Francis Chartrand for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles

As hands are wrung in the aftermath of the near-tragedy on a Northwest Airlines flight approaching Detroit, a conversation from London's Heathrow airport in 1986 comes to mind.

It consisted of an El Al security agent quizzing one Ann-Marie Doreen Murphy, a 32-year-old recent arrival in London from Sallynoggin, Ireland. While working as a chambermaid at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane Murphy met Nizar al-Hindawi, a far-leftist Palestinian who impregnated her. After instructing her to "get rid of the thing," he abruptly changed his tune and insisted on immediate marriage in "the Holy Land." He also insisted on their traveling separately.

Murphy, later described by the prosecutor as a "simple, unsophisticated Irish lass and a Catholic," accepted unquestioningly Hindawi's arrangements for her to fly to Israel on El Al on April 17. She also accepted a wheeled suitcase with, unbeknown to her, a false bottom containing nearly 2 kilograms of Semtex, a powerful plastic explosive, and she agreed to be coached by him to answer questions posed by airport security.

Murphy successfully passed through the standard Heathrow security inspection and reached the gate with her bag, where an El Al agent questioned her. As reconstructed by Neil C. Livingstone and David Halevy in Washingtonian magazine, he started by asking whether she had packed her bags herself. She replied in the negative. Then:

"What is the purpose of your trip to Israel?" Recalling Hindawi's instructions, Murphy answered, "For a vacation."

"Are you married, Miss Murphy?" "No."

"Traveling alone?" "Yes."

"Is this your first trip abroad?" "Yes."

"Do you have relatives in Israel?" "No."

"Are you going to meet someone in Israel?" "No."

"Has your vacation been planned for a long time?" "No."

"Where will you stay while you're in Israel?" "The Tel Aviv Hilton."

"How much money do you have with you?" "Fifty pounds." The Hilton at that time costing at least £70 a night, he asked:

"Do you have a credit card?" "Oh, yes," she replied, showing him an ID for cashing checks.

That did it, and the agent sent her bag for additional inspection, where the bombing apparatus was discovered.

Had El Al followed the usual Western security procedures, 375 lives would surely have been lost somewhere over Austria. The bombing plot came to light, in other words, through a non-technical intervention, relying on conversation, perception, common sense, and (yes) profiling. The agent focused on the passenger, not the weaponry. Israeli counterterrorism takes passengers' identities into account; accordingly, Arabs endure an especially tough inspection. "In Israel, security comes first," David Harris of the American Jewish Committee explains.

Obvious as this sounds, overconfidence, political correctness, and legal liability render such an approach impossible anywhere else in the West. In the United States, for example, one month after 9/11, the Department of Transportation issued guidelines forbidding its personnel from generalizing "about the propensity of members of any racial, ethnic, religious, or national origin group to engage in unlawful activity." (Wear a hijab, I semi-jokingly advise women wanting to avoid secondary screening at airport security.)

Worse yet, consider the panicky Mickey-Mouse, and embarrassing steps the U.S. Transportation Security Administration implemented hours after the Detroit bombing attempt: no crew announcements "concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks," and disabling all passenger communications services. During a flight's final hour, passengers may not stand up, access carry-on baggage, nor "have any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on the lap."

Some crews went yet further, keeping cabin lights on throughout the night while turning off the in-flight entertainment, prohibiting all electronic devices, and, during the final hour, requiring passengers to keep hands visible and neither eat nor drink. Things got so bad, the Associated Press reports, "A demand by one attendant that no one could read anything … elicited gasps of disbelief and howls of laughter."

Widely criticized for these Clouseau-like measures, TSA eventually decided to add "enhanced screening" for travelers passing through or originating from fourteen "countries of interest" – as though one's choice of departure airport indicates a propensity for suicide bombing.

The TSA engages in "security theater" – bumbling pretend-steps that treat all passengers equally rather than risk offending anyone by focusing, say, on religion. The alternative approach is Israelification, defined by Toronto's Star newspaper as "a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death."

Which do we want – theatrics or safety?

Mr. Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum and Taube fellow at the Hoover Institution, has super-elite status at two airlines.

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Jan. 6, 2010 update: I lacked space in the column to play out this ultimate scenario: What if a very large group of hijackers gets on a plane, enough of them so that with muscle alone – no knives, guns, or bombs – they overpower the passengers and crew? What if they threaten the pilots to strangle one person after another until the plane comes under their control? No amount of technology can prevent such a scenario; only scrutiny of who is getting aboard can do so.

And while there has been no such large group, "Those Fourteen Syrians on Northwest Airlines Flight #327" represented a possible step in that direction.

Jan. 17, 2010 update: As the anecdote concerning Ann-Marie Murphy implies, I am not calling for religious profiling so much as using one's brains to focus on the threat. Therefore, while I see the following news from Finland, "Passengers' Religion May Lead to X-Ray Scan," as a step in the right direction, I also see it as simplistic:

Airport security may soon start scanning travellers based on their religion or citizenship. A syndicate of regional papers reports that a policy of passenger profiling may be adopted if Finland begins using new -- and controversial -- electromagnetic scanners.

Finland's aviation authority Finavia is considering whether to invest in electromagnetic scanners. But their bulky size and prohibitive expense means they would not entirely replace standard metal detectors. This is why, explains Finavia's head of corporate security Jyri Vikström, they may use passenger profiling in addition to random scans. .

Comment: How curious if the cost of electromagnetic scanners is what prompts a more discerning approach to airport security. And Finland - not the place one would expect such a cutting-edge decision, given its relative lack of terrrorism.

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Labels: Daniel Pipes, Israel, Terrorism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 1:38 AM 0 Comments

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is wrong to support a boycott of Israeli academics.

It might have been more appropriate for the resolution of CUPE Ontario is written in German.

The resolution of CUPE Ontario proposes to prohibit Israeli scholars to give speeches, teach or do research at Ontario universities, in protest against the bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza on 29 December. In response to the call of the Palestinian Federation of Unions of Teachers and staff of universities, we are willing to say that Israeli academics should not be present on our campuses unless they explicitly condemn bombing the university and the attack against Gaza in general.

Protest peacefully and legally against Israel or another nation is quite acceptable and even useful in a free and democratic society, even when the challenge is misinformed and predictable. But the initiative CUPE is fundamentally different. We are dealing with fanatics and fundamentalists that require ordinary people and apolitical who are to be born in the Jewish state pronounce an oath of loyalty.

It is unlikely that these extremists have considered their actions for more than a few seconds hysterical, but ask some fundamental questions.

Is this "conviction" will also be required of Israeli Arabs, or just Israeli Jews? There are, of course, more than 1.5 million Israeli Arabs, as Israelis enjoy full civil rights and democratic. Thousands of them are studying in Israeli universities, and many of them teach at Israeli universities, unlike most Arab countries where Jews were deported and where they can not study or teach, or even live.

