Most NDP supporters would be scandalized by the UK police arresting Greta Thunberg for holding an anti-genocide placard. But the party backs the type of legislation responsible for her detention.
On Tuesday famous youth climate activist Greta Thunberg was arrested in London. She was sitting with a sign that said “Support Palestine Action Prisoners. Oppose Genocide.” A City of London police spokesperson told the media that the 22-year-old Swede was arrested “for displaying an item in support of a proscribed organization contrary to Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000.”
Six months ago, the Labour government in the UK listed Palestine Action as a banned terror organization. It’s now illegal to hold a placard saying you back the non-violent direct-action group, which has been on the cutting edge of disrupting Israeli arms production in the UK.
Eight Palestine Action prisoners have been on hunger strike for long periods. Several of them have become severely ill. Some might die.
Thunberg was in London to support protests in solidarity with the hunger strikers. Her arrest — alongside 2,500 others for challenging the banning of Palestine Action — is an outrage. A week ago activists protested at the UK consulate in Montreal to express their solidarity with the hunger strikers and on December 29 there’s a rally planned at the British consulate in Toronto.
If asked, most NDP officials would likely criticize Thunberg’s arrest. But it would be somewhat disingenuous.
The NDP has backed and/or ignored similar Canadian measures to the UK listing of Palestine Action, which led to Thunberg’s detention. Fourteen months ago, BC NDP premier David Eby celebrated the listing of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network. In a statement criticizing the Vancouver-based anti-genocide organization Eby noted, “I completely agree with the decision to designate Samidoun as a terrorist organization. There is no place in British Columbia for groups inciting and glorifying violence. I am glad the federal government has made this designation, which gives more tools to authorities to take action against this group.”
The federal NDP failed to comment on Canada’s closest equivalent to the listing of Palestine Action. Similarly, NDP leadership candidates from Vancouver, Avi Lewis and Rob Ashton, have remained silent on the criminalization of a grassroots activist organization in that city.
Currently, the Liberals are seeking to make it a crime to display Samidoun’s logo in front of a religious institution hosting an Israeli general. Bill C-9 reinforces the terror list in service of Zionism by criminalizing the display of listed “terror” groups’ symbols in certain contexts. Under the so-called Combating Hate Act one can go to jail for up to a decade for flying a Samidoun, Hamas or Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flag at a protest against Benjamin Netanyahu. With some Conservative MPs seeking to add Fatah to Canada’s terrorist list, flying the Palestinian flag, which Fatah instigated, in front of a synagogue or community centre could someday land someone in jail.
Incredibly, the NDP appears to back bill C-9. Even as civil liberties groups, religious organizations and labour unions have increasingly raised concerns about the legislation, I couldn’t find any criticism from the NDP of a bill put forward over three months ago.
In a sign of the NDP’s commitment to the anti-Palestinian “terror list” the party’s unelected three person vetting committee cited my opposition to Samidoun’s listing and the terror list as a rationale for rejecting my bid to lead the party. They asserted that I “repeatedly called to abolish Canada’s list of terrorist organizations, which would remove a key national condemnation of groups that have violated international human rights law.”
In fact, Canada’s terror list subverts Palestinians’ rights under international law. A people illegally occupied have the right to resist the colonial authority by force of arms according to multiple UN resolutions and international law. By banning every Palestinian organization engaged in legitimate armed resistance — and some like Samidoun and the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy nobody even claims engage in violence — Canada is undermining an occupied people’s legitimate right to resist their colonizer.
When it comes discussing “terrorism”, the NDP has ceded the political ground almost entirely to Zionists and authoritarians. They’ve repeatedly labeled Hamas “terrorists” while failing to employ that term to describe the armed forces of a state that’s responsible for infinitely more violence.
Zionists justify all manner of criminality with the “terror” label. To justify blocking six Canadian MPs, including the NDP’s Jenny Kwan, from entering the occupied West Bank last week Israel claimed their delegation was sponsored by a “terrorist” organization. “The State of Israel will not allow the entry of organizations and individuals who are associated with designated terror entities”, explained the Israeli embassy in Ottawa.
One of its leading Canadian lobby arms, B’nai Brith, immediately echoed this claim about the Canadian delegation. B’nai Brith noted, “Islamic Relief Canada is affiliated with Islamic Relief Worldwide, a designated terrorist organization under Israeli law.”
Expect Israel firsters to press the Canadian government to follow the Israeli government in listing Islamic Relief Canada. That is what happened with Samidoun, which was initially listed as a terrorist organization by Israel in 2021. This prompted its lobby in Canada to push to criminalize the Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network.
Zionists label whatever they don’t like “terrorism”. Four days ago, arch Zionist long-time Ontario MPP and Macdonald-Laurier Institute Ambassador Lisa MacLeod called me a “Home grown terrorist” while two days ago Masha Kleiner wrote “Canada doesn’t only harbor foreign terrorist leaders, we also have homegrown ones: Yves Engler.”
There’s a continuum between what’s happened to Palestine Action and what Zionists promote in Canada. Solidarity with the UK hunger strikers should include pushing back on the odious “terrorism” legislation in Canada.
A common chant at anti-genocide marches in Montreal is: “Sionistes, fascistes, c’est vous les terroristes!” The real terrorists are the Zionists and their fascist supporters who are trying to repress all resistance to Israel’s crimes against humanity.
Please email the NDP Federal Council to urge councillors to investigate the deeply flawed vetting decision to exclude Yves Engler and defend members’ right to decide.
You must be logged in to post a comment.