Articles
Canadian Politics, Economy and Foreign PolicyBanning art, blaming the victim and rewarding Canadian war exporters
Poster by Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff: banned at University of Ottawa
Posters have been banned on two university campuses in Ottawa because they used a cartoon image depicting an Israeli AH-64 attack helicopter firing at a Palestinian child. The poster’s artwork, by Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff, is based on reality. U.S.-made AH-64 gunships were among the major weapons used by Israel during its recent bombardment of Gaza. More than 1,380 people, including some 430 children, were killed in those attacks against densely populated civilian neighbourhoods.
This is a war crime.
But according to Carleton University’s administration, it is the artwork — not the Israeli attacks — that deserve condemnation. The posters, Carleton authorities say, may “incite others to infringe rights protected in the Ontario Human Rights code” and are “insensitive to the norms of civil discourse in a free and democratic society.”
So, when students put up artwork depicting AH-64s targeting a Palestinian child, Carleton President Roseanne Runte said the posters “were deemed … to incite hatred,” and university authorities threatened students with expulsion. But when 56 Carleton professors asked Runte to join them in condemning violations of human rights caused by Israel’s bombing of a Gazan university, she bluntly refused.
This is a double standard.
In a similar fashion, when Israel’s military aircraft launched indiscriminate attacks wounding 5,300 people (at least half of whom were women and children) and totally or partially destroyed 22,000 housing units, 92 mosques and 29 schools, the Canadian government responded by condemning Palestinians as the source of this violence.
On January 12, in the midst of this onslaught, Canada stood up at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and voted against “urgent international action” to halt Israel’s “massive violations” of human rights. The sole dissenting vote came from Canada, whose spokesperson, Marius Grinius, said the UN statement “used unnecessary, unhelpful and inflammatory language” and “failed to clearly recognize that rocket fire on Israel had led to the current crisis.” Both the foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon, and former newsman Peter Kent, now Canada’s minister of state for foreign affairs for the Americas, held Hamas responsible for the Gaza massacre. This is called blaming the victim.
Canada’s Military-Industrial Complex in Gaza
The plot thickens when we consider that at least fifty Canadian military industries manufacture key components embedded within AH-64 helicopters and two other major U.S. weapons exported to Israel, namely F-15 and F-16 warplanes. And Canadian workers are now forced, through the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), to invest in many of the world’s largest war industries. For example, the CPP’s portfolio includes $100 million in investments in Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which manufacture the AH-64s, F-15s and F-16s.
Our government also helps finance some of this country’s most profitable war-related companies through Industry Canada “investment” programs. A recent example of this largesse was announced the day after Canada’s shameful UN vote in Geneva. It was January 13, 2009. Israel’s military killed dozens of people in Gaza that day, including at least eleven children and three women. Tony Clement, Canada’s industry minister, and Christian Paradis, minister of public works and government services, were all smiles when they proudly unveiled a $52.3 million government “investment” in CMC Electronics.
This “investment” in “cutting-edge R&D” is part of Industry Canada’s Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative. It is designed to help CMC create cockpit components that are “easily customizable and adaptable to … varied aircraft platforms.” “Cutting-edge” is an apt metaphor. CMC supplies “weapon delivery” and “embedded combat training systems” for many of America’s most destructive war machines. But Canada’s supporting role in U.S. theatres of war was not one of our government’s talking points that day.
It never is.
Frontmen, like Paradis, prefer instead to speak glowingly of government “investments” to “ensure that Canada remains at the forefront of the aerospace and defence industry.”
This is called duplicity.
CMC has already supplied its so-called “defence” technologies for such “varied aircraft platforms” as the aforementioned AH-64s, F-15s and F-16s that made mincemeat of Gaza civilians and their already devastated infrastructure.
Other “cutting-edge” weapons equipped by CMC include the A-10 “Warthog,” AC-130 “Spectre,” AV-8B “Harrier II,” E-2 “Hawkeye,” EA-6B “Prowler,” F-14 “Tomcat,” F/A-18 “Hornet,” F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, HH-60 “Pave Hawk,” MC-130 “Combat Talon,” OH-58D “Kiowa Warrior,” UH-1 “Huey” and UH-60 “Black Hawk.” All these weapons have been used to great effect in Iraq, where war has claimed over one million lives since 2003.
But CMC is but one among many hundreds of Canadian military exporters that equip U.S. weapons systems used in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Unbeknownst to most Canadians, war manufacturers are scattered right across this country like razor blades concealed in a loaf of bread. These industries provide an incredibly diverse range of products, largely for export, and mostly to the U.S. While many produce high-tech machined parts or sophisticated electronics and software that are shipped stateside for assembly into major weapons, others churn out rounds of ammunition, machine guns, armoured vehicles, or air-to-ground missiles that fire phosphorous and anti-personnel cluster bombs.
If only this were publicly known, it would be a scandal.
A recent on-line report by the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) details fifty Canadian companies supplying parts for the three U.S. military aircraft exported to Israel. In addition, COAT’s report also names over 140 Canadian military companies that are exporting directly to Israel. Many of these are among 540 military companies represented in Ottawa by an organization called the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI).
