Topp and Mulcair – the apparatus man and the ex-Liberal

The late Jack Layton’s political presence in Canadian politics owed everything to the social movements. But when members of the party gather, March 24, 2012 to elect a replacement for Layton, the party is likely to be moved very far from this social movement experience. The implications of this need to be seriously thought through by those interested in progressive social change in Canada.

Cheri DiNovo and the need for ‘Apartheid 101’

This year’s Israeli Apartheid Week took place in a record number of campuses around the world, this in spite of constant attacks on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. In this context, it is worth remembering the stance taken by the NDP’s Cheri DiNovo, this time last year. (Written March 4, 2010 – Part of a series of articles, “Reflections on 2010”) – A Tory resolution condemning the sixth annual Israeli Apartheid Week, received unanimous support from the 30 members of the Ontario legislature who showed up for work on Thursday February 25, 2010. Shamefully, one of those who spoke in favour and voted for this resolution was Toronto-based NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo.[1] In the context of the concentrated attack on Palestinian solidarity coming from all levels of government, DiNovo's backing of this reactionary motion is very damaging. She and the rest of her party could use a little refresher course – we’ll call it “Apartheid 101.”

Missing the point on boycotting apartheid

Rick Salutin, well-respected columnist for The Globe and Mail, and rabble.ca has published a criticism of the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the state of Israel.[1] Below is one of the responses posted to his column when it appeared on rabble.[2] • It is not credible for Rick Salutin to paint all boycott campaigns with the same brush. U.S. sanctions against Cuba are an attack by an imperialist country on a small oppressed nation. U.N. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s cost hundreds of thousands of lives and were the preliminary act in the horror that became the Iraq war.

The civil society movement to isolate South Africa through a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions was, by contrast, a movement against imperialism and war – a call to isolate a racist, sub-imperialist power. This is of a kind with the civil society movement to isolate Israel through a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions. Israel is a sub-imperialist power that is built on the basis of the racist exclusion and oppression of the Palestinians. The issue is -- are we with imperialism and its allies, or with the oppressed and their allies in the fight against imperialism?

Salutin then changes the goal posts and questions the efficacy of such campaigns. That is something that has been discussed at length in the social movements. Very few maintain that BDS alone brought down apartheid. The key factor in the fall of apartheid was the generations-long struggle by the black people of South Africa themselves – from the uprising in Soweto to the magnificent illegal miners' strikes. This movement received considerable support from others in Africa (and from the armies of Cuba), engaged in their own struggles against colonialism and racism. Finally, to the extent those of us in the West could play a role, it was through exposing our governments' and corporations' complicity by calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions.

And "self-righteous language on each side"? In what way can the use of the term "apartheid" be equated with the Israeli state banning the use of the term "nakba?" Both express a truth – that the Israeli state is based on the racist exclusion of the majority of the Palestinians. The reality of the mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians does in fact make 1948 a catastrophe (nakba), just as the ongoing exclusion, fragmentation, isolation and separation of the Palestinians is a fact that deserves the label "apartheid". What unites both these terms is the way in which their use has been greeted with hysteria. We must not use the label "apartheid" or the term "nakba" – because these terms make it difficult for a complacent political class to continue to wallow in 61 years of willful ignorance about the reality of Israel's oppression of the Palestinians.


© 2009 Paul Kellogg

References


[1] Rick Salutin, “Mr. Cohen doesn’t do Ramallah,” The Globe and Mail, July 24, 2009 .
[2] Salutin, “Mr. Cohen doesn’t do Ramallah,” rabble.ca, July 24, 2009

Gaza: Occupation is still the issue

The war in Gaza is a completely unequal contest. Israel – receiving billions of dollars in military aid every year from the United States – has one of the most sophisticated killing machines in the world. Gaza is an open-air prison, whose only outlet to the outside world for months has been through tunnels dug deep beneath the border with Egypt. Rockets fired from Gaza have killed a handful of Israelis. Israel’s offensive has killed more than 600 – including the slaughter of 40 at a U.N. school.[1] Yet in spite of these facts, the NDP official statement on the war acts as if both sides are equally to blame.

