Update, June 23, 2022: Canada's Special Envoy Irwin Cotler will not be participating in the conference at Ariel University, according to a statement by the Chief Representative of the Palestinian General Delegation to Canada, who had raised this issue with the government. The circumstances surrounding the event and its cancellation are still not clear, and Canadians deserve a full explanation for how Mr. Cotler was scheduled to speak at this event in the first place, as giving an honorary address in an illegal Israeli settlement is clearly in violation of Canadian policy. (Second update: as of June 27, Mr. Cotler's name has been removed from the conference program). Montreal, June 21, 2022  — Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is urging Mr. Irwin Cotler, Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, to cancel his upcoming keynote address at Ariel University, which is located in an illegal Israeli settlement on occupied Palestinian land. CJPME notes that the official position of the Canadian government is that all Israeli settlements are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and that having a public official speak to Ariel University would be contrary to that policy. CJPME urges the Canadian government to demand that Special Envoy Cotler respect international law and cancel his address.

In this position paper, CJPME outlines the problem of Canada's accelerating arms exports to Israel at a time when Israeli practices are increasingly recognized as amounting to apartheid. Photo credit: Hersi Osman / Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians.

We are all grieving after Israel's assassination of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Yet Abu Akleh is already the 47th journalist killed by Israel since 2000, and Reporters Without Borders has said that at least 144 Palestinian journalists have been violently targeted by Israeli forces during protests since 2018. Labelled an apartheid state by all the major human rights organizations, Israel systematically targets journalists to hide its crimes. Canada must condemn this killing, and demand an independent international inquiry into the killing of Abu Akleh.

CJPME Factsheet No. 226, published June, 2022: This factsheet lays out key elements of the court case and subsequent ruling on the forcible transfer of Palestinians living in Masafer Yatta.