@isaaccallan:
NEW: Sarah Jama was today told to leave the chamber for wearing the keffiyeh at Queen’s Park. She refused and the speaker later said he didn’t want to use, or order, force to make her leave.
Jama says she’ll keep wearing it. #onpoli
Nora Loreto@NoLore:
The thing that makes me most enraged watching Sarah Jama is knowing that the ONDP dropped her, leaving her alone and exposed in this den of snakes to take the morally just position all by herself. And they did that for literally no reason. No political gain. No extra votes. Just racism.
Jairo I Fúnez-Flores@Jairo_I_Funez:
There’s no such thing as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There’s no such thing as the Israel-Hamas War. It’s a genocide supported, funded, justified, and perpetrated by western institutions, including universities and their spineless administrators & imperial stenographers.
@JehadAbusalim:
Israel is going to invade Rafah, and by the end of that invasion, I expect the death toll to reach 100,000.
@YerMouseI:
I fear that is already the toll.
Clip below from USC, LA: An important must watch of father, along with his father, supporting his daughter protesting Israel’s genocide, saying some of the most powerful words I’ve heard:
“Imagine being a father in Palestine…to see my kid be assassinated by Israel. … We are humanity. This is not a matter or religion, political, no.”
Hind Khoudary@Hind_Gaza:
At least 20 may have been buried alive in Nasser Hospital mass grave.
ashok kumar @broseph_stalin:
700 bodies now discovered at Nasser hospital alone (1,500 uncovered at Al Shifa), patients, some with catheters still attached, children, with hands still bound, doctors and nurses, still wearing their scrubs, many shot in the back of the head at point blank range execution-style
Saul Williams@SaulWilliams:
Israel buries the bodies & the media buries the story.
Canada is aiding Israel’s genocide and endless decades of crimes MUST WATCH 23:21 Min: Global Breakdown of International Law Amid Flagrant War Crimes in Gaza & Beyond, Says Amnesty Chief by Democracy Now! April 25, 2024
***
***
@ShreeParadkar April 25, 2024:
This brilliant photo by @krushowy perfectly captures this moment in Ontario’s political, racial, sociological history. Who’s being ousted, for what reason, how alone she is, who is looking resolutely ahead or away and what, as @njaved astutely noted, the kids are seeing.
@Joyhenderson78:
I cannot get over the facial expressions of the young folks in the background.
@ShreeParadkar:
Utterly heartbreaking
Noor Javed@njaved:
Brought me to tears.
Terrill Tailfeathers@Terrilltf:
This is actually one of the most racist things I’ve ever seen in politics. I hope all the people responsible for this are sued for their anti-Palestinian racism.
There is no Freedom of Expression allowed in Canada anymore.
@fordnation @JustinTrudeau
ama fool@amafool1:
White man talking down to a mobility-challenged woman of colour. White people sitting beside the woman pretending to not see.
Bob Chandler@leftylabourtech:
A wheelchair bound Black hijabi woman, married to a Palestinian, elected by a 54% majority of the voters of Hamilton Centre being ejected from the Ontario Legislature for wearing a keffiyeh as young POC legislature pages look on. Ontario’s racist politics in one photo.
C8@stargate201:
Looks like a grumpy old white supremacist lecturing a brown lady on what to wear. Racism is alive.
From the river to the sea, Palestine WILL be free.@SouheiLLLL:
Welcome to the Third Reich of Ontario.
***
MaggieMay@CailinasEirinn April 25, 2024:
Would she be asked to leave if she was wearing a crucifix?
Boshko Djordjevich@MightyBoshMan:
Nope. She’d be invited to @fordnation’s ribfest.
Glo of a Thousand Sighs@Growsbeak:
Or a turban?
Mindy@loveMindyH:
or a poppy?
KDL@keepdoingwhatyoudolol@kdl_for:
or a yamaka if she were a manIf she were a man, that big old white man wouldn’t dare bully or tell that MPP what to wear at work.
R Heyman@russ2dfx:
Would she be asked to leave if she was wearing IDF dog tags. That the real question!
