Aug. 16 marked 227 days since the start of 2023. 

It also marks 227 murders of Palestinians by Israeli forces.  It works out to one per day since January 1, 2023. 

If we dig a little deeper we find that vast majority of the Palestinians who died were civilians.  They were doing nothing wrong. Many lived in refugee camps that were illegally raided by Israeli troops. 

The Palestinians were standing.

They were sitting outside.

They were on the street outside their homes.

They were inside their homes.

They were unarmed.

They were young, or not so young.

Some were babies. Some were old people – who had nowhere to go and needed care. 

They had names with four syllables that we don’t bother to pronounce. If they had names like Chad, Jennifer, or Tyler would we care more?

They were younger people with lives ahead of them, who had never even seen the sea, which is an hour or so away– but impossible to get to given the 593 Israeli checkpoints which straitjacket travel for Palestinians.

Forty-five  children have no school to return to in September in Jabet al-Dhib, a village near Bethlehem.  The UN-built school was bulldozed into the ground in May 2023. The school had been built to replace one Israeli forces demolished in 2019.   

2023 has been the deadliest year for Palestinians on record.  More than 150 were killed in 2022. Barely eight months into 2023, more than 51%  more Palestinians have been murdered than in all of last year.

The Palestinians have no fighter planes, no armoured personnel carriers.  No armed drones.  No helicopter gunships. No machine guns. No skunk gas; no tear gas cannisters.  They have no military training, little food, almost no access to medical care or prescription medicines.  They have no life outside their town; chances are they have no jobs, and live a life of impoverishment and fear– thanks to Israel.  Sure, they don’t want to live under Israel’s 70 plus year brutal and illegal occupation—nor did they choose to. Sometimes they fight back—with sticks, with stones and even with knives. Israeli is the last “approved” settler colonial state in the world.  Would you want to live in the West Bank, or in Gaza?

No one much considered the Palestinians when it came to the Israeli middle-of-the-road and even more radical Jews’ rush to support the powers of Israel’s Supreme Court. In fact, amidst the tens of thousands of blue and white Israeli flags hoisted during the six plus months of Israelis demonstrating to retain their way of life, their “democracy” –we never saw one Palestinian flag.  Indeed in a few instances, Palestinian flags were removed from the protests.  There was not one sign of solidarity with Palestinians.  In fact the Palestinians and their sympathizers were told to stay away.  No need to sully progressive Israelis’ stance in favour of their vaunted “democracy.” 

How can it be that all the politics and social justice concerns in Israel are galvanized around only the Jews? This is despite the fact that more than 20% of Israel’s population are Palestinians. And that Israel “rules” over a further 2.5 million Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, not to speak of Gaza—the largest open-air prison in the world.

In Canadian synagogues, no one finds fault with Israel

In virtually all Canadian synagogues, the rabbis and the heads of the congregations refuse any criticism of Israel.  Unlike in the US in which Jews spoke out against the Knesset’s new laws to restrict the Supreme Court—in Canada there was no peep.  In fact the online Canadian Jewish News which pretends to represent the Jewish community had a panel which determined we Canadian Jews are fine to give money to Israel, but not to judge the country. We have to stay out – because we are little more than the peanut gallery.  Israel insists it’s acting on our behalf.  

Really? I don’t think so. In 2018 polling firm EKOS conducted a poll sponsored by Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) and the United Jewish People’s Order (UJPO).  The poll showed that 

●   More than a third (37 percent) of Canadian Jews have a negative opinion of the Israeli government;

●   Almost equal proportions of Canadian Jews oppose (45 percent) and support (42 percent) the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel;

●   Almost a third of Canadian Jews (30 percent) think that the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israel is reasonable, and 34 percent also oppose Parliament condemning those who endorse a boycott of Israel; and

●   Almost one in three Canadian Jews (31 percent) oppose the military blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Finally, the poll revealed that almost half (48 percent) of Jews in Canada believe that accusations of antisemitism are often used to silence legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies. 

Israel’s defence minister: An out-and-out racist

And that number is growing – notably in the US.  In March 2023, 145 Jewish American leaders set their customary support for Israeli government back on its heels when they signed a statement saying Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich was not welcome in the US as he “has long expressed views that are abhorrent to the vast majority of American Jews. “ Smotrich’s views include calling for an “erasure” of an Arab town on the West Bank, and “anti-Arab racism, to virulent homophobia, to a full-throated embrace of Jewish supremacy.”

“There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid…”

open letter signed by 1500 US Jews

Just three days ago, more than 1500 Jewish American leaders issued an open letter calling on Jews to pay attention to the  “elephant in the room”.  They wrote: “There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid, as Israeli legal experts have described it.”   

When will Canada’s Jews remove their blinders and demand an end Israeli Apartheid? 

Featured image above: Rage, the Flower Thrower (or Love is in the Air), by Banksy who is a famous British graffiti artist. This 2005 mural is on Ash Salon Street, Bethlehem, West Bank. For more read this.