Tag Archives: Irwin Cotler
Irwin Cotler at Concordia University
Last week members of Quebec Movement for Peace disrupted a speech by Irwin Cotler on "Canada as a Human Rights leader" (at the last-minute 'deputy' foreign minister, Rob Oliphant, canceled his participation). With "Free Palestine" signs in hand, filmmaker Malcolm Guy and I took the stage to denounce Cotler's anti-Palestinian positions and support for intervention in Venezuela and Iran. After we were ushered off the stage lawyer Dimitri Lascaris rose to interrogate the supposed human rights activist for refusing to criticize injustices inflicted upon Palestinians. Part of the way through Lascaris' grilling a handful of us at the back of the room began chanting "Cotler, Cotler, you will see Palestine will be free", as one can hear in this video viewed over 10,000 times.
The Electronic Intifada, Media Coop, Algemeiner and Canadian Jewish News (twice) reported on the intervention (CPAC was purportedly live streaming the event). Prominent anti-Palestinian activists such as Gerald Steinberg, Hillel Neuer, Avi Benlolo and Bernie Farber decried our challenge of their hero. Head of the Canada Israel Interparliamentary Group (CIIG), Michael Levitt created the Twitter hashtag StandWithCotler and called on other MPs to support it, which was duly followed by his CIIG colleagues, including disgraceful NDP MP Randall Garrison. In the House of Commons CIIG Vice-Chair David Sweet asked the government to condemn our disruption of Cotler. The Conservative MP noted, "on Monday he was disrupted and berated during a speech at Concordia University in an attempt by protesters to shut him down." (After 10 minutes we voluntarily left the room and Cotler spoke extensively.) Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Oliphant, who was scheduled to speak alongside Cotler, expressed the government's solidarity with the former Liberal party justice minister.
Cotler is a vicious anti-Palestinian who aggressively criticizes "enemy" states while largely ignoring rights violations committed by Canada and the US. In "Canadian apologist for Israeli war crimes nominated for Peace Prize" I detail Cotler's long-standing devotion to Israeli violence and recent promotion of war on Iran and regime change in Venezuela. But, since that story was published in March more details have emerged about Cotler's ethno-centrism and promotion of violence. In recent days Cotler has been widely quoted criticizing the use of the term "genocide" in the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
According to an Israel National News story, Cotler supports relocating Canada's embassy to Jerusalem. During "Keep Jerusalem" leader Chaim Silberstein's visit to Canada last month, Cotler reportedly "expressed enthusiasm" for moving the Canadian embassy and "promised to help promote" the idea within the Liberal party.
In response to our action activist Ron Saba shared a photo of Cotler at last year's Jewish National Fund fundraiser in Toronto. The explicitly racist JNF excludes the 20-25% of non-Jewish Israelis from its vast landholdings mostly stolen from Palestinians in 1948. In 2017 the Canada Revenue Agency initiated an (ongoing) audit of the JNF for supporting the Israeli military in contravention of Canadian charitable law.
For his part, Masud Sheikh responded to our action by uploading a video — apparently scrubbed from the Internet after previously reaching a Canadian audience — of the Nobel Peace Prize nominee advising Israel on planning a war. Just after Israel killed 1,200 Lebanese in the summer of 2006 Cotler spoke to a conference of top Israeli military officials on the importance of managing the message in modern war.
He did something similar after an earlier Israeli invasion of its northern neighbour. In an April article retired Guelph professor Michael Keefer wrote: "In the wake of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, in the course of which some 15,000 civilians were killed and several thousand Palestinians massacred in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, Cotler participated in a 1984 Jerusalem conference on Hasbara: Israel's Public Image. Alluding to two of the lesser PR disasters of the war—the IDF's violation of the Canadian ambassador to Lebanon's diplomatic immunity, and a Canadian Red Cross doctor's allegations of Israeli atrocities—Cotler recommended, not that Israel change its behaviour, but rather that it 'make Hasbara a priority' and enhance its capacity to offer 'an authoritative rebuttal' to such stories."
In that article Keefer points out that Antony Lerman, founding editor of Antisemitism World Report, called Cotler "one of the key figures" promoting the idea of a "new antisemitism". Since the 1970s he's been arguing that criticism of Israel is the "new antisemitism".