Are we require, for example, that Iranians who teach in universities "condemn" the public hanging of homosexuals by their government, the stoning of women and implementation of university students protesting peacefully? Being asked to many Egyptian universities in the country to "condemn" the persecution of Christians in Egypt, ban various independent newspapers or the construction of the wall on the Egyptian side of the border with Gaza?

Being asked to scholars from Zimbabwe, China or Communist dictatorships of Syria or Libya to "condemn" the despicable policies of their government? Being asked the same scholars from Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, raped, enslaved and forcibly converted to Islam? Or Palestinian scholars: just last week, the government of Hamas has killed 35 members of Fatah and shot in the legs of 75 others, paralyzing. They forced women to wear the hijab and threatened to throw acid in the faces of girls who refuse to do so.

Damn, such a "conviction" was not even applied to university of Rwanda while the country's government was trying to commit genocide!

But we asked the university to Israel, where the armed forces returned fire after eight years of terror, rocket attacks and deadly provocations.

The result of this little bit crass, painfully immature and angry is not the uniqueness of a single identifiable group of people we expose to hatred when they do their work: the Jews. Most of them, incidentally, were born in Israel because their families were forced to leave their old country and live in Israel because of the pogroms, the Holocaust and the expulsion Arabic.

In short, it is targeting Jews. And it goes beyond what is acceptable speech and civilized behavior. That is to operate a complex issue involving two people who deserve justice and to reduce it to abuse, blacklisted and discrimination worthy of the excesses of the 1930s in Europe.

The black shirts who hide under the colors red and green. They should cover their heads in shame and ask forgiveness.

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Labels: Canada, Human mistake, Israel, Palestine, Religion and fanaticism, Secularism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 7:32 PM 0 Comments

Several years ago, I was interested in a public meeting in Paris suburbs, by the League of Human Rights. The theme was peace in the Middle East, what works? Hoping to learn things, I was in the audience, surrounded by 500 people. At the forum, among others, sat the host of this debate, Daniel Mermet, the then President of the LDH, Michel Tubiana, Leila Shahid, Palestinian Authority representative in France, Bernard Ravenel representing the Committee on Palestine and a representative of the French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP), speaking with a strong English accent.

The forum took the floor for two and a half hours. I was amazed at the oneness of all speeches. Israel was the evil aggressor, and Palestinians innocent victims. Daniel Mermet adding to each transition in this Manichean vision. He apologized after the last speech from the hall and explained that very little time for debate, therefore asked the potential stakeholders to be very brief. I pounce on the microphone, and asked for five minutes.

Irritated, Mermet gave me three. A little upset, I begin by saying that the conflict was fueled by two extremes, the far-right Jewish religious and right-wing religious Islamist. I explained that people wanted a greater Israel, freed of the Palestinians, and that others wanted to remove the State of Israel from the map. So I did express my surprise at the fact we have not yet decided once the name of Hamas. I say what really quickly Hamas and the political line he defended. At the forum, it started to jiggle nervously, and tried to interrupt me Mermet. I him a minute to conclude.

I added that I appreciated in France, Jews and Arabs have been able to work together against the National Front, in SOS Racism, and that the solution to the Middle East, could see the day when each side isolate religious extremists and his defending a secular society. I conclude by saying that I wanted more balanced meetings, from the LDH, for greater credibility of the goal: peace. A great silence accompanied my intervention and was succeeded by a few long seconds where we could hear a fly fly.

Apparently angered by my words, Mermet passed the floor to Tubiana. It began to say that the rise of Islamophobia and racism in France was serious. I interrupted the room telling him that I had not uttered the word Islamophobia, and I prayed to respond to what I said. While Mermet had announced that the meeting was to end in the minutes that followed, various speakers took the floor again an hour to meet me, often painstakingly, and justify their silence on Hamas.

Why start this first editorial of the year by that old story? Because it illustrates the drift of a section of the Left, political, associative and association, on the Palestinian question. To be published in Issue 69, the charter of Hamas, and have described as racist, sexist and of totalitarian and for not having married compassionate politically correct speech, our newspaper (see abundant letters ) has been extremely strong reactions, and sometimes abuse, from some opponents.

According to some, we would monsters indifferent to the suffering of the people of Gaza, and would be tolerant of the massacres of the State of Israel, colonialist, racist, fascist, who wants to exterminate the Palestinians as Hitler wanted to do away with Jews (for short).

As would be comfortable if the world were so simple. We would like to say that the fascists who killed the communists. Unfortunately, the facts are stubborn, Stalin killed more communists and Hitler, for example, there is evidence that 8000 Polish officers were executed in Katyn forest, with a bullet in the head, not by the Nazis as has long claimed the official version, but by the Red Army, which does not detract from the horror of the Nazi regime.

Since it would be comfortable today, in the same spirit, for many activists, to explain the woes of the Arab peoples by the sole fault of the Hebrew state. Of course, Palestinians killed in Israeli assaults which, remember, the politico-military targets Hamas. Any civilian casualties, even a child, is still a victim too. But can we hide the fact that the Hamas claim of using women and children as human shields? Has it existed historically, war clean, even for just causes and progressive?

Need I remind the other hand, thousands of Palestinians killed during Operation "Black September" in the 1970s by the Jordanians, the dead by the thousands, Shiites or Sunnis in Iraq and elsewhere, response to suicide bombings, also espoused by Hamas, killing several hundred activists of the Palestinian Authority, lynched without trial at the putch Hamas in Gaza, are not the result of the Zionist state? The tragedy of Darfur is not the fact of U.S. imperialism and its ally Israel, but the Islamist militias. Write it in no way detracts from the criminal attitude of the United States against Iraq, but requires a vision of the history a little less biased and compassionate.

Furthermore, a reading of the geo-political world, as written in 2005 by General Gallois is also useful for understanding the global context in which this conflict takes place.

Of course, the secular can not be found in certain positions in the State of Israel, and the pressure exercised what some religious circles. How can a democratic country can accept the need to marry abroad to see a civil marriage recognized? But if secularism is the freedom of conscience, there is no comparison between the democratic system in place in Israel, and the totalitarian logic of Hamas. Remember that for him the only solution in Palestine is the submission to Allah, the destruction of Israel, the extermination of the Jews and the imposition of sharia law, women in particular. For a woman, a homosexual, to a layman, for a progressive, is it better to live according to the principles applied in Israel, or the rules in force today in Gaza?

The fascination of a part of the left to totalitarian models yesterday Stalinism today Islamism, rebellion still those of us who believe that the social struggle can not hide a vision of society where, in addition to freedom of conscience and democratic rights, equality between men and women is a value with which we can not compromise.

However, in the name of a Marxist who is among the colonized peoples and colonizers, who yesterday showed complacency with criminal bureaucrats Stalinists, Trotskyites or many orphans who seem wall, repeated today, Today this appalling mistake, some even in light of Hamas, Hezbollah in the past, representatives of the poor and oppressed, as the novelist Thierry Jonquet in a magnificent published two years ago.

