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We are saddened, hurt and shocked by the visit of a delegation of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) to Israel, as well as the following statement attributed to AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine:
“Indigenous people in Canada have much in common with the people of Israel, including a respect of the land and their languages. This mission is an excellent opportunity for us to share our values and our traditional ways of life, in the hope of building greater understanding, awareness and respect for our similarities and differences, both at home and abroad.” http://www.afn.ca/article.asp?id=2276
The victims of genocide at the hands of European settler colonialism cannot and should not give cover for another form of settler colonialism that has committed and continues to commit wholesale ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people and nation. In 1948, over four hundred villages and towns were wiped off the Palestinian and world map and their cemeteries desecrated; two thirds of the Palestinian people were uprooted from their historic homeland and forced to live in reservations called refugee camps for the past fifty-eight years, most outside of their historic land. (See “All That Remains” By Prof. Walid Khalidi
http://palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story661.html
Perhaps the chiefs, elders and leaders of the Assembly of First Nations don’t know the history of the Zionist movement. In fact, it was coined on the model of the European settler colonialist movement that preceded it four hundred years earlier and committed the genocide against the indigenous peoples. The Zionist movement was also built on the South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Algeria and other European settler colonialist models of the same era – late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Here is what the first Zionist Congress held in Basle, Switzerland (in Europe) in 1897 listed as some of the aims of the movement:
“Zionism strives to create for the Jewish people a homeland in Palestine secured by public law. The congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of this end:
1- The promotion on suitable lines of the colonization of Palestine by Jewish agricultural and industrial workers.” (our emphasis)
And Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, wrote in his book The Jewish State in 1896:
“We should there form a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.” (our emphasis)
So doesn’t this logic sound familiar? We are sure that it is painfully familiar to your ancestors and to your people who face racism on a daily basis.
We are sorry that we do not have the means to take you on similar tours to show you what is really happening in Palestine. Perhaps you should ask the hundreds of international volunteers, including Canadians, who paid their own way to go there and bear witness to the continuous Israeli brutality against the indigenous people of Palestine (See http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/). We are sure your Israeli and Zionist hosts will never take you to see the remains of the four hundred villages that were systematically destroyed, nor will they show you the Apartheid wall, the refugee camps, the tens of thousands of uprooted trees nor will they tell you that over 95 per cent of the land that Israel sits on is stolen land from the indigenous Palestinian population. If Chief Fontaine thinks that Israel has respect for the land, he is either unaware or complicit in covering up the massive Israeli injustice against the indigenous people of Palestine.
We will be frank with you. In the name of the vanquished indigenous people, you are being used to justify and cover up not only the Israeli atrocities and war crimes committed against the Palestinian people but also Israeli support for racism and oppression against the peoples of Africa, Asia, central and south America.
This should not pass. The sooner you clarify your position, the sooner you will salvage your name and credibility. Already messages on the Internet are describing your collaboration with the Zionist organizations under the title: “Friends of neocolonialism meet”. We hope that you will not be remembered as friends of European settler colonialists who committed genocide against the Palestinian people and were motivated by conquest, greed and superiority, the same evil motivations that enslaved the Native people of the Americas.
It is an offence and a crime against our native brothers and sisters who are still living and to those who perished in the process of colonization, to associate with the crimes of the Israeli settler colonialist state that is committing genocide against the native people of Palestine.
Since the year 2000, over eight hundred Palestinian “Dudley Georges” were murdered every year at the hands of the neo-fascist regime in Israel.
Are these the people who you “have much in common with” and that you want to build cultural comparisons with? Are these the people you want to share your “values and … traditional ways of life” with?
If so, you are complicit in their war crimes and you should not do it in the name of the First Nations Peoples.
Indigenous peoples must never be a party to genocide against the Palestinian people nor any other oppressed people facing occupation, genocide and theft of their land and natural resources.