In a remarkable 2002 essay titled "Human Rights and the New Anti-Jewishness" Cotler lays out his thinking, suggesting a confrontation between the "secular religion" of human rights and Jewish "civil religion" of Zionism. He argues that criticizing Israeli human rights violations is "the contemporary analogue to the medieval indictment of the Jew as the 'poisoner of the wells.' In other words, in a world in which human rights has emerged as the new secular religion of our time, the portrayal of Israel as the metaphor for a human rights violator is an indictment of Israel as the 'new anti-Christ' — as the 'poisoner of the international wells' encompassing all the 'teaching of contempt' for the 'Jew among the Nations,' this new antisemitism implies."
Cotler further argues that antisemitism has retained its consistent essence as "an assault upon whatever is the core of Jewish self-definition at any moment in time—be it the Jewish religion at the time of classical antisemitism, or the State of Israel as the 'civil religion' of the Jewish people under this new anti-Jewishness." So, because most Jews identify with Israel criticizing that country's violence or dispossession of Palestinians is anti-Semitic.
Challenging Cotler is important. All high-profile anti-Palestinians should be asked tough questions and hopefully our intervention inspires others to take similar actions. But, it's also about de-mystifying an individual who retains a progressive gloss. Last month NDP MP Hélène Laverdière and Green Party leader Elizabeth May attended a press conference organized by Cotler calling on Canada to impose sanctions on Iranian officials and list the country's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. New NDP foreign critic Guy Caron participated in a subsequent event on Iran and NDP MP Murray Rankin and May regularly attend events led by Cotler. May and Rankin are also part of the Cotler-led Raoul Wallenberg All-Party Parliamentary Caucus for Human Rights.
The Cotler 'brand' should be toxic on the Left. Politicians need to know that many Canadians — as Lascaris put it in his concluding statement to Cotler — consider him "a fraud when it comes to human rights."
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Filed under Activism, Israel, Venezuela
Tagged as Elizabeth May, Guy Caron, Hélène Laverdière, Irwin Cotler, Michael Levitt, Murray Rankin, Quebec Movement for Peace, Randall Garrison
Elizabeth May and prominent Israel apologist Irwin Cotler.
Does Elizabeth May hate Palestinians? Does the Green Party leader want the Trump administration to attack Iran? Does she support efforts to overthrow Venezuela's government?
I've been asking myself these questions since reading a Canadian Jewish News story about Paul Manly's recent victory in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith bi-election. In a story titled "Concerns raised over new Green MP's views on BDS" May strongly implies that the Palestinian civil society led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement is racist. "We have nothing to do with BDS," May is quoted as saying. "We repealed it. We are not a party that condones BDS. We would never tolerate anybody in our party who violates our core values, who are anti-Semitic."
May is seeking to downplay the significance of Manly's election to anti-Palestinian forces, particularly within the NDP. Only the second MP ever elected under the Green banner, Manly was blocked from running for the NDP in the 2015 federal election because he defended his father (a former NDP MP) after Israel detained him as he sought to break the illegal blockade of Gaza.
In the CJN interview May also appears to boast that she forced the party to spend $100,000 to overturn an August 2016 convention resolution in which members voted for "the use of divestment, boycott and sanctions (BDS) that are targeted to those sectors of Israel's economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation of the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories]." In response to the clearly stated will of party members, May threatened to resign if the party didn't revisit the issue and then announced that a special general meeting would be held four months later to discuss the party's stance on Palestine. She then fired three members of her shadow cabinet for defending the party's new Palestine policy from attacks by the head of the British Columbia Greens. Before what was shaping up to be an embarrassing defeat, May endorsed a compromise resolution at the special convention that dropped the BDS formulation in favour of support for "economic measures such as government sanctions, consumer boycotts, institutional divestment, economic sanctions and arms embargoes" while simultaneously endorsing all three (versus just one in the initial resolution) goals of the BDS movement ("Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall"; Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.")
As May besmirched Palestinian civil society's call for international solidarity, the Green leader stood with those pushing for war on Iran. Last week May attended a press conference organized by Irwin Cotler calling on Canada to impose sanctions on 19 Iranian officials and to follow the Trump administration in listing the country's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. May's support for ramping up Canadian hostility towards Tehran takes place amidst increasingly bellicose moves by Washington that could lead to a war on Iran.
