FIFA Is Whitewashing and Sportswashing Israeli Genocide and Sporticide. Football Stadiums Into Concentration Camps

 

Israel ‘Defense’ Forces, with unconditional support of the United States, have been waging a genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023, resulting in an unparalleled humanitarian catastrophe. They dropped over 85,000 tons of bombs, exceeding the amount of explosives used in World War II.

More than 44,000 Palestinian have been killed, including over 16,000 children, 190 journalists, 1,000 health workers, 230 United Nations staff members and many others. Over 104,000 are wounded – most of them children and women – while at least 11,000 are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes.

As part of its genocide, Israel is also committing sporticide, killing more than 500 Palestinian athletes, including over 344 footballers. Two of them were on the Palestinian National Team, including Mohamed Barakat, the first Palestinian to score over 100 goals professionally. Israel also jailed footballers, referees, and club owners. 

Israel’s air strikes in Gaza have resulted in extensive destruction of stadiums and, sports facilities in Gaza and the West Bank. They turned football stadiums into concentration camps where they detain and humiliate thousands of Palestinians who are paraded almost naked on television screens.

Thus, the Al Yarmouk stadium was turned into a makeshift concentration camp for Palestinian detainees. Men, women and children were rounded up, stripped down to their underwear, and blindfolded, while armed soldiers and tanks encircled the field. Blindfolded men and women were forced to kneel in front of a goal with the Israeli flag attached to the net.

Israel allows football clubs based in illegal settlements in West Bank to compete in official Israeli leagues in violation of international law. In the occupied Jerusalem they mounted a violent attack on the headquarters of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA).

In Apartheid Israel sports is rampant with racism and dehumanization of Palestinians. At an Israeli match a banner is displayed saying the lives of Palestinian children are worth nothing. Israeli football fans’ favorite anthem is “Death to the Arabs!” Such practices were noticed when Israeli team was playing in the Netherlands.  (more...)

FIFA Is Whitewashing and Sportswashing Israeli Genocide and Sporticide. Football Stadiums Into Concentration Camps

The anniversary of UN Resolution 181

 

Thousands gathered in Toronto on November 29 for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, coinciding with the anniversary of UN Resolution 181. This resolution, which partitioned Palestine in 1947, laid the groundwork for decades of destruction and genocide, displacing millions of Palestinians and facilitating ongoing colonial violence.

Led by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), the march started and ended at Yonge-Dundas Square. Demonstrators called for a ceasefire in Palestine, an arms embargo on Israel, and attention to violations in Lebanon and Syria.

In Lebanon, Israel violated the November 27 ceasefire with airstrikes targeting what it claimed were Hezbollah missile sites. These strikes resulted in civilian casualties, as neighborhoods were hit and families displaced by prior conflict suffered further harm.

In Syria, Israeli-backed insurgent groups escalated attacks on Aleppo, capturing villages and key routes. The violence has caused hundreds of deaths, displaced countless civilians, and deepened the humanitarian crisis in the region.

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Enough with the excuses. The names of the alleged Nazi war criminals should be released

 

Jared McBride is an assistant professor in history at the University of California, Los Angeles. Per Rudling is an associate professor in history at Lund University in Sweden.

With the noise of the U.S. election serving as a distraction, the Canadian government released its long-awaited decision on disclosing a secret report with the names of alleged Nazi war criminals on Nov. 5. The report was part of the 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada, known as the Deschênes Commission report, which looked into alleged Nazi war criminals who settled in Canada after the Second World War. Unsurprisingly, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) decided 40 years of silence was not yet enough, and the public would have to continue to wait to read this already dated investigation. In doing so, LAC and the Canadian government added another chapter of obfuscation and obstruction to this decades-old story.

Only in early September did it become known that LAC had quietly held meetings with “discrete group of individuals or organizations” over the summer to determine whether portions of the Deschênes Commission report, particularly the suspect name lists, could be released to the public. Though various constituencies were at the meeting, they forgot to invite two groups: Holocaust survivors and experts, which would include historians and legal specialists. In the wake of this revelation, another round of public debates ensued, most of which have been a retread of decades-old arguments. We have already provided a public call for the release of these records (as many have), but here we would like to address arguments against the release that have appeared in recent months.

The most consistent argument in defence of keeping the archives closed is that of privacy and potential harm to national security. When groups like the Ukrainian Canadian Congress continually refer to privacy and harm concerns, they might strengthen their argument by showing concrete examples of the harm done when the U.S. government declassified tens of thousands of pages related to Ukrainian activities during the Second World War. The 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act led to the release of a treasure trove of documents in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Anyone can walk into American archives and review FBI, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, CIA, and U.S. Army documents that touch upon Ukrainian (and other groups’) complicity in the Holocaust and even the co-operation of some nationalist groups with the Nazi regime. In fact, you do not need to leave your seat to read some of these names – one can simply search the CIA database online.

