Khaled Mouammar*
To Member of Parliament Majid Jowhari (majid.jowhari@parl.gc.ca)
CC. Mélanie Joly – Heather McPherson – Salma Zahid
As a Christian Palestinian who was expelled from my homeland in 1948 and denied the right of return, and having family members living in Nazareth, I am deeply saddened by Canada’s insensitivity towards the suffering of my people.
It was disheartening to see a video (https://twitter.com/CJPME/status/1654163619444031489) showing Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie laughing and responding flippantly when asked what action Canada will take regarding Israel’s violation of the human rights of Palestinians and international law.
Israel has recently demolished an EU-funded children school in the occupied West Bank, has a Minister of Security Itamar Ben-Gvir who encourages Jewish Israelis to arm themselves and shoot Palestinian citizens, has plans to illegally move more Jewish Israeli settlers into the West Bank and is planning to demolish3,500 structures in the West Bank (in addition to 7.813 Palestinian Bedouin structures in the Negev inside Israel proper) and dispossessing thousands of Palestinian families to achieve a Jewish majority in the those areas.
It is crucial for Canada to take a stand against these atrocities which will further marginalize Palestinians, deny them their basic human rights and entrench an apartheid one-state reality between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Canada must recognize that its silence on Israel’s violations of human rights and international law only perpetuates the suffering of seven million indigenous Palestinian Semites under Israel’s brutal rule and control.
Minister Joly owes the Palestinian community an apology for brushing aside the suffering of the indigenous Palestinian Semitic people. Her failure to do so emboldens anti-Palestinian racists and Islamophobes to escalate their attacks against the vulnerable Palestinian and Muslim communities, since 95 percent of Palestinians are Muslims.
I call upon you as my MP to urge Canada’s government officials to live up to our Charter, which enshrines equal rights and freedoms for everyone regardless of their religion or ethnicity, by respectfully and objectively addressing issues that are important to the vulnerable Palestinian community traumatized by the crimes inflicted daily – by a nuclear-armed state whose military is more powerful than Canada’s – on their people in the Holy Land.
*Khaled Mouammar is a Christian Palestinian Canadian who was forced to flee his hometown Nazareth in 1948. He is one of the founders of the Canadian Arab Federation and a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.