The press conference in Ottawa was part of parliament's Iran Accountability Week, which Cotler established in 2012. May has participated in previous Iran Accountability Weeks alongside individuals such as Mark Dubowitz who Ynet, Israel's largest English language news site, dubbed "The Man Who Fights Iran". But, when current and former Green Party candidates organized a 2010 conference on a "just and sustainable peace" in Iran May told Postmedia it should be "canceled" because it was "unbalanced".
May is a regular at events led by Cotler who has devoted much of his career to defending Israeli human rights violations. (His wife, Ariela Zeevi, was a "close confidant" of Likud founder Menachem Begin when the arch anti-Palestinian party was established to counter Labour's dominance of Israeli politics. His daughters were part of the Israeli military and one of them ran in Israel's recent election.) The Green leader is part of the Cotler-led Raoul Wallenberg All-Party Parliamentary Caucus for Human Rights and in 2014 she tweeted, "honouring Irwin Cotler, with Raoul Wallenberg Award. Tributes from John Baird, Justin Trudeau, Murray Rankin and me."
May has participated in at least three press conferences organized by Cotler to call for the release of leading Venezuelan Leopoldo López. The Harvard-educated Lopez endorsed the military's 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez and the leader of the hardline Voluntad Popular party was convicted of inciting violence during the 2014 "guarimbas" protests that sought to oust President Nicolas Maduro (Cotler later joined López' legal team). According to a series of reports, Lopez was the key Venezuelan organizer of the recent plan to anoint Juan Guaidó interim president of Venezuela and on April 30 he escaped house arrest to join Guaidó in a failed coup bid.
In 2014 May met López's wife Lilian Tintori who, reports The Guardian, met Donald Trump and other international players to build international support for the recent coup efforts. According to Cotler's website, "MPs Irwin Cotler (Liberal) and Elizabeth May (Green) joined today with Lilian Tintori – international human rights campaigner and wife of imprisoned Venezuelan opposition Leader Leopoldo Lopez – and their international legal counsel, Jared Genser, to call on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to release Mr. López immediately."
Four months later May and Cotler met Carlos Vecchio, who Guaidó recently appointed as his phantom government's "ambassador" to the US. Afterwards, the Green leader joined Cotler at a press conference to denounce the "deterioration of the human rights situation" in Venezuela.
While she's criticized some Canadian foreign policy decisions, May rarely strays far from the liberal establishment worldview. In laying out her party's 2015 election position in Esprit de Corps magazine May wrote, "the world needs more Canada" and argued, "we should also support the United Nations' 'responsibility to protect' (R2P) doctrine", which was used to justify bombing Libya in 2011 and ousting Haiti's elected government in 2004. In her article May also bemoaned that "defence expenditures are headed to an unprecedented low", which is a bizarre criticism for an environmental minded politician to make. Previously, she backed the Conservative government's National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy, a $60 billion effort to expand the combat fleet over three decades.
How to explain May's positions? The Green leader represents a riding near a naval base and until a few years ago was studying to become a priest in a church with a history of theological Zionism. May clearly fears Jewish Zionist groups' accusations of anti-Semitism and dabbles in philo-Semitism. (In 2015 May responded to a CJN request to make her pitch to Canadian Jewish voters by saying "you have been the heart and soul and conscience of Canada on many issues for a very long time… I would urge you to look at the Green party's policies and platform and see if you don't see yourself there. If you don't, let me know, I certainly would apologize if we are not meeting the aspirations of Canadians who have done so much for this country.") More generally, May is absorbed into the foreign policy swamp in Ottawa and has shown little willingness to defy the dominant media's depiction of international affairs.
But if the Green Party wants to be seen as different from the tired, old, mainstream parties, it needs to move beyond the double-standard, cynical, anti-democratic, anti-human, pro-imperialist claptrap that our elites insist on selling us.
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Filed under Green Party, Middle East
Tagged as BDS, Iran Accountability Week, Irwin Cotler, Leopoldo López, Paul Manly
March 9, 2019 · 11:36
Irwin Cotler, left, is seen with guest speaker Alan Dershowitz, right.
Canadian Jewish News Photo
Hypocrisy, lying, disdain for the victims of 'our' policies and other forms of rot run deep in Canadian political culture.
The latest example is former prime minister Paul Martin nominating Irwin Cotler for the Nobel Peace Prize, which has been applauded by the likes of Bernie Farber, Michael Levitt and Anthony Housefather.