Canada’s New Democrats “condemn the unacceptable escalation of violence in the Middle East,” the statement begins. This escalation is about “airstrikes by Israel” and the “ongoing rocket attacks”.[2] Not a word about occupation. Not a word about Israel’s strangulation of Gaza. Not a word about Hamas being democratically elected. Not a word about Harper being the first to jump on a boycott of Hamas, giving a green light to Israel.

Israel, Stephen Harper, the United States, F16 fighter planes, tanks, artillery, pilotless drones – against a few hundred Hamas fighters with some rockets. In what way are these two equal sides? Israel has stolen the homes of the Palestinians, forced them into a strip of land by the sea, is now mercilessly pounding them, but “New Democrats believe that Canada must pursue a balanced approach to the Middle East crisis.”

So let’s have a balanced approach. Let’s always tell the truth when we talk about the war in Palestine – the balanced, careful truth. That truth is that Israel is occupying Palestinian land, is expanding its settlements illegally, is carving up what remains of Palestinian land in a way little different from the way South Africa carved up the Bantustans under apartheid, and that until this illegal occupation ends, there will be no peace.



© 2009 Paul Kellogg

References



[1] For facts on the war, see Electronic Intifada
[2] “New Democrat statement on the situation in the Middle East,” December 29, 2008

Spirit of Palestine in Toronto

“The spirit of Palestine will be in every theatre in Toronto.” With these words, Rafeef Ziadah introduced “Salt of This Sea,” first offering in the first ever Toronto Palestine Film Festival. With more than 800 in attendance, the opening was a smash success. Through eight days of screenings, more than 4,000 people attended 36 films. As well as a cultural success, politically the film festival was testament to the growing support for Palestine solidarity in the city of Toronto.

The timing of the event was not accidental. 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the Nakba – the catastrophe of ethnic cleansing which expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their land, as part of the creation of the state of Israel. Palestine House Education and Cultural Centre conceived of the festival as a way of both marking this anniversary, and helping to put the issue of Palestine on the map in Toronto.

The full line-up of films shown can be found at the Toronto Palestine Film Festival web site, www.tpff.ca. To find out more about Palestine House, visit their web site at www.palestinehouse.com.


© 2008 Paul Kellogg

Labour solidarity with Palestine

“I want to express my gratitude to both CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) and CUPW (Canadian Union of Postal Workers) for the solidarity they have shown to the Palestinian people.” With these words, Manawell Abdul Al, member of the executive committee of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions summed up the sentiment at the 150-strong opening plenary of the “Brick by Brick” conference at the Steelworkers Hall in Toronto. He was referring to the motions passed first at CUPE-Ontario, and this year at CUPW national, supporting the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the state of Israel.

Organized by the Labour Committee of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA), the conference focused on “building labour solidarity with Palestine.” As well as members of CUPE and CUPW, the weekend conference brought together members of CAW (Canadian Auto Workers), the USWA (United Steelworkers of America), FNEEQ (Fédération nationale des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec), OSSTF (Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation) and other unions to debate ways to strengthen the BDS campaign in the labour movement.

Marion Pollack from CUPW also spoke on the opening panel. “It is very clear to us that the struggle facing the Palestinian people is the same struggle faced by the South African people against apartheid,” she said, and thanked CUPE Ontario for taking the lead in being the first major union grouping in Canada to pass a BDS resolution. In the wake of the CUPE Ontario resolution, there were literally thousands of emails sent by pro-Israeli forces denouncing the union. After CUPW members at the recent national convention voted 90 per cent to endorse the BDS resolution, “we were braced for a backlash” Pollack said. “However, we have not had the same level of fall-out.”

