Canada & Palestine
An article based on a speech at Rally, Oct. 14. 2023, Victoria, BC at Legislature by Theresa Wolfwood.
I have had the privilege of going to Palestine many times. When I ask what can I do to support Palestine, I am told: go home and tell people what you see and experience here.
What I see is a country that is a fraction of its size 75 years ago. In fragments joined by check points guarded by soldiers with stone eyes and guns pointed at every person, ordered to stop, show papers, answer rude questions.
I see a land where thousands of homes & buildings, even whole villages, are destroyed all the time. When we try to help those Palestinians save their homes, soldiers threaten to shoot us from behind rolls of razor wire.
I see a land where 1 million trees have been destroyed or uprooted and stolen. Some more than 1000 years old olive giants; where farmers holding on to their precious trees are beaten & imprisoned.
But a land where determined Palestinians have replanted 2 million trees to show that this home & where they stay. Making a livelihood for their family and nation. A Palestinian Authority Cabinet Minister I knew was choked to death when planting trees*.
It is a land where students are shot in broad daylight crossing a city street; where hundreds of children are in Israeli jails with no trial or charge.
A land where “civilized people”, aka illegal settlers, can stone a pregnant woman to death. And there are nearly one million of those settlers abusing Palestinians every day.
This is what has been happening for 75 years.
Our Canadian Government has seen it all & done nothing: NO! it has done a lot – supporting the oppressive occupier; making these terrible deeds possible by complicity as Israel breaks the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions on War-all of which Canada professes to support.
It is time now to change our government’s policy! We have work to do. YALLA- let’s get going!
Speak truth to every politician & official. Speak up everywhere always.
Boycott Israel! Do not buy its products. Divest from & boycott companies that profit from the occupation: Puma, Sodastream, Bank of Montreal to name a few, for more see: https://bdscoalition.ca/
End the Free Trade Agreement with Israel.
Check out the Canada Pension Plan Investments & any other pension plans you contribute to; many invest in companies profiting from war & occupation.
If Canada can sanction human rights offenders-Russia, Iran, why not Israel?
Keep at it-justice will prevail with ‘Sumud’ !
Long live the Palestinian people!
Shukran.
Audio file: https://gorilla-radio.com/2023/10/23/ape-goes-to-victoria-gaza-solidarity-demo-october-22-2023/
*Death with live tree
It was in December, a good time
to plant saplings in a land where
one million olive trees of every age
from 2000 years to two years old
have been stolen and destroyed
by a relentless purveyor of death.
When Ziad Aby Ain, fifty-five years old
father and politician joined farmers
laden with small trees to plant
on stolen land, he was beaten,
gassed, choked by armed soldiers
of a global power.
He died in the ambulance on a short trip
from Turmus Aya to Pamallah.
The world blinked and looked away.
No cabinet minister anywhere
stood for a moment of silence for
a parliamentary colleague.
No UN vote of censure;
no government sanctioned the invaders.
A lover of children and trees
mourned by his family, friends,
and the fragile olive tree that
died with him; he was cherished,
this good man, this good Palestinian.
By Theresa Wolfwood
In ‘Passion and Commitment’ Yalla Press, 2023
