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Written by: Hanna Kawas

It is important to set the record straight in response to recent distortions, defamations and attacks on CAF, the Arab community and Palestinian advocacy.

According to the Canadian press, the Bloc Québécois suggested that the new Canadian Transport Minister, Omar Alghabra, is associated with “the political Islamic movement.”

Leader Yves-François Blanchet said in a release that “questions arise” due to the minister’s former role as head of the Canadian Arab Federation.

“It’s really questions about his past and also the separation of church and state, which is a profound value for the Bloc,” said spokesman Julien Coulombe-Bonnafous. “We don’t want to raise any accusations, because I don’t think there’s that much.”

What prompted the Bloc and its leader to make such unfounded and false statements? It is very clear to us that it is politically motivated and also smacks of anti-Arab racism. This alleged association with the so-called “political Islamic movement”, especially without proof, is reprehensible and immoral.

Further, to insinuate that the Canadian Arab Federation is a hub for such a movement is ignorant, and slanderous to CAF and its objectives. For most of its 53-year history, CAF has stood for secularism, universal human and national rights with the main emphasis on Palestinian and Arab liberation. CAF has been led by many capable secular leaders such as the late Palestinian Quebecer Rezeq Faraj, and these slanders are a disgrace to the memory of Rezeq

Some media reports mentioned Jason Kenney, the former citizenship and immigration Minister, who cut funding for the Canadian Arab Federation. However, it is worth noting that Mr. Kenney’s main grudge was against the secular Christian president of CAF at that time, Khaled Moammar. CPA issued a statement “Jason Kenney Is Promoting Racism” where we concluded:

“This intervention in the internal affairs of the Arab community being conducted by the Canadian government’s vast economic and intelligence machinery smacks of the “regime change” tactics used globally by the U.S. and other western governments…”.

For more background on Jason Kenney’s and Canadian government racism against Palestinian advocacy, the Arab community and one of its main organizations CAF, check out “Freedom of Expression and Palestine Advocacy”.

However, in condemning the blatant racism of Mr. Blanchet and the BQ, we do not need to whitewash the history of Omar Alghabra and what he has stood for during his political career.

Sadly, Alghabra has spent most of his time in Canada in the service of the Canadian establishment and its multinational corporations; this is how and why he became a minister and previously the Parliament Secretary to the Prime Minister. Even when he was (briefly) the president of CAF, he hijacked the agenda of the original goals of the Federation. Canada Palestine Association (CPA), then a long-time member of CAF, issued an open letter in 2005 where it stated that “CAF policy is sinking further into a policy of collaboration and subjugation to the Canadian establishment.”

In 2016, Mr. Alghabra recommended “that all members of the House should support” the anti BDS motion in the Canadian Parliament, alongside the other Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ms. Pam Goldsmith-Jones, who stated:

“Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be sharing my time with the Hon. Member for Mississauga Centre (Omar Alghabra).
Let me reiterate that we believe that all members of the House should support the motion. The Government of Canada unequivocally opposes the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement.”

Mr. Alghabra also considers Palestinian resistance organizations as terrorists: “Our government put Hamas on a terrorist list. We believe Hamas is a terrorist organization.” For his information, the “terrorist list” was drafted by the Zionist lobby that imposed it on the government. And if any establishment fits the terrorist description, it is the government of which he is now a minister, that at every term has supported the US-sponsored wars of TERROR on Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Haiti, Bolivia and Venezuela. Not to mention its support for Israeli war crimes and terrorism.

We condemn all forms of racism and all racist attacks in Canada; these are increasing daily and it is the marginalized people in our communities who bear the brunt of such harassment, intimidation and racial profiling and who need our urgent support and protection.

Hanna Kawas, is the Chairperson of the Canada Palestine Association in Vancouver

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