Author: suzanneweiss63

How To Really Fight Anti-Semitism

This article is adapted from a talk given to 90 participants in a “train the trainers workshop” organized by Palestine Freedom of Expression on August 26.

We often hear the charge that taking a firm stand for Palestinian rights is somehow anti-Semitic. What is anti-Semitism? Here are some common definitions:

  • “Belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish.” (Anti-Defamation League)
  • “Anti-Jewish racism,” which emphasizes the “innate hostility of Jews to the interests of non-Jews.” (Political Dictionary)
  • “Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious group or ‘race.’” (Britannica Concise Encyclopedia)

Continue reading How To Really Fight Anti-Semitism

Black book exposes Canadian imperialism

The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, by Yves Engler, Fernwood Publishing, 2009.

29 August 2009 – Yves Engler’s Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy lays out the facts on Canada’s sinister role as a partner in world imperialist and colonial quests, and urges us to understand the consequences. He challenges the belief that Canada is a peacekeeping nation.

Engler tells us that he was first questioned Canada as a “peacekeeper” when it “helped overthrow the democratically elected Haitian government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004.” Since then he has researched and explained Canada’s world role in the belief that citizens “have a right and responsibility to know, debate, ultimately shape what is being done in our name around the world.” Continue reading Black book exposes Canadian imperialism

Worldwide Protests Condemn Israel’s Assault on Gaza

6 January 2009 – One of the most important protests against the murderous Israeli assault on Gaza took place on January 5 in Kandahar, the Afghan province under occupation by the Canadian army. About 800 Afghan protesters converged in Kandahar city, carrying banners reading “Death to Israel” and chanting anti-Israeli slogans.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, the protesters also demanded the immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan of NATO troops, including the 2,700 Canadians stationed in their region. Bismalla Afghanmal, a member of Kandahar’s provincial council, reportedly denounced bombing, whether it takes place in Afghanistan or Palestine. Continue reading Worldwide Protests Condemn Israel’s Assault on Gaza

The Siege of Gaza: Israel Uses Hitler’s Methods Against Palestinians

The following is the text of a talk to a joint meeting of Muslim and Jewish supporters of Palestinian rights at the Taric Islamic Centre in Toronto, on June 14, 2008.

[This article is also available in Spanish. See Rebelión, August 17, 2008]

This inspiring meeting seeks to reach out to Jewish and Muslim communities, to build understanding of the conflict in the Middle East. Thank you for the honour of inviting me to participate.

My life has been shaped by the Jewish Holocaust under Hitler. My mother died in Auschwitz, and I barely escaped the same fate. Like many others, I have sought to resist the forces of war and oppression that we saw in Nazism and that still live on. We have won victories, such as the destruction of apartheid in South Africa. Continue reading The Siege of Gaza: Israel Uses Hitler’s Methods Against Palestinians

Two Ghettos: Warsaw and Gaza

Given to a public meeting initiating our organization, Not in Our Name (NION), Jew Opposing Zionism. Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was viewed in contrast to the Nazis’ creation of the Warsaw ghetto.

Let’s begin in Warsaw

On October 16, 1940,  the authorities in Warsaw in Nazi-occupied Poland, ordered the city’s 440,000 Jews to leave their homes and move into a tiny area, the Jewish ghetto. Four weeks later, the Nazi sealed off the Ghetto with a 10-foot wall.

Food rations in the Ghetto were a small fraction of the minimum for survival. The inhabitants improvised smuggling food in the Ghetto. Still, by 1942, more than 100,000 in the Ghetto had died of starvation and disease. Continue reading Two Ghettos: Warsaw and Gaza

Venezuela Responds to World Food Crisis

Programs provide land, aid to working farmers

By John Riddell and Suzanne Weiss

Suzanne and John are members of the Venezuela We Are With You Coalition. The following are major portions of a presentation they made to members of the National Farmers Union in Grey County, Ontario, March 10, 2007.

The people of Venezuela are today campaigning to rebuild a devastated family farm economy. They have more problems than solutions, but still are making significant progress.

Venezuela is an oil-rich country. But that doesn’t mean that Venezuelans are rich: in poor countries, oil brings misfortune. The so-called free market ensured that oil exports were balanced by a flood of cheap imports that stunted Venezuelan manufacturing and devastated its agriculture. Continue reading Venezuela Responds to World Food Crisis

After Referendum Defeat, Chávez Pledges to Continue the Struggle

A Report from Caracas

John Riddell and Suzanne Weiss traveled to Venezuela at the end of November, as participants in a tour organized by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network.

Responding to what he termed a “photo finish” defeat in Venezuela’s December 2 constitutional referendum, President Hugo Chávez pledged to continue the struggle for the measures that were presented to voters.

Announcing the results on national TV, he accepted “the decision made by the people” and thanked all voters, both those who voted “yes” and those in the “no” camp. But he called for his movement to stay on course. “I do not withdraw a single comma from the proposal,” he added. “The proposal is still on the table.” Continue reading After Referendum Defeat, Chávez Pledges to Continue the Struggle

How Women’s Oppression Began—and How It Will End

Based on a talk given to the Socialism 2007 conference in Toronto, April 28, 2007.

When I think about the course of my life, I am struck by how much things have changed for me—and for all women—over the course of the last half century. Through the explosive struggles in the 1960s and 1970s, women won more freedom to choose our life paths. We gained access to contraception and abortion. Our lives were no longer defined solely by marriage and children. Many women decided they had a right to a full education and to a career. Now, in some countries, including Canada, women can even marry other women! Continue reading How Women’s Oppression Began—and How It Will End

The Holocaust and Defense of the Palestinians

Forces responsible for slaughter of Jews now oppress the Palestinian people

This article is based on a talk given to a meeting of Muslim Unity of Toronto on December 23, 2006.

Sixty years ago, a mass slaughter – a holocaust – was carried out against European Jews. Today its memory is being misused to build support for Zionism and to oppress and murder the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says that Canada must not talk with Hezbollah or Hamas, organizations that defend the Palestinians, because they “advocate wiping Israel off the face of the Earth” — an objective that he says is “ultimately genocidal,” that is, another holocaust. (Globe & Mail, Dec. 21, 2006) He uses this excuse to justify punishing Palestinians for electing Hamas by cutting off aid to their government. Continue reading The Holocaust and Defense of the Palestinians

Venezuela Rallies International Resistance to U.S./Israeli War

18 September 2006 – While Israel invaded and brutally bombarded Lebanon in July, most of the world’s governments nodded in approval or folded their arms. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, by contrast, roundly denounced Israel’s aggression against the Lebanese people.

“It really causes indignation to see how the state of Israel continues bombing, killing … with all the power they have, with the support of the United States,” Chavez said August 21 after a military parade in Venezuela’s northwestern state of Falcon. “It’s hard to explain to oneself how nobody does anything to stop this horror.” Continue reading Venezuela Rallies International Resistance to U.S./Israeli War