Montreal, October 1, 2024 — With a regional war unfolding in the Middle East, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) decries the Trudeau government’s failed approach to Israeli belligerency over the past year.  CJPME believes that there’s a clear line between Israel’s horrific collective punishment against Palestinians following last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Hamas – considered a genocide by many – and the outbreak of regional war today.  Just hours ago, Iran launched a massive missile attack on Israel, citing Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders.  Israel’s subsequent vow of widespread retaliation will only plunge the region into greater misery and despair. 

Montreal, September 30, 2024 — Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) continues to call on Canada to pressure Israel for a permanent ceasefire, both in Lebanon and Palestine.  While Israel’s carnage continues in Palestine, and its bombing of much of Lebanon has caused hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to flee their homes, the massive airstrikes in residential parts of Beirut are particularly horrific and inhumane.  Canada announced a paltry $10 million in aid to Lebanon on Saturday, but CJPME considers this mere tokenism as long as Canada refuses to use its military and economic relationship with Israel to end that country’s violence.  Recent figures from the Lebanese government indicate that Israel has killed more than 1,000, and injured 6,000 more in the past two weeks. It added that a fifth of Lebanon’s population – one million people – have fled their homes. 

Montreal, September 23, 2024 — As today marks the deadliest day of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon since 2006, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) condemns Canada’s failure to avert Israel’s belligerence. CJPME reiterates its call for Canada to immediately impose a full Arms Embargo on Israel using the Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA.) CJPME points out that – with Gaza and the West Bank – this is the third brutal battlefront that Israel has opened against its neighbours in the past year, and Canada continues to repeat meaningless and erroneous platitudes about Israel’s “right to self-defence.”  Meanwhile, Canada ignores grave breaches of international law, like Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and its reckless “pager attack” in Lebanon last week.

Earlier in August the US government announced that General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Inc. a Quebec-based company is the principal contractor in the sale of 50,000 high explosive mortar cartridges and related equipment to the Israeli military, which is worth $61 million US (or about $83 million in Canadian dollars). This is part of a total of $20 billion US weapon export announced and approved by the US to Israel. 

This catches Canada is several lies they have made since October. The lie of sending only “non-lethal” weapons. The lie that the Trudeau government stopped all arms exports to Israel earlier this year. As it turns out they do not need export permits nor approvals to send weapons to the US, which in turn sends them to the Israeli military. 

Earlier this year, a real estate tour called the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” was held in Montreal and Toronto that included the sale of properties within settlements in the occupied West Bank, including Neve Daniel, Ma'aleh Adumim and Efrat. This amounts to the illegal and open sale of properties in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), in clear violation of international law, the Canadian Criminal Code, UN resolutions and international human rights and humanitarian law. However, the issue of Canadian trade with Israeli settlements goes much deeper than one event. It is time that Canada stopped ignoring these crimes. Israeli settlements are war crimes under Canadian law. To address this broader problem, CJPME urges a whole-of-government approach to ending Canadian involvement in Israel’s colonial war crimes through the below series of coordinated measures, which falls under the jurisdiction of various ministerial portfolios.