One of the most moving speeches came from Paul Loulou Chery, Secretary of the Confederation of Haitian Workers. He described the extremely difficult conditions being faced by Haitian workers, chafing under military occupation sanctioned by the United Nations. He talked about the conditions created by the 2004 coup d’état, carried out by the military of the U.S., France and Canada. But he also said that even though Haitian workers face terrible conditions, they do not want their Palestinian sisters and brothers to stand alone. Manawell Abdul Al took the microphone in response, and said that the occupation of Haiti and the occupation of Palestine are one and the same. “It is the dictatorship of capital that wants to exploit and put its hands on the wealth of the people.”

Notably present at the opening plenary was Phyllis Bennis, well known anti-war activist, (prominent in United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the principal anti-war organization in the United States), who spoke from the floor as a member of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Also from the US were members of US Labor Against the War. Links with the U.S. anti-war and labour movements will be critical in the campaign to build solidarity with Palestine.

© 2008 Paul Kellogg

Resources

Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid Labour Committee, www.caiaweb.org/labourcommittee
CUPE B.C., The Wall Must Fall, 2007, www.cupe.ca/updir/WallMustFall2007-eng.pdf
CUPE, "CUPE Resolution 50 Palestine", www.cupe.on.ca
CUPW, Resolution for BDS, http:stopthewall.org
U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, www.endtheoccupation.org

The man who excommunicated Bush and Blair

The war in Iraq "indicates that leaders of the invading states did not listen to the church, and hence, we deem them excommunicates and perverted."[1] These were the words of Father Attallah Hanna in April 2003. He was expressing the outrage of Palestinian Christians over the invasion of Iraq. As a result of this excommunication, George Bush, then Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, and Blair's then foreign minister Jack Straw, were banned from visiting the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, one of the Christianity’s holiest sites. March 29, Attallah Hanna took his anti-war message to more than 600 people in a sold-out convention centre in Mississauga.

His 2003 excommunication of the Bush and Blair was hugely popular. Just two years later, the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church unanimously elected him Archbishop of Sebaste for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, just the second Palestinian to hold this position.[2]

His appearance in Mississauga was organized by Palestine House, and was part of the marking of Land Day (or Youm Al-Ard) - since 1976 an annual commemoration of the struggle of Palestinians to win back their land from Israeli occupation. This year also marks 60 years since the Nakba - the Day of Catastrophe when the state of Israel came into existence pushing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into exile as refugees from their homeland.

Attallah Hanna said, to stormy applause, "60 years of Nakba will never make us forget. ... We won't accept any [peace] plan that won't agree to the right of return for all the refugees." His speech was greeted with several spontaneous standing ovations. Every person attending was given a postcard advertising this year's demonstration against the Nakba, Saturday May 10. Coming on the 60th anniversary, it is expected to draw a very large crowd, in Toronto and around the world. Information on events around the world May 10 can be found here.

© 2008 Paul Kellogg

References

[1] Yasser El-Banna, “Church Of The Nativity ex-communicates Bush, Blair,” IslamOnline.net, April 3, 2003, www.IslamOnline.net
[2] Maria C. Khoury, “A Rare Day for Orthodoxy in the Holy Land,” Orthodox Christian News, January 2, 2006, www.orthodoxnews.org

George Habash – ‘These borders will fall’

The sad passing of George Habash January 26, is an opportunity to learn the lessons from his long life of struggle. In the 1970s at the peak of his influence, he embodied the hopes of thousands struggling to win Palestine freedom against the forces of imperialism, Israeli militarism and capitalism.

Often known as “Al Hakim” (the doctor or wise man),[1] Habash was born in 1925 or 1926 in Lydda Palestine. Like many Palestinians, his hometown has “vanished” – what was Lydda, Palestine now being called Lod, Israel.[2] When only 22, he was “witness to the ethnic cleansing of his home town,”[3] part of the horror of the Nakba (Catastrophe) – the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes by the emerging Israeli state. Studying medicine at the American University of Beirut when the Nakba began, he “rushed back to Lydda to serve as a medical orderly as the Zionists advanced on the town and drove out its inhabitants.” From that point on, his life as a doctor was to be combined with his life as a freedom fighter. Over the next three years he would both help in the founding of the Arab Nationalist Movement and graduate from university, “first in his class.”[4]