It is also curious that this blindness that led to the left fringe to have fought, sometimes with virulence, the campaign for a law against religious symbols in schools. They are also the ones who close their eyes, every day, before the offensive of Islam in France and Europe, against secularism, the Republic and the rights of women. What can they respond to Sarkozy when he defends secularism positive, they defend this thesis with Islam for 20 years! Have you noticed that we hear very little about the provocations Dieudonné giving the floor to Faurisson?

Some believe that the essential divide in a democratic society, would be the social and wealth distribution. They believe that the claim of religion of the poor and oppressed the right to take any liberties with our Republican principles. Well, no!

We can not have a society with people who accompany the offensive Islamist fascists, even if the activists say things just on the distribution of wealth and scandalous social inequality.

We do not want to live in a country where Muslim enclaves are becoming more and develop on our territory propaganda of Hamas, and its draft fascist society.

We do not want to see mosques invade more and more public space, much less when they are paid with our sub!

We do not want to hear religious Jews claim arrangements for the Saturday school, or other churches claim reasonable accommodations with secular principles and the law of 1905.

We note that those who now accuse Israel of war crimes and demonstrate against this (without worrying about the windfall that it is crazy for Allah), are not in the street when suicide bombings cause thousands of deaths, the United States, Britain, France, Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, and throughout the world where the culture of rampant death, on behalf of the prophet. Too bad for Muslims and Arab peoples, first victims of religious fascism, we should not distract the masses of the one true battle: the one against U.S. imperialism and its Zionist ally. Hence the events where the flags of Hamas alongside those of the PCF (ie: French Communist Party) or the LCR! (Ed.: Revolutionary Communist League)

Yesterday, he had shut the realities of Stalinist regimes, not to despair Billancourt, and not divert the masses of the struggle against the bourgeois state. At another time, on behalf of revolutionary defeatism, it should not fight against Nazi Germany, when it was France, because it was promoting its own imperialism!

When a little common sense and the recognition that the defense of secular values, feminist, humanistic, democratic have more importance than ideological visions of the world where we end up defending religious fascists because they represent the oppressed (they also have nothing to do, their only prospect is to impose the jihad in the world).

As recently wrote Henri Guaino decidedly sometimes prevent labels of thinking.

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Labels: Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Terrorism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 6:59 PM 0 Comments

Israeli population centers in southern Israel have been the target of over 4,000 rockets, as well as thousands of mortar shells, fired by Hamas and other organizations since 2001. Rocket attacks increased by 500 percent after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. During an informal six-month lull, some 215 rockets were launched at Israel.

The charge that Israel uses disproportionate force keeps resurfacing whenever it has to defend its citizens from non-state terrorist organizations and the rocket attacks they perpetrate. From a purely legal perspective, Israel's current military actions in Gaza are on solid ground.

According to international law, Israel is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it.

Ibrahim Barzak and Amy Teibel wrote for the Associated Press on December 28 that most of the 230 Palestinians who were reportedly killed were "security forces," and Palestinian officials said "at least 15 civilians were among the dead." The numbers reported indicate that there was no clear intent to inflict disproportionate collateral civilian casualties. What is critical from the standpoint of international law is that if the attempt has been made "to minimize civilian damage, then even a strike that causes large amounts of damage - but is directed at a target with very large military value - would be lawful."

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, explained that international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court "permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur." The attack becomes a war crime when it is directed against civilians (which is precisely what Hamas does).

After 9/11, when the Western alliance united to collectively topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, no one compared Afghan casualties in 2001 to the actual numbers that died from al-Qaeda's attack. There clearly is no international expectation that military losses in war should be on a one-to-one basis. To expect Israel to hold back in its use of decisive force against legitimate military targets in Gaza is to condemn it to a long war of attrition with Hamas.

Israel is currently benefiting from a limited degree of understanding in international diplomatic and media circles for launching a major military operation against Hamas on December 27. Yet there are significant international voices that are prepared to argue that Israel is using disproportionate force in its struggle against Hamas.

Israeli Population Centers Under Rocket Attack

There are good reasons why initial criticism of Israel has been muted. After all, Israeli population centers in southern Israel have been the target of over 4,000 rockets, as well as thousands of mortar shells, fired by Hamas and other organizations since 2001. The majority of those attacks were launched after Israel withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Indeed, rocket attacks increased by 500 percent (from 179 to 946) from 2005 to 2006.

Moreover, lately Hamas has been extending the range of its striking capability even further with new rockets supplied by Iran. Hamas used a 20.4-kilometer-range Grad/Katyusha for the first time on March 28, 2006, bringing the Israeli city of Ashkelon into range of its rockets for the first time. That change increased the number of Israelis under threat from 200,000 to half a million. Moreover, on December 21, 2008, Yuval Diskin, Head of the Israel Security Agency, informed the Israeli government that Hamas had acquired rockets that could reach Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, and even the outskirts of Beersheba. The first Grad/Katyusha strike on Ashdod, in fact, took place on December 28. There had been no formal cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, but only an informal six-month tahadiya (lull), during which 215 rockets were launched at Israel. On December 21, Hamas unilaterally announced that the tahadiya had ended.

Critical Voices

On December 27, 2008, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesmen issued a statement saying that while the Secretary-General recognized "Israel's security concerns regarding the continued firing of rockets from Gaza," he reiterated "Israel's obligation to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law." The statement specifically noted that he "condemns excessive use of force leading to the killing and injuring of civilians [emphasis added]."

A day later, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights "strongly condemned Israel's disproportionate use of force." French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, also condemned Israel's "disproportionate use of force," while demanding an end to rocket attacks on Israel. Brazil also joined this chorus, criticizing Israel's "disproportionate response." Undoubtedly, a powerful impression has been created by large Western newspaper headlines that describe massive Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, without any up-front explanation for their cause.

Proportionality and International Law: The Protection of Innocent Civilians

The charge that Israel uses disproportionate force keeps resurfacing whenever it has to defend its citizens from non-state terrorist organizations and the rocket attacks they perpetrate. From a purely legal perspective, Israel's current military actions in Gaza are on solid ground. According to international law, Israel is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it (Israel is not expected to make Kassam rockets and lob them back into Gaza).

When international legal experts use the term "disproportionate use of force," they have a very precise meaning in mind. As the President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Rosalyn Higgins, has noted, proportionality "cannot be in relation to any specific prior injury - it has to be in relation to the overall legitimate objective of ending the aggression." In other words, if a state, like Israel, is facing aggression, then proportionality addresses whether force was specifically used by Israel to bring an end to the armed attack against it. By implication, force becomes excessive if it is employed for another purpose, like causing unnecessary harm to civilians. The pivotal factor determining whether force is excessive is the intent of the military commander. In particular, one has to assess what was the commander's intent regarding collateral civilian damage.

What about reports concerning civilian casualties? Some international news agencies have stressed that the vast majority of those killed in the first phase of the current Gaza operation were Hamas operatives. Ibrahim Barzak and Amy Teibel wrote for the Associated Press on December 28 that most of the 230 Palestinians who were reportedly killed were "security forces," and Palestinian officials said "at least 15 civilians were among the dead." It is far too early to definitely assess Palestinian casualties, but even if they increase, the numbers reported indicate that there was no clear intent to inflict disproportionate collateral civilian casualties.