This supposed promoter of peace and former Liberal justice minister has devoted much of his life to defending Israeli violence and has recently promoted war on Iran and regime change in Venezuela.
In a story titled "Irwin Cotler's daughter running with Ya'alon, Gantz" the Jerusalem Post recently reported that Michal Cotler-Wunsh was part of the Israel Resilience and Telem joint election list. The story revealed that Irwin Cotler has been an unofficial adviser to Moshe Ya'alon for years. Former Chief of Staff of the Israeli military and defence minister between 2013 and 2016, Ya'alon recently boasted about his role in setting up the West Bank colony of Leshem and said Israel "has a right to every part of the Land of Israel." In 2002 Ya'alon told Haaretz, "the Palestinian threat harbors cancer-like attributes that have to be severed. There are all kinds of solutions to cancer. Some say it's necessary to amputate organs but at the moment I am applying chemotherapy."
Ya'alon's Telem party is in a formal electoral alliance with Israel Resilience, which is led by Benny Gantz, a former Israeli army chief. To launch his party's campaign, Gantz released a video boasting about his role in the killing of 2,200 Palestinians in Gaza in the summer of 2014. It actually notes that "parts of Gaza were sent back to the Stone Age." Gantz faces a war crimes case in the Netherlands for his role in the deaths of civilians in Gaza.
Cotler has described illegal Israeli colonies in the West Bank as "disputed territories" and the Canadian lawyer justified Israel's 2006 war on Lebanon that left 1,200 dead. He savagely attacked Richard Goldstone after the South African judge led a UN investigation of Israeli war crimes during operation Cast Lead, which left 1,400 dead in Gaza in 2008–09. Cotler called for the removal of Richard Falk as UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories and William Schabas from his position on the UN Human Rights Council's International Commission of Inquiry into the killings in Gaza in 2014. Alongside attacking these three (Jewish) lawyers tasked with investigating human rights violations, Cotler promotes the notion of the "new anti-Semitism" to attack critics of Israeli policy.
In an indication of the unquestioning depths of his support for Israeli crimes, Cotler has repeatedly criticized his own party and government's (mild) expressions of support for Palestinian rights. In May Cotler tweeted his "regret [of a] Canadian Government statement" criticizing Israeli snipers for shooting thousands of peaceful protesters, including Canadian doctor Tarek Loubani, in Gaza. In 2000 Cotler complained when the government he was a part of voted for a UN Security Council resolution calling on Israel to respect the rights of Palestinian protesters. "This kind of resolution, which singled out Israel for discriminatory and differential treatment and appeared to exonerate the Palestinians for their violence," Cotler said, "would tend to encourage those who violently oppose the peace process as well as those who still seek the destruction of Israel."
In 2002 a half dozen activists in Montréal occupied Cotler's office to protest the self-described 'human rights lawyer's' hostility to Palestinians. Cotler's wife, Ariela Zeevi, was a"close confidant" of Likud founder Menachem Begin when the arch anti-Palestinian party was established to counter Labour's dominance of Israeli politics.
'Canada's Alan Dershowitz' has also attacked Iran incessantly. He supported the Stephen Harper government's move to break off diplomatic relations with Tehran in 2012 and pushed to remove the MEK, which is responsible for thousands of Iranian deaths, from Canada's terrorist list. As a member of the advisory board of "United Against Nuclear Iran", Cotler opposed the P5+1Iran Nuclear Agreement. Recently, he called for Canada to invoke the Magnitsky Act to "impose sanctions in the form of travel bans and asset freezes" on Iranian officials.
As well as promoting US/Israel propaganda about Iran, Cotler criticized Hugo Chavez's government since at least 2009 when Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with Israel in response to killings in Gaza. In recent weeks Cotler has disparaged Venezuela's government in a number of articles, including a National Post story headlined "Canadian unions helped fund delegation that gave glowing review of Venezuela election widely seen as illegitimate." Cotler was quoted saying, "the notion that free and fair elections could possibly be taking place when you not only criminalize those who are on the opposition … but when you don't have any allowance for expressions of freedom of speech, assembly, association and the like, simply is a non-sequitur." But, as Dave Parnas wrote in response, "for two weeks we have been seeing pictures of streets filled with people who assembled, associated and spoke freely against President Nicolás Maduro."