According to its website, CADSI’s “patriotic” mission “has its roots in the creation of the Canadian chapter of the American Defense Preparedness Association.” Between 2006 and 2008, CADSI received donations totalling $192,000 from Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for “export marketing” and “international business development activities.”
This is called aiding and abetting war.
In 2004, CADSI organised a “mission” to “advance industrial partnerships between Canadian and Israeli companies.” Speakers included Canada’s minister of national defence, Israel’s ambassador to Canada and various high-level Israeli and Canadian government bureaucrats. CADSI then facilitated face-to-face “Company One-on-Ones” between Canadian and Israeli military companies.
CADSI’s main work is to organize Canada’s largest international arms bazaar, called CANSEC, so hundreds of this country’s military exporters can showcase their wares. Browsing the exhibition this May in Ottawa will be thousands of government buyers and military users from Canada, the U.S. and around the globe.
This is a call to action. Let’s do something.
This article appeared in the May/June 2009 issue of Canadian Dimension magazine. SUBSCRIBE NOW to get a refreshing and provocative alternative delivered to your door 6 times a year for up to 50% off the newsstand price.
Actually, the war crimes originate on the Palestinian side: firing rockets from civilian areas in Gaza into civilian areas in Israel. Children died in Gaza because Hamas has not built bomb shelters. Hamas sees value in a high civilian casualty count among its own citizens.
The poster is a libel and apropriately banned.
By the way, it’s interesting that support for Gaza was mute on the West Bank. Residents there understand the absurdity to which Hamas has committed their brothers and sisters and that Israel had little alternative to the course of action it chose.
CD should decide whether it wants to advance a solution by publishing the truth or whether it wants to continue as an accomplice to the the suffering of Palestinians by publishing cant like this article.
#1. Posted by Blue in Vancouver on April 25th 2009 at 6:50pm
Hamas’ intentions, as indicated in their constitutional document, is the destruction of the Jewish state. Israel should respond by taking a page from the life of Alexander the Great—kill every male in Gaza and drag Haniyeh around the city, bound, behind a horse.
A war crime? Perhaps. But, in this era of assymetrical warfare there is nothing but war criminals out there. Human rights conventions are irrelevant to all leaders. This tactic will effectively tame Palestinian aggression in the West Bank and bring resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
#2. Posted by Blue in Vancouver on April 26th 2009 at 9:30pm
This sort of “informative” article was kindly provided by the not so informative Richard Sanders.
It is a perfect example of the media rubbish that could incidentally be publish in a magazine that sole purpose is to fuel readers wishing to “change the world” with blind criticism.
It may be easy to make statements against war, but is it easy or even possible to just turn the other cheek to the everlasting terror residing inside and out of Israel? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far more complex than an issue of the occupied land. It is a conflict of religion, heritage, and survival. Its dynamic development can be further explained by the political turmoil following the dissociation of the Ottoman rule of the region, the preceding colonization by the Roman empire, and so forth.
If any writer, reader, or other political Aficionado is actually interested in forming an opinion and sharing it with with the public, I strongly suggest doing a little less grammatically correct, articulated scribbling and a little more investigative research. And yes, I do apologize in advance since you will require reading rather than writing for a change - to “change the world”.
#3. Posted by Jonny in London ON on May 3rd 2009 at 10:53am
Though this article presents some needed examination of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians (and Canada’s role in arming the territory), it lacks balance. And balance is in short supply these days…from the right and the left. If we are to have truly enlightened discourse we must learn to understand both sides of the story and search, in all cases, for a more holistic perspective.
Israel and Palestine come by their beliefs honestly (through a history of armed conflict and persecution of both peoples). And they continue to kill each other day in and day out. Each claiming to be protecting their sovereignty and their children’s future…but each, in effect, insuring that peace and security will never come.
I agree that this poster should not have been banned - censorship is a slippery slope. I agree that both parties have committed war crimes (and by the simple fact that Israel’s firepower is 1000 times that of the Palestinians, the enormity of the Israeli war crimes far overshadows the crimes of the Palestinians). But neither people are inherently evil - despite corruption, greed and fear mongering by so-called “leaders” on both sides.
It’s all about perspective.
And a journalist…a good journalist, should seek to help us understand the perspectives in play.
Balance.
And by all means, expose the truth.
Thank you for a thoughtful, provocative (if somewhat slanted) piece.
#4. Posted by Dan in Winnipeg on May 28th 2009 at 10:10am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqnPfv_Zrkg&feature=channel
#5. Posted by BlueWhite in Calgary on June 9th 2009 at 8:23pm
The root of this conflict is Zionism.
The creation of a colonial-settler state based on a religious and ethnic orthodoxy i.e. an exclusive, exclusionary and discriminatory Jewish state backed by U.S. imperialism.
Summed up in two slogans:
“a land without a people for a people without a land” and
“the deed for our land is the torah”
#6. Posted by Ted on June 11th 2009 at 6:38pm
Thanks to BlueWhite for the link to the propaganda machine ofthe MFA.
#7. Posted by Ted on June 11th 2009 at 6:45pm