During the Second Lebanon War, Professor Michael Newton of Vanderbilt University was in email communication with William Safire of the New York Times about the issue of proportionality and international law. Newton had been quoted by the Council on Foreign Relations as explaining proportionality by proposing a test: "If someone punches you in the nose, you don't burn down their house." He was serving as an international criminal law expert in Baghdad and sought to correct the impression given by his quote. According to Newton, no responsible military commander intentionally targets civilians, and he accepted that this was Israeli practice.

What was critical from the standpoint of international law was that if the attempt had been made "to minimize civilian damage, then even a strike that causes large amounts of damage - but is directed at a target with very large military value - would be lawful." Numbers matter less than the purpose of the use of force. Israel has argued that it is specifically targeting facilities serving the Hamas regime and its determined effort to continue its rocket assault on Israel: headquarters, training bases, weapons depots, command and control networks, and weapons-smuggling tunnels. This way Israel is respecting the international legal concept of proportionality.

Alternatively, disproportionality would occur if the military sought to attack even if the value of a target selected was minimal in comparison with the enormous risk of civilian collateral damage. This point was made by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, on February 9, 2006, in analyzing the Iraq War. He explained that international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court "permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks [emphasis added] against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur." The attack becomes a war crime when it is directed against civilians (which is precisely what Hamas does) or when "the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage." In fact, Israeli legal experts right up the chain of command within the IDF make this calculation before all military operations of this sort.

Proportionality as a Strategic Issue

Moving beyond the question of international law, the charge that Israel is using a disproportionate amount of force in the Gaza Strip because of reports of Palestinian casualties has to be looked at critically. Israelis have often said among themselves over the last seven years that when a Hamas rocket makes a direct strike on a crowded school, killing many children, then Israel will finally act.

This scenario raises the question of whether the doctrine of proportionality requires that Israel wait for this horror to occur, or whether Israel could act on the basis of the destructive capability of the arsenal Hamas already possesses, the hostile declarations of intent of its leaders, and its readiness to use its rocket forces already. Alan Dershowitz noted two years ago: "Proportion must be defined by reference to the threat proposed by an enemy and not by the harm it has produced." Waiting for a Hamas rocket to fall on an Israeli school, he rightly notes, would put Israel in the position of allowing "its enemies to play Russian Roulette with its children."

The fundamental fact is that in fighting terrorism, no state is willing to play Russian Roulette. After the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, the Western alliance united to collectively topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan; no one compared Afghan casualties in 2001 to the actual numbers that died from al-Qaeda's attack. Given that al-Qaeda was seeking non-conventional capabilities, it was essential to wage a campaign to deny it the sanctuary it had enjoyed in Afghanistan, even though that struggle continues right up to the present.

Is There Proportionality Against Military Forces?

And in fighting counterinsurgency wars, most armies seek to achieve military victory by defeating the military capacity of an adversary, as efficiently as possible. There clearly is no international expectation that military losses in war should be on a one-to-one basis; most armies seek to decisively eliminate as many enemy forces as possible while minimizing their own losses of troops. There are NATO members who have been critical of "Israel's disproportionate use of force," while NATO armies take pride in their "kill ratios" against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Moreover, decisive military action against an aggressor has another effect: it increases deterrence. To expect Israel to hold back in its use of decisive force against legitimate military targets in Gaza is to condemn it to a long war of attrition with Hamas.

The loss of any civilian lives is truly regrettable. Israel has cancelled many military operations because of its concern with civilian casualties. But should civilian losses occur despite the best efforts of Israel to avoid them, it is ultimately not Israel's responsibility. As political philosopher Michael Walzer noted in 2006: "When Palestinian militants launch rocket attacks from civilian areas, they are themselves responsible - and no one else is - for the civilian deaths caused by Israeli counterfire."

International critics of Israel may be looking to craft balanced statements that spread the blame for the present conflict to both sides. But they would be better served if they did not engage in this artificial exercise, and clearly distinguish the side that is the aggressor in this conflict - Hamas - and the side that is trying to defeat the aggression - Israel.

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Labels: Gaza, Israel, Palestine

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 11:17 PM 0 Comments

Israel and Hamas both must respect the prohibition under the laws of war against deliberate and indiscriminate attacks on civilians, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch expressed grave concern about Israeli bombings in Gaza that caused civilian deaths and Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilian areas in violation of international law.

Rocket attacks on Israeli towns by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups that do not discriminate between civilians and military targets violate the laws of war, while a rising number of the hundreds of Israeli bombings in Gaza since December 27, 2008, appear to be unlawful attacks causing civilian casualties. Additionally, Israel's severe limitations on the movement of non-military goods and people into and out of Gaza, including fuel and medical supplies, constitutes collective punishment, also in violation of the laws of war.

"Firing rockets into civilian areas with the intent to harm and terrorize Israelis has no justification whatsoever, regardless of Israel's actions in Gaza," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division. "At the same time, Israel should not target individuals and institutions in Gaza solely because they are part of the Hamas-run political authority, including ordinary police. Only attacks on military targets are permissible, and only in a manner that minimizes civilian casualties."

Human Rights Watch investigated three Israeli attacks that raise particular concern about Israel's targeting decisions and require independent and impartial inquiries to determine whether the attacks violated the laws of war. In three incidents detailed below, 18 civilians died, among them at least seven children.

On Saturday, December 27, the first day of Israel's aerial attacks, witnesses told Human Rights Watch that shortly after 1 p.m. an Israeli air-to-ground missile struck a group of students leaving the Gaza Training College, adjacent to the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in downtown Gaza City. The students were waiting to board buses to transport them to their homes in Khan Yunis and Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. The strike killed eight students, ages 18 to 20, and wounded 19 others.

A UNRWA security guard stationed at the college entrance told Human Rights Watch that he used his UN radio to call for medical help. He said the attack also killed two other civilians, Hisham al-Rayes, 28, and his brother Alam, 26, whose family ran a small shop opposite the college entrance. The guard said that the only potential target nearby was the Gaza governorate building, which deals with civil matters, about 150 meters away from where the missile struck. Another UNRWA security guard who also witnessed the attack told Human Rights Watch: "There wasn't anybody else around - no police, army, or Hamas."

The second incident occurred shortly before midnight on Sunday, December 28, when Israeli warplanes fired one or more missiles at the Imad Aqil mosque in Jabalya, a densely populated refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. The attack killed five of Anwar Balousha's daughters who were sleeping in a bedroom of their nearby house: Jawaher, 4; Dina, 8; Samar, 12; Ikram, 14; and Tahrir, 18. "We were asleep and we woke to the sound of bombing and the rubble falling on the house and on our heads," Anwar Balousha told Human Rights Watch. The Balousha's three-room house is just across a small street from the mosque.

