Members of Tadamon! participated in a borough council meeting in Montreal, in which community members asked for a minute of silence for the Al Akhrass family, neighbours who were killed by an Israeli missile in Lebanon. The request was refused, and a number of errors and slurs were made against Tadamon! in media reports of the incident.  La Presse published a correction the following day based on the following letter from Tadamon! : 

Sent to La Presse, August 10th:

On Wednesday, 9 August, your newspaper printed an article “Pas d’hommage aux El-Akhras dans Côte-des-Neiges” which contained a number of factual errors and smears concerning our group, Tadamon! Montreal. These errors are a matter of great concern to us, and we would appreciate the publication of the following corrections at your earliest convenience:

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Watch right here the 2-part video filmed and produced by Santiago Bertolino, who was present at the August 4th rally in Cornwall, Ontario to denounce the Canadian government’s uncritical and uncondition support for Israel and to demand an immediate ceasefire.

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Written by Raida Hatoum, worker for the Najdeh Association and friend of Tadamon!

Yesterday Israel bombed two houses and a school inside the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein El Helweh, where more than 45,000 Palestinian refugee live and hundreds of displaced are staying after fleeing their homes in the Tyre region. Ein El Helweh camp is in the city of Sidon and the bombing killed two and injured tens, most of them children. Israel claims that it bombed the house of a Hezbollah fighter.

One of the men who was killed, Anwar, was from Tyre. He had fled his home to seek refugee inside the UNRWA school in the camp with others.

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“Cancer” or social movement? Terrorists or resistance fighters?

Canadian leaders Peter MacKay and Stephen Harper justify their support for Israeli military aggression by asserting that Hezbollah and Hamas are “terrorist organizations”. MacKay even referred to Hezbollah as a “cancer” on Lebanese society. The use of this kind of language is reminiscent of racist hate speech, including the anti-semitic rhetoric of early twentieth century europe, used to de-humanise and to justify atrocities. Harper and MacKay’s comments have also revealed an embarassing ignorance of the most basic facts about what is happening in the Middle East.

What is Hezbollah? Before judgements are made, people should inform themselves. The excellent Middle East Report prepared a primer on the party which can be found at www.merip.org/mero/mero073106.html.

Following up from the earlier report about the oil spill caused by the Israeli bombing of Jiyyeh power station in Lebanon, we learn that it has spread over 120km of the Lebanese coast (over half of the entire coastline). The toxic sludge is covering up entire coastal areas, killing off much of the wildlife in its path and endangering the health of populations living near the affected areas. Continuous shelling by Israel is preventing any sort of action to counter this massive disaster, and even efforts to evaluate the full impact of the oil spill have been impossible.

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Satellite photos of the area of Beirut that has been most heavily bombed by Israel, taken before the bombardment began and on 22 July. Since the second photo was taken, the area has been further massively bombarded. Even those buildings which are now still standing have been damaged by the shocks: windows broken and doors bent. The shock of the hits can be felt 12 km away in downtown Beirut, where buildings shake with the impact, and the noise of the bombing is horrific.

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Civilian Resistance: Call For Action & Solidarity For Lebanon
From : Civilian Resistance in Lebanon – lebanonsolidarity.org

We, the people of Lebanon, call upon the local and international community to join a campaign of civil resistance to Israel’s war against our country and our people. We declare Lebanon an open country for civil resistance.

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by Tanya Reinhart
Media Monitors, Wednesday July 26 2006
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Tanya Reinhart is a professor at Tel Aviv University and the author of Israel/Palestine: How to End the 1948 War and Detruire la Palestine
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Beirut is burning, hundreds of Lebanese die, hundreds of thousands lose all they ever owned and become refugees, and all the world is doing is rescuing the “foreign passport” residents of what was just two weeks ago “the Paris of the Middle East”. Lebanon must die now, because “Israel has the right to defend itself”, so goes the U.S. mantra, used to block any international attempt to impose a cease fire. (more…)

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Montreal, 8 August 2006 – City councillors yesterday refused to hold one minute of silence in memory of the Al Akhrass family. The family was killed on 16 July by an Israeli missile while on holiday in Lebanon. Mr. Ali Al Akhrass was much beloved and respected in his Montreal neighbourhood of Côte des Neiges (CDN), where he worked at a pharmacy which served the local population.
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