Montreal, February 1, 2022 — Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) welcomes a new report by Amnesty International which concludes that Israeli officials are perpetuating a system of Apartheid against the Palestinian people. Amnesty’s report bolsters the argument made by Palestinians, Israeli human rights groups, South African liberation leaders, and many other credible authorities, who for years have used the term Apartheid to describe forms of Israeli oppression. CJPME urges Canada’s political leaders to meaningfully engage with the report and its conclusions, and to adopt measures to hold Israeli officials accountable for perpetuating the crime of Apartheid.

Montreal, October 22, 2021  — Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is expressing serious alarm following a major Israeli assault against Palestinian civil society. Israel’s Minister of Defense Benny Gantz today declared six respected and credible Palestinian organizations – several of them human rights organizations - to be “terrorist organisations,” in a clear attempt to shut down their activities. CJPME warns that this designation is likely to have catastrophic financial, legal, and reputational consequences for these vulnerable organizations, putting the work and safety of their employees at risk.

Montreal, June 13, 2021 — Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is urging the Canadian government to take immediate action to guarantee the rights and safety of Palestinians following the nomination of Israel’s new far-right Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. CJPME warns that Bennett has a long history of violently racist statements and actions against Palestinians, and therefore poses a grave threat to the millions of Palestinians who live under Israel’s military rule.

CJPME Factsheet No. 223, published June 2021: Mass evictions in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan

The following is a joint letter which was sent to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh on January 6, 2021. The statement commends NDP MPs Charlie Angus and Leah Gazan for their statements criticizing Israel's discriminatory vaccine program and standing up for Palestinian human rights. It further requests that Singh adds his voice and stands against Israel's racist administration of vaccines. For CJPME's previous statement on this matter, click here. 

Montreal, September 23, 2020  — Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is alarmed by recent actions of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law that amount to censorship of critical scholarship about Israel. The university has been widely criticized for allegedly rescinding a job offer to human rights professor Valentina Azarova after a sitting judge on the Tax Court of Canada — and a major donor to the faculty — complained about Azarova’s scholarship on the Israeli occupation of Palestine. According to the Globe and Mail, the judge who intervened is Justice David Spiro, a former board member of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. The position that Azarova was denied was director of the law school’s International Human Rights Program (IHRP).

June 14, 2018 — Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is disappointed by the Trudeau government’s decision to abstain on a UN General Assembly vote yesterday condemning Israel for its disproportionate violence against Palestinians in Gaza in recent weeks.  The resolution text rightly deplored the “excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force by the Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and particularly in the Gaza Strip,” and called attention to Israel’s use of live ammunition against civilian protesters, including children, medics and journalists. 

Montreal, May 15, 2018 — This week, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) commemorates the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba. The Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the dispossession and loss suffered by the Palestinians as a result of the UN Partition Plan of 1947.  Over a period of several months, at least 700,000 Palestinians became refugees, and hundreds of thousands more were displaced from their homes and livelihoods by Jewish militias. The Nakba is still very much part of the living memory of Palestinians, who still haven’t been allowed to establish their own state, and who face ongoing persecution from the Israeli government.

Montreal, July 13, 2017  — The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has issued a warning concerning the mislabelling of wines from Israeli colonies (aka “settlements”) as products of Israel. CFIA clarified that these grapes are “grown, fermented, processed, blended, and finished in the West Bank occupied territory,” – territories never attributed or recognized as being part of Israel proper. Following the CFIA report, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) discontinued the importation of these mislabelled wines, with remaining bottles to be removed from store shelves.  CJPME commends CFIA for its decision to ensure rigor, transparency, and compliance in regards to the labeling of wines coming from the Middle East, specifically the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT.)

Montreal, July 13, 2017  — Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) wishes to direct media attention to Dr. David Kattenburg, the Winnipeg resident who initiated the complaint to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) which resulted in a directive to liquor vendors to suspend sales of wines falsely labelled as “Made in Israel.”