The two-story Imad Aqil mosque, named after a deceased Hamas member, is regarded by Palestinians in the area as a "Hamas mosque" - that is, a place where the group's supporters gather for political meetings or to assemble for demonstrations, and where death notices of Hamas members are posted. Mosques are presumptively civilian objects and their use for political activities does not change that. Human Rights Watch said that the attack on Imad Aql mosque would be lawful only if Israel could demonstrate that it was being used to store weapons and ammunition or served some other military purpose. Even if that were the case, Israel still had an obligation to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and ensure that any likely civilian harm was not disproportionate to the expected military gain.

In the third incident, at around 1 a.m. on Monday, December 29, an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles into the Rafah refugee camp. One struck the home of a senior Hamas commander; the other struck the home of the al-Absi family, about 150 meters away, killing three brothers - Sedqi, 3, Ahmad, 12, and Muhammad, 13 - and wounding two sisters and the children's mother. Ziad al-Absi, 46, the children's father, told Human Rights Watch that at around 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, armed Palestinians had gathered near their home, firing machine guns at Israeli helicopters. "I and the neighbors argued with the militants, told them this is a populated area and this will put us into peril," he said. According to al-Absi's nephew, Iyad al-Absi, 27, the fighters refused to leave. When their commander arrived at about 11 p.m. and ordered them to leave, they again refused. The fighters finally left at around 11:15, but only after an exchange of gunfire between the fighters and their commander. Al-Absi said that he and his family then went to sleep. He told his nephew and other relatives that there was no further armed activity in the area prior to the missile strike on his house, almost two hours later. Ziad al-Absi said the blast had thrown one daughter onto a neighbor's balcony. The children's mother is in hospital intensive care; the two daughters are also in the hospital.

Human Rights Watch noted that many of Israel's airstrikes, especially during the first day, targeted police stations as well as security and militia installations controlled by Hamas. According to the Jerusalem Post, an attack on the police academy in Gaza City on December 27 killed at least 40, including dozens of cadets at their graduation ceremony as well as the chief of police, making it the single deadliest air attack of the campaign to date. Another attack, on a traffic police station in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, killed a by-stander, 12-year-old Camilia Ra`fat al-Burdini. Under the laws of war, police and police stations are presumptively civilian unless the police are Hamas fighters or taking a direct part in the hostilities, or police stations are being used for military purposes.

"Israel must not make a blanket decision that all police and police stations are by definition legitimate military targets," Stork said. "It depends upon whether those police play a role in fighting against Israel, or whether a particular police station is used to store weapons or for some other military purpose."

Some other Israeli targets may have also been unlawful under the laws of war. Three teenagers were killed in southern Gaza City on December 27, when Israeli aircraft struck a building rented by Wa`ed (Promise), a Hamas-affiliated organization that defends prisoners held by Israel. Israel justified its attack on Gaza City's Islamic University on grounds that laboratories were used to manufacture explosives, but this did not address why a second strike demolished the women's quarters there. Israel also attacked the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV, but did not provide a reason. Television and radio stations are legitimate military targets only if used for military purposes, not if they are simply being used for pro-Hamas or anti-Israel propaganda.

Human Rights Watch expressed grave concern about the seriously deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, which was already dire prior to the latest attacks. A health expert with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza said on December 28 that hospitals were "overwhelmed and unable to cope with the scale and type of injuries that keep coming in." The ICRC noted that medical supplies and medicines were already badly depleted as a result of Israel's prohibition of most imports into Gaza since Hamas took full internal control of the territory in June 2007. In a statement on December 29, the ICRC said that some neighborhoods were running short of water, owing to damage from attacks or fuel and power shortages. The statement also said that prices for food and basic commodities were reportedly rising fast. UNRWA had reported several days prior to the latest escalation of fighting that its stocks of essential commodities were extremely low.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which also monitors security matters in Gaza, Palestinian armed groups fired more than 100 rockets towards Israel on December 27-28; Haaretz, the Israeli daily, reported that on December 29 Palestinian armed groups fired at least 60 rockets into Israel. One of them killed a Bedouin construction worker, 27-year-old Hani al-Mahdi, and wounded 14 others in the coastal city of Ashkelon, north of Gaza; another fatally wounded 39-year-old Irit Sheetrit while she was driving home in the city of Ashdod, 35 kilometers from Gaza. The previous day, December 28, a rocket attack killed another Israeli civilian and wounded four in Netivot, some 20 kilometers east of Gaza City.

Human Rights Watch has long criticized Palestinian rocket attacks against Israeli civilians - most recently, in a public letter to Hamas on November 20 (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/11/20/letter-hamas-stop-rocket-attacks ). The rockets are highly inaccurate, and those launching them cannot accurately target military objects. Deliberately firing indiscriminate weapons into civilian populated areas, as a matter of policy, constitutes a war crime. Rocket attacks have killed 19 civilians in Israel since 2005, including those killed to date during the current clashes.

Human Rights Watch has also criticized Israel's policy of severely restricting the flow of people and goods into Gaza, including fuel and other civilian necessities, saying that those restrictions amount to collective punishment against the civilian population, a serious violation of the laws of war (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/11/20/letter-olmert-stop-blockade-gaza ). Israel continues to exercise effective control over Gaza's borders and airspace as well as its population registry, and remains the occupying power there under international law. The laws of war prohibit the occupying power from attacking, destroying, or withholding objects essential to the survival of the civilian population. Israel is also obliged to protect the right of Palestinians in Gaza to freedom of movement, to secure access to health care and education, and to lead normal lives.

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Labels: Anne Humphreys, Human Rights Watch, Israel, Palestine

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 7:56 PM 0 Comments

Beleaguered Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Wednesday he will not take part in his party's leadership contest in two months, and will step down to battle a corruption investigation against him once a new leader is in place.

"After I step down, I will prove my innocence," Olmert said in a nationally televised address Wednesday evening from outside his official residence in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is currently contending with a fifth major corruption case against him since he took office in 2006. (Ronen Zvulun/Associated Press)

Olmert, whose departure could stall already troubled peace negotiations with the Palestinians, insisted he has improved the situation in Israel and said he still believes that peace is the most important step for the country.

"By making a decision, I will be opening a window to a better future," he said. "Those who berate me will one day have to come out and face the truth."

Move could lead to election

U.S. billionaire Morris Talansky's allegations in May seriously damaged Olmert's credibility among Israelis, and the resulting outrage prompted the Kadima party to set new leadership elections for Sept. 17.

Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Lipni is viewed by many as the frontrunner to replace Olmert as the centrist party's new leader, but rival candidates should start to emerge in the wake of his announcement Wednesday, the CBC's Peter Armstrong reported from Jerusalem.

The Kadima leadership race could lead to an election if the winner fails to build a coalition after Olmert leaves office. The current government is supported by a fragile coalition with former prime minister and current Defence Minister Ehud Barak's Labour party.

Talansky testified in an Israeli court in Jerusalem that Olmert accepted roughly $150,000 US during his tenure as mayor of Jerusalem and as a cabinet minister before he was elected as prime minister in 2006.

