Fredericton Peace Coalition

Siege on Gaza and Canadian Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Asaf Rashid

(March 24, 2007)

On Thursday April 5th (Head hall auditorium, at 7pm), there will be chance for people in Fredericton to hear and see the work of Jon Elmer, a Canadian freelance writer and photojournalist who covers, up close, the stories of people who live in some of the most difficult conditions in the world: the people of Gaza. These are a people whose daily struggles under Israeli occupation largely escape the radar of the mainstream media channels, through which the majority of Canadians receive their news.

The title of Elmer’s presentation is “Siege on Gaza and Canadian Foreign Policy in the Middle East”.

The siege refers to the escalation of the violent, crippling economic and social conditions that the imprisoned communities of Palestinian people in Gaza have been faced with under occupation.

In a particularly painful episode of this siege, during the summer and fall of 2006, more than 450 Palestinians were killed under Israeli aerial bombardment, artillery barrages and two major ground invasions. Overall, the casualty count for 2006 released by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reports that Israeli forces killed 660 Palestinians, while 17 Israeli civilians were killed, 13 of them in the West Bank.

But looking at the scene before the more recent wreckage is important.

“The situation in Gaza before the siege was already characterized by an economic collapse that the World Bank has described as ‘among the worst in modern history.’ More than three-quarters of Gaza’s population is living on two dollars or less a day. Israel controls the borders, the airspace, the sea and has carried out several large-scale invasions of Gaza since the so-called ‘disengagement’ of Jewish settlers from the strip in 2005,” Elmer explained.

These are conditions that have only been exacerbated by Canadian-supported economic sanctions placed on Palestinians by Israel upon the 2006 democratic election (80% voter turn-out) of Hamas, a resistance movement recognized more for their armed struggle against Israeli occupation than for their diplomacy. In an April 2006 interview with Elmer, Palestinian Legislative Council Member Hanan Ashrawi explained the elections as follows:

“There was quite a bit of a protest vote, and there was also a vote that sent a message to Israel and the U.S. People said to Israel, if you are going to be violent and hardline, we are going to elect your counterparts in Palestine—hardline and violent…They felt that the failure of the peace camp and the moderates meant there is only one option: Hamas and the agenda of resistance and reform.”

In reference to Canadian support of the Israeli State-imposed sanctions against funds and other resources being sent to the Hamas government, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay made the bold statement, “not a red cent to Hamas”. Elmer views these sanctions as further injury upon the already injured. “The sanctions have exacerbated an already significant humanitarian crisis, as all forms of international organizations and human rights groups that have operated in Gaza have been saying for years.”, he said.

But such a bold statement by Peter MacKay is not an isolated incident in terms of trends in Canadian foreign policy in general; neither is the Canadian government’s support for the State of Israel despite the implosive and explosive actions that State is taking with the Palestinian people.

Canadian foreign policy has taken on a markedly more aggressive character in the last few years, showing (and providing) support for violent economic and social control in the Middle East that fits neatly within a neo-colonial paradigm of economic and social expansionism. Canada’s cooperation in the U.S. led War on Terror’s front in Afghanistan displays this character.

Part of Elmer’s presentation will be to convey the much under-reported dynamics of the changing face of Canadian foreign policy, which details what is really meant when high level Canadian military officials such as Canada’s top soldier Rick Hillier say that Canadian forces will transition from peace-keeping to war fighting.

Elmer has recently been writing about a new “counter-insurgency” manual produced by the Canadian Forces. The manual states that counter-insurgency (Canada’s war on Afghanistan) is a “…multi-agency approach – military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological and civic actions – that seeks to not only defeat the insurgents themselves, but the root causes of, and support for, the insurgency”. This is essentially a definition of colonization: complete subjugation of occupied people by force and pacification.

The more aggressive and subjugating foreign policy of the Canadian government should not be taken lightly according to Elmer. “There are consequences to aggressive interventions: it is reasonable to expect that if Canada is going to commit violent acts at home and abroad, it is leaving itself open to violence in return. This country’s policies around the world are not simply matters of debate, they have real consequences,” he said.