Cotler pushed for Canada to request the International Criminal Court investigate Venezuela's government. Cotler was one of three "international experts" responsible for a 400-page Canadian-backed Organization of American States (OAS) report on rights violations in Venezuela that recommended referring Venezuela to the ICC. At a press conference in May to release the report, Cotler said Venezuela's "government itself was responsible for the worst ever humanitarian crisis in the region." As this author wrote at the time: "Worse than the extermination of the Taíno and Arawak by the Spanish? Or the enslavement of five million Africans in Brazil? Or the 200,000 Mayans killed in Guatemala? Or the thousands of state-murdered 'subversives' in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil?"
For four years Cotler has been working with Juan Guaidó's "ultra right wing" Voluntad Popular party to oust Nicolas Maduro's government. In May 2017 Cotler helped bring Lilian Tintori, wife of Voluntad Popular leader Leopoldo López, to meet the Prime Minister and opposition leaders. The Guardian recently reported on Tintori's role in building international support for the slow-motion coup attempt currently underway in Venezuela. Tintori acted as an emissary for Lopez who couldn't travel to Ottawa because he was convicted of inciting violence during the deadly "guarimbas" protests in 2014. A series of news outlets have reported that Lopez is the key Venezuelan organizer in the plan to anoint Guaidó interim president.
Cotler joined Lopez's legal team in early 2015. At that time the Venezuelan and international media repeated the widely promulgated description of Cotler as Nelson Mandela's former lawyer (a Reuters headline noted, "Former Mandela lawyer to join defence of Venezuela's jailed activist"). In response, South Africa's Ambassador to Venezuela, Pandit Thaninga Shope-Linney, said, "Irwin Cotler was not Nelson Mandela's lawyer." For his part, Nelson Mandela mentions a number of lawyers (he was one) in his biography but Cotler's name seems absent.
Cotler's human rights credentials are a sham. He is a vicious anti-Palestinian who aggressively criticizes enemy states such as Venezuela, China, Russia and Iran while largely ignoring rights violations committed by Canada and the US.
For those appalled by the idea of Cotler receiving the Nobel Peace Prize Iranian-Canadian activist Mehdi Samadian has created a petition titled "Irwin Cotler does not deserve nomination for Nobel Peace Prize".
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Filed under A Propaganda System, Uncategorized
Tagged as Ariela Zeevi, Benny Gantz, Iran, Irwin Cotler, Menachem Begin, Moshe Ya'alon, Paul Martin, Richard Falk, Richard Goldstone, Tarek Loubani, Venezuela, William Schabas
Israeli Ambassador Barkan with MPs Levitt, Sweet and Rankin as well as former MP Irwin Cotler.
Victoria MP Murray Rankin's recent announcement that he won't seek re-election is a victory for NDP members who stand for Palestinian rights and oppose regime change efforts in Iran and Venezuela.
Since taking his place in Parliament seven years ago Rankin has been a leading anti-Palestinian activist in the NDP. Here is a brief summary of his blindly pro-Israel, pro-US Empire activities as MP:
During Israel's Summer 2014 destruction of Gaza, which left 2,200 Palestinians dead, he offered remarks supporting Israel (along with Prime Minister Stephen Harper) read at a Victoria Jewish Federation event to raise money for an emergency Israel Relief Fund. In 2016 Rankin went to Israel in a Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs organized trip and was one of the MPs who blocked the "Palestine Resolution" from being discussed at the NDP convention in February. In December Rankin joined Ambassador Nimrod Barkan and other prominent anti-Palestinian politicians (Michael Levitt, David Sweet, Irwin Cotler) for an event at the Israeli Embassy.
An early endorser of Thomas Mulcair's bid for the NDP leadership, Rankin is on the executive of the Canada Israel Interparliamentary Group, which promotes "greater friendship" and "cooperation" between the two countries' parliaments. In refusing to heed a call from 200 well-known musicians, academics, trade unionists and NDP members to withdraw from CIIG, Rankin told Huffington Post, "as a New Democrat, I am committed to advancing peace and justice, and a two-state solution, which can only be achieved through open dialogue with Israelis and Palestinians." But, the claim of "dialogue" between Israelis and Palestinians conjures up famed South African activist Desmond Tutu's insight that "if you neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." Ironically, Rankin made the same point— though not about Palestinians – at a 2017 Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies event. At the Israel lobby group's event he quoted Elie Wiesel saying, "neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim."