PM once called himself 'indestructible'

Police suspect the money was meant as bribes — although Talansky insisted he never got anything in return — or illegal campaign financing. Olmert insisted the funds were legal contributions.

Talansky's testimony offered an unflattering portrait of Olmert, whom Talansky described as a bon vivant with a penchant for fancy hotels, fine cigars, expensive watches and first-class travel.

It is the fifth major corruption case against Olmert, who fled the right-wing Likud party in 2005 to form Kadima along with Ariel Sharon, who was prime minister until he suffered a massive stroke in 2006.

Olmert — who once called himself "indestructible" — had previously survived numerous calls to resign in the fallout from his much-criticized handling of the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.

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Labels: Israel, Marie-Êve Marineau

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 11:39 AM 0 Comments

translated from English by Marcel Charbonnier

1 / Is it true that in 1941, and again in 1942, German Gestapo offered to all European Jews the opportunity to transit in Spain, if they renounce all their possessions in Germany and France occupied the two following conditions:

a) none of the deportees are expected from Spain for Palestine ;

b) all the deportees would be shipped from Spain to the USA or in British colonies, to remain there; entry visas would be granted to Jews living in these lands; ransom in the amount of $ 1 000 for each family would be provided by the Agency [Jewish], with the arrival of families to the Spanish border at a rate of one thousand families per day?

2 / Is it true that the Zionist leaders in Switzerland and Turkey have accepted this offer, fully aware that the exclusion of Palestine, as the destination of deportation was based on an agreement between Gestapo and the Mufti [of Jerusalem]?

3 / Is it true that the response made by the Zionist leaders was negative, accompanied by the following comments:

a) Only Palestine could be considered an acceptable destination for the deportees;

b) The European Jews must suffer more and die in greater numbers than other nations, so that the allies, once victorious, endorse a "Jewish state" at the end of the war;

c) No ransom will be paid?

4 / Is it true that the response to the offer to Gestapo was made in full knowledge that the alternative to this offer, it was the gas chambers?

5 / Is it true that in 1944, at the time of deportations in Hungary, a similar offer had been made, which would have saved all the Jews of this country?

6 / Is it true that the same Zionist hierarchy, again, refused this offer (after the gas chambers have already taken their terrible toll on millions of victims)?

7 / Is it true that earlier killings during the war, 270 members of British Parliament proposed to evacuate some 500 000 Jews of Europe, and resettle them in British colonies in negotiations diplomatic ties with Germany?

8 / And is it not true that this offer was rejected by the Zionist leaders, with this comment: "Towards la Palestine Palestine , or nothing! "?

9 / Is it true that the British government has granted visas to 300 rabbis and members of their families, enabling them to visit Mauritius, and a safe conduct for evacuees through Turkey. The leaders of the "Jewish Agency" had sabotaged the plan, noting that it was unfair vis-à-vis Palestine and the 300 rabbis and their families deserved to be gassed.

10 / Is it true that during the negotiations mentioned above, Chaim Weitzman, the first "man of Jewish state" declared: "The most valuable of the Jewish nation is already in Palestine, and these Jews then, who live outside Palestine , are not so important." The Deputy Weitzman, Greenbaum, worsening the statement, which noted: "A cow in Palestine is more precious than all the Jews of Europe"?

There would be many other similar questions to ask these degenerate atheists, known as "men of Jewish State", but for now, let them meet the ten questions.

These "men of state" Zionists, so great was their vision, wanted to put an end to two thousand years of Jewish obedience and political compromise Jews respecting the divine order. With their offensive militancy, they fanned the fires of anti-Semitism in Europe, and they have forged a chain of anti-Jewish hatred between Nazi Germany and neighbouring countries.

These are the "men of state" who had organized the boycott totally irresponsible against Germany in 1933. The boycott was, for Germany, is a bite of a bullet is an elephant, but he caused the disaster for the Jews of Europe. In a time when America and England were at peace with the mad dog Hitler, "men of state" Zionist have neglected the only plausible method of aménité policy, and by their boycott, they have aroused among the leader of Germany a frenzied anger. Then, after the worst episode of Jewish history, these "men of state" Zionist have misled broken refugees in camps for displaced persons, now in hunger and deprivation, and asking them to reject any proposal for resettlement elsewhere in Palestine, just to be able to install their state.

The "men of state" Zionists led, and continue to incite a bitter Jewish youth in unnecessary wars against world powers such as England, and against the Arab masses with hundreds of millions.
And these are the same "men of state" Zionists who are currently lead the world into another war - turning completely around Holy Earth.

What might happen to the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine , Fertile Crescent Arabic, Europe or the USA, the Zionist leaders do not care éperdument. The rise of anti-Semitism in the Western world is the product of their so-called "responsibility".

Under the travesty of "love of Israel", "Men of State" Zionists have prompted many Jews to replace their devotion to Torah and its Wise and his devotion to the ruffian founder of Zionism. It is highly significant qu'Herzl, originally, had sought the conversion of Jews, as a solution to problems the Diaspora. Having aware that this was not acceptable for the Jewish masses, he invented Zionism was, in his view, the right solution!

A review of history shows that this is exactly the same type of "a statesman" who had opposed the call of the prophet Jeremiah to obey the cute of Nebuchadnezzar at the destruction of the First Temple. Five centuries later, Rabbi Yochonon Ben Zakai called its people to visit the Roman emperor Titus in order to avoid a bloodbath. The "men of state" rejected this appeal, and the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. And it is now fifty years that "men of state" Zionists reject the leadership of our Sages, and continue their policy of fomenting anti-Semitism. When they stop? Are all Jews must suffer, America too? Even the Nazi monsters they were more sensible: they gave up their war before all Germany is destroyed.

Our Torah, in his Treatise Ksubos, folio 111, specifies that the Creator, blessed be he, gave the Jews swear not to occupy Holy Earth by force, even when it seems that they have sufficient strength to do so, and not rebel against the Nations. And the Creator warned that if His jurement was violated, the Jewish flesh would be "lawful game for everyone," like wild animals in the forest! These are the very terms of our Torah, and these concepts have been cited in the Treaties "Igeres Teimon", "Be'er HaGola", "Ahavas Yehonosson" Maimonides, as well as in "Toras Moshe" Chasam Sofer.

Everyone knows that all wise and all the saints in Europe at the time of Hitler's ascension to power, said it was a message of divine wrath, sent to punish the Jews Because of the atrocious Zionist apostasy against belief in a messianic redemption eschatological.

Oh, Jews - son of merciful fathers merciful - how much longer the sacred blood of Jews will continue there to be paid?

The only solution, here:

The Jewish people must reject, totally and immediately, "Jewish state".

The Jewish people must accept the U.S. compromise.

We must remove the "men of state" Zionist atheists their role as leaders of the Jewish community, and return to the faithful leadership of our sages.

We beg the United all open their doors to immigration - and not just those of Palestine.

The clerics peaceful and non-Zionists in Palestine, (particularly in the indigenous population) and their counterparts in Diaspora , must enter into negotiations responsible, face-to-face, on behalf of the Jewish people, with the British and Arabs; in order to find an amicable solution to the question of Palestine.

