Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on July 28, 2013

Jul 28 2013 / 7:19 pm

Nakba - There is a clear parallel between Canadas Natives and the Palestinians.

By Eric Walberg

This month, Canadas media solemnly related the sad truth that the country engaged in a deliberate policy of attempted genocide against First Nations people, referring to government-sponsored abuse of Native children a century ago, which Canadas Chief Medical Officer Peter Bryce exposed in 1907, but which was hushed up. Bryce was fired and the post of chief medical officer abolished in 1919.

This, of course, is a terrible crime, though the facts have long been known (the study referred to was published in 2006). A study published by Ian Mosby in May this year added fuel to the fire, revealing that from 19421952, the government conducted nutritional experiments on Native children in the infamous residential schools, where milk rations were halved for years, essential vitamins not issued, and dental services withheld as gum health was a measuring tool for scientists and any care would distort research.

The media splash was made by Phil Fontaine, former chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and Bernie Farber, senior vice-president of Gemini Power Corporation and former head of the Canadian Jewish Congress (since 2011 the Centre for Israel and Jewish AffairsCIJA).

This is not the first time that CIJA has expressed support for beleaguered Natives. For years now, just as hundreds of Canadian MPs, MPPs, police officials, what-have-you are invited regularly on junkets to Israel by CIJA or other pro-Israeli groups, CIJA self-proclaimed social activists are now courting local Native groups with similar free trips. For instance, Winnipeg CIJA official Shelley Faintuch organized a 10-day Cree Youth Leadership Development Mission to Israel in 2012 and again this year with the support Norway House Cree Nation Chief Ron Evans to develop the next generation of First Nations leaders by looking through the lens of Israels inspiring story.

Why would Canadian Jewish leaders suddenly take such an interest in Natives and support their struggle for reparations from the Canadian government for the centuries of colonial subjugation and exploitation? Is it altruism, because of the Jewish tradition of being a light unto peoples? This is what CIJA would have us believe, with its claims to profound cultural and historical similarities, striving for acceptance, equal rights, rights to their own land.

There is another, very different explanation. The Native resistance movement has continued to grow in the past half century. And anyone with even a slight awareness of how Natives in Canada were dispossessed and abused by colonial settlers can easily see the parallel between Canadas Natives and the Palestinians, who have suffered a century of identical treatment by Jews immigrating to Palestine, which the latter arbitrarily renamed Israel in 1948. As Natives become more aware of their common struggle with other aboriginal peoples around the world, they are bound to identify with the Palestinians and their struggle against the colonial settlers.

So it makes perfect sense for Canadas Zionists to be proactive, to try to convince Canadas Natives that it is the (largely European and American) Jews who are indigenous to Palestine, not the native Arabs. The story the Cree are told on their Youth Leadership Development Missions is that Israelis, like the Natives, are merely trying to reassert their legitimate indigenous rights to their land. The screaming headlines about the Canadian government genocide against the Natives a century ago just happen to be accompanied by self-serving lectures about the Nazi Holocaust, the Final Solution, and even allusions to the infamous Dr Mengele experimenting on Jewish victims.

Original post:
Natives and Israel: Manipulating Genocide

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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