News Highlights:
- Aug. 21st – Israeli human rights group Btselem releases report saying abuse of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, especially at checkpoints, has increased.
- Palestinian parliamentary speaker brought into Israeli court in shackles; Abd Al-Aziz Dweik says he does not recognize the court’s authority and that it is a political trial.
- Aug. 18th – Israeli soldiers kill two Palestinians, one of them a local shepherd in Gaza; Israeli forces have been attempting to bar local farmers from entering their pastures.
- Aug. 20th – Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz says Israel must prevent the arrival of the Lebanese army to the border, until a multinational force is there; he deflects Israeli public criticism of the government’s handling of the July invasion and says they must “prepare for the next round”.
- Two Canadian MPs on a fact-finding mission to Lebanon call for dropping Hezbollah from Canada’s “terror list”; one of the two, Liberal MP Borys Wrznesnewskyj, was immediately attacked by leadership hopefuls in his own party.
Feature:
A live interview with Ali Mallah, vice-president of the Canadian Arab Federation and vice-president of CUPE Toronto, about the increasing anti-Arab hysteria in Canada. Ali detailed how the Bnai Brith had publicly attacked him and others, simply because they had criticized the Canadian law that “bans” Hezbollah. There was discussion on how this law had been originally passed by a previous Liberal government, with direct influence from pro-Israeli lobby groups that used documentation later proved false by CBC, and how this influence on behalf of a foreign government is continuing to this day.
(See: Open Letter to Solicitor General of Canada Re: Banning of Palestinian Groups and Open Letter to the Canadian Prime Minister Regarding the Banning of Moslem Organizations).
Ali concluded by calling on people of conscience to answer these measures at the ballot box and with other grassroots political means.
Focus on Zionism;
Highlights of an Aug. 22nd, 2006 Haaretz article about the effects on the Palestinian population of the Israeli destruction of the Gaza power station two months ago, especially in the sweltering summer heat.
Here is an audio file of this show: