Former Member of Parliament joins ship to Gaza: ‘Time for Canadian politicians and people to speak up’
By Jim Manly | Rabble | October 4, 2012
I look forward to joining the Estelle on its voyage from Naples to Gaza and I am aware of my responsibility as the only Canadian on this international crew of volunteers.
We want to bring a message of solidarity for the Palestinians of Gaza and to remind them that they are not alone in the struggle.
While we will be carrying a cargo of humanitarian aid, the basic goal of our trip is to continue pressuring the Israeli government to lift the blockade of Gaza. International aid is not a solution but a symptom of the problem whereby Israel keeps Gaza from developing its own economy.
We are firmly committed to non-violent resistance but the movement behind the Freedom flotilla will not quit until the Israelis lift the blockade.
Growing public opinion around the world recognizes that the Israeli blockade is not only illegal under International Law, it is also morally wrong. The blockade deliberately denies 1.6 million people of the essentials of life: adequate food, water, and shelter. It denies people the right to make a living through international trade and even trade with their fellow Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank. It denies them the freedom to live with dignity.
If we believe in human rights we must be prepared to take a stand when these rights are so flagrantly violated. It is time for Canadian politicians and the Canadian people to speak up against this illegal and inhuman blockade.
As part of Canada’s contribution, the Estelle will be carrying an anchor for Gaza’s Ark, which, like the Estelle, is a project of the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition. The Gaza Ark project is rebuilding a boat within Gaza to carry Palestinian goods to the outside world. In this way it will challenge the blockade from the inside just as the Estelle and other boats challenge it from outside.
While I want to thank you for your interest and support, I know that even more the Palestinians of Gaza thank you for your support and solidarity.
Jim Manly is a retired United Church minister who served as a New Democratic Party Member of Parliament from 1980-88, representing Cowichan-Malahat-the Islands, a BC Coastal riding. As MP, he was NDP critic for Indian Affairs and later critic for Fisheries and also International Development. As a United Church minister, Jim served mostly British Columbia congregations and has been active in the Church’s social justice work in Canada and the Americas. Ordained in 1957, he retired in 1997. He lives near Nanaimo, B.C. with his wife, Eva, and together they continue to be active in a number of areas including United Network for a Just Peace in Palestine and Israel (UNJPPI), and Mid-Islanders for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. This past spring he and Eva took part in a Pilgrimage of Solidarity to the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian West Bank.
The Canadian Boat to Gaza blog
The Canadian Boat to Gaza blog will keep you up to date on fundraising and organizing efforts in support of the ‘Tahrir’, a Canadian boat which is currently part of the ‘Freedom Waves to Gaza’. Bloggers will report from on board the Tahrir and on support activities in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, London, Vancouver, Victoria and many points in between.
Canadian civil society has a responsibility to fight the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza and to expose the Canadian government’s unjustified support for Israel. The time has come to send a Canadian boat to challenge the blockade of Gaza, in coordination with similar international efforts. Check out the Boat to Gaza’s website at http://tahrir.ca or follow us at twitter.com/CanadaBoatGaza.
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With apparently fabricated nuclear documents, Netanyahu pushed the US towards war with Iran
By Gareth Porter | The Grayzone | April 29, 2020
President Donald Trump scrapped the nuclear deal with Iran and continued to risk war with Iran based on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim to have proven definitively that Iran was determined to manufacture nuclear weapons. Netanyahu not only spun Trump but much of the corporate media as well, duping them with the public unveiling of what he claimed was the entire secret Iranian “nuclear archive.”
In early April 2018, Netanyahu briefed Trump privately on the supposed Iranian nuclear archive and secured his promise to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That April 30, Netanyahu took the briefing to the public in a characteristically dramatic live performance in which he claimed Israel’s Mossad intelligence services had stolen Iran’s entire nuclear archive from Tehran. “You may well know that Iran’s leaders repeatedly deny ever pursuing nuclear weapons…” Netanyahu declared. “Well, tonight, I’m here to tell you one thing: Iran lied. Big time.”
However, an investigation of the supposed Iranian nuclear documents by The Grayzone reveals them to be the product of an Israeli disinformation operation that helped trigger the most serious threat of war since the conflict with Iran began nearly four decades ago. This investigation found multiple indications that the story of Mossad’s heist of 50,000 pages of secret nuclear files from Tehran was very likely an elaborate fiction and that the documents were fabricated by the Mossad itself. … continue
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