[tadamon-l] Tadamon! Montreal, Solidarity Statement on Lebanon & Palestine

[tadamon at resist.ca]

http://tadamon.resist.ca/index.php

Tadamon! Statement of Solidarity on Lebanon and Palestine
Montreal, July 18 2006

In the strongest of terms, we condemn the Israeli apartheid
state’s military assault against the people of Lebanon and
Palestine. The assault on Lebanon, unrelenting for seven
consecutive days now, and increasingly destructive and deadly,
is an act of state terror, an exercise of state power in its
most physically violent form in complete disregard of
international law and conventions and of the principles of
ethical human conduct. The entire population of Lebanon has
been subject to the callous, calculated and arrogant use of
force by the Israeli state which, on the pretext of avenging
military losses (the death and capture of military personnel in
a clash with Hizbollah), launched an assault of mass and
indiscriminate punishment on Lebanon and the people of Lebanon.
The Israeli attack – according to many observers, a means of
achieving wider strategic aims in the region - has resulted in
the death of hundreds of civilians, many of them children,
injury to hundreds of others, the forced displacement of
thousands and the destruction of essential civilian
infrastructure (roads, ports, airports, power supply
facilities).

In the strongest of terms, we also denounce the continued
Israeli military siege of Gaza, now in its fourth week. Victims
also of the ultra-nationalist logic of Israeli state power,
Gazans have endured a decades-long occupation with its
attendant forms of repression, rights abuse and humiliation.
During the latest siege, they have been subject to the
deliberate destruction of their essential infrastructure, to
deprivation of the necessities of subsistence, to generalized
state terror practices, the bombing of homes and institutions
and the killing and injury of civilians.

We deplore the Canadian government’s failure to either condemn
Israeli aggression or to hold Israel responsible in any way for
the current state of crisis in the Middle East. The Prime
Minister of Canada, in public statements in London, England
and, more recently, in St. Petersburg, Russia , affirmed his
support for Israel’s “right to self-defence” and characterized
the Israeli military’s assault on Lebanon as “measured”.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in his 12 July 2006
statement, condemned Hizbollah for its actions against Israeli
military targets but remained absolutely silent about Israel’s
crimes against civilian populations. This stance of the
Canadian government amounts to acquiescence in Israel’s
strategies of mass punishment of Arab populations and,
according to many commentators, of regional domination and
forcing regime change in Arab states.

In the strongest of terms, we express our solidarity with the
Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation from
occupation and colonial domination. We also add our voice to
those in Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere who call for an
immediate cessation of Israeli military aggression and
practices of state terror in Lebanon and Gaza, and for the
immediate release of Lebanese and Palestinian political
prisoners held in Israeli prisons. We urge the Canadian
government to call on Israel to end its attacks on Lebanon and
Gaza and, subsequently, to be engaged in a fair and balanced
way in the working out of a just settlement to the conflict
between Israel and the Palestinians including an Israeli
withdrawal from all occupied Palestinian territories, full
respect of the Palestinian rights of return and self-
determination and the dismantlement of the Israeli apartheid
wall. Finally, we urge the international community to take
immediate measures to address the humanitarian crises in Gaza
and Lebanon and to provide humanitarian aid and reconstruction
assistance to people in Lebanon and Gaza.

Tadamon! Montreal.
tadamon at resist.ca