{"id":36083,"date":"2024-12-03T22:08:21","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T21:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=36083"},"modified":"2024-12-03T22:09:23","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T21:09:23","slug":"activists-occupy-canadian-parliament-building-to-protest-gaza-war-arming-of-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=36083","title":{"rendered":"Activists Occupy Canadian Parliament Building to Protest Gaza War & Arming of Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"
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. . HUMAN RIGHTS . . <\/p>\n

An article from Democracy Now<\/a> (licensed under a\u00a0Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License)<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada needs to stop arming Israel and implement an immediate arms embargo.\u201d In Ottawa, over 100 Jewish activists began a sit-in inside a Canadian parliamentary building Tuesday to demand Canada stop arming Israel. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Rachel Small, a member of the Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition and a member of the sit-in, says that the Canadian government\u2019s claims that it is halting arms shipments to Israel are obfuscating the fact that Canadian weapons are still being transported via the United States. \u201cWe\u2019re here to make sure that they \u2026 actually cut off the flow,\u201d says Small. Such protest \u201cis what we should be seeing more of,\u201d adds Israeli journalist and former conscientious objector Haggai Matar.<\/p>\n

Transcript of video<\/p>\n

AMY\u00a0GOODMAN:<\/strong>\u00a0Haggai, you asked if people are doing enough. I want to break into this conversation with this breaking news. In Canada, about 150 Jewish activists and allies have just launched a protest inside the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa to demand Canada stop arming Israel.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re joined now by Rachel Small, a member of the group Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition.<\/p>\n

Rachel, can you describe where you are and what you\u2019re doing and what you\u2019re calling for?<\/p>\n

RACHEL\u00a0SMALL<\/strong>:\u00a0Thank you. We are in a Parliament Hill building. Right now we have completely taken over the lobby of this building, that has hundreds of parliamentarians\u2019 office in here.<\/p>\n

Our demand is clear: Canada needs to stop arming Israel and implement an immediate arms embargo. We know that every F-35 fighter jet, every Boeing Apache helicopter dropping bombs on Lebanon and Gaza right now is full of hundreds of Canadian components. We\u2019re here as Jews to say this violence cannot continue in our name. And we\u2019re here as people of conscience to say that the absolute bare minimum Canada needs to be doing right now is stop arming a genocide.<\/p>\n

JUAN\u00a0GONZ\u00c1LEZ:<\/strong>\u00a0Haggai Matar, your response to these kinds of actions occurring abroad? Does this have an impact on the Israeli public?<\/p>\n

HAGGAI\u00a0MATAR:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, first of all, I want to commend the activists on the ground now in Ottawa. It\u2019s incredible. This is the exact kind of protest that people should be taking on in Canada, definitely in the U.S., which is the biggest supplier of weapons and funding and diplomatic support to Israel. So, yes, this is what we should be seeing more of.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid that in Israel, again, these protests are usually seen as antisemitic or, in the case of Jews protesting, of self-hating Jews or people that are unhinged. That\u2019s the way it\u2019s being perceived. It\u2019s our job as Jewish Israelis on the ground, talking in Hebrew, talking to people in our communities, to try and help them understand that it\u2019s not the world that has gone mad, it\u2019s us.<\/p>\n

(continued in right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question related to this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
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How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?<\/a> <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(continued from left column)<\/p>\n

AMY\u00a0GOODMAN:<\/strong>\u00a0Interesting that the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, just met with President-elect Trump in Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Rachel Small, we\u2019re looking at the group of people. One of them, I think, says \u201cJews for a Free Palestine.\u201d What has been Trudeau\u2019s position? And what\u2019s going to happen to you this morning?<\/p>\n

RACHEL\u00a0SMALL:<\/strong>\u00a0We have seen an unprecedented wave of resistance across Canada over the past 13 months, many, many thousands of people across the country not only petitioning their MPs, not only protesting, not only meeting with them, but actually holding blockades at weapons factories, doing just really everything we can to get Canada to stop arming Israel.<\/p>\n

And that pressure has resulted in the Canadian government taking a stance that we would have not thought possible a year or two ago. They have committed to stop arming Israel. They have,\u00a0in fact \u2014 the foreign affairs minister recently, in fact, said that Canadian weapons are not going to be going and used in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it\u2019s not true. Unfortunately, we know that they have not tackled all the permits, and they have continued to conveniently send weapons to the U.S. without even requiring a permit. Those are going into every F-35 Israel is using. That is going into Israel\u2019s primary weapons of war.<\/p>\n

So we have backed the Canadian government into a corner where they know what the right stance is. They know they need to stop arming Israel. And we\u2019re here to make sure they do it. The broad Arms Embargo Now coalition has come together across the country and has, in fact, gotten 45 parliamentarians to formally endorse the call for an arms embargo. We just need the government to step up and take that action to actually cut off the flow of all weapons to and from Israel. It\u2019s the bare minimum they need to be doing.<\/p>\n

AMY\u00a0GOODMAN<\/strong>:\u00a0That\u2019s Rachel Small, member of Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition. If you\u2019re having a little trouble understanding her, she\u2019s inside the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa. There are scores of people behind her, lead Canadian organizer with World \u2014\u00a0with the group World Beyond War. And in the studio with us in New York, though usually in Tel Aviv, is Haggai Matar, Israeli journalist, activist, executive director of\u00a0+972 Magazine, a conscientious objector himself. Juan?<\/p>\n

JUAN\u00a0GONZ\u00c1LEZ:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, Haggai, we only have about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you about President-elect Trump\u2019s decision to select former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is not only a leading U.S. Christian Zionist who\u2019s openly advocated for Israel\u2019s annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he declared in 2008 that there\u2019s really no such thing as a Palestinian. What do you expect from this kind of ambassador from the new Trump administration?<\/p>\n

HAGGAI\u00a0MATAR:<\/strong>\u00a0So, obviously, Trump appointments and Trump policies are terrifying to us and should be, too, to anyone who cares about the rights of Palestinians. I do want to also point out, however, Trump policies have an inherent contradiction. As an isolationist, Trump does not want to get involved in too many wars. As someone who wants to break deals with Saudi Arabia and Arab Gulf states, he may want to ensure that they don\u2019t drift into the Iran-China field of influence. And those two policies, being pro-annexation and pro-settlements and pro-Israel and being pro-war and wanting to sign deals, they collide. And I think it\u2019s our role on the left to kind of put a wedge in there and try and make sure that it becomes more and more apparent how those policies conflict with each other.<\/p>\n

AMY\u00a0GOODMAN:<\/strong>\u00a0Haggai Matar, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Israeli journalist, activist, executive director of\u00a0+972 Magazine, former conscientious objector, refused to serve in the Israeli army.<\/p>\n

– – – – – –<\/p>\n

If you wish to make a comment on this article, you may write to coordinator@cpnn-world.org with the title “Comment on (name of article)” and we will put your comment on line. Because of the flood of spam, we have discontinued the direct application of comments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . . An article from Democracy Now (licensed under a\u00a0Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License) \u201cCanada needs to stop arming Israel and implement an immediate arms embargo.\u201d In Ottawa, over 100 Jewish activists began a sit-in inside a Canadian parliamentary building Tuesday to demand Canada stop arming Israel. … Continue reading Activists Occupy Canadian Parliament Building to Protest Gaza War & Arming of Israel<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,74,91],"tags":[8,5],"class_list":["post-36083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","category-mideast","category-north-america","tag-mideast","tag-north-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}