The decision by some major Canadian cities to raise Israeli flags to mark the country’s Independence Day has sparked outrage, with Palestinian rights advocates saying Israel should not be honored as it carries out an attack murderous military action against the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli flag will be raised on Tuesday in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, as well as in Toronto, the country’s largest city, to mark Israeli Independence Day, also known as Yom Ha’atzmaut.
Ottawa’s flag-raising will be a private event after a planned public ceremony at city hall drew widespread condemnation.
“This decision is based on recent intelligence suggesting that hosting a public ceremony poses a substantial risk to public safety,” the city said last week.
In Toronto, city staff approved a request from the Israeli consulate general to raise the Israeli flag, the Toronto Star newspaper reported.
Both events sparked small protests Tuesday morning from pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
“As Jews, we shout it loud and clear: Israel does not make us proud,” protesters chanted in front of Toronto City Hall. “As Jews, we do not say in our name: this is not our flag, we are not the same.”
View of the Israeli flag raised at Toronto City Hall from Nathan Phillips, where a small group of pro-Palestinian protesters did their best, from a distance, to disrupt it pic.twitter.com/zNWVKCV9Lq
– David Rider (@dmrider) May 14, 2024
The flag-raising comes as Israel continues to bombard the Gaza Strip, killing more than 35,000 Palestinians since the war began in early October.
Israel’s siege on the Palestinian coastal enclave has also caused a worsening humanitarian crisis, with Palestinians facing shortages of water, food, fuel and medical supplies.
Amid global protests demanding a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinian rights advocates in Canada have also pointed out that the Yom Ha’atzmaut flag-raising events take place a day before the so-called the day of the Nakba.
Held annually on May 15, Nakba Day commemorates the ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes and communities during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Jamila Ewais, a researcher with the anti-racism program at the advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), said that in this context, flag-raising ignores “the pain and injustice experienced by d “countless Palestinian families”.
“Celebrating the violent founding of Israel, especially this year, amounts to a celebration of injustice against the Palestinians,” Ewais said in a statement last week.
The City of Ottawa justified its decision to raise the Israeli flag by saying that it “celebrates national holidays and independence days and organizes flag-raising events and activities, in collaboration with Global Affairs Canada, for more than 190 federally recognized countries.”
Dear Mayor Sutcliffe and Councilor Leiper,
I am an international human rights lawyer, a former United Nations Special Rapporteur and have worked and continue to do so. I am an Arab-Canadian and I live in Mr. Leiper’s neighborhood. My father is…
-Leilani Farha 🍉 (@leilanifarha) May 8, 2024
But rights advocates pointed out that the city has refused to hold flag-raising events in the past.
In 2022, for example, Ottawa rejected a request from the Russian embassy to fly the Russian flag at city hall.
“I indicated that until the Russian army leaves Ukraine, we will have nothing to do with the Russian government and its illegal invasion,” said Jim Watson, then mayor of Ottawa. said on social media at the time.
Leilani Farha, an Ottawa-based human rights lawyer and former UN special rapporteur on housing rights, said raising the Israeli flag at this time “is completely inappropriate and deeply hurtful.”
Farha noted that Israel has been accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in a case before the UN’s highest court, the International Court of Justice.
“Ottawa has a significant Palestinian, Arab and Muslim population,” she wrote in a letter sent to Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe’s chief of staff about the city’s plans to raise the Israeli flag, which ‘She shared on social networks.
“This action by the City is viewed by this community – of which I am a member – as well as many others who support Palestinians in Gaza and Palestinian liberation, as a provocation and a direct attack. »