As for potential harm to governments, you will find very few making the argument that releasing these records embarrassed or harmed the United States; on the contrary, this openness and transparency has, arguably, strengthened civic society by allowing historians and journalists to initiate healthy and productive discussion about the role the CIA and other U.S. agencies played in sheltering potential war criminals in the early Cold War. The releases have resulted in numerable academic publications on several topics, which continue to this day. One can find thousands of citations to these records in a range of academic studies.  (more...)

Enough with the excuses. The names of the alleged Nazi war criminals should be released

Canada and Ukraine: The Careful Suppression of a Shameful History

 

A few days before Remembrance Day, November 11, 2024, the Government of Canada announced that it will not release the portion of a report produced by the Commission of Inquiry into War Criminals in Canada (Deschênes Commission) that names 900 Canadians accused of war crimes committed on behalf of the Nazis. Canada admitted these people and others after the Second World War, including many former members of the Waffen SS Galizien (Ukrainian).

We then learned that it was Global Affairs Canada who prevented Library and Archives Canada (LAC) from granting an access to information request to make these names public. According to the LAC spokesperson, the decision to keep the list sealed “was based on concerns regarding risk of harm to international relations.” The Globe and Mail, which along with others filed the access to information request, explained the decision this way: “Global Affairs has repeatedly warned about Russian President Vladimir Putin using disinformation to justify his invasion of Ukraine.”

Should we remind Global Affairs Canada that during the Second World War, these 900 people were fighting for the Nazis, and therefore against our parents and grandparents! Do we have to inform them that 1.2 million Canadians fought against the Nazis, 45,000 of whom never returned?

Fortunately, there are authors and journalists who are keeping a close eye on things, one of whom is Peter McFarlane, author of the excellent just published, Family Ties, How a Ukrainian Nazi and a Living Witness Link Canada to Ukraine Today (Lorimer, October 2024).  (more...)

Canada and Ukraine: The Careful Suppression of a Shameful History 

RBC Investing $37B in war crimes and genocide

 

The most recent US SEC filing for Sept 30, 2024, shows RBC investing $37 Billion in war crimes and genocide. This includes $1.8 Billion in companies on the UN list, and almost $36 Billion in companies identified by AFSC Investigate.

This includes war manufacturers such as L3Harris, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Elbit, Boeing, General Electric, General Dynamics, Honeywell, and security monitoring companies such as Palantir and HP, as well as companies complicit with illegal settlements.

See details:  (more...)

RBC Investing $37B in war crimes and genocide

Related:

$2.1 Billion USD invested in war crimes & genocide by CIBC

$1 billion USD invested by Desjardins in war crimes & genocide!

Solidarity with the Palestinian People

 

Today, November 29th, marks the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, so I offer this House, and all Canadians committed to justice and peace, the following reflection:

“Every bombed village is my hometown”, and every dead child is my child.

Every grieving mother is my mother,

and every crying father is my father.

Every home turned to rubble is the home I grew up in,

and every brother carrying the remains of his brother across borders is my brother.

Every sister waiting for her sister, who will never come home, is my sister.

Every one of these people is ours, just like we are theirs.

We belong to them, and they belong to us.

Stop the genocide.

Long live Palestine.

Long live Gaza.

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From Kanehsatà:ke to Palestine

A review of Ellen Gabriel and Sean Carleton’s When the Pine Needles Fall

At 5:15 am on July 11, 1990, the Sûreté de Québec (SQ), the provincial police force, along with the RCMP and other paramilitary units, marched on a blockade on a dirt road in Kanehsatà:ke, about 50 kilometres west of Montréal. As Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel tells it in her new memoir, When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance, written in conversation with Sean Carleton (a former Canadian Dimension editorial board member), there were just five women at the blockade that day, including Gabriel, when the police arrived. After a three-hour standoff, the SQ began shooting at the land defenders. Gabriel and the other women took refuge in an area known as “The Pines,” the forest that the Kanien’kehá:ka have been actively protecting since Sulpician missionaries first arrived in the region that is now southwestern Québec in 1717.

This raid, during which a police officer, Marcel Lemay, was killed, initiated a 78-day standoff that would come to be known as the “Oka Crisis,” or as Carleton clarifies in the book, “more correctly, the siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke.” According to Gabriel, throughout the standoff, there was a concerted effort to depict Mohawk land defenders as dangerous criminals, thus legitimating the overwhelming force that the SQ, the RCMP, and eventually, the Canadian military brought to bear. Even today, the famous photograph of an armed Mohawk warrior in fatigues staring down a Canadian solider dominates our collective memory of the conflict. But Gabriel argues that the narrative popularized by the media distracted from the land struggle at the heart of the dispute and activated “existing fears and racist attitudes to justify [Canada’s] use of force.”

