Stephen Lendman

Sophie and Mohamed Harkat. July 2006. © Darren Ell

Like in America post-9/11, Canadian Muslims have been victimized, vilified, and persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, and activism. They've been targeted, hunted down, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret evidence, convicted or incriminated on bogus charges, given long sentences and incarcerated as political prisoners or deported to certain torture, imprisonment or death by so-called democratic countries that, in fact, mock the rule of law and judicial fairness.

Victims are pawns in the war on terror - how rogue states intimidate populations to accept foreign wars and homeland repression to mask their more sinister agenda. Today, it reflects unbridled militarism, permanent wars, imperial conquest, and planned economic crises causing lost jobs, homes, benefits, futures, and the greatest ever wealth transfer to the rich, largely below the radar.

In her 2005 paper, "Securing Canada: Muslims and the Myth of Multiculturalism in the post-911 World," Samantha Arnold discussed the environment as defined by Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act and the Canadian-US Smart Border Declaration, saying:

"....Arab and Muslim Canadians have been 'painted with the bin Laden brush,' cast as terrorists, interrogated and detained on the basis of secret evidence, subjected to hate crimes, denied passage across international borders, represented in racist and demeaning ways in the media, and constructed as 'aliens' in Canada notwithstanding their citizenship (or legal residency) status."

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Stuart Littlewood

This morning I'm hearing reports of 20 or more dead and dozens injured after Israeli forces attacked the Free Gaza flotilla in international waters and gunned down unarmed crew and passengers.

This is no surprise. Israel had been threatening for weeks to use violence, as is its style, to intercept the peaceful mission.

And I have just watched Israel's chief lie-monger, Mark Regev, on BBC TV. "We did everything we could to avoid violence," he said. "They [the aid workers] chose the path of confrontation… This is elementary, we have to defend ourselves." He claimed the Israeli boarding party was attacked! The week-kneed BBC failed to question this act of piracy in international waters and the blatant violation of maritime law.

Former British MP George Galloway, a mainspring behind the Free Gaza movement, called it "a murderous act of piracy" on innocent humanitarian aid workers and demanded a wholesale review of the international community's relationship with "the criminal pirate state of Israel".

When the OECD, just 3 weeks ago, made their woeful decision to admit Israel to their club, the Zionist regime's plan to attack international ships attempting to bring relief to the 1.5 million innocent Gazans it had bombed and blockaded for 4 years, was already known. But the Organisation nevertheless went ahead, posting a video of their media briefing...

Grit your teeth, watch, and marvel at this master-class in the art of bumbledom. It does not, of course, explain what many would love to know: how Israel's vile conduct is deemed to comply with the OECD's fundamental values.

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Khalid Amayreh

Israel, embarrassed by its naval forces’ bloody interception of Gaza-bound ships carrying humanitarian relief materials for besieged Gazans, has been spreading disinformation and outright lies to justify the ostensible massacre.

Dozens of people were either killed or injured when special Israeli naval units stormed and opened fire on a Turkish ship around dawn Monday.

The Gaza Freedom Flotila were carrying hundreds of peace activists from more than 50 nationalities, opposed to Israel’s Nazi-like siege of the Gaza Strip.

The manifestly criminal attack on the civilian ship is already generating angry reactions around the world, with dozens of countries denouncing the attack as constituting “criminal piracy.”

A spokesman of the Turkish government warned that Israel would have to face consequences of its criminal act.

Greece, many of whose nationals were taking part in the Freedom Flotilla, has suspended an aerial exercise with the Israeli air-force.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials have resorted to spreading lies and disinformation in order to save its image following the criminal assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

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The BRussells Tribunal

Dead: 19. Injured: 60. This is Israel

Israel’s killing of 19 innocents with 60 more injured must have maximal consequences. Israel impunity is a threat to all.

Even for eyes burnt witnessing human suffering, there is something shocking, something impossible, about watching Israeli soldiers, armed and in gas masks, fast-roping from helicopters onto an aid ship filled with civilians — journalists, parliamentarians, human rights activists, mothers, doctors — headed to Gaza to break the inhuman siege that keeps 1.5 million people somewhere between life and death.

The Mavi Marmara, carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid, was flying a white flag: a universal symbol of non-violence. It was also flying the Turkish flag, in international waters, giving it status as a sovereign extension of Turkey. Regardless, Israel attacked. For what does Israel fight? Its existence, or the continuance of a regime of collective punishment calculated to destroy the Palestinians? Or are these the same thing? Dead: 19. Injured: 60. Who gave the order? Will NATO react to an attack on one of its members?

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Cynthia McKinney

People of the U.S. and the world must end Israeli impunity now!

I am outraged at Israel's latest criminal act. I mourn with my fellow Free Gaza travelers, the lives that have been lost by Israel's needless, senseless act against unarmed humanitarian activists. But I'm even more outraged that once again, Israel's actions have been aided and abetted by a U.S. political class that has become corrupted beyond belief due to its reliance on Zionist campaign finance and penetration by Zionist zealots for whom no U.S. weapons system is too much for the Israeli war machine, and the silence of the world's onlookers whose hearts have grown cold with indifference.

I recently visited the offices of IHH, the Turkish humanitarian organization that sponsored one of the Freedom Flotilla boats, and that was targeted by the Israelis for its murderous rampage. Reports are still coming in as to the full extent of the senseless Israeli violence. Of course, I expect Israel's apologists in the press and in the United States government to shift into high gear to support Israel's lying machine. Take note of their names. The 12,000 internet squatters/written word grenade throwers, hired by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to defend Israel and attack peace activists online, are already busy spreading their orchestrated disinformation in cyberspace. Be very careful what you read and believe from special interest press and the internet. You could be reading one of Israel's hired hacks. As a news diversion from what Israel has just done, I suspect that we can also expect to see a lot of historical footage of war's atrocities on television: today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day long ago set aside to remember the sacrifices of U.S. war dead.

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