USC@_u_s_c:
Keffiyeh is not a religious garment
@PeelJennifer:
and why? isnt the scarf just a scarf? wasn’t it used for protection from the sun and to distinguish the farmers of each region in Palestine? I thought it was the scarf of the common people, not a religious symbol?
am i wrong?
@dewypea:
It 100% IS NOT a religious symbol. It is simply a scarf with a different name. That is all
Kieran Green #SearchTheLandfill@Privateer1:
This is an image that will live in infamy. Big white man violating the rights of an elected black woman while other white elected officials sit by indifferent and the three non-white pages look on in horror. Imagine what message they are taking away about our supposed ‘democracy’
George Bell@georgebell:
The speaker wears traditional British political attire – a political statement…likely someone wouldn’t get in trouble for wearing a Scottish kilt – another type of political statement…First Nations attire probably not banned…weird…
@Sultan_Sadat:
Systemic institutional racism in action. At the heart of representative “democracy”
@OwenWGreen:
I would say this is overt racism, not just systemic.
Ahmad R. Awadallah @arashad:
@SarahJama_ Your courage in standing against injustices as an MPP will be remembered. As history reflects on these moments, your name will be etched as that of a brave Canadian leading the way.
Fry Gruyère@damnshortyok:
Incredible photo. Who took it? One for the history books.
Kristin Rushowy@krushowy:
House Leader Paul Calandra says the government has not banned the keffiyeh – the speaker has deemed it political statement and not allowed. Independent Sarah Jama remains in the legislature despite being asked to leave. #onpoli NDP leader Marit Stiles calls ban “outrageous”
Egemen entin @sentin:
“No politicking in the parliament!”
Spartacat Uprising@sensrule19:
I’m sorry but the idea that “political statements” are not allowed in “parliament” is really funny
(Or it would be if not for gestures at the world around us)
OMG! I want want want one of those watermelon keffiyehs!
A MUST READ BRILLIANT STATEMENT in its entirety:
Emory is everywhere.
The place for division is nowhere.
We invite you to struggle with us.
Anne Norton@annenortonnow:
This is a global uprising.
Aldous Huxley quote:
“The purpose of Propaganda is to make one set of people forget that other sets of people are human.”
Refer also to:
1975: Dr. Elmer Berger’s MEMOIRS OF AN ANTI-ZIONIST JEW (PDF), THE INSTITUTE FOR PALESTINE STUDIES, Journal of Palestine Studies
Vol. 5, No. 1/2 (Autumn, 1975 – Winter, 1976), pp. 3-55 (53 pages)
Published By: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2535682
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2535682
Below from excerpt by C.K. Zurayk:
…
For there is perhaps no problem in human history which has been surrounded with as much misrepresentation, deception and emotional manipulation as has been the problem of Palestine. The Zionists have created and put into operation such a powerful machinery of information, or rather of misinformation, of calumniation and of intimidation that the fundamentals have not been allowed to appear; they have been almost completely submerged by a mass of untruths and irrelevancies.
What are the fundamentals? They are, briefly, that the Palestinians have long been denied the universally recognized right of self-determination; that they stand today as a people who is denied this right, not only in fact, but also—by the Zionists and their mighty supporters—in principle as well; that they have been deprived of their ancestral homeland and are presently living either as second-class citizens in Israel, or under direct domination in the occupied
territories or as refugees in other Arab countries; that they have been dispossessed of most of their property; that they have endured tragic misery and suffering and have been forced to take up arms and to battle for their rights; and that, in spite of all of this, they still have a long, tortuous and bloody way to go before they win recognition and implementation of these rights.
Equally fundamental, on the other side of the picture, is the aggressive, colonizing character of the world Zionist movement which, through its widespread influence in Western countries —and now primarily in the US —has succeeded in robbing the Palestinians of their rights, in establishing the state of Israel on their historical land and in building up Israel’s military power to serve its domineering expansionist ideology and policies. This influence has reached such an extent that Israel has been able to disregard UN decisions arrogantly and with impunity, to resist pressure by governments and public opinion, and to demand acquiescence in its own terms and conditions (as evidenced by the results of President Sadat’s peace initiative). It is even questionable whether Israel and the world Zionist movement behind it have ever wanted peace, since much of their support comes as a result of their falsely manipulated appeals for assistance to defend their “security”—a support which will undoubtedly dwindle once peace and real security have been established.