Jon Elmer will have a lot more to say and show on April 5th, bringing his rich experience of the last several years as a writer (as of recently working for the EU-based Inter Press Service) and photojournalist who has photographed and reported from over a dozen countries, with the most significant work being over the last few years in the West Bank and Gaza. He has resided in these difficult environments during his assignments, “reporting on the receiving side of the overwhelming military force, not accompanying it,” he explained. His presentation will take on Thursday April 5th, at 7pm. The location will be the UNB’s Head Hall Auditorium (HC 13). There is no cost to the event and there will be some refreshments. To see more of Jon Elmer’s work, check his website: http://jonelmer.ca/.

From Richard Sanders-

• Working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week at minimum wage in Gildan sweatshops, Haitians would have to work 2481 years to earn CEO Glen Chamandy’s 2006 salary, and 8016 years
for CFO Laurence Sellyn’s 2006 salary.

• Assuming he worked 40 hours per week in 2006, Gildan’s CEO Glen Chamandy received a Haitian sweatshop workers’ annual salary every 50 minutes, while Gildan CFO Laurence Sellyn earned that much every 15 minutes.

(Source: Press for Conversion!  published by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade
Issue #60 (March 2007) “A Very Canadian Coup d’état in Haiti:
The Top 10 Ways that Canada’s Government helped the 2004 Coup and its Reign of Terror”)

See the above wage-disparity factoids (and grinning photos of Sellyn and Chamandy) on page 45 of the latest issue of Press for Conversion!

“In a move that could revolutionize global mining, Canadian mining representatives have struck an unprecedented accord with environmentalists and human-rights advocates on ways to ensure mining and oil companies act ethically in their overseas operations.

The pact would create the world’s first independent mining ombudsman and sketches out environmental and social standards for projects in the developing world, where standards are often lax or poorly enforced.”

CBC: In his first political comment in months, ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro broke his silence in a newspaper column Thursday to heap scorn on U.S. President George W. Bush’s “sinister” environmental policies.

“The sinister idea of converting food into combustibles was definitively established as the economic line of the foreign policy of the United States,” the letter reads.

Twenty years after a landmark study proved a link between hazardous-waste sites and minority neighborhoods, the phenomenon has only settled deeper into U.S. towns and cities, a new report says.

Tanya Reinhart, an Israeli linguist best known to the public as an ardent critic of her country’s policies toward the Palestinians, died on Saturday while vacationing in Montauk, N.Y. She was 63.

The king of Saudi Arabia, one of Washington’s few allies in the Middle East, joined the chorus of other Arab leaders Wednesday by calling for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

*Operation Bite: April 6 sneak attack by US forces against Iran planned, Russian military sources warn *

CALLING WOMEN ANYTHING BUT EQUAL IN POLITICS

by Ginette Petitpas-Taylor 

Barbie. Wh#$*. Baby. B$^&. Prostitute.  

Just another day at work for some women, including some female politicians in Legislatures.  Such comments are disparaging and sexist, no matter where they are said, at home, in the office or the Legislature.

Canadian men’s White Ribbon campaign to end violence against women has an arresting poster that asks, “Did you ever notice that the worst thing you can call a man is a woman?”

Well, politicians haven’t decided yet what is the worst thing you can call their female colleagues.

Female politicians are also called weathergirl, dipstick, slut.  Anything but equals.

 Go back in the kitchen where you came from. Stick to your knitting. Pour me another tequila, Sheila, and lay down and love me again.

Just so many colourful ways used to say No Girls Allowed. 

Even female Premiers get it: “The nicest thing about a lady who says no, it’s always a pleasure when they change their mind, and I am sure that our premier is going to change her mind on this important issue,” said the Yukon MLA before apologizing.  Because they do mostly apologize, if “Who me?” counts for an apology.   

As Minister Roly MacIntyre, who called MLA Margaret-Ann Blaney “Barbie” this week, later said, “Sometimes those things happen. It’s happened before and it will probably happen again – hopefully not with me.”

