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SOLIDARITY RALLY AND MARCH
END ISRAEL'S ASSAULT ON LEBANON AND GAZA!
CANADA MUST SUPPORT A CEASE-FIRE NOW!

JULY 29th @ 12:00 Noon
Spring Garden Public Library

This Non-Violent March is organized by a coalition of concerned Haligonians including:

Canadians Arabs and Jews for a Just Peace, Halifax Peace Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Society, Canada Palestine Network

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END ISRAEL 'S ASSAULT ON LEBANON AND GAZA
Canadians Do Not Support Israel's War Crimes

As the Israeli military ground and air assault on Lebanon completes its second week, the horrific violence that has been unleashed upon Lebanon's civilian population appears to show no signs of abating despite international calls for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. At the same time, the Canadian government has decided to unquestioningly throw its support behind Israel, despite the deaths of 8 Canadian citizens, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Southern Lebanon on July 16th.

Stephen Harper has lauded Israel's "right to self defence" and has characterized the brutal attacks as "measured." Likewise Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay's July 12th and July 16th statements criticized the actions of Hezbollah yet remained silent of Israel's crimes against Canadian and Lebanese civilians. By contrast, the UN's top humanitarian official Jan Egeland has characterized Israel's offensive as a "disproportionate use of force," while UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour has characterized such operations as war crimes, noting that "indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians." In addition, by voting against key UN humanitarian resolutions and cutting off funding to the Palestinian Authority last March, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper has once again shown its determination to march in lock step with the US on foreign policy issues regardless of world opinion or of its commitments under international law.

Israel's bombing campaign in Lebanon has killed almost 400, mostly civilians, and has wounded at least 1000. According to the World Health Organization, 900,000 have been displaced in Lebanon, and Israeli air raids have deliberately pounded civilian infrastructure such as roads, bridges, airports, ports, apartment blocks and power supply facilities within highly populated areas. Human Rights Watch has reported that Israel has been dropping cluster bombs on civilians, while journalists have reported the use of phosphorous bombs in Lebanon. The use of both weapons is a violation of the Geneva Convention. Similarly, Israel's ongoing "summer rains" military campaign in occupied Gaza has killed an estimated 150 Palestinians since June, including at least 39 Red Crescent paramedics. The already decimated infrastructure of populated areas of the Gaza strip has been further reduced to rubble.

The pretext for Israel's action, of "self defense" in the face of the kidnappings of Israeli soldiers by Hamas and Hezbollah, is patently false. As noted by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, "this is a war of choice, a choice to destroy any political force that resists its occupation of Arab land." The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that Israel's attack on Lebanon is based on well developed plans that were prepared more than a year in advance. Meanwhile, Israel has conducted thousands of political kidnappings of Palestinian and Lebanese soldiers and civilians - including members of the Palestinian parliament - although no one regards this as grounds for destroying Tel Aviv and half of Israel.

We demand in the strongest possible terms that the Canadian government stop supporting Israeli violence. The Canadian government must call on Israel to end its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and must aid in bringing about a UN-brokered cease-fire. Canada must subsequently be engaged, in a fair and balanced way, in the working out of a just settlement to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians including an Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories, full respect of the Palestinian rights of self-determination and the dismantlement of the illegal Israeli separation wall. Finally, along with Lebanese-Canadians from coast to coast, we call upon the international community to address the twin humanitarian crises in Gaza and Lebanon and to provide immediate humanitarian aid and assistance to these regions.



Canadians Arabs and Jews for a Just Peace
Palestinian Solidarity Society
Halifax Peace Coalition
Canada Palestine Association

Self defense!

Rod -

Best line that helped put this in perspective for me was a commentator from LSE on CBC the other morning. What he said was that what Isreal is doing in Beruit and northern lebanon would be like the UK bombing Dublin and knocking out bridges in the southern counties of Ireland, because of IRA actions in London or the north of Ireland.

It is not that Isreal does not have the right to defend itself against missle attacks. It is a matter of proportional response to the threat, and avoiding collective punishment of a whole nation.

Ireland allowed Sinn Fien to operate out of the south, had republicans in the Irish parliament. The situation is so similar it hurts...

Pray for peace.

Whose bright idea was it to insert another theocracy into the Middle East?

Explain what you are referencing, please.

The British. Who; instead were allowed to slowly suffocate and practise the protracted systematic destruction of a generation in Northern Ireland during the late 1960's and 70's.

Do you have personal knowledge of it?