Montreal

Groups that are part of the CAIA network agree with the basis of unity but organize their activities and actions in an independent manner.

Chapters/Indigo campaign bookmark (Bilingual/Quebec version - .PDF).

September 20, 2007

Massacre memorial for Sabra and Shatila

from the Montreal Mirror.

by Christopher Hazou

Twenty-five years ago this week, the Israeli army surrounded the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut and sent in their Christian Phalangist allies. Over the next two days, between 800 and 2,000 Palestinian civilians were butchered in a scene of carnage that shocked much of the world.

This Saturday, Sept. 22, at 1 p.m., the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine commemorates this sombre anniversary by protesting outside of the Indigo bookstore downtown (corner Ste-Catherine and McGill College), where they will call on Chapters/Indigo majority shareholder Heather Reisman and her husband Gerry Schwartz to end their support of so-called “lone sol-diers”—young Jews who emigrate to Israel alone to join the military.

“This is about direct support to the Israeli army,” says Ehab Lotayef, a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, another participating group. “The history of the Israeli army and what it represents is not consistent with the educational message that their bookstores should be advocating.”

It will be the 25th such protest against Chapters/Indigo in Montreal since they began in December, with similar demonstrations taking place in Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg. For more info, visit www.cjpp.org

Commemorating the Qana Massacre.

25 juillet 2007 | معتمد Israel, Boycott

.اسف هذه الوظيفه ليست متوفره باللغه العربيه

On July 30th, 2006, Israel’s airforce bombed the town of Qana in southern Lebanon, hitting a three-story apartment block in which Lebanese refugees fleeing the bombardments had taken shelter. The building collapsed under Israeli bombs, burying the people inside and killing many, including at least 16 children.

Human Rights Watch denounced Israel’s action as a war crime, noting a consistent failure on the part of Israel to distinguish between civilians and combatants in its 34-day assault on Lebanon last summer.

Over ten years previously, in 1996, Israel shelled Qana during its “Grapes of Wrath” military assault on Lebanon. Israel hit a United Nations compound where some 800 Lebanese civilians had taken refuge from the Israeli bombardment. According to the UN, 106 civilians were killed and many injured.

A investigation conducted by the UN concluded that “it is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors” on the part of the Israeli military.

Israel must be held accountable for its war crimes in Lebanon, Palestine & throughout the Middle East. Join us on Saturday, July 28th to remember the 2nd Qana massacre, and to support the growing boycott movement targeting Israeli apartheid. Israel’s destabilizing role in the Middle East will never end until the unsustainable, unjust apartheid system, on which Israel is based, falls.This special picket to remember the Qana massacre is part of a biweekly picket of the downtown Montreal Chapters/Indigo bookstore. A Canada-wide boycott of Chapters/Indigo bookstore was launched in December 2006 to oppose the support that Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, the company’s majority shareholders, give to Israeli apartheid.

Reisman and Schwartz have established a fund called “the HESEG Foundation for Lone Soldiers”, a program of financial support for former ‘lone soldiers’, non-Israelis who fight in the Israeli military, in defense of apartheid and occupation. Israeli ‘lone soldiers’ participated in last year’s military attack on the people of Lebanon.

At its peak, HESEG will distribute up to $3M a year to provide scholarships and other benefits to former ‘Lone Soldiers’ who remain in Israel.

As long as the majority shareholders maintain financial links to HESEG, this campaign calls on everyone to stop buying from Chapters, World’s Biggest Bookstore, SmithBooks, Coles, the Book Company and Indigospirit.

More information about the boycott of Indigo/Chapters in Canada:

* Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid Toronto: Resource Page.

More information on the Qana Massacre in Lebanon:

* BBC: Qana makes grim history again

* Massacre in Sanctuary; Eyewitness, Robert Fisk.

* Electronic Lebanon: Human Rights and Development

More information about the international movement of
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israeli apartheid:

* Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel Campaign.

* Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.

* Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel PACBI.

2 June to 9 June: Week of Action against Israeli Occupation and Apartheid

May 30th, 2007 | Posted in Solidarity, Boycott, Israel

Three actions, part of a rising global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid, are taking place in a week of action building up to an international day of action on Saturday, June 9th.

Actions organized by: Coalition against Israeli Apartheid-Montreal, Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine, Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) and the Jewish Alliance Against the Occupation.

CALENDAR OF ACTIONS

June 9th marks the 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan heights. This anniversary takes place just after the 59th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel through the expulsion of over 750 000 indigenous Palestinians from their homeland and the establishment of an exclusive, colonial state in historic Palestine.

Saturday, 2 June, 1pm to 3pm
Picket: Boycott Indigo Bookstore against Israeli Apartheid
Indigo Bookstore, NW corner of Ste. Catherine & McGill College (McGill Metro).
More information: Tadamon! Montreal

Tuesday, 5 June, time TBA
Picket and outdoor film screening: Boycott of 2nd Israeli film festival
(sponsors include Israeli Consulate and the Quebec-Israel committee)
Cinema du parc, 3575 Parc Ave. (Place des arts metro)
More information: CAIA-Montreal

Wednesday, 6 June, 4:30pm
Rally: Canada - Stop subsidizing Israeli Apartheid through the Jewish National Fund (JNF)
at Jewish National Fund (JNF) fundraising dinner with Alan Dershowitz
Queen Elizabeth Hotel, 900 Boul. Réné Lévèsque O. (Peel or Bonaventure Metro)
More information: Palestinian and Jewish Unity and the Jewish Alliance Against the Occupation (JAAO), tel. 514-961-3928

Friday, 8 June, 1 pm to Saturday, 9 June, 1pm
24-Hour Info-Fair: “40 years of occupation, 59 years of apartheid”.
Dorchester Square, corner of Peel and Réné-Lévèsque (Peel or Bonaventure Metro)
More information: Coalition pour la justice et la paix en Palestine

Saturday, 9 June, 1pm
Demonstration: “40 years of occupation, 59 years of apartheid”.
gather at corner of Peel and Réné Lévèsque (Peel or Bonaventure Metro)
More information: Coalition pour la justice et la paix en Palestine