Gabriel was the spokesperson for the Kanien’kehà:ka defending “The Pines” from a proposed nine-hole golf course expansion in 1990. Nearly 35 years later, When the Pine Needles Fall offers a counter-history that retells the story of the conflict in two important ways. First, Gabriel humanizes and feminizes the Mohawk resistance, making it clear that while there were armed male warriors (there had to be, the state came in guns ablaze) “the women were really the leaders of the movement,” backed by elders and the wider community. Second, Gabriel historicizes the crisis, complicating it as not simply a conflict between radical land defenders and the municipality of Oka. That superficial narrative is the colonizer’s version of the story: recalcitrant Indians refuse to accept Canada’s civilizing offer of progress and development. Gabriel’s version situates the crisis as the latest entry in a centuries-long history of violent occupation and land theft that began in 1717.  (more...)

From Kanehsatà:ke to Palestine

McGill admin battles its pro-Palestinian students

 

The Harvard of the North has been the site of an increasingly intense battle linking Justin Trudeau, Roger Waters, a government handbook marginalizing Palestinians and a historic student strike for Palestine. The alma mater of the prime minister and a disproportionate share of Justin Trudeau’s cabinet is aggressively repressing a movement to divest from apartheid and genocide.

At the start of the month, the McGill administration canceled the room booked for a talk by the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese. It’s remarkable that the prestigious university would suppress a representative of the United Nations but it’s consistent with McGill’s increasingly authoritarian response to those protesting genocide. Days before Albanese’s talk, the university sought to convince a judge to extend a 10 day ban on protests near its many buildings across downtown Montréal. The administration also had Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) banned by threatening the Students’ Society of McGill University’s (SSMU) entire funding structure if it didn’t suspend the longstanding student club.

The administration’s response to an encampment calling for the university to cut ties with Israeli universities and companies assisting the slaughter in Gaza was to repeatedly ask the Montréal police to intervene. They even sought a court ruling to force the police to do so. After that was unsuccessful McGill hired a private security firm to demolish the encampment in July. They then largely shuttered campus for the next six weeks.

The encampment on McGill’s lower field, which is unused but exceptionally well-placed downtown, enraged genocide supporters. They pressed the police and politicians to act and instigated a court case to force the police to dismantle it. Over the past decade the Zionist lobby has become ever more aggressive in seeking to overturn student democracy and undercut opposition to apartheid.  (more...)

McGill admin battles its pro-Palestinian students

Value people, not products

 

Value people, not products. Stand in solidarity with those excluded from the system. Fight for systemic change and justice. Reject transactional relationships.

The feeling of inclusion and belonging cannot be bought, it needs to be built with other people.

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Toronto demands the arrest of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu

 

Toronto demands the arrest of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu in front of the Zionist Israeli consulate.

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What You Don't Hear in Mainstream Media About the Gazan Genocide: With Jon Elmer

 

We speak with Jon Elmer to provide us alternative views on reporting in Gaza and Lebanon. This episode was recorded before the ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon.

Canada Delinquent on International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People: CJPME

 

On this International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) considers the Trudeau government to have been completely negligent in terms of supporting the lives, livelihoods, and rights of the Palestinian people. CJPME has long urged the Canadian government to take immediate action to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza and annexation in the West Bank, which are aimed at destroying the Palestinian people. CJPME calls on Prime Minister Trudeau to give his full support to international efforts to hold Israel accountable, including through the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, and to impose a suite of sanctions aimed at bringing an immediate end to Israel’s criminal acts.

“Not since 1948 has the future of Palestine been more in doubt,” said Thomas Woodley, president of CJPME. “The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination is under attack from all sides, while Israeli ministers openly discuss the complete erasure of the Palestinian people. Now is the time for Canada to take an honest stance in support of international law, defend the lives and rights of the Palestinian people, and to stop prioritizing its diplomatic and economic relationship with a genocidal state,” added Woodley. 

For more than a year, Israel has waged a genocidal war in Gaza that has brought the territory to the brink of annihilation. Israel has ignored the orders of the ICJ to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, while the ICC has accused Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant of having knowingly and deliberately “created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza.” Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich said this week that it is possible to “occupy Gaza and thin the population by half within two years” and views this as a precedent for depopulating the West Bank. Meanwhile, proposals to formally annex parts of Gaza and the West Bank are likely to get a green light from the incoming Trump administration.  (more...)

Canada Delinquent on International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People: CJPME

Is protesting NATO antisemitic?