Fair warning to women and anybody else who is “different” from the traditional New Brunswick politician? 

 That’s no way to run a province. 

My advice to those responsible for this Legislature is the same as to any other employer with women in a non-traditional workplace where discrimination, harassment or bullying rear their head.  You should have expected it and you must prevent it. 

Send the message that such behaviour will not be tolerated, because it is unproductive if for no other reason. Commit to providing a work environment in which all individuals are treated with respect and dignity. It is the employer’s responsibility to prevent a poisoned work environment.  Failure to take appropriate action may result in disciplinary measures being imposed on the manager as well as the offending person.

I am quoting from the provincial government’s own workplace harassment policy for employees. 

We at the Advisory Council on the Status of Women became familiar with that and similar policies recently as we were researching workplace bullying.  The report from our focus groups held around the province with female victims of workplace bullying was sobering.  Women reported bullying of astonishing viciousness, and spoke frequently of lack of action by management or worse, of bullying as management.

Name-calling in politics is one problem. Sexist – or racist – name-calling is another.   

Sexist name-calling is a way to call attention to the fact that women are different. Of sending the message that women are inferior to men by their very nature.  As political scientist Joanna Everitt of UNB in Saint John has said, the focus on women’s sexuality presents them as distracting forces in government and diminishes their credibility as effective politicians.

During the first round of attacks on Belinda Stronach, someone commented that Stronach needs to age 20 years and gain 20 pounds for anyone to take her seriously. “No amount of business savvy, political sway or years of service will detract from the fact that in the world we live in, we women are still divided into Pretty Girls and Other Girls.  And frankly, neither group seems free to deviate from the roles that they are expected to undertake. Until this state of affairs changes, why should any woman seriously believe that the world sees her as a real, multifaceted person?”

Those who occupy a “man’s” job or are assertive are the preferred targets of gender harassment, as a recent Canadian study showed.  Women in male-dominated workplaces are dismissed and disrespected if they are feminine, but scorned and disliked if they are masculine.  When women who are outspoken at work are harassed, but outspoken male colleagues and less assertive female colleagues are not, then that reinforces women’s subordinate status and reinforces stereotypes.  Policies should focus on creating respectful work environments.   

Sexist comments explain somewhat the fact that women’s representation, especially in New Brunswick, is stuck at such low levels. 

When we heard this week again of the sexist comment in the New Brunswick Legislature, several things came to mind.

That women who could be in politics will remember this and give it as a reason to shy away from a political career.

That our efforts to reduce violence against women are wasted if such sexist comments go unchecked.

That every parent of a daughter must be disappointed that, if she chooses a non-traditional profession including politics, parental pride will be shared with fear for what awaits her. To rephrase a bumper sticker aimed at violent men, “You love your daughter. You want to give her the world. Start by treating all women with respect.”

Sarah Hale said in 1832, probably with a different meaning than we read into it today, that she considered every attempt to induce women to participate in the public duties of government as injurious to their best interests and derogatory to their character. 

I prefer Edna Ferber’s comment, 100 years later, that if politics are too dirty for women to take part in, there’s something wrong with politics.

Ginette Petitpas-Taylor, of Moncton, is Chairperson of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women.

This two-minute Freedom Files video short provides a shocking glimpse into conditions at a Texas facility to detain immigrants run by the Department of Homeland Security. Of the approximately 400 detainees at the Hutto Detention Facility, many are children who belong to refugee families seeking political asylum in the U.S. after escaping persecution in their country of origin.

The video introduces viewers to children like two-year-old Angie and her older sister Nixcari, who had been confined for months in the bleak, barbed-wire encased Hutto facility, where children wear prison garb and are held in small cells for the majority of each day. Recreational time is severely limited as are educational opportunities. Access to medical, dental and mental health treatment is inadequate. From one mother who was confined with her 12-year-old: “.a psychological trauma my daughter and I will carry with us for the rest of our lives.”