Taken from Antler River Council e-Newsletter May 31, 2024, written by Kathy Douglas, Faith Formation Minister with Antler River, Western Ontario Waterways and Horseshoe Falls Councils.
For more than 25 years I have witnessed friends and colleagues in the United Church of Canada who have travelled to Palestine, usually as Ecumenical Accompaniers (EAs) or with Come and See Programs, return from Palestine and Israel transformed. They do not return to Canada as anti-sematic. They return to Canada as prophets crying out for justice as they witness one highly militarized government consistently oppressing one group of people.
This oppression is not new but for many, like me, not obvious until now. As the world witnesses the invasion in Gaza, we cannot say we have not seen or heard the suffering. My eyes are now open and I must choose to stand with the oppressed and say NO to injustice, as we commit to working for a just peace for all people.
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The United Church has signed on to a new call for Canada to end all military sales to Israel, in light of very plausible concerns that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. On May 22 in Ottawa, Moderator Rt Rev Dr Carmen Lansdowne stated, “Canada can do better. We can avoid being complicit in genocide by imposing a comprehensive and binding embargo on military trade with Israel.”
International human rights law takes genocide very seriously, and those aiding and abetting genocide are also considered complicit. Military aid is considered one form of complicity, and there is great concern that Canada could be crossing this line.
link to e-Newsletter this originated from: https://mailchi.mp/united-church/arw-enewsletter-may312024
Update for March 2025
The news from Gaza just seems to get worse. At the G7 meeting in March at Kananaskis B.C. notably there was no mention of the two-state solution in the final joint statem
ent whereby Palestinians would have their own land. Canada has long supported this in the past. And the bombing and suffering in Gaza has begun again with the Israeli decision to abandon the cease-fire agreement. President Trump has proposed rebuilding Gaza – but only after the residents have been moved somewhere- no country for sure, an unfair solution for the residents.
Picture from Human Rights Watch; the moon rises as a man sits atop a pile of rubble it al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip on November 15, 2024