The fundamentals have, as I said, been veiled by a vast array of untruths and irrelevancies which Zionism has not ceased to evolve and to spread, such as: that the Jews are a nation as well as a people; that their God has promised them the land of Palestine; that they “have made the desert bloom” and brought to the whole Middle East the benefits of technological development and progress; that Israel is the only democratic state in the Middle East and forms the bastion of democracy in the region; that it serves and protects Western interests against communist infiltration in an area which, through its oil wealth, has become vital to those interests; and so on.
These and other untruths and irrelevancies, when properly examined, reveal two anachronistic and dangerous concepts—that of a theocratic society whose people have been singled out by God for a unique mission in Palestine, and that of colonization with a mission civilisatrice which justifies conquest and exploitation through superior technological capacity. The winds of change have played havoc with these outdated concepts, but they are still alive and dominant in Zionism.
Through his own personal activities, and through the American Council for Judaism of which he was for two decades the organizing mind and the moving spirit, Dr. Berger fought to expose these untruths and irrelevancies, to point out their evil implications in the ugly machinations of the Zionists and in the dangerous and inequitable policies and decisions of the U.S. government, and to call attention to the basic human rights and values which they violate.
If Dr. Berger’s advocacy and defence of fundamentals stirs our admiration, we are no less struck by the spirit in which he has carried on this task. No one who has followed his career, or who reads the following pages, will fail to be impressed by the sincerity of his conviction, his personal courage and the depth of his commitment. These qualities assume their due measure when they are viewed in the light of the formidable odds with which he or any other seeker of the truth about the Palestine problem is confronted: the ruthless and wide-flung Zionist machine particularly in the US, the pressures which it exerts, and the intimidations and subtle attacks to which it resorts, especially in the case of a Jew who is considered to have deserted the flock and betrayed the cause. Even the American Council for Judaism had ultimately, following the 1967 war, to flinch in the face of these pressures, and Dr. Berger found himself forced to resign from it. But he remained undaunted and continued to pursue his light through the American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism and otherwise.
In this life-long fight and his disdain of its dangers, Dr. Berger has been moved and strengthened by three basic convictions: the universal moral and spiritual message of Judaism and the dangers which are brought to it by the “racist, discriminatory political sovereignization of Zionism;” the fact that Zionism is contrary to every principle he cherished as an American; and the priority of principle over expediency and of morality and justice over the cynical improvisations of political “leaders.” Although, after thirty-odd years of struggle. Dr. Berger says: “In a sense, I suppose I feel I have paid my dues,” yet, as he looks towards the future, he hopes “to be around for some time” and believes that it is not yet time for him to write the last chapter. We wish him continued health and good fortune so that he will remain around for many more years, for “the effort to make morality and reason the directors of the scenario must continue.” We hope that he will live to see his dreams realized in a just and peaceful conclusion of the Palestinian tragedy and to write the last chapter of this admirable account of his involvement in it. In these wishes and hopes we include also his wife Ruth—his constant companion and support.
The Institute for Palestine Studies is proud to be associated in the publication of these Memoirs and takes this opportunity to pay tribute to its author—a remarkable Jew and US citizen, and a man who stands “upon those great, monumental rocks of human values which, despite the parochialism of so much of life, are the genuine universalisms.”
Dear retired supreme court of Canada justice Rosalie Abella,
You ready to apologize yet?
To me, for defaming me in your lying ruling in Ernst vs AER?
To Canadians, for pissing on our charter right to Freedom of Expression?
To Palestine and Palestinians, murdered by Israel, and those still alive, but starving to death, for your genocide-enabling piece of shit Op Ed in the Globe and Mail?