Montreal: Protest Israeli apartheid wall

April 30th, 2009 | Posted in Boycott, Canada, Palestine, Quebec, Tadamon!
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    action to remember Palestinian activist Bassam Ibrahim Abou Rahme.

    FRIDAY MAY 8 12h00
    Indigo Bookstore
    corner of St. Catherine & McGill college
    (metro McGill)
    Montreal, Canada

Bil’in, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, has become an internationally celebrated symbol of Palestinian popular resistance to the ongoing construction of the Israeli apartheid wall. Since 2005, villagers have led weekly protests, with the active participation from both Israeli and international solidarity activists, in opposition to illegal Israeli colonization or annexation of Palestinian land.

In April 2009, Israeli soldiers killed Bassam Ibrahim Abou Rahme, a Palestinian activist from Bil’in. News on Bassam’s passing spread quickly throughout the world, sparking international solidarity actions and condemnations of the killing of another Palestinian protester by the Israeli army.

Bassem was the 18th Palestinian to have been killed by the Israeli army during popular demonstrations against the apartheid wall. A video that captures the killing is linked here, in which you can see that Bassam was attempting to calm the Israeli soldiers at the moment the shooting occurred.

In Montreal we are holding a protest to commemorate Bassam’s death and to show our continued solidarity with the ongoing weekly protests in Bil’in and the wider struggle against Israel’s illegal apartheid wall.

The apartheid wall, which was ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004, is one element of the ongoing Israeli military occupation of Palestine. In constructing the wall, Israel will annex and colonize almost 60% of Bil’in’s land.

Bil’in is currently engaged in a legal battle in Canada, as the village recently filed a lawsuit in Quebec Superior Court against Green Park International and Green Mount International, two companies registered in Quebec.

According to Bil’in village “the two companies are illegally constructing residential and other buildings on the village’s lands and that its land and the defendants are subject to the rules and obligations of international law because the West Bank is occupied territory … Bil’in claims protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention … which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into territory that it has occupied as a result of war.”

Today Bil’in village is seeking an immediate order from the Canadian court stopping the illegal construction, punitive damages and other relief as set out in the claim.

This protest in solidarity with Bil’in and to commemorate Bassam Ibrahim Abou Rahme occurs within international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel and the Canada-wide boycott campaign against the Chapters/Indigo bookstore.

A boycott campaign targeting Chapters/Indigo was launched in December 2006 to target the majority shareholders of Indigo/Chapters, Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, who established the HESEG Foundation for Lone Soldiers, a program of financial support for former ‘lone soldiers,’ or non-Israeli mercenaries who leave their country to fight in the Israeli military. Israeli ‘lone soldiers’ participated in the devastating 2006 war on the people of Lebanon and continue to enforce the illegal occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Across Canada a growing number of people are supporting the Boycott Chapters/Indigo campaign as part of the international campaign to push for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the apartheid state of Israel.

organized by:

Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU)
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR)
Tadamon! Montreal

information:
tel: 514 664 1036
email: info[at]tadamon.ca

2 Comments »

I am an Arab Muslim living in Israel, in peace and democracy, while people like you attempt to tell the world I have no rights. I have gone to school in Israel and been provided with healthcare in Israel. These accusations of apartheid that you bring against the one and only true democratic country in the region are not only false, but are the same type of actions as those of the Darfur preaching college student (in another article on this page). It is popular now to be an anti-Semite or a self hating Jew. Global approval of anti Israeli sentiment is growing, and you are merely exploiting an ideological market to make yourself seem powerful. I read this website in disgust, and hope you know just how wrong you are. This is coming from and Arab who is being attacked by his Muslim brothers. There can be peace as soon as Hamas and Hezbollah fighters begin to value the lives of their people more than they hate the lives of Israelis.

Comment by Ahmed Ibn Izrah — May 6th, 2009 @ 10:49 AM

Sommes des citoyens canadiens québécois nouvellement retraités. Consacrons quelques mois par année à visiter sac à dos le vaste monde. Revenons d’un séjour de 4 mois en Inde. Avons circulé sur plus de 12 000 Km en transport en commun. Serions vivement intéressés à visiter la Palestine (Cisjordanie et Gaza si possible) l’an prochain. Souhaiterions être hébergés, tout en assumant les coûts, dans des familles palestiniennes. Histoire d’échanger tout en apportant un soutien moral et financier. Pourriez vous nous mettre en contact avec des sources fiables et ou des organisations responsables pour réaliser notre projet.
Merci par anticipation
Lise et Michel Lemay
Drummondville

Comment by michel Lemay — June 5th, 2009 @ 11:40 PM

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