Montreal groups criticize Stephen Harper on War in the Middle East

An Open Letter to the Prime Minister on the sell-out of Canada's national identity as a progressive peace-loving nation.

Mr. Steven Harper
Prime Minister of Canada

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Canada is a state of law. We have signed on to international treaties, and we are a peaceful and peace-loving population. The vast majority of Canadians are convinced that peace can only be achieved by the enforcement of international law, and we want our country to promote and respect it. It is not by encouraging the escalation of blind violence that we are going to promote peace.

It is therefore with great concern that we have been witness over the past few weeks to the massacre of the Palestinian population by the State of Israel, with the blessing of the President of the United States, as well as your own -- to our great shame.

We have now reached another climax in the escalation of horror, with the torrent of bombs that has been falling on Lebanon for the past days. And the worst, Mr. Prime Minister, is that, once again, you approve of this Israeli attempt to destroy its neighbours in the name of Israel's right to self-defence!

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Mr. Prime Minister, you do not have the right to associate us with this barbarity by approving of it. Israel has defied international and humanitarian law for decades. This terrorist state (Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize) wants to annihilate its neighbours and deny them their right to exist. Do you believe that peace is possible when law is not respected? Do you believe that the kidnapping of three soldiers (one in Gaza, two in Lebanon) justifies terrorising populations; bombing bridges, power stations, ports, airports, gas depots; the assassination of entire families - all this in the name of the right to self-defence?!!!

Israel demands the implementation of UN Resolution 1559 from 2004, that among many things, calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah. What must be done in order for Israel itself to respect the multiple resolutions adopted by the UN decades ago in favour of the rights of the Palestinian people? Is it not the very non-application of these resolutions -- most importantly that of UN Resolution 242, that for close to 40 years has called for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the territories occupied in 1967 -- that is at the origin of all this violence?

It is perhaps useful to recall a part of the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that: '[.] disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.'

Mr. Prime Minister, we ask you to immediately denounce the war of aggression launched by Israel against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples, and to demand from Israel the immediate cessation of all acts of aggression.

Mohamed Kamel
Montréal, Québec
e-mail: mohamed@btceramique.com
JOURNÉE D'ACTION INTERNATIONALE en solidarité avec les peuples au Liban et à Gaza.

Signatories:

- Association des jeunes libanais musulmans
- Al Hidaya Association
- Canadian Muslim Forum (CMF)
- Canadian Muslims for Jerusalem (CMJ)
- Coalition against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees
- International Solidarity Movement Montreal (ISM)
- Muslim Association of Canada (MAC)
- Members of the Lebanese Diaspora
- Members of the Palestinian Diaspora
- No One Is Illegal-Montreal/ Personne n'est illégal-Montréal
- Palestinian And Jewish Unity (PAJU)
- Parole Arabe
- Presence musulmane Montréal (PMM)
- Le Regroupement des Algeriens du Canada (RAC)
- Solidarité sans frontières/Solidarity Across Borders
- Solidarity with Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR)
- Tadamon! Montreal
- Voices of Conscience (OCVC)