While he justifies participating in CIIG by citing "dialogue", Rankin doesn't specify whom he's talking to. A quick Google search of CIIG's Israeli partner — the Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group — shows that all 13 of its members have expressed problematic views or proposed racist laws. Israel-Canada Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group co-chair Anat Berko is openly anti-African and recently pushed for expanding the Israeli forces powers to punish Palestinians. Berko told the Knesset: "When we speak of revoking resident status or demolishing homes, it should happen immediately. The punishment cannot be [held up] in the High Court of Justice for 11 years."
Since announcing his retirement the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, as well as CIIG colleagues Michael Levitt and Anthony Housefather, have tweeted their praise for Rankin. Extremist former Canadian Ambassador to Israel Vivian Bercovici‏, a former colleague of Rankin's at the law firm of Heenan Blaikie, also praised him recently, which he retweeted.
Through his participation in CIIG Rankin has repeatedly attacked Tel Aviv's regional bogeyman, Iran. Rankin participated in a recent press conference with CIIG chair Michael Levitt, vice-chair David Sweet and executive member Anthony Housefather calling for a new round of Canadian sanctions on Iran. Led by former CIIG executive Irwin Cotler, this effort flouts the NDP's position on Iran. Rankin's disagreement with NDP policy took place amidst the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and bid to force others to adhere to its illegal sanctions, by threatening to sanction any country that buys Iranian oil.
With Cotler and Levitt, Rankin has participated in a number of events put on by the Canadian Section of Scholars at Risk, which is unduly focused on Iranian rights violations. In August Rankin attended the launch of a new advocacy group for political prisoners set up by Cotler who has devoted much of his career to defending Israeli human rights violations. (His wife, Ariela Zeevi, was a "close confidant" of Likud founder Menachem Begin when the arch anti-Palestinian party was established to counter Labour's dominance of Israeli politics. His daughters were part of the Israeli military.)
Rankin is a regular at events led by Cotler, who has been attacking Iran and Venezuela incessantly for at least a decade. At one event Rankin said, "I feel a real honour to be on this stage with such giants of human rights as professor Cotler and Bill Browder." A story on Rankin's website about a joint event claims, "Irwin Cotler, who acted as counsel to Mandela." But, when numerous media outlets repeated this claim after Cotler became a lawyer for right wing Venezuelan politician Leopoldo Lopezin 2015, South Africa's Ambassador to Venezuela, Pandit Thaninga Shope-Linney, said, "Irwin Cotler was not Nelson Mandela's lawyer." For his part, Nelson Mandela mentions a number of lawyers (he was one) in his biography but Cotler's name seems absent.
In 2015 Rankin participated in a press conference led by Cotler calling on the government to adopt the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Magnitsky Law). The legislation empowered Ottawa to sanction individuals outside the framework of international law. Thirty Russians, 19 Venezuelans and three South Sudanese officials were the initial targets of Canada's Magnitsky Act.
In 2016 Rankin joined Cotler and the Executive Director of UNWATCH, Hillel Neuer, to urge Justin Trudeau's government to oppose the election of Cuba and other countries to the UN Human Rights Council. A staunch anti-Palestinian, Neuer recently appeared on Rebel Media's The Ezra Levant Show to complain about Canadian funding to UNRWA, the UN body that supports Palestinian Refugees.
In 2016 Rankin joined Cotler and others "to mark the second anniversary of Nelson Mandela's passing — and International Human Rights Day — by calling for the release of four political prisoners inspired by Mandela's courage and commitment." One was Iranian, Ayatollah Hossein Kazamani Boroujerdi, and another was Lopez who Rankin claimed, "was recently sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for his role in pro-democracy protests in a trial devoid of any semblance of due process or legality." In fact, the Harvard-educated Lopez endorsed the military 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez and the leader of the hardline Voluntad Popular party was convicted of inciting violence during the 2014 "guarimbas" protests that sought to oust President Nicolas Maduro. According to a series of reports, Lopez was the key Venezuelan organizer of the plan to anoint Juan Guaidó interim president of Venezuela.
Rankin's departure weakens the anti-Palestinian, pro-imperialist camp in the NDP. It also offers an opportunity for a more internationalist minded politician to take his seat.
