Standing on a hill at the edge of Idhna with the displaced farmers Muhammad Talab and Muhammad Ibrahim Natah, the only visible remnants of their destroyed village is a patch of white dust just on the other side of Israel’s wall. Despite being part of the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military destroyed the 267-person farming village of tents and tin houses west of Hebron on October 29 and allegedly ordered villagers to relocate to Idhna.

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“Les valeurs d’Israël sont les valeurs du Canada”(1)

Pour comprendre le conflit qui oppose Israël à ses voisins depuis 60 ans, un retour attentif sur l’histoire de la Palestine et sur l’année 1947 s’impose. Revenir sur la genèse de la solution de partage de la Palestine historique en deux États, puis en un seul, occupant la population autochtone, permet d’appréhender un conflit où, pour faire diversion, il est question de territoires multiples dont les noms changent au gré des batailles, de divers statuts juridiques incompréhensibles, de frontières contestées, de haines fratricides ou de guerres de religions… En réalité, la question palestinienne est d’abord une question coloniale.

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Re-Negotiating a Middle Eastern Perspective. Photo: Tehran, Iran.

Thursday, November 15th, 5:30 pm
McGill University (855 Sherbrooke West)
Leacock Building 232.

An evening of film and discussion focused on contemporary representations of Iranian sexuality and their relationship to imperialist discourses with guest speaker Sima Shakhsari (Department of Anthropology, Stanford University)

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Saturday, November 10th
Cabot Square, Metro Atwater
11am: Free Community Lunch
1pm: Buses Depart for the Laval Detention Center

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Terrorism is a contested terrain, a political landscape on which the highest levels of international military power engage in a deadly war. In 2007 terrorism remains an ominous threat, a political ghost invoked in the foreign policy rhetoric of Canada’s Conservative government surrounding the ‘War on Terror’.

In 2002 Canada unveiled an official list of ‘terrorist’ organizations, strikingly similar to the US governmental list of an equivalent nature. Today the Lebanese political movement Hezbollah, both the military and political wings, is officially considered a ‘terrorist’ organization by the government of Canada, a policy only endorsed by two additional countries internationally, the US and Israel.

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Listen to a special Tadamon! edition of World Skip the Beat on CKUT, to hear good music and good politics…

Music from all over the world carries messages of struggle!, and Tadamon wants to celebrate this popular expression of popular cries of pain, of fights and of victories. This show features music from Algeria, Uganda, Mali, Senegal, Congo, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Brasil, Jamaica, Lebanon and Cap Verde.

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An evening of Palestinian films to commemorate 60 years of occupation and to celebrate the Palestinian voice.

On November 29 1947, the UN General Assembly voted for Resolution 181 that “recommended” the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish, the other Arab. This solution went against the principle of a people’s self-determination and was particularly unfair since it was rejected by the native Arab population who were not involved in any negotiation regarding its path, one that favoured the Jewish side.

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Photo: Lebanon Oil Spill 2006.

UNITED NATIONS: When the Israeli Air Force destroyed a slew of oil storage tanks and a key power station during its war against Lebanon in July 2006, the environmental damage was described as devastating. And now, more than 15 months later, the United Nations has released a report detailing the extent of the destruction caused by that oil spill to human health, biodiversity, fisheries and tourism.

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Lebanon’s feuding political leaders have a long history of digging their country into holes from which it can only emerge by climbing over piles of dead bodies. The current impasse is just the latest example of this tendency, but at least a few cooler heads are determined to avoid the errors of those who went before. It remains to be seen which “side” will prevail – not between the government and the opposition, but between the sane and insane factions in each camp. Not content with this level of uncertainty, however, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stepped back into the fray in defense of past traditions and future bloodshed.

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