Israelis are the terrorists and the Palestinians fighting for their freedom are the liberation movement. This obvious point underpins an upcoming conference that directly challenges one of Canada’s most significant contributions to Palestinian dispossession.
In Toronto on November 28-29 the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, Masar Badil, will host “3 Years of Al-Aqsa Flood: Resistance & Return From the Belly of the Beast”. The conference will discuss “the ongoing onslaught by the United States and the Zionist entity against Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and the entire region of West Asia” and how “to consolidate our power and political line in the face of rising repression that must be met with escalating action!” The conference builds on last weekend’s successful three-day anti-imperialist symposium “Seeds Beneath the Snow”.
An important theme of the Masar Badil conference is Canada’s anti-Palestinian terror list. The “One Day You Too Will Be a ‘T-rrorist’” panel will challenge a rarely discussed, though important, contribution to Palestinian dispossession. Over 10 percent of Canada’s terror list is made up of organizations headquartered in a long-occupied land representing one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population. Representing much of Palestinian political life, ten of the oppressed nation’s organizations are listed. There are also at least two Canadian-based groups that have been added to the terror list for supporting Palestinians and a half dozen other groups (Hezbollah, Ansar Allah, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, etc.) have been added to the terror list in large part at the behest of the Zionist lobby for challenging Israeli domination of the region.
Challenging Canada’s civil-liberties-violating terrorism list has become more urgent with the recent expansion of terrorism legislation under the Combatting Hate Act and the charges laid against Ahmad Hajahmad Jarrar. In July the 33-year-old anti-genocide activist was charged with “Participating in or Contributing to Activities of a Terrorist Group” for offering rhetorical support for Hamas’ armed resistance to Israeli colonial rule. As the Globe and Mail reported, “according to experts, the Toronto Police’s allegations against Mr. Hajahmad are potentially novel because they stem from words he said during a protest, which police say furthered the interests of Hamas.”
Of course, Canada’s Zio Nazis want to shut the conference shown. At the start of the week Juno News published “Toronto conference praising October 7 takes aim at terror designations” while two days ago Jewish Onliner posted “U.S.-Sanctioned Terror Leaders to Speak at Toronto Conference Hosted by PFLP Front”. B’nai Brith, Canadian Women Against Antisemitism and Honest Reporting have attacked the conference.
The effort to shut down the conference is interrelated with a bid to criminalize Masar Badil. At the end of October Matthew Taub of Unapologetically Jewish published an op-ed headlined “Canada must act against Masar Badil”. He wrote, “on October 20, Unapologetically Jewish submitted two comprehensive legal briefs to the federal government. Our immediate demands are clear: assess the foreign leadership for inadmissibility, refuse entry where Canadian law permits and take lawful steps to stop the Toronto conference before it takes place.” Taub also wants Masar Badil listed a terror organization. (In mid-September Taub held a press conference on Parliament Hill in which he suggested Just Peace Advocates was engaged in “terrorism” for calling on the Canada Revenue Agency to investigate registered charities violating the Income Tax Act!)
For months the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has also urged the federal government to add Masar Badil to Canada’s ever-growing list of banned terrorist organizations. (CIJA is also campaigning to list Palestine Action Canada and Kata’ib Hezbollah). The argument for listing Masar Badil is a claim the group has ties to the grassroots, Vancouver-based Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoners Solidarity Network, which Zionist groups got banned two years ago for purportedly assisting the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Two months ago B’nai Brith posted, “Masar Badil, which is connected to the PFLP and Samidoun, both listed terrorist organizations in Canada, has repeatedly worked in association with and to the benefit of terrorist entities.”
The terror list is a self-reinforcing absurdity. As more groups are listed, there are more groups that one can be associated to justify adding others.
Despite its absurd anti-Palestinian character, there’s little pushback from opponents of genocide to labelling Palestinian groups and their supporters “terrorists”. Silence about the terror list allows the Jewish supremacist lobby a free hand to beat Palestinians and their supporters with terror discourse.
Rather than running away from discussion about the terrorism list or those facing that label, we need to stand in solidarity with those being targeted. All the major Palestine solidarity groups should help spread the word about the upcoming Masar Badil conference and people in Toronto should try to attend.
Palestinians have a right to resist an illegal occupation and Canada should stop criminalizing the long-oppressed group and their supporters as “terrorists”.
Linked is more information on “3 Years of Al-Aqsa Flood: Resistance & Return From the Belly of the Beast”.
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