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Filed under Left Right, Uncategorized
Tagged as Anat Berko, Anthony Housefather, CIIG, David Sweet, Desmond Tutu, Iran, Irwin Cotler, Michael Levitt, Murray Rankin, Thomas Mulcair, UNWATCH, Venezuela, Vivian Bercovici‏
The corporate media is wholeheartedly behind the federal government's push for regime change in Venezuela. The propaganda is thick and, as per usual, it is as much about what they don't, as what they do, report. Here are some important developments that have largely been ignored by Canada's dominant media:
At the Organization of American States meeting called by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on January 25 the Canadian-backed interventionist resolution was defeated 18-16.
The "Lima Group" of governments opposed to Venezuela's elected president was established 18 months ago after Washington, Ottawa and others failed to garner the votes necessary to censure Venezuela at the OAS (despite the head of the OAS's extreme hostility to Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro).
Most of the world's countries, with most of the world's population, have failed to support the US/Canada push torecognize National Assembly head Juan Guaidóas president of Venezuela.
The UN and OAS charters preclude unilateral sanctions and interfering in other countries' affairs.
UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur for sanctions, Idriss Jazairy, recently condemned US/Canadian sanctions on Venezuela.
As well, here are some flagrant double standards in Canadian policy the media have largely ignored:
"Lima Group" member Jair Bolsonaro won the recent presidential election in Brazil largely because the most popular candidate, Lula Da silva, was in jail. His questionable election took place two years after Lula's ally, Dilma Rousseff, was ousted as president in a 'parliamentary coup'.
Another "Lima Group" member, Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernandez, defied that country's constitution a year ago in running for a second term and then 'won' a highly questionable
"At the same time"as Canada and the US recognized Juan Guaidó, notes Patrick Mbeko, "in Democratic Republic of Congo they refuse to recognize the massive recent victory of Martin Fayulu in the presidential election, endorsing the vast electoral fraud of the regime and its ally Félix Tshisekedi."
Beyond what the media has ignored, they constantly cite biased sources without offering much or any background. Here are a couple of examples:
The Globe and Mail has quoted Irwin Cotler in two recent articles on Venezuela. But, the decades-long anti-Palestinian and anti-Hugo Chavez activist lacks any credibility on the issue. At a press conference in May to release an OAS report on alleged rights violations in Venezuela, Cotler said Venezuela's "government itself was responsible for the worst ever humanitarian crisis in the region." Worse than the extermination of the Taíno and Arawak by the Spanish? Or the enslavement of five million Africans in Brazil? Or the 200,000 Mayans killed in Guatemala? Or the thousands of state-murdered "subversives" in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil?
CBC and Canadian Press (to a slightly lesser extent) stories about former Venezuelan Colonel Oswaldo Garcia, whose family lives in Montréal, present him as a democracy activist. But, notes Poyan Nahrvar, Garcia participated in a coup attempt last year and then launched raids into Venezuela from Colombia until he was captured by the Venezuelan military.
The media blindly repeats Ottawa's depiction of the "Lima Group", which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described as an organization established to "bring peace, democracy and stability in Venezuela." One report called it "a regional block of countries committed to finding a peaceful solution" to the crisis while another said its members "want to see Venezuela return to democracy." This portrayal of the coalition stands its objective on its head. The "Lima Group" is designed to ratchet up international pressure on Maduro in hopes of eliciting regime change, which may spark a civil war. That is its reason for existence.
As part of nationwide protests against the "Lima Group" meeting taking place in Ottawa on Monday, activists in Montréal will rally in front of Radio Canada/CBC's offices. They will be decrying not only Canada's interference in Venezuela but the dominant media's effort to "manufacture consent" for Canadian imperialism.
Comments Off on What the mainstream media doesn't tell you about Venezuela
Tagged as CBC, Irwin Cotler, Jair Bolsonaro, Juan Guaido, Juan Orlando Hernandez, Lima Group, OAS, Radio Canada, United Nations
Requesting the International Criminal Court investigate Venezuela's government is a significant escalation in Ottawa's campaign of interference in the domestic affairs of another country.
Supported by five like-minded South American nations, it's the first time a member state has been brought before the ICC's chief prosecutor by other members.
