- A Liberal MP said yesterday that Israel's decision to
build a security barrier dividing it from Palestinian land is reducing
the West Bank and Gaza Strip to a "concentration camp."
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- The remark by Liberal MP Pat O'Brien, made during a routine
member's statement in the House of Commons, sparked immediate outrage from
the country's leading Jewish organization.
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- B'nai Brith Canada called on the Liberal government to
"repudiate" the comments by Mr. O'Brien.
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- "Mr. O'Brien's comments have crossed the line and
are totally unacceptable," said Rochelle Wilner, president of B'nai
Brith Canada.
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- Mr. O'Brien, a former chairman of the Commons defence
committee, told the House that the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon is
violating international law by building the security barrier.
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- "The wall denies basic human rights to the Palestinian
people and further reduces the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the status of
concentration camps," Mr. O'Brien said.
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- "The deplorable impact on the daily lives of the
Palestinian people is unconscionable."
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- Mr. O'Brien called the construction of the barrier "an
atrocity," and urged the government to express its "grave concerns"
to the Israeli government.
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- "It is neither anti-Israel, nor anti-Semitic to
criticize the inflammatory actions of the Sharon government," Mr.
O'Brien added.
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- "Like most Canadians, my hope is that Israel and
its Arab neighbours will agree to coexist peacefully and build bridges
of justice, not walls of desperation."
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- B'nai Brith was offended by Mr. O'Brien's evocation of
the Holocaust concentration camps of Nazi Germany to make his point.
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- "Not only is Mr. O'Brien abysmally ignorant of the
facts regarding the fence, but he has attacked it in a manner that is extremely
offensive and painful to Canadian Jews, particularly those who survived
the evil of Nazi Germany," said Ms. Wilner.
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- The fence is being constructed to save the lives of Jews,
Muslims and Christians from the "campaign of terror" being waged
from inside the West Bank and Gaza, added Ms. Wilner.
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- Frank Diamant, executive vice-president of B'nai Brith,
called on the Martin government to "formally distance itself from
Mr. O'Brien on this issue."
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- The security barrier includes 700 kilometres of winding
trenches, razor wire, fence walls and electronic sensors. Sometimes it
follows the boundary between Israel and the West Bank that existed before
the 1967 Mideast War, but it also dips deep into West Bank territory. Israel
has completed construction of about one-quarter of the wall.
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- Palestinians accuse Israel of a land grab, saying it
will disrupt the lives of innocent people. Israel says it needs the fence
to restrain suicide bombers that have claimed hundreds of Israeli lives
in the last three years.
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- Canada recently joined the United States, France, Australia
and other western countries in opposing an International Court of Justice
hearing on the legality of the barrier.
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- Canada abstained from a United Nations vote on the barrier
issue last fall, but has voiced its opposition to the court case, saying
it is a political, not a legal issue, that should be settled by the Israelis
and the Palestinians, as mandated by a UN Security Council Resolution.
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- The hearing of the International Court, whose findings
are non-binding on the parties, is to begin next week in The Hague.
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- © The Ottawa Citizen 2004
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- http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.
html?id=3da3b868-a889-47cb-bf8d-cde4c3cb7746
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