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honorable colleagues I arrived in Canada
1979 to attend an international school named after leester pearon one of my roommates was kareim from Egypt he taught me the only Arabic words I know Y which means my love he used it as an affectionate term for his roomies and girlfriends I also met anise and NASA two of the First Palestinian Arab refugees who received scholar ships to study in Canada the families have been displaced by the knar or the catastrophe 1948 I vividly remember having passionate discussions with them and with fellow students from Israel on the question of Palestinian statehood it seemed to me at the time that the establishment of a Palestinian state was both just and inevitable and very likely something I would see in my lifetime 44 years on we not only do not not have a Palestinian state but we are witnessing before our very eyes the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the forced relocation of civilians from their places of residence presumably to make way for Israeli settlements in effect a continuation of nakba you may already know the official figures more than 43,000 killed including upwards of children what you perhaps don't know is that at July 2024 paper in the lcet 186,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza alone since October 7th either from direct military action or from starvation malnutrition disease exposure and lack of access to medical facilities this much larger number of casualties is on account of Israel's policy of restricting humanitarian Aid such that essential medicines and food are know not getting the civilians in Gaza for the record the government of Canada's position as articulated by its representative in the Senate and cheered on by the conservatives is that civilian casualties in War are unfortunate humanitarian Aid to Gaza is not being impeded and it is all the fault of Hamas anyway the government launched in December 2023 a temporary residence visa program for gazans with Canadian Family Ties but it is unclear whether the program has facilitated the exit of any Gaza the Canadian government has the capacity and ability to expedite approvals for the immediate exits of Palestinians from Gaza as they did rightly with ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion but the government instead is choosing to abandon Palestinians in Gaza including Canadians who have Palestinian families here is what over 40 Civil Society groups have said about the program quote anti-arab and specifically anti-palestinian racism saturates every aspect of the unquote the world is looking with horror at the situation in Gaza and we have had multiple UN General Assembly resolutions Palestine Canada has been under the wrong side of most of these votes but I would note that on November 20th Canada supported a resolution to condemn Israeli illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories that we would vote to condemn illegal settlements should be a no-brainer but we have failed to do so on the same years for all our rhetorical commitment to a two-state solution our actions suggest that we are offering just lip service and often working at Cross purposes last month the Canadian government refused to meet Franchesca albanesi the UN special reporter in the situation of human rights in Palestine when she was in Ottawa the official excuse is that she is anti-Semitic a claim that has been rejected by many Jewish leaders and anti-Semitism experts I suspect the real reason is that our political leaders leaders cannot bear to listen to the fact of war crimes in Gaza that expose their hypocrisy and duplicity and there I say the complicity of Canadian foreign policy in violations of international humanitarian law it is not just that Arabs in Palestine and Lebanon are suffering at the hands of the Israelis Arab Canadians especially Palestinian Canadians are also being shunned in silence for expressing their views on Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory and the weapon of choice increasingly is the charge of anti-Semitism I do not dispute that that there has been a rise in anti-Semitism acts across Canada and I reject all forms of hatred towards Jews as individuals groups or as a collective anti-semitic to argue that Germans and Italians should be at the Forefront of the opposition to the assault on Gaza or that our Collective obliviousness to what led a 100 years ago to the third re's genocide of people not in Conformity with a pure race is leading to the commission of yet another genocide I am paraphrasing special reporter Alban's remarks but these are the ideas that our government has labeled as anti-semitic and used as a reason for not meeting with with her Ottawa the so-called working definition of anti-semitism that has been endorsed by the government means that Palestinians indeed all Canadians including Jewish Canadians who make deep criticisms of Zionism in Israel can be accused of anti-Semitism for example calling for boycotts divestment and sanctions directed at Israel or its supporters of Israel's assault in Gaza and the West Bank could be labeled and anti-semitic this weaponization of language represents an assault and Free Speech legitimate political debate and political activism it suppresses the views and rights of a minority especially Palestinian Arabs who have a particular stake in that debate it is colleagues the antithesis of celebrating Heritage take the recent uproar over the singing of an Arabic song during A Remembrance Day ceremony at an Ontario School provincial and federal politicians including MPS who voted in support of this bill Express outrage over the use of Arabic during the ceremony imagine that the use of Arabic school well honorable colleagues if we truly respect and celebrate Arab Heritage we can surely welcome an Arabic song at a ceremony to remember Canadian vet veterans whose ranks of course Canadians after all we have welcomed expressions of Ukrainian culture at recent Remembrance Day ceremonies and in my hometown of Vancouver there is always a special Remembrance Day ceremony in Chinatown for Chinese Canadian Veterans for the record the song haah Salam is a lament for peace if there was any potential harm to student stents from this incident it is in the graffiti that appeared outside the school labeling it as quote Hamas High unquote where is the outrage against the threat to Canadian students of Palestinian and ancestry and here we are colleagues on the cusp of passing a bill to Mark April as the month to celebrate Arab Heritage Month seemingly oblivious to the fact that the single biggest threat to Arab Heritage is the callousness with which we regard Arab lives in the Israeli war in Palestine and Lebanon as well as the suppression of Palestinian views on Gaza right here in Canada are we seriously thinking of passing a bill to celebrate Arab Heritage without any reflection of how Canadian policy is aiding an abetting the slaughter of Arabs in the East doing so would make it April in the words of TS Elliot the cruelest month in the aftermath of World War I Elliot cast April not in its usual role as a harbinger of better times but as a moment of bitterness and painful Memories the title of his poem is the Wasteland which pretty much sums up the way Israel has rendered Gaza since its response to the reprehensible Hamas attack of October 7th to be clear I take no issue with the ex examples of Arab Canadian accomplishment in Canada that have been highlighted by colleagues in this chamber and in the other place there is much to celebrate about the Arab presence in Canada which dates to century the first Lebanese migrants to British Columbia Brothers Abraham and 1888 they worked as itinerant pedlers in Victoria many early Lebanese immigrants also worked in Vancouver Islands 2023 the Lebanon immigrant Plaza was inaugurated at Centennial Park on the southern Shore Victoria Harbor I had a chance to visit the plaza earlier this year and to view the Lebanon immigrant statue which is a replica of statues in Halifax and several other cities that have prominent historical connections to dipor we should indeed celebrate Arab Canadian Heritage and the contributions of Arab Canadians to this country in April and every other month but let's not do Arabs the dishonor of passing a bill in Hast that willfully ignores the suffering of Arabs in Palestine and Lebanon and the silencing of Arab Canadians because of their views on the Palestine I hope other honorable colleagues will join the debate and that we will take the time to reflect on what it means to celebrate Arab Heritage in the face of Canada's stand towards Palestinian Arabs and the blatant anti-palestinian racism that pervades Society we can start by observing International Day of solidarity with the Palestinian people this Friday an observance that was passed by the UN 1977 Canada by the way voted against resolution it was of course 29th 1947 that UN General Assembly adopted resolution 181 on the partition of Palestine when the time comes for us to call the question I will vote in favor of the bill not just to celebrate and honor Arab Heritage but to protest our Collective complacency about genocide and crimes against humanity in Palestine and to express the lament for peace that is captured in haah Salam that yah is what it should mean to declare April as Arab heritage month not as in the Wasteland of TS Elliot but the Canterbury Tales of Jeffrey Cher who wrote when April the sweet showers fall and Pierce the drought of March to the root and all the veins are bathed in liquor of such power as brings about the engendering of the flower thank you for 
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