Take one minute to write to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his team, along with the four NDP caucus members who on are the Canada Israel Interparliamentary Committee.
Tell them it is illogical for the NDP to call for pressure to be brought to bear on a country it’s essentially calling an apartheid state and simultaneously promote ‘greater friendship’ with that country.
40 groups and 200 prominent musicians, authors and NDP members have called on the NDP party to withdraw from Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group. Join them by writing your own letter.
As the NDP caucus gathers in Halifax, the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute and Just Peace Advocates has released a public letter signed by dozens of groups as well as rock legend Roger Waters and academic Noam Chomsky telling Jagmeet Singh it’s time “to formally disassociate the NDP from the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group.” Signed by dozens of individuals with significant ties to the party, including former NDP MPs Svend Robinson and Jim Manly, the public letter reads, “it is incoherent for the NDP to echo human rights groups' finding of Israeli apartheid and simultaneously participate in a group promoting ‘co-operation’ with Israel.”
The Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group promotes “greater friendship” and “further co-operation” between Canadian MPs and members of the Israeli Knesset.
NDP Justice Critic Randall Garrison is vice-chair of the Interparliamentary Group while NDP MPs Lisa Marie Barron, Gord Johns and Bonita Zarrillo are all listed on its website.
Four years ago 200 prominent musicians, academics, trade unionists and NDP members released “A Call for the NDP to Withdraw from the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group”. Since that time the Israeli military has killed prominent Palestinian journalists, repeatedly bombed Gaza and Syria, assassinated individuals in Iran and expanded illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Over the past 18 months the NDP has made important strides in opposing Canada’s contribution to Palestinian dispossession. At the party’s convention last year delegates voted to boycott Israel’s settlements and put an arms embargo on the country while in recent months NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson has repeatedly asked the Liberals why they reject Amnesty International’s conclusion that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid.
On August 26, Jagmeet Singh hardened the NDP’s position on Israel by making 13 demands of the Trudeau government on Palestinian rights. Yet the NDP remains part of a group promoting “greater friendship” with Israel.
It is incoherent for the NDP to echo human rights groups' finding of Israeli apartheid and simultaneously participate in a group promoting “co-operation” with Israel.
It’s time for Jagmeet Singh to formally disassociate the NDP from the Canada-Israel Interparliamentary Group.
