The Conservatives' Jerusalem Promise Is Scheer Madness
This article was originally published on March 05, 2018 on Huffington Post Canada.
Last week, news broke that Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer promised to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital if elected in 2019. Following in United States president Donald Trump's footsteps, Scheer chose to disregard decades of international law and consensus, proclaiming, "Jerusalem is the capital of Israel."
It doesn't seem to matter to Scheer that dozens of human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have strongly condemned Trump's Jerusalem's decision as "reckless" and "provocative." It also doesn't seem to matter to Scheer that the majority of the world has agreed that altering the status of Jerusalem is unacceptable. Scheer's inflammatory Jerusalem promise lacks the principle and balance that we expect from experienced political representatives.
Read moreCanada Now a Hawk On Nuclear Arms
This article was originally published on July 13, 2017 on Huffington Post Canada.
This article was also published on July 14, 2017 on Rabble.ca.
It’s official. Canada is now a hawk when it comes to the proliferation of nuclear arms. If any additional confirmation were needed, it was Canada’s absence at last week’s UN vote to ban nuclear weapons. But for those who have been following this file, this is only the latest of Canada’s hawkish gestures.
Canada’s failure to step up for last week’s nuclear weapons ban was criticized from many corners. “It’s shocking that Canada is not going to participate,” asserted former Canadian ambassador for disarmament, Douglas Roche back in March. Paul Meyer, another former Canadian ambassador for disarmament described Canada’s absence as “pathetic.” Project Ploughshares’ executive director Cesar Jaramillo considered it a hypocritical contradiction of the Trudeau government’s stated commitment to multilateralism.
Read moreCanadian Zionists Join World Wide Campaign to Mark Centenary of Balfour Declaration
This article was originally published on April 13, 2017 on Canada Talks Israel Palestine.
To Zionists, the “Balfour Declaration” has an almost mythical status – like the Magna Carta or the US Declaration of Independence. One hundred years ago, on November 2nd 1917, Britain’s Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour sent a letter to British Zionist Lord Rothschild, promising that Britain would help establish a “national home” for the Jewish people” in Palestine, which at that time was under the Ottoman Empire.
The 1917 “Balfour Declaration” promised British support for the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people” but to the disappointment of Zionists did not call for a “Jewish state”
Read moreTo Sanction or Not To Sanction
This article was originally published on March 7, 2017 in the Huffington Post.
Most Canadians have no idea, but our government currently sanctions 21 different countries around the world. Perhaps most well-known, Canada maintains sanctions against Iran because of Canadian government suspicions around Iran’s nuclear weapons intents. But Canada also has a general export ban on Belarus for the abuses of President Alexander Lukashenko, as well as various sanctions on 19 other countries.
Government leaders might be reassured by the results of an EKOS poll last week which indicated that 91 percent of Canadians believe that sanctions are a reasonable way for Canada to censure countries for violations of international law or human rights. But such “support” for sanctions may also obfuscate some problematic aspects of Canada’s sanctions policies.
Read moreCanada Appears More Interested in Supporting a “2 State Solution” Than in Defending Palestinian Human Rights
This article was originally published on February 16, 2017 on Canada Talks Israel Palestine.
Israel, its settlers and its military have been on an aggressive roll since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. From shooting a Palestinian member of Israeli Knesset, to killing a Bedouin citizen of Israel fighting expulsion, to demolishing 11 homes in the Israeli Palestinian town of Qalanswah, to announcing 6000 new settlement homes in the West Bank, to renewed bombing on Gaza, to retroactively legalizing settlements in the West Bank, Israel seems more determined than ever to exert its dominance over the Palestinians.
What has been Canada’s response? A month after being appointed, Canada’s new foreign affairs minister has finally made a comment:
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