Lebanon is currently facing a major political crisis, as armed battles have erupted in multiple districts in Beirut, battles between pro-government forces and the political opposition backed by the Lebanese movement Hezbollah. Currently the Lebanese capital is divided, as opposition forces maintain a hold in West Beirut, having handed control in certain districts to the Lebanese Army, while the western-backed Lebanese government remains in lock down within government buildings.

Today Lebanon’s government has maintained a contested hold on official state power in Lebanon without representation from Hezbollah or other opposition parties for over one year. This week the government announced that Hezbollah’s independent communications network or telephone system operating in Lebanon as illegal, sparking the current crisis. Hezbollah’s independent telephone or communications system is considered to be a critical element to the success of the Lebanese resistance to Israel in successfully halting Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon.

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We write to urge you not to cancel a joint conference by Comité d’action pour la lutte étudiante boulonnaise (CALEB) and Tadamon! April 21 on Israel and Palestine. Behind this censorship attempt appears to be a false belief that critics of Israel are anti-Semitic, or anti-Jewish to be precise. The Jewish people in Quebec and Canada are divided on the issues of Israel and Palestine. There are many Jewish people like us who support open discussion and activities for Palestinian human rights, and oppose the Israeli occupation and suppression of the Palestinian people.

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Anti-apartheid protesters scatter political confetti at a lunch-in at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, reading; “60 years of Israeli Apartheid, 60 years of Palestinian dispossession; Boycott Israel!”

Photos documenting a successfully disruption at a lunch-in sponsored by the Quebec-Israel Committee, marking “60 years of relationship” between Canada and Israel. After effectively evading hotel security and the Montreal police, social justice activists burst into the appointed conference room, abruptly bringing to a halt the pro-apartheid discourse of Israel’s ambassador to Canada…

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Thursday, April 10th, 2008: Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker, was humiliated by demonstrators at the posh Queen Elizabeth Hotel in downtown Montreal.

Protestors successfully disrupted a lunch-in sponsored by the Quebec-Israel Committee, marking “60 years of relationship” between Canada and Israel. After effectively evading hotel security and the Montreal police, social justice activists burst into the appointed conference room, abruptly bringing to a halt the pro-apartheid discourse of Israel’s ambassador to Canada.

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Lebanon’s Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, once home to an estimated 30,000 Palestinian refugees, remains in ruins, almost completely destroyed. Reconstruction efforts of the camp have been slow in the past months. As the military battle between the Lebanese military and the shady armed organization Fatah al-Islam raged, news of Nahr el-Bared filled the pages of newspapers across the world. Now military combat has halted in September 2007, Nahr el-Bared lies in rubble as displaced Palestinian refugees in Lebanon slowly are returning to their former home destroyed by an often indiscriminate military campaign lead-by the Lebanese army.

Today, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon continue to live as second-class citizens, without basic legal rights, a symbol of the continued dispossession of the Palestinian people. 2008 marks the 60th year of the Palestinian Nakba (“catastrophe”)– 60 years of dispossession, ethnic cleansing and exile for Palestinians resulting from the creation of the state of Israel. The Palestinian refugees of Nahr el-Bared present one of the clearest symbols of the continued dispossession of the Palestinian people around the world, the largest documented refugee population on earth.

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L’article de La Presse, paru samedi, le 8 mars 2008, page A24, sur la situation à Gaza, contient une affirmation erronée qu’il est nécessaire de corriger. A la fin de l’article, le collectif montréalais Tadamon! est qualifié par M. Elharrar, porte-parole du Comité Québec-Israël, de “groupe pro-Hezbollah”. A deux reprises, il utilise cette unique formulation pour appuyer, semble-t-il, l’accusation que le collectif ne voudrait pas la paix, alors que celui-ci participait à un regroupement d’ONG et de syndicats québécois s’étant réunis pour demander au Canada de dénoncer l’attaque israélienne contre Gaza.

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FRIDAY, MARCH 14th, 7pm
McGill University
FDA auditorium (3450 University St.)
entrance from inside the McGill campus
through the Sherbrooke street gates

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Canada’s government has failed to respond to the ongoing crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Today, Montreal families recently visiting relatives in Gaza remain trapped under the Israeli bombardment, having received no assistance from Canadian consulate authorities in the Middle East or in Ottawa.

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Listen to an interview with Sam Hadeeb from the Popular Committee Against the Siege in Gaza. In the face of ongoing Israeli military actions directed at the Gaza Strip, which have taken the lives of over one-hundred Palestinians within the past week — including children — a popular committee has formed in Gaza, which has been coordinating a series of popular direct actions and appealing for protests lead by social justice movements throughout the world.

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Montreal premiere of Mai Masri’s latest documentary film
on Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon as part of Cinema Politica…

MONDAY, MARCH 10th, 2008, 7pm
Concordia University, Hall Building, H-110
metro Guy-Concordia
Lebanon / 2007 / 70min

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