[Canadian-BDS-Coalition] Canada Stop Our Complicity with The State of Israel Apartheid Behaviour
- Details
- Published on Friday, 24 March 2017 09:45
- Written by editor
Dear Coalition Friends This came from a suggestion we move forward on action related to the Israeli travel ban.
I've invited you to fill in a form: Canada Stop Our Complicity with The State of Israel Apartheid Behaviour Letter to:The Honourable... Chrystia Freeland
The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
On March 6, 2017, Israel’s parliament passed a law barring entry or residency to non-Israelis who advocate boycott, including of settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The law will apply to anyone “who knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel that, given the content of the call and the circumstances in which it was issued, has a reasonable possibility of leading to the imposition of a boycott – if the issuer was aware of this possibility.”
Israeli officials already can – and frequently do – deny entry to anyone at their discretion, including activists and people of Palestinian, Arab or Muslim ancestry.
But this new law will deny people entry based on “political discrimination.”
This new law makes a political test for entry the norm.
Leading American intellectual, Cornel West has indicated the legislation is a betrayal of a tradition of Jewish philosophers committed to human rights, such as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish theologian who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma. West says the Israeli legislation is “a sign of panic, a sign of hysteria, a very sad response to an intense situation.”
We call on the Canadian government to support the will of Canadian public opinion, and say no to this authoritarian law by the State of Israel. To do so with a call for sanctions, recognizing that even with biased media providing information, 2/3 of the Canadian public support sanctions against Israel as a measure to censure its violation of human rights.
Given the passing of the Regularization Law (better known as a private land theft law) by the Israeli Knesset on February, 6, 2017, and, one month later, the passing of further legislation barring entry or residency of anyone advocating boycott - including in illegal settlements –we further call on the Canadian government to adhere to its own foreign policy, which does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967 (the Golan Heights, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip).
We ask the Canadian government to seriously consider the March 2017 Report of the Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Lynk, a Canadian, highlights in the report the deteriorating situation for human rights defenders in Palestine and Israel. We ask you to read this report and consider it seriously as you move forward with policy related to Palestinians and to the State of Israel.
As a signatory to the Fourth Geneva Convention, Canada is called under Article 1 to respect the Convention under all circumstances. This means holding other states accountable for their violation of the Convention.
Thus, we call on the Canadian government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland:
• to assess the investments the Government of Canada has under its control and to divest from any companies which are directly benefiting from activity within Israel’s illegal settlements or Israel’s occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT);
• to warn all Canadians, including Canadian provinces and territories, of the legal consequences of trade and investment in the illegal settlements;
• to not purchase or use products produced by companies which are profiting from activity within Israel’s illegal settlements or Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory;
And to use such economic pressures, which would include but not be limited to:
• A ban on the importation into Canada of products produced wholly or partly within or by illegal Israeli settlements, or by Israeli businesses directly benefiting from the illegal occupation;
• Renegotiation of the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA) such that it explicitly excludes products produced wholly or partly within or by illegal Israeli settlements, or by Israeli businesses operating within the OPT;
• The strengthening of CIFTA compliance/audit provisions in such ways and clauses as to ensure that imported products labeled “Made in Israel” are produced, entirely and exclusively, within Israel’s internationally recognized borders;
• The termination and indefinite suspension of all military and surveillance trade and cooperation between, on the one hand, the Government of Canada and Canadian corporations or residents of Canada and, on the other hand, the State of Israel, Israeli corporations or residents of Israel’s illegal settlements; and
• The repeal the House of Commons resolution condemning the BDS movement (Vote #14, 42nd Parliament, 1st Session; 22 February 2016.)
Finally, we call on the Canadian government to show leadership against nationalist ethnocracy, and to support the principles of international law and universal human rights, in its dealing with all states including Israel, using sanctions, and supporting boycotts and divestment. In doing so the Canadian government will be putting its policy in line with the opinion of over 90% of Canadians and following our own Canadian foreign affairs policy.
Respectively signed:
Copied to:
Elizabeth May, Leader, Green Party of Canada
Rhéal Fortin, Leader, Bloc Québécois
Tom Mulcair, Leader New Democratic Party of Canada
Rona Ambrose, Leader, Conservative Party of Canada
The Honourable Peter Kent, Foreign Affairs Critic, Conservative Party of Canada
Hélène Laverdière, Foreign Affairs Critic, New Democratic Party
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