Friday 28 January 2011

CANADIAN TAX PAYERS SUBSIDIZE ISRAEL’S SETTLEMENTS



I want to buy myself a kefiyah but I want it to be the real thing from Palestine. No Chinese knock offs, my dollars should go to Palestine.  With some effort I finally found the place that makes them in Hebron and was going to email them an order when I realized, I would not be able to receive it. My country has cut off mail service with Palestine to please Israel!

For those interested, btw, the email is Kefiya Factory
 
Avignor Lieberman calls us “Israel’s best friend”. I truly shuddered when that headline hit the news. Harper is busy out-toadying the stooges in Washington, DC and everything regarding Palestine is forbidden. Writing and posting as I do about Israel? I am taking a risk.


Harper and his immediate henchmen are extreme right Christians and you know what that means. Bring on the Armageddon and support those Jews! The Chabad Lubavitch love him, well, as much as they can appreciate a goyim, but don’t tell Stephen that. 

It only makes sense, therefore that, as a Canadian with a conscience I have not been happy that my taxes go towards supporting Israel and her nefarious activities to the Palestinians.  Toss in supporting Mossad and its foul ways around the globe and watch me bristle in frustration. 

After all, our country is being ruined, our reputation shot, by the current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, and he is a New World Order kinda guy and determined to drag us all the way into hell. Pity, because I love my country but, not this blind support of a vile little piece of stolen sand in the Middle East.

The following made me smile. It would certainly make for an interesting Federal Court challennge.

Yves Engler

This came around last year to every household in Canada.
 
January 28, 2011
 
Canada's tax system currently subsidizes Israeli settlements that Ottawa deems illegal, however, the Conservative government says there's nothing that can be done about it.

In June of last year, Guelph activist Dan Maitland emailed Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon concerning Canada Park, a Jewish National Fund of Canada initiative built on land Israel occupied after the June 1967 War. Three Palestinian villages (Beit Nuba, Imwas and Yalu) were demolished to make way for the park.

This theft was paid for by the wealthy Tanenbaum family of Toronto who also supported the showing at the Royal Ontario Museum the Dead Sea Scrolls with no mention despite repeated requests of Palestine.

A few weeks ago Maitland received a reply from Keith Ashfield, Minister of National Revenue, who refused to discuss the particulars of the case but provided "general information about registered charities and the occupied territories." Ashfield wrote that "the fact that charitable activities take place in the occupied territories is not a barrier to acquiring or maintaining charitable status."

 Since when did "standing up for Canada" mean "support Israel"?

This means Canadian organizations can openly fundraise for settlements Ottawa (officially) deems illegal under international law and get the government to pay up to a third of the cost through tax credits for donations. To justify the government's position, Ashfield cited a September 2002 Federal Court of Appeal case (Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel v. Minister of National Revenue), which reversed the Canadian Revenue Agency's previous position.

The exact amount is not known but it's safe to assume that millions of Canadian dollars make their way to Israeli settlements every year. In 1997, when it was more of a legal grey area, tax lawyer David Drache claimed that "there are hundreds of [Canadian] organizations ... supporting organizations directly or indirectly beyond the Green Line," referring to the internationally-recognized armistice line between Israel and the occupied West Bank.

In the late 1990s, Israel's largest settler group, Yesha, raised more than $700,000 a year in Canada. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited in the mid-1990s, the Canadian Arab Federation's Jehad Aliweiwi said he "left with more than $1 million in tax-deductible funds, with no secret as to the destination." Through the 1990s the Press Foundation was probably the largest known source of funds for settlements, raising as much as $5 million annually for settlers in the occupied West Bank town of Hebron and in the occupied Golan Heights, which was captured from Syria in 1967.

One person’s “capture” is another person’s stolen.

Illegal settlements are not the only questionable activities in Israel that Canadians subsidize through their tax system. A mid-1990s survey found more than 300 registered Canadian charities with ties to Israel, a relatively wealthy country. Every year Canadians send a few hundred million dollars worth of tax-deductible donations to Israeli universities, parks, immigration initiatives and, more controversially, "charities" that aid the Israeli army in one way or another.


One example is Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel or Beit Halochem (Canada), which brings soldiers singled out as heroes by the Israeli military on trips to Canada. Many Canadians, including the Charles R. Bronfman Foundation, support the Libi Fund ~ "The Fund For Strengthening Israel's Defense."

My ancient mother remembers when the Bronfmans were just a group of gangsters who were smuggling French Canadian moonshine south of the border to the States during Prohibition. She says they were punks then and that has not changed as they have risen in power.

In early 2008, Major Gil Chemke, a member of the Israel's elite search and rescue team, toured the country on behalf of the Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel (CMDAI), which operates in the occupied West Bank. Established to assist wounded soldiers and the population during disasters, CMDAI has raised millions of dollars. Chemke drummed up financial contributions for CMDAI by showing "behind-the-scenes video footage of a rescue operation in Lebanon for a female air crew member whose helicopter was shot down by Hizballah" during Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon.

Ah, yes! Israel’s “measured response” according to Harper.

Established in 1971, the Association for the Soldiers of Israel in Canada (ASI) provides financial and moral support to active duty soldiers. In 2009, ASI (Canada) ~ which provides tax receipts through the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association ~ and El Al airlines granted a 50 percent discount on flights to Israel from Canada for families of "lone soldiers" who join the Israeli military.

While it's legal ~ and government will foot part of the bill ~ to finance charities linked to a foreign army responsible for numerous war crimes and settlements that contravene international law, Ottawa has made it illegal for Canadians to aid a hospital operated by the elected Hamas government.

Ottawa's post-11 September 2001 terrorist list makes it illegal to financially assist Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the Abu Nidal Organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the Palestine Liberation Front, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and groups associated with these organizations. Only one Israeli group, the marginal Kahane Chai, is on the list. 


On 25 December, Hamas criticized Canada for re-listing it a "terrorist" entity. "The decision is a clear bias to Israel," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Xinhua. "This encourages Israel to commit more crimes against the Palestinian people."

Ottawa makes it difficult for Canadians to support many Palestinian groups all the while subsidizing expansionist and militaristic Israeli institutions. Canadians of good conscience should protest and demand change.

Actually, a few years ago, under the auspice of pro-Israel Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, funds were slashed from any group to do with Palestine.

Yves Engler is the author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid and the Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. For more info: http://yvesengler.com

IS CANADA’S PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER A JEW?

B'NAI B'RITH CANADA ~ HARDWIRING HATRED INTO THE CANADIAN PSYCHE

SO, THEY ARE RELOCATING ISRAEL TO CANADA?

CANADA ~ HARPER WANTS NDP TO FIRE LIBBY DAVIS FOR CRITICISM OF ISRAEL


1 comment:

  1. Harper does not have a single MP from Toronto, Canada's most multicultural city. After last summers G20 Totalitarian preview, he'll probably lose some seats in Toronto's suburbs. I suspect the Illuminati globalists who created Harper have another job for him.

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