[A-List] Responses to open letter against AFN delegation to "Israel"

[Macdonald Stainsby <mstainsby@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Friends

We have posted the final open letter to our website see
http://www.cpavancouver.org/statements_letterToANF.html
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Today the Canadian Press have a good article covering the AFN trip and
our open
letter, see bellow

Greetings
Hanna
-------------------------


http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060308/ca_pr_on_na/afn_israel_flap;_ylt=AuyiH18aZThq8NX8aGgsCISFM1IB;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA

<javascript:ol('http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060308/ca_pr_on_na/afn_israel_flap;_ylt%3dAuyiH18aZThq8NX8aGgsCISFM1IB;_ylu%3dX3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA');>--

*Jewish Congress-paid trip to Israel has national chief on defensive*

SUE BAILEY/Wed Mar 8, 5:56 PM ET/

OTTAWA (CP) - One of Canada's top native leaders is the target of angry
protest
after taking an all-expense-paid trip to Israel.

An open letter from 47 grassroots groups to Phil Fontaine, national
chief of the
Assembly of First Nations, says he was used by the Canadian Jewish
Congress -
which paid for the trip - as a cover for "Israeli atrocities committed
against
the Palestinian people."

Fontaine and 17 other assembly officials toured Israel from Feb. 17 to
22 at a
cost of about $4,000 each or $72,000.

The visit, led by the Jewish congress, did not include the perilous West
Bank or
Palestinian refugee camps in the Gaza Strip.

"We are sorry that we do not have the means to take you on similar tours
to show
you what is really happening in Palestine," says the latest draft of the
letter,
dated Monday.

"Perhaps you should ask the hundreds of international volunteers, including
Canadians, who paid their own way to go there and bear witness to the
continuous
Israeli brutality against the indigenous people of Palestine."

The letter is endorsed by the Al-Huda Muslim Society, the Coalition for
a Just
Peace in Israel/Palestine, the Free Palestine Alliance and other groups,
many
promoting human rights.

Several dozen more individual supporters signed on.

Fontaine describes the trip as "another step in our educational outreach
and
cultural exchange here in Canada and around the world.

"Israel and the First Nations share a common interest and goal in
re-building
from inflicted harms and commemorating catastrophic pasts," he says.

"Israel's resiliency and determination were inspiring and hopeful."

The Canadian Jewish Congress, which is funded through private donations,
first
discussed a cultural exchange with the assembly in 1998.

Talks sped up when remarks by former assembly head David Ahenakew made
shocking
headlines.

Ahenakew was convicted in July of wilfully promoting hatred against Jews
for
making "dehumanizing" comments in December 2002, long after he had
stepped down
as head of the assembly.

He told a conference that Jews were responsible for starting the Second
World
War. He later added that they were a "disease" and that's why Hitler
"fried" six
million of them.

Ahenakew was a catalyst for the Assembly of First Nations trip to
Israel, said
Ed Morgan, national president of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

"I'm hoping this is the silver lining in the dark cloud of the Ahenakew
case."

Still, Morgan said he is baffled and disturbed by concerns raised about
what he
called a purely cultural visit.

"To oppose an educational, historical trip to Israel is to oppose Jews and
Israel for their own sake," he said Wednesday in an interview.

"Of course I can't agree with that letter. In fact, I can only recoil at
that
letter.

"We don't propagandize or say anything about the cause of Palestinian
nationalism. We believe, I think like most Canadians believe . . .
that there
should be two states peacefully side by side for two nations and two
peoples -
each enjoying self determination."

Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress,
did not
sign the letter. He said he wants to express his dismay to Fontaine in
person.

"I think the First Nations leadership should listen to the grassroots. I
speak
to First Nations activists and they are sympathetic to the Palestinian
struggle
and they can relate to it."

Mitzi Brown, a Labrador Inuit who is now a Toronto-based student and
journalist,
has seen first-hand the squalor of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

"The (assembly) may want to paint it as a cultural exchange, but it
sends the
message that they represent the views of indigenous people in Canada and
that
they side with Israel in this conflict."

Fontaine does not speak for all aboriginal people and he should focus on
problems at home, she said.

"Conditions on reserves, suicide rates, poverty, water conditions,
overcrowding,
housing and education."

Copyright © 2006 Canadian Press
--
Macdonald Stainsby
http://independentmedia.ca/survivingcanada
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
   --Bertholt Brecht.