An excellent article on Counterpunch by Montreal activist and author Yves Engler.
Enabling Crimes Against Palestinians
How Canada Subsidizes Illegal Israeli Settlements
By Yves Engler
Canada’s tax system currently subsidizes Israeli settlements that Ottawa deems illegal. However, the Conservative government says there’s nothing that can be done about it.
In June of last year, Guelph activist Dan Maitland emailed Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon concerning Canada Park, a Jewish National Fund of Canada initiative built on land Israel occupied after the June 1967 War. Three Palestinian villages (Beit Nuba, Imwas and Yalu) were demolished to make way for the park.
A few weeks ago Maitland received a reply from Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, who refused to discuss the particulars of the case but provided “general information about registered charities and the occupied territories.” Ashfield wrote that “the fact that charitable activities take place in the occupied territories is not a barrier to acquiring or maintaining charitable status.”
This means Canadian organizations can openly fundraise for settlements Ottawa (officially) deems illegal under international law and get the government to pay up to a third of the cost through tax credits for donations. To justify the government’s position, Ashfield cited a September 2002 Federal Court of Appeal case (Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel v. Minister of National Revenue), which reversed the Canadian Revenue Agency’s previous position.
The exact amount is not known but it’s safe to assume that millions of Canadian dollars make their way to Israeli settlements every year. In 1997, when it was more of a legal grey area, tax lawyer David Drache claimed that “there are hundreds of [Canadian] organizations … supporting organizations directly or indirectly beyond the Green Line,” referring to the internationally-recognized armistice line between Israel and the occupied West Bank.
In the late 1990s, Israel’s largest settler group, Yesha, raised more than $700,000 a year in Canada. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited in the mid-1990s, the Canadian Arab Federation’s Jehad Aliweiwi said he “left with more than $1 million in tax-deductible funds, with no secret as to the destination.” Through the 1990s the Press Foundation was probably the largest known source of funds for settlements, raising as much as $5 million annually for settlers in the occupied West Bank town of Hebron and in the occupied Golan Heights, which was captured from Syria in 1967.
Illegal settlements are not the only questionable activities in Israel that Canadians subsidize through their tax system. A mid-1990s survey found more than 300 registered Canadian charities with ties to Israel, a relatively wealthy country. Every year Canadians send a few hundred million dollars worth of tax-deductible donations to Israeli universities, parks, immigration initiatives and, more controversially, “charities” that aid the Israeli army in one way or another.
One example is Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel or Beit Halochem (Canada), which brings soldiers singled out as heroes by the Israeli military on trips to Canada. Many Canadians, including the Charles R. Bronfman Foundation, support the Libi Fund — “The Fund For Strengthening Israel’s Defense.” In early 2008, Major Gil Chemke, a member of Israel’s elite search and rescue team, toured the country on behalf of the Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel (CMDAI), which operates in the occupied West Bank. Established to assist wounded soldiers and the population during disasters, CMDAI has raised millions of dollars. Chemke drummed up financial contributions for CMDAI by showing “behind-the-scenes video footage of a rescue operation in Lebanon for a female air crew member whose helicopter was shot down by Hizballah” during Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon.
Established in 1971, the Association for the Soldiers of Israel in Canada (ASI) provides financial and moral support to active duty soldiers. In 2009, ASI (Canada) — which provides tax receipts through the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association — and El Al airlines granted a 50 percent discount on flights to Israel from Canada for families of “lone soldiers” who join the Israeli military.
While it’s legal — and government will foot part of the bill — to finance charities linked to a foreign army responsible for numerous war crimes and settlements that contravene international law, Ottawa has made it illegal for Canadians to aid a hospital operated by the elected Hamas government.
Ottawa’s post-11 September 2001 terrorist list makes it illegal to financially assist Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the Abu Nidal Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the Palestine Liberation Front, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and groups associated with these organizations. Only one Israeli group, the marginal Kahane Chai, is on the list.
On 25 December, Hamas criticized Canada for re-listing it a “terrorist” entity. “The decision is a clear bias to Israel,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Xinhua. “This encourages Israel to commit more crimes against the Palestinian people.”
Ottawa makes it difficult for Canadians to support many Palestinian groups all the while subsidizing expansionist and militaristic Israeli institutions. Canadians of good conscience should protest and demand change.