 

Last week a large raucous protest targeted the NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Montreal. A half dozen windows were broken, a car was lit on fire and several protesters were injured at a demonstration that coincided with a historic student strike for Palestine. I discussed the weekend of events and convergence of anti-NATO and pro-Palestinian activism with NATO counter summit organizer and Green Party of Quebec leader Alex Tyrrell.

UN: International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

 

The United Nations convenes on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

World marks International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People

 

The world is commemorating International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People amidst nearly 14 months of Israel's assault on Gaza. Palestinians say no time is more important to support them than now. They hope the world will keep the pressure on Israel to end the war on Gaza. Mohammad Al-Kassim reports.

Roger Waters & Abby Martin: Voices of Reason in a Time of Genocide

 

Legendary artist Roger Waters talks to Abby Martin about Trump's landslide victory and what to expect in his administration, reflects on the year of genocide in Gaza, excoriates Radiohead for their stance on Palestine, and urges to seek out the rare voices of reason that exist to counteract the prevailing insanity.

The Anti-NATO Protest In Montreal

 

Jimmy Dore and Dimitri Lascaris talked about what really happened at an anti-NATO protest in Montreal on November 22, 2024. They also discussed the broader assault on free speech in Western countries.

Israel supporters’ push for fascism hits bump in Toronto suburb

 

The Mayor of Mississauga’s defence of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms bucks an authoritarian slide. Zionist forces are seeking a return to a time when anti-war voices were violently suppressed.

Recently, genocide lobbyist stirred up a storm over a planned vigil in Mississauga to commemorate “resistance leaders” “fighting for Palestinian freedom”. The poster for the Canadian Defenders 4 Human Rights event had an image of deceased Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Genocide lobbyists demanded Toronto’s most populous suburb suppress the planned rally. In response to the pressure, Mayor Carolyn Parrish said she wouldn’t shutter Charter protected speech. Parrish added, “I just want to point out, and I’m not being facetious, Nelson Mandela was declared a terrorist by the United States of America until the year 2008. Your terrorist and somebody else’s terrorist may be two different things.”

Those promoting Benjamin Netanyahu’s holocaust in Gaza lost it. How dare Parrish compare the Hamas leader to Nelson Mandela. But Mandla Mandela, Nelson’s grandson and sitting member of South Africa’s legislature, has made similar comparisons.  (more...)

Israel supporters’ push for fascism hits bump in Toronto suburb

Toronto: International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People

 

The date of 29 November is commemorated as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. It was that day in 1947 in which the United Nations’ General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which came to be known as the “Partition Resolution.”

77 years later, Israel continues its brutal genocide in Gaza and escalation with bombings and attempted ground invasions in Lebanon.

We refuse to stay silent. It is our duty build on the momentum of mass mobilization to grow even stronger and stand against Zionist aggression on our people

Join us on November 29th as the Arab community, labor and student movements, healthcare workers, and solidarity organizations unite in a call to action. We are calling on students to organize walk outs, workers to organize labor contingents at their workplace, and on everyone to come together to make it clear that the people stand with Palestine.

🗓️Friday, November 29

📍Yonge & Dundas Square

⏰5:00 PM

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Police Treat Nazi Monument As ‘War Memorial’ In Alleged Vandalism Case

 

“It clearly shows that Edmonton police and the Crown prosecutor’s office ... are lacking, grossly, in historical knowledge.”

Edmonton police and the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service are treating a Waffen SS monument as a protected “war memorial” in their charges against journalist Duncan Kinney.

Kinney vehemently denies the allegations and is contesting the charges in court.

It is likely the first time a Canadian journalist has been charged with vandalizing a war memorial, as well as the first time anyone has been charged with vandalizing a memorial to Canada’s wartime enemies.

The charge – “mischief relating to war memorials” – which carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence, seems to have been intended to punish vandalism of cenotaphs and monuments dedicated to Canada’s war dead. 

The Criminal Code specifies that the charge relates to “mischief in relation to property that is a building, structure or part thereof that primarily serves as a monument to honour persons who were killed or died as a consequence of a war, including a war memorial or cenotaph […].”

The monument in question, located in St. Michael’s Cemetery in north Edmonton, honours Ukrainian veterans of the SS “Galicia Division,” which fought on the side of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.  (more...)

Police Treat Nazi Monument As ‘War Memorial’ In Alleged Vandalism Case

Francesca Albanese: ICC Warrant, Canada's UN Vote, Her Canada Visit & More!

 

Francesca Albanese joins the Palestine Debrief podcast to discuss a variety of important topics: the people who inspire her, her interview with Piers Morgan, her recent tour of Canada, the ICC arrest warrants against Israeli officials Netanyahu and Gallant, the hostility she faces from certain reporters, Canada’s vote at the UN, and her role as the UN Special Rapporteur.