His political evolution was organically linked to the many phases of the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Like many thousands, his first position was that Arab unity could defeat the state of Israel. He was a supporter of the Pan-Arab nationalism of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. But Israel’s shattering defeat of Egypt and other Arab states in 1967’s Six-Day war, drove Habash like many in his generation to look to more radical solutions. In the wake of the 1967 war, Habash helped found the organization with which he was to be associated for the rest of his life – the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It became one of the key components of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), second in importance only to Fatah.[5]

Habash is often portrayed as a “terrorist.” The Enclycopaedia Britannica says that “under the leadership of Habash, the PFLP staged several airplane hijackings.”[6] They don’t mention that, according to Oxford University’s Karma Nabulsi, “the tactic of aeroplane hijackings ... was never his (and over which he expelled Wadie Haddad from the PFLP).”[7] And of course they do not mention that if we are to talk about terrorism in Palestine – and if terrorism is to be understood as “the systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective”[8] (the definition offered by The Enclyopaedia Britannica) – then without any question the biggest terrorist in Palestine is the state of Israel. The ethnic cleansing of Lydda during the Nakba is just one of many examples of the Israeli state terrorism which has fuelled the liberation struggle in Palestine.

Habash was a true internationalist. Inspired by the struggle in Vietnam, he and the PFLP “argued that the liberation of Palestine would be impossible without the liberation of Arab countries from the regimes imposed by the West and Israel. Looking to Vietnam, Habash called for Arab ‘Hanois,’ and stated that the liberation of Palestine passed through every Arab capital.”[9] Habash was also a man of the left. After the founding of the PFLP, he openly embraced Marxism.

We need to also learn the limits of Habash’s politics. The Marxism that he and his generation learned was tangled up with the complex anti-democratic reality of the so-called “socialist” states. Habash was at first openly critical of the Soviet Union, but like many he for a time tried to find an alternative in the equally anti-democratic traditions of “Communist” China. By 1973, according to As'ad AbuKhalil of California State University, the PFLP “had joined the ranks of Arab communist organizations that pledged allegiance to the Soviet Union.”[10] The inability of the left in the Middle East to fully break free from the long shadow of Stalinism made it less and less attractive as a liberation ideology for the oppressed masses of the region. The decline of the left of Habash’s generation meant the marginalization of his organization, the PFLP. “One can't speak of the PFLP since 2000, when Habash voluntarily resigned from the leadership.”[11]

But the oppression of Palestine continues, and a new generation has taken up the resistance. Habash lived that last years of his life in poverty and exile in Amman, Jordan. But he had his dignity – refusing to the end the corruption that engulfed many of the leadership of his contemporaries in Fatah. And Habash, to his death, was dedicated to the liberation of Palestine.

Karma Nabulsi, in his obituary to Habash, tells a story that is a fitting epitaph. “Just before his death, Habash was told how young Palestinians from a different political party had audaciously destroyed the walls of Gaza, setting free its people. Habash smiled and said: ‘You see, the day will come when these borders will fall and Arab unity will be achieved.’”[12]

© 2008 Paul Kellogg

References


[1] David Hirst, “George Habash,” The Guardian, January 29, 2008
[2] “Habash, George,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2008, Enclyopaedia Britannica Online, February 1, 2008 .
[3] Karma Nabulsi, “Rebel from a bygone era,” The Guardian, January 29, 2008.
[4] Hirst, “George Habash”
[5] As’ad AbuKhalil, “George Habash’s contribution to the Palestinian struggle, The Electronic Intifada, January 30, 2008
[6] “George Habash”
[7] Nabulsi, “Rebel from a bygone era”
[8] “terrorism,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2008, Enclyopaedia Britannica Online, February 1, 2008
[9] As’ad AbuKhali, “George Habash’s contribution”
[10] As’ad AbuKhali, “George Habash’s contribution”
[11] As’ad AbuKhali, “George Habash’s contribution”
[12] Nabulsi, “Rebel from a bygone era”