In Canada the campaign to have the ICC investigate the Nicolás Maduro government began in May. "I would like to see the states from the G7 agreeing to refer the matter of crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court for a prospective investigation and prosecution," said Irwin Cotler at an Ottawa press conference to release a report on purported Venezuelan human rights violations. The former Liberal justice minister added, "this is the arch-typical example of why a reference is needed, as to why the ICC was created."
Cotler was one of three "international experts" responsible for a 400-page Canadian-backed Organization of American States (OAS) report on rights violations in Venezuela. The panel recommended OAS secretary general Luis Almagro submit the report to the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC and that other states refer Venezuela to the ICC. In a Real News Network interview Max Blumenthal described "the hyperbolic and propagandistic nature" of the press conference where the report was released at the OAS in Washington. Cotler said Venezuela's "government itself was responsible for the worst ever humanitarian crisis in the region."
Worse than the extermination of the Taíno and Arawak by the Spanish? Or the enslavement of five million Africans in Brazil? Or the 200,000 Mayans killed in Guatemala? Or the thousands of state-murdered "subversives" in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, etc.? Worse than the tens of thousands killed in Colombia, Honduras and Mexico in recent years? Worse than the countless US (and Canadian) backed military coups in the region?
Or perhaps Almagro, who appointed Cotler and the two other panelists, approves of the use of military might to enforce the will of the rich and powerful. He stated last month: "As for military intervention to overthrow the Nicolas Maduro regime, I think we should not rule out any option … diplomacy remains the first option but we can't exclude any action." Even before he mused about a foreign invasion, the former Uruguayan foreign minister's campaign against Maduro prompted Almagro's past boss, former president José Mujica, to condemn his bias against the Venezuelan government.
For his part, Cotler has been attacking Venezuela's Bolivarian government for a decade. In a 2015 Miami Herald op-ed Cotler wrote that "sanctions" and "travel-visa bans …isn't enough." The US government "must increase the pressure on Maduro to respect the fundamental human rights of all Venezuela's people."The next year Venezuela's obstructionist, opposition-controlled National Assembly gave Cotler an award for his efforts, notably as a lawyer for right-wing coup leader Leopoldo Lopez. When he joined Lopez' legal team in early 2015 the Venezuelan and international media described Cotler as Nelson Mandela's former lawyer (a Reuters headline noted, "Former Mandela lawyer to join defense of Venezuela's jailed activist"). In response, South Africa's Ambassador to Venezuela, Pandit Thaninga Shope-Linney, said,"Irwin Cotler was not Nelson Mandela's lawyer and does not represent the Government or the people of South Africa in any manner."
In 2010 Cotler called on a Canadian parliamentary committee to "look at the Iranian connection to Chávez", asking a representative of Venezuela's tiny Jewish community: "What evidence is there of direct Iranian influence, or involvement, on Chávez and the climate of fear that has developed? Is there any concern in the [Jewish] community, with some of the Iranian penetration that we know about in Latin America with respect to terrorist penetration, that it's also prospectively present for Venezuela?"
A year earlier "Mandela's lawyer" accused president Hugo Chavez of anti-Semitism. Cotler co-presented a petition to the House of Commons claiming an increase in state-backed anti-Semitism in Venezuela. At the time Cotler said Venezuela had seen a "delegitimization from the president on down of the Jewish people and Israel." These unsubstantiated accusations of anti-Semitism were designed to further demonize a government threatening North American capitalist/geopolitical interests.
As for the sincerity of his commitment to ending humanitarian crises, Cotler has devoted much of his life to defending Israeli human rights violations, including its recent killing of unarmed protesters in Gaza. His wife, Ariela Zeevi, was parliamentary secretary of Likud when the arch anti-Palestinian party was established to counter Labour's dominance of Israeli politics. According to the Canadian Jewish News, she was a "close confidant of [Likud founder Menachem] Begin."
Cotler was no doubt angered by Chavez's criticism of Israel. In 2009 Venezuela broke off relations with Israel over its assault on Gaza that left 1,400 Palestinians dead. Beyond Israel, Cotler has made a career out of firing rhetorical bombs at the US and Canada's geopolitical competitors and verbal pellets at its allies.
Of course, it is not surprising to see such hypocrisy from someone leading a hypocritical Canadian campaign to destabilize and overthrow an elected government.
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Filed under A Propaganda System, Canada and Israel
Tagged as ICC, Irwin Cotler, OAS