Any Jew is obliged to request the Blessed creator, because in him that lies our strength. Let's conserv in mind that our prayers should be addressed directly. No one should ask the Creator to give a banquet on the day of Forgiveness, and no person shall carry out a ritual ablution with an insect death hand, likewise, we must absolutely avoid the untenable position which is the thief praying and asking for divine help to accomplish his crime. We must pray asking that Zionism and its consequences disappear from the surface of Holy Earth , and that we are rédimés by Messiah without delay.

It was only after he had completed his term that we can release the prisoner, or if it is pardoned, because of his good conduct by the President. If he attempts to escape and was caught, the duration of his imprisonment is extended, not to mention he is beaten when he made up.

Oh, you faithful Jews, since more than three thousand five hundred years in all parts of the world through all the hardships, our grandparents have crossed oceans of blood and tears to keep Faith of Torah , imperturbably. If we have compassion for ourselves, for our women and children, and for the Jewish people, we will maintain our golden legacy today. We were condemned to exile by the King of Kings because of our sins. The Lord blessed be He, has decreed that we must accept exile with humble gratitude until the time comes, or until we deserve forgiveness through our repentance, and that if we seek to put an end to exile by force, we decide, as we have warned our sages, and our penalty would become longer and more severe.

On many occasions in the past, parts of our people were deceived by false messiahs - but none of these false messiahs were also false and misleading that the lie of Zionism. With reference to our historical experience, we know that no punishment has never been, nor will never be more terrible than that we receive for providing authentic Zionism. If we want our conviction into exile or commuted, we have to appeal through repentance and a total observance, both physical and spiritual, of the Sabbath, laws of family purity and the study of the Torah.

That is well understood than ever, throughout Jewish history (and even the time of Jeroboam or Achav), they have seized the reins of the Jewish people as atheists hostile today.

How can we thank you ask the Almighty, when we tolerate these vile and twisted leaders as spokesmen! My dear brothers, clean our ranks, and clean up our environment; ask the Almighty, through our prayers, our repentance and the performance of good deeds [mitsvot] he rédime us all, as only He can done immediately!

Read this excerpt from the book of Rabbi Weissmandl: Min Hametzar Sefer.

"If people knew what we did, they pourchasseraient in the streets, and we wood hang them."
George HW "Poppy" Bush

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Labels: Israel, Zionism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 10:53 PM 0 Comments

The Jewish community of Sweden provides a good mood on this day of the St-Jean - pagane old festival of the summer solstice. For the first time a woman - Chava Koster - was elected Rabbi of Stockholm. She was facing competition from 12 men. Is not it wonderful to read the words of spokesman for the Selection Committee:

"We did not at all chosen on the basis of sex. After maintenance, she has emerged as the best among all candidates"

To read the article in Libération click here.

This is the true concept of feminism and liberation of women. The competence. What to say? A contrast with Benedict XVI and his old speeches sclérosés the Pope John Paul II ...

Chava Koster, Rabbi in New York. She was recently appointed Rabbi Sweden.

Someting what makes furious the Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh of this world.

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Labels: Anne Humphreys, Israel, Judaism, Sweden, Zionism

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 7:40 PM 0 Comments

B2. the managers of public institutions step up their efforts to:

• adapt to their milieu and express in concrete directives the key guidelines governing the management of adjustment requests;
• pursue the implementation of the so-called contextual, deliberative and reflexive approach;

B3. in keeping with the objective of dejudicializing the handling of accommodation requests, the government foster the accountability of interveners in institutions by ensuring that they have received adequate training. Some examples are the modification of the training program for future teachers to include additional instruction time devoted to intercultural questions and the organization of specialized sessions for current teachers;

B4. the government ensure that health care establishments have sufficient funds to cover their needs for interpreters’ services;

B5. the government implement the necessary mechanisms to:

• establish in each institution practical expertise in the realm of the handling of adjustment requests;
• disseminate in each establishment, in particular among new employees, the knowledge that interveners have accumulated;
• implement exchange and cooperation initiatives between units in a given establishment or between establishments in the same sector;
• better inform newly arrived immigrant parents about adjustment practices and the operation of the school system.

B6. The Co-Chairs approve of the initiative now under way in the National Assembly to introduce into the Québec Charter an interpretation clause that establishes gender equality as a core value of our society.

Moreover, the Co-Chairs recommend that:

B7. the government establish an Office d’harmonisation interculturelle, a paragovernmental body that reports to the Conseil des relations interculturelles, which works in tandem with other agencies in related fields. This body would, in particular, play a role with respect to information, training, coordination, advice, and research centred on intercultural harmonization practices, including interdenominational practices, in our society.

B8. Religious holidays:

The Co-Chairs recommend that:

• the government encourage public and private administrators to adopt paid leave with compensation accompanied by possibilities for adjustment;
• the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse produce an advisory opinion that establishes practical reference points for managers in all work environments, including an explanation of the legal framework, the elaboration of tools to rule on requests for religious holidays and the proposal of an array of formulas in keeping with previous court decisions and adaptable to each workplace;
• as regards problems stemming from the system of religious holidays in force in the school boards, i.e. extra paid leave, that the government set up a select panel to find a fair solution that conforms to the current legal framework of the system of religious holidays, following consultation with the key interveners concerned;

B9. the government highlight excellence in the realm of harmonization practices in the workplace by:

• encouraging big government-owned corporations to assert leadership in this field;
• publicly honouring public- or private-sector employees who have distinguished themselves through their integration and harmonization efforts.
  

C) The integration of immigrants

The Co-Chairs recommend that:

C1. from the standpoint of the planning of immigration rates, the government make sure that the number of immigrants admitted corresponds to the reception resources available, especially in respect of labour market integration and francization;

C2. in order to overcome a serious deficiency that is now apparent, the government increase funding for community groups and other front-line organizations devoted to welcoming and integrating immigrants, in particular to consolidate and develop the existing network of organizations while avoiding a piecemeal approach;

C3. the government step up its efforts in respect of the francization and integration of immigrants by:

• ensuring better coordination between the government departments concerned of francization programs for immigrants;
• establishing a task force to review the entire question of the under-representation of members of the ethnic minorities in positions in the public administration and designing a more effective approach in this respect;
• achieving more concerted management of government integration programs and measures, more specifically between the ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés culturelles, the ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport, the ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux, and the ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale;
• better aligning immigration and integration policies with Québec’s economic and social development objectives;
  
• seeking vigorously to reduce the extremely high unemployment rate among Quebecers born in Africa and who have lived in Québec for less than five years;

C4. the government step up measures to accelerate the process of recognizing skills and diplomas acquired abroad. Among the urgent measures, we recommend:

