have expected that Canada’s reaction to this event would be in line with other nations who had citizens on the flotilla, and would reflect our values of respect for human rights and international law. Instead our country again turned a blind eye.

Canada is often the only dissenting vote in the UN on resolutions aimed at Israel and has the dubious distinction of outdoing even the US in supporting Israel. We are the only OECD country to recently withdraw our core funding from the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA), which provides housing, education and health services to millions of refugees; the government has even gone so far as to defund several valuable programs managed by Canadian NGOs and agencies such as KAIROS, Rights and Democracy and Alternatives, all of which supported civil society and human rights in Israel and Palestine.

Perversely, our government refuses to take a rights-based approach to the Middle East conflict, instead adopting inexplicable positions that damage our international reputation. On what does the Canadian government base its decisions? Certainly neither on the rule of law nor the facts on the ground.

The Core Issues

The crux of the issue in Palestine/Israel is the same now as it was in the beginning, and it will always be about dispossession, occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.

It is the Core Issues that must be talked about. (The above map shows the disappearing Palesine, 1947-2000. The expropriation of land continues. Green represents Palestinian land.)

These issues have festered for years because of the unwillingness of governments, especially the current Canadian one, to deal with them in a principled and balanced manner. The core issues are what the discourse must be about.

The illegal and inhumane siege that Israel imposes on Gaza has been plentifully documented by authorities such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, and organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and successive United Nations special rapporteurs.

Childhood anaemia is over 40 per cent, 10 per cent of children have their growth stunted by malnutrition, 50 per cent of people are unemployed and reliance on food aid is over 80 per cent. And at that, the nutritional requirements of the population are not met.

The Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands goes on unabated—43 years and counting—with ever-increasing ferocity (particularly since the Oslo Accords) displacing, dispossessing and oppressing more Palestinians and rendering the establishment of a Palestinian state near impossible.

One will surely hear voices that bring out canards, red herrings and distractions to deflect the discourse from the core issues. Antisemitism, Iran and other subjects will be mentioned, all of legitimate concern, but none related to the core issues facing Palestinians. These serve to avoid talk of the real, concrete possibility of peace with the Palestinians (including Hamas) and all Arab countries based on the Arab Peace Initiative on offer since 2002 but ignored by Israel.

One has to ask why Israel is rejecting the option of normal relations with its neighbours based on its withdrawal to the 1967 lines; why it deliberately pursues policies and practices that prevent peace, prosperity and security for all.

Far from being “mindless Israeli-haters,” as portrayed in some Canadian media, by far the largest proportion of Palestinian resistance is non-violent. It is demonstrations in front of homes as they crumble under the onslaught of Israeli bulldozers; it is peasants who continue to tend their sheep in the face of threats and intimidation by Israeli settlers; it is Palestinian university students who continue to attend Bethlehem University despite the obstacles placed in their way by the Israeli military; it is passive non-compliance with Israeli authorities—all met with increasing oppression, brute force and continuing colonization.

Israel’s obvious lack of accountability to international law, its inflated sense of absolute impunity for any and all actions, most recently evident as it killed and maimed unarmed citizens of various countries in international waters, and the wilful impotence of the international legal mechanisms to put an end to Israel’s free ride—all these actually undermine those who are bravely and non-violently seeking a genuine, just and durable peace for all in the region.

When it comes to violations of international law and human rights by the state of Israel, our federal government chooses to ignore them. It is apparently taboo to broach the subject lest unpleasant answers are required, possibly even demanding that MPs engage in self-scrutiny for their complicit silence.

The Canadian political establishment needs to make a choice, either they serve those who elected them or they pay fealty to a foreign power whose contempt for law and human rights is obvious to everyone. The Canadian government should stand on the right side of history; it is not too late to reassert Canadian values in international affairs. Failing to do so affects all Canadians.

editor@embassymag.ca