Actualité - People of Halifax Say NO to Israeli Occupation!

In 2007 the Occupation turns 40

In 2008 al Nakba turns 60

June 6, 2007 marks 40 years since Israel's Occupation

June 2007 marks the 40-year anniversary of Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights. During June 8-10, 2007, the people of Palestine and people of the world will join together to say NO! to Israeli occupation. We warmly invite your participation in the discussion and video presentation on this important occasion.

May 15, 2008 commemorates 60 years of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe)


2007 Commemoration of Nakba in Lebanon (left) and Bethlehem In its recent war against Lebanon, Israel's unilateralism and militarism have been exposed once again to the world.

Furthering maneuvers among certain big powers in the United Nations in November 1947 which partitioned the territory of Palestine's residents without their consent in order to insert a Zionist entity in the service of Western interests, that entity calling itself Israel continues to this day to establish "facts on the ground" to maintain the strategic control it extended in the June 1967 War over East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights, to annex land and get rid of the non-Jewish population.In Jerusalem and inside Israel, Palestinians since 1948 face institutionalized discrimination and are denied equality and their full rights as citizens.

And Israel continues to deny Palestinian refugees, who were forcibly exiled from their homeland in the 1947-48 war, their internationally guaranteed right of return.For 40 years Israel has constructed illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. For 40 years Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians, demolished 12,000 Palestinian homes, arrested 650,000 Palestinians, destroyed more than a million Palestinian olive trees.For 40 years of occupation Israel has continued to deny Palestinians in the occupied territories their internationally guaranteed human rights to food, water, education, livelihood, and health care; imposes a system of checkpoints, closures, military fences, sieges and curfews that deny Palestinians freedom of movement within and between their own communities.

In violation of the Geneva Conventions, Israel imposes collective punishments on the entire Palestinian population. Mass arrests have included dozens of democratically elected Palestinian parliamentarians and government ministers. Since the year 2000, Israel's "targeted" killings, often carried out by U.S.-provided F-16 bombers or Hellfire missiles have resulted in more than 337 dead Palestinians; 129 of them were not the "target" at all, and many of those killed were children.Since 2002, the apartheid/annexation Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory aims to encircle the Palestinian population, squeezing Palestinians into truncated Bantustans and cementing Israeli expansionism. The Wall divides farmers from their land, students from their schools, workers from their jobs, and people from their communities. Despite the International Court of Justice ruling it illegal, the Wall now encircles Palestinian towns and cities in the most massive land-grab in 40 years.Since the partitioning of Palestine in 1947, Canadian governments and their prime ministers have vocally supported the State of Israel in word and deed while stopping at nothing to marginalise the claims and just resistance of the Palestinians at every turn. Prime Minister Paul Martin's assertion that "Israel's values are Canada's values" has been repeated and amplified by the Harper government, further endangering peace and security for peoples of the entire world. We warmly invite your participation in the discussion and video presentation on this important occasion.

(Shunpiking Magazine)