• the establishment of an independent fact-finding committee with a mandate to shed light on the practices of the professional orders with respect to the recognition of diplomas;
• the establishment of an independent body to which immigrants can submit complaints and request reviews of the decisions reached by the professional orders;
• the clarification of relations between the Conseil interprofessionnel du Québec, the Office des professions du Québec and the professional orders, on the one hand, and universities, Cegeps and the Office québécois de la langue française, on the other hand, to resolve the stalemates that are hampering efforts to follow up on the retraining requirements imposed on immigrants;

C5. the government step up its efforts to foster the regionalization of immigration. In this spirit, it would be advisable to:

• implement incentives for businesses that recruit immigrants, such as fiscal measures, in order to foster the regionalization of immigration;
• provide ad hoc funding to the municipalities and the many organizations that welcome and support immigrants that have been established outside Montréal to bolster the existing network;
• pay special attention to the Capitale-Nationale to make it a second urban reception centre for newcomers;
• ask the regions to make known their needs and elaborate projects that rely on immigrant workers;
• encourage and broaden agreements governing student training sessions and exchanges such as those between France and Québec, which bring foreign students to Québec's regions;
• delegate broader responsibilities to regional authorities;

C6. to facilitate the integration of newcomers, the ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés culturelles create for them an interactive portal in order to centralize all information on resources and institutional services, including municipal and community resources and services, with respect to employment, housing, health, education, and so on;

C7. the government increase funding for organizations that support immigrant women;

C8. the ministère de l’Immigration et des Communautés culturelles adopt the appropriate measures to make the most of Québec volunteer work for the purpose of welcoming and integrating immigrants, in particular to enable them to gain access to social networks;à

C9. the government department now responsible for immigration be renamed the ministère de l’Immigration et des Relations interculturelles.

D) Interculturalism

The Co-Chairs recommend that:

D1. the government launch a vigorous campaign to promote interculturalism in Québec society to broaden awareness of it;

D2. to better establish interculturalism as a model that prevails over intercultural relations in Québec, the government enshrine interculturalism in a statute, a policy statement or a declaration and that this initiative include public consultations and a vote in the National Assembly;

D3. the government encourage all forms of intercultural contact as a means of reducing stereotypes and fostering participation in and integration into Québec society. In this spirit:

• implement immersion, mentoring and tutoring programs and sponsorship and twinning, in particular based on the model of the former program devoted to exchanges of students between Montréal and the regions. In the same spirit, broaden intercultural educational practices, municipal initiatives and existing programs;
• encourage all forms of intercommunity action;
• emphasize efforts to promote regional tourism among members of Montréal's ethnic minorities;

D4. a Fonds d’histoires de vie des immigrants be established, to be managed by the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec;

D5. the government pay close attention to testimony presented concerning so-called ethno-denominational schools.

E) Inequality and discrimination

The Co-Chairs recommend that:

E1. the government seek to better understand and combat the different forms of racism, especially ethnism, found in our society. In this spirit:

• special attention should be paid to the fight against hate crimes and the protection of all individuals subject to multiple discrimination, e.g. homosexuals and the disabled;
• the Québec Charter should prohibit public incitement to discrimination;
• exceptional measures should be taken to combat Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and the discrimination to which all racialized groups, especially Blacks, are subject;
• the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse should be given more extensive resources and means;
  

E2. government mandataries and agencies be responsible for their results in respect of the fight against racism and discrimination and that accountability mechanisms be introduced for this purpose based on performance indicators;

E3. the National Assembly follow up on a recommendation made by the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse aimed at strengthening the economic and social rights recognized in sections 39 to 48 in the Québec Charter:“The Commission recommends that the economic and social rights recognized in sections 39 to 48 of the Charter be strengthened in light of:

• the inclusion of a general provision, before section 39, stipulating that legislation must respect the essential content of economic and social rights;
• the extension to sections 39 to 48 of priority over legislation stipulated in section 52 of the Charter;
• the gradual coming into force of such priority, initially limited to subsequent legislation then extended to existing legislation.”

F) The French language

The report does not contain any formal recommendation since the CCPARDC deemed this theme to be on the margin of its mandate. That being the case, the Co-Chairs have reviewed the situation in their report.

G) Secularism

The Co-Chairs recommend that:

G1. the government draft a white paper on secularism in order to:

• define secularism in light of its four principles, two of which reflect its profound purposes (the other two are reflected in essential institutional structures);
• review the major choices that Québec has made in respect of secularism;
• defend the conception of open secularism adopted and implemented by Québec;
• clarify and submit for public debate questions on which a consensus has yet to be reached;

G2. with regard to the wearing by government employees of religious signs:

• judges, Crown prosecutors, police officers, prison guards and the president and vice-president of the National Assembly of Québec be prohibited from doing so;
• teachers, public servants, health professionals and all other government employees be authorized to do so;
  

G3. measures be adopted to bring certain practices in public institutions into line with the principles of open secularism. Consequently, in the name of the separation of the State and the churches and in the name of State neutrality, we recommend that:

• the crucifix above the chair of the president of the National Assembly be relocated in the Parliament building in a place that emphasizes its meaning from the standpoint of heritage;
• municipal councils abandon the saying of prayers at their public meetings;
  G4. the government vigorously promote the new ethnics and religious culture course that is to be introduced in September 2008;

G5. the government produce and disseminate every year among the managers of institutions and public or private organizations a multidenominational calendar that indicates the dates of religious holidays.

H) Research to be conducted

The Co-Chairs recommend that:

H1. the government free up additional research funds that would be earmarked, in particular, for the study of:

• the state of interculturalism;
• the dual relationship among immigrants to their culture of origin and the host society’s culture;
• changes in ethnocultural concentrations and their meaning in terms of integration or compartmentalization;
• the state and impact on integration of intercommunity action;
• the elaboration of indicators that measure the impact of numerous government programs pertaining to reception, employment, the fight against discrimination, and social and cultural integration;
• the situation and path followed by disadvantaged sub-groups such as young people from racialized minorities, immigrant women, and others;
• the change in the social bond in neighbourhoods where immigrants are heavily concentrated;
• forms of Islamophobia and the remedial measures to be adopted;
• displays of anti-Semitism and the remedial measures to be adopted;
  

H2. the government set up a special grant fund reserved for universities and Cegeps in the regions to fund applied research devoted to the general theme of immigration and integration in the regions.

The Commission

At the request of Premier Jean Charest, the CCPARDC took stock of accommodation practices, conducted a public consultation throughout Québec and examined the attendant questions.

Individuals, groups and associations submitted over 900 briefs and 241 people testified during the 31 days of hearings. All told, 22 regional forums attracted 3 423 participants and over 800 people took part in four province-wide forums. Moreover, 13 research projects conducted by specialists from Québec universities were commissioned and 31 focus groups were organized throughout Québec in which participants came from varied backgrounds.

When it concludes its activities in June, the CCPARDC will have spent $3.7 million of a total budget of $5.1 million. The final report and related documents can be consulted online (www.accommodements.qc.ca).

Labels: Arab World, Bouchard-Taylor, Canada, Hijab, Human mistake, Islam, Israel, Judaism, Palestine, Québec, Religion and fanaticism, Secularism, Sharia

# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 2:19 PM 0 Comments