A call by some main cities in Canada to lift Israeli flags to mark the nation’s Independence Day has spurred outrage, with Palestinian rights advocates saying Israel shouldn’t be honoured because it wages a lethal army assault on the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli flag can be raised within the Canadian capital, Ottawa, in addition to in Toronto, the nation’s largest metropolis, on Tuesday to mark Israeli Independence Day, also referred to as Yom Ha’atzmaut.
The Ottawa flag-raising can be a personal occasion after a deliberate public ceremony at metropolis corridor drew widespread condemnation.
“This choice relies on current intelligence that implies internet hosting a public ceremony poses a considerable danger to public security,” town stated final week.
In Toronto, municipal employees permitted a request from the Consulate Basic of Israel to lift the Israeli flag, The Toronto Star newspaper reported.
Each occasions drew small protests on Tuesday morning by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
“As Jews, we scream it loud – Israel doesn’t make us proud,” protesters chanted exterior town corridor constructing in Toronto. “As Jews, we are saying not in our title – it’s not our flag, we’re not the identical.”
View of Israeli flag rising at Toronto metropolis corridor from Nathan Phillips, the place a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters did their finest, from an enforced distance, to disrupt it pic.twitter.com/zNWVKCV9Lq
— David Rider (@dmrider) May 14, 2024
The flag raisings come as Israel continues to bombard the Gaza Strip, killing greater than 35,000 Palestinians because the conflict started in early October.
Israel’s siege on the coastal Palestinian enclave has additionally spurred a worsening humanitarian disaster, with Palestinians dealing with shortages of water, meals, gas, and medical provides.
Amid international protests demanding a long-lasting ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinian rights advocates in Canada additionally famous that the Yom Ha’atzmaut flag-raising occasions come a day earlier than what’s often known as Nakba Day.
Held yearly on Could 15, Nakba Day commemorates the ethnic cleaning of 750,000 Palestinians who had been expelled from their properties and communities when the State of Israel was created in 1948.
Jamila Ewais, a researcher with the anti-racism programme at advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace within the Center East (CJPME), stated that towards that backdrop, the flag-raisings ignore “the ache and injustice skilled by numerous Palestinian households”.
“Celebrating Israel’s violent founding, particularly this yr, is equal to a celebration of injustice towards the Palestinians,” Ewais stated in a press release final week.
The Metropolis of Ottawa justified its choice to lift the Israeli flag by saying it “celebrates nationwide holidays and independence days and holds flag-raising occasions and actions, in collaboration with International Affairs Canada, for greater than 190 federally acknowledged international locations”.
Pricey Mayor Sutcliffe and Councillor Leiper,
I’m a global human rights lawyer, a former United Nations Particular Rapporteur and I’ve labored within the occupied Palestinian territories and proceed to take action. I’m an Arab-Canadian and I stay in Mr. Leiper’s ward. My father is…
— Leilani Farha 🍉 (@leilanifarha) May 8, 2024
However rights advocates identified that town has refused to carry flag-raising occasions previously.
In 2022, for instance, Ottawa rejected a request from the Russian embassy to fly Russia’s flag at metropolis corridor.
“I indicated that till the Russian military leaves Ukraine we won’t have something to do with the Russian authorities and their unlawful invasion,” Ottawa’s then-mayor, Jim Watson, said on social media at the time.
Leilani Farha, an Ottawa-based human rights lawyer and former United Nations particular rapporteur on the suitable to housing, stated elevating the Israeli flag right now “is totally inappropriate and deeply hurtful”.
Farha famous that Israel has been accused of committing genocide towards Palestinians in Gaza in a case earlier than the UN’s prime court docket, the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice.
“Ottawa has a sizeable Palestinian, Arab and Muslim inhabitants,” she wrote in a letter despatched to Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s chief of employees concerning the metropolis’s plans to lift the Israeli flag, which she shared on social media.
“This motion by the Metropolis is being considered by this neighborhood – of which I’m a member – in addition to by many others who help Palestinians in Gaza and Palestinian liberation, as a provocation and a direct assault.”