For further info or to add your name to the list of endorsers, contact Hanna Kawas at info@cpavancouver.org
Endorsed by the following groups:
1. Al-Huda Muslim Society
2. International Solidarity Movement (ISM)-Montreal
3. International Solidarity Movement (ISM)-Vancouver www.ism-vancouver.org
4. Islamic Foundation of Toronto, Scarborough, www.islamicfoundation.ca
5. Muslim Canadian Congress
6. Niagara Coalition for Peace
7. Niagara Palestinian Association
8. November 16 Coalition (Hamilton, Ontario)
9. Palestine Community Centre www.palestinecommunitycentre.com
10. Palestine House, Toronto www.palestinehouse.com
11. Palestine Solidarity Group www.palsolidaritygrp.org
12. Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) www.pajumontreal.org
13. Palestinian Centre for Rappochement between People (www.pcr.ps )
14. Salaam Vancouver
15. Simon Fraser University Palestinian Human Rights Committee (PHRC)
16. Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights-Montreal
17. Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights - McMaster University (Hamilton, ON)
18. Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, Concordia (SPHR)
19. Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, UBC
20. Toronto's Robin Hood Collective
21. Women in Black – Los Angeles
Endorsed by the following alternative media outlets:
1. Al-Shorouq Arabic Newspaper, BC
2. Bulland Awaaz - Vancouver CO-OP Radio
3. DISCUSSION, Vancouver Co-Op Radio
4. Goin' Coastal, your Indigenous Revolutionary Radio Program 101.7 fm (CHLY)
5. Information: Montreal – Palestine www.imopa.ca
6. Voice of Palestine, Vancouver www.voiceofpalestine.ca
7. Wake Up with Co-op!, Vancouver Coop Radio www.wakeupwithcoop.org/
Endorsed by the following individuals (groups listed for identification only):
1. Ali Mallah, Equity Vice president, CUPE Toronto District Council
2. Ali Yassir and B. Bechnak, Montreal
3. Allan Brison, New Haven, CT
4. Amir M. Maasoumi, Président of "Centre de ressources sur la non-violence"
(Resources centre for non-violence)
5. Anis BALAFREJ,Association de solidarité Maroc Palestine, Rabat, Morocco
6. Bobby Arbess, Jews for a Just Peace-Victoria
7. Bruce Katz, Co-President Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) Montreal
8. Charles Boylan, Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada (Vancouver South)
9. Chiinuuks (Ruth) Ogilvie, Member "Goin' Coastal, your Indigenous Revolutionary Radio
Program, 101.7 fm CHLY"
10. Dave Brophy, Friends of Grassy Narrows, Winnipeg
11. Diana Ralph, Toronto, (Jewish member of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada)
12. Donna Petersen, Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada (Vancouver Kingsway)
13. Dorinda Guadalupe Moreno, hitec aztec communications, friends of dqu :
elders of 4 colors 4 directions
14. Dr. Abe Mouaket, P. Eng., Toronto.
15. Elizabeth Block, Toronto
16. Family of Reem Abu-Sbaih, Ayman and Yousef Helo, NYC
17. Freda Guttman, International Solidarity Movement-Montreal
18. FreeXero www.FREEXERO.com
19. Gale Courey Toensing, Falls Village, CT
20. George N. Rishmawi - Palestinian Centre for Rappochement between People (www.pcr.ps )
21. Greta Berlin, Los Angeles, Volunteer, International Solidarity Movement
22. Hanny Hassan, London, ON
23. Helen Michell, spokesperson for the Bear Clan families of Maxan Lake
24. Ismail Ibrahim Nawwab, Saudi Arabia
25. Jayce Salloum, Filmmaker, Vancouver
26. Jeanne Svhiyeyi Aga Chadwick
27. John and Betty Beeching, Vancouver
28. John Pranger, Vancouver, BC
29. Johnny Roberts, St. Catharines, Ontario
30. Judith Weisman
31. Justine McCabe, International Committee, Green Party of the US
32. Karin Brothers, Toronto, Ont.
33. Khaled Mouammar, former CAF president, Toronto
34. Lamis Jamal Deek, Native of Palestine, Daughter of exilees, Attorney with Al-Awda,
Palestine Right to Return Coalition
35. Lawrence Boxall, Jews for a Just Peace – Vancouver
36. Lawrence ytzhak braithwaite, author, victoria, british columbia
37. Macdonald Stainsby, Vancouver
38. Marc Azar, Montréal, Québec
39. Marty and Martha Roth, Jews for a Just Peace, Vancouver
40. Mary Hughes-Thompson, International Solidarity Movement
41. Meria, Producer/Host, "THE MERIA HELLER SHOW "
42. Mira Khazzam, Montreal, Quebec
43. Mohamed Kamel, Freelance writer, Montreal
44. Mohammed Abu Assi, Montreal
45. Mohammed Shokr, Muslim Unity Group
46. Nathan Stuckey
47. Nick Treanor, St.Catharines, Ontario
48. Nicolas A. Sayegh, Montreal
49. Nizar Sakhnini, Mississauga, Ontario
50. Noah Lepawsky. ISM Volunteer, Vancouver
51. Peter Eglin, Professor of Sociology, Wilfrid Laurier University
52. Rezeq Faraj, co-president of PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity)
53. Robert Bibeau, PAJU
54. Ron Benner, London, Ontario
55. Samia A. Halaby, born in Jerusalem and living in exile in New York
56. Sandra Joy Jones, Wilmington, De.
57. Shawn Smith, Ottawa
58. Sid Shniad, Vancouver, British Columbia
59. Splitting the Sky, Indigenous activist
60. Yahya Abdul Raham, Montreal Muslim News
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