Yves Engler is the author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid and the Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. For more info: http://yvesengler.com
Posted by psnedmonton 
The Arab World and Palestine
March 10, 2011An op-ed in this week’s Vue Weekly by PSN’s Siavash Saffari on the uprising in the Arab world and the implications for Palestine. The topic will be explored in more detail during Edmtonton Israeli Apartheid Week on Wednesday, March 16 at 7:00 pm in Telus Building 236/238 with a panel entitled The Season of Revolt: New Arab Uprisings and Implications for Apartheid.
The Arab world and Palestine:
What do the democratic movements mean for a struggling Palestinian state?
Siavash Saffari
For 18 fateful days, the world watched as events unfolded in Egypt. While people around the globe found inspiration in Egyptian protesters’ steadfastness as they fought against the dictatorship, here in North America the major concern of many political circles and media reports was the hegemonic interests of the US empire, especially where it concerned the Israel-Palestine question.
There is no doubt that any democratic change in Egypt will have an effect on the country’s relationship with Israel. Egypt under Mubarak was an important friend to Israel, providing, among other things, 40 percent of Israel’s natural gas needs and helping to maintain a brutal and illegal siege on Gaza. In the words of Aluf Benn, editor-at-large for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, “Without Mubarak, Israel is left with almost no friends in the Middle East.”
It leaves some commentators wondering if this tsunami of social and political change will be a catalyst for a mass movement demanding Israel’s recognition of Palestinians’ equal rights. So far, that hasn’t happened. Nevertheless, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza held rallies in solidarity with Egyptian protesters and in defiance of the Fatah-and Hamas-imposed bans against such rallies. And, there are reasons to believe that Palestinians, too, might witness a turning point in their struggle against a decades-old occupation, and an expanding structure of apartheid.
With the failure of the secular-nationalist political elite to bring an end to the Israeli occupation, and with the limitations of Islamism in creating a broad social movement, in recent years we have witnessed the growing popularity of the Palestinian anti-apartheid movement. The movement is the convergence of various individuals and groups around a common agenda with an emphasis on universal human rights, commitment to non-violence and grassroots activism, and cooperation with Israeli and international solidarity activists and networks.
In 2001, a number of South African and Palestinian civil society groups launched the International Anti-Apartheid Movement against Israel. But it was the 2005 call for an international campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel by over 170 Palestinian parties, trade unions and non-governmental and grassroots organizations that solidified the anti-apartheid movement within Palestinian civil society. It also made possible the prospect of a popular resistance with an appeal to international law, universal human rights and opposition to colonialism, apartheid and racism.
The BDS campaign was formed around three objectives: an end to colonization and occupation of all Arab lands and dismantling of the Israeli-West Bank barrier wall; recognition of the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and respect, protection and promotion of the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands as per UN resolution 194.
While a growing movement around the world is assembling under the BDS banner, here in Canada Harper’s Conservative government has effectively become Israel’s closest friend and ally. From supporting the 2006 invasion of Lebanon and the 2008-09 assault on Gaza, to condemning the calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Canada has also vetoed key UN motions on the rights of Palestinian refugees, to cutting funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, and labeled any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. The Conservative government’s position has consistently been unqualified support for Israel. In fact, both Canadian and Israeli officials insist that “Israel now has no better friend in the world than Canada.”
It came as no surprise when the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lawrence Cannon declared that Canada’s chief concern with regard to Egypt is a stable transition that would protect the peace treaty with Israel. This time, there was little talk about supporting democracy and human rights.
While the government’s official policy has been one of unconditional support for Israel, in recent years the Canadian civil society has established strong links with the anti-apartheid movement. Many Canadian unions including the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and la Centrale des syndicats du Quebec (CSQ), have joined the broad coalition that is forming around the anti-apartheid movement.
Most significantly, Israeli Apartheid Week, which is held in cities around the world this month, began as a Canadian initiative. It was launched in 2005 by students at the University of Toronto with the idea of raising awareness about the structures of legal, political, economic, social and cultural domination imposed on Palestinians within Israel and in the occupied territories. In its seventh year, IAW continues to make a significant contribution to the opposition of Israeli apartheid and to bolster support for BDS.
Siavash Saffari is a political science doctoral student at the University of Alberta and an organizer with Palestine Solidarity Network.
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