Canada Steers a Middle Course on Palestinian-Israeli Impasse Over Declaration of Palestinian Statehood

By Faisal Kutty

Yasser Arafat’s shuttle diplomacy in preparation for the May 4 ending of the five-year Oslo accord peace process brought him to Canada on March 24. After a 2-1/2-hour meeting with Arafat, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien sought to steer a middle course that neither endorsed a May 4 unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state nor continued Israeli procrastination in the peace process negotiations.

“We believe that through negotiations we should resolve the creation of the state for the Palestinians,” Chrétien told a joint press conference following the meeting.

Reports in the Canadian press suggested that the prime minister’s office was not enthusiastic about the visit. Before Arafat’s visit, Bakr Abdul Munem, the Palestinian representative in Canada, had called it a state visit.

Canadian officials rejected this characterization. “Any time he would like to visit we would be pleased to host him, but we don’t recognize the Palestinian Authority as a state. That is longstanding foreign policy,” said Leslie Swartman, a Canadian spokesperson. “I expect it would be described as a working visit.”

During Chrétien’s press conference, when asked whether Israel had the right to block the creation of a Palestinian state, he chose his words carefully to appease the Israeli lobby. “It is the policy of this government that we have to do it through negotiations, but it cannot be blocked forever,” Chrétien said. “It has to come eventually to a resolution.”

Nevertheless, Canada’s pro-Israel Jewish groups are up in arms. The Canada Israel Committee (CIC) wrote a letter to the prime minister’s office asking for clarification of Chrétien’s position, charging that acceptance of an eventual Palestinian state is contrary to established Canadian policy.

By acknowledging that a Palestinian state will be the result of negotiations, the CIC said, the government has prejudiced the outcome of such negotiations. The group called Chrétien’s position “a fundamental deviation from traditional Canadian Middle East policy.”

The Canadian Jewish Congress also issued a statement stressing that Arafat’s trip was not a state visit and called on the government to discourage the Palestinian leader from a unilateral declaration.

The Canadian Jewish News reported that some 20 Jewish community leaders met with Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy the day before Arafat’s arrival in Canada. The group reportedly presented Axworthy with a number of concerns: 1) Palestinians must accept the dispute resolution mechanism enshrined in the Oslo accords rather than going to the United Nations; 2) The leaders also voiced their opposition to Canada’s support of the February U.N. Security Council “vote to hold an emergency meeting on the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to areas conquered by Israel after the 1967 war. Canada is being asked not to attend such a meeting.”; 3) The Jewish leaders also wanted the results of the audit of Canada’s U.N. voting record; and 4) An elaboration and explanation of six unspecified principles of Canada’s Mideast policy.

During the visit Arafat also met Lloyd Axworthy, International Cooperation Minister Diane Marleau and International Trade Minister Sergio Marchi, who was in the West Bank and Gaza in February to finalize a trade agreement with Palestinian authority.

Canadian Albanians and Muslims Supporting Kosovars

About 400 Canadians held a peaceful rally in front of Toronto’s Queens Park on April 3. The group thanked Canada for its role in the NATO bombing raids over Serbia and called on the government to help the refugees and arm the Kosovars.

The organizers originally wanted to march from the Provincial Legislature at Queens Park to the U.S. Consulate to show support for America’s role, but changed plans after being advised against the march by police. The consulate had been the site of continuous protests by Serbs since day one of the bombing raids. In fact, during the first week the consulate was fire-bombed and a number of protestors arrested.

Speakers at the rally supported the bombing as the only way to prevent another Bosnia. Members of the larger Muslim community—including some Pakistanis, Indians, Somalis, Arabs and Bosnians—joined the rally. Two Socialist protestors were charged with disturbing the peace after they argued with rally supporters about the justification for the bombings.

The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) also has written a letter to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien asking the government to adopt a six-point policy on the crisis. The Congress called for: Canada’s continued support of NATO; arming and training Kosovars to protect themselves; supporting the independence of Kosovo; calling for the return of all displaced; indicting war criminals, including Slobodan Milosevic; and compelling Belgrade to pay war reparations. The letter concluded, “Once more we greatly appreciate the effort of our men and women in Canada’s armed forces and pray for their safety.”

In a further show of solidarity, more than 50 representatives of Canada’s Muslim community—including the Albanian Mosque and the Albanian Muslim Society—convened a meeting at the Toronto and Region Islamic Congregation (TARIC) Center to discuss the plight of Kosovars. Though initially called to address how the community could help the 5,000 refugees who were to be brought to Canada, the participants set up a Task Force to deal with the whole crisis. The Canadian Kosovo Task Force—co-chaired by Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, chair of CIC, and Haroon Salamat, president of TARIC—will work to ensure that the plight of the Kosovars is kept on the Canadian agenda and coordinate the provision of aid.

A number of Canadian Muslim organizations, including the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA-Canada), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA-Canada), the International Development and Refugee Foundation (IDRF), the Albanian Muslim Society and Human Concern International (HCI) are collecting funds to aid the Kosovars.

Crossing the Empty Quarter

Three Canadians have become the first Westerners in more than 50 years to cross the Empty Quarter (the Rub al-Khali) in the Arabian desert on camelback. The Empty Quarter is the world’s largest sand desert, covering some 300,000 square kilometers in the southern part of Saudi Arabia, and contains no proper roads or settlements.

Upon their return the adventurers were welcomed in their hometown of Calgary by family, friends and well-wishers, including schoolchildren who had followed the expedition over the Internet.

The group, composed of Jamie Clarke, brothers Leigh and Bruce Kirkby, three Bedouin guides and 12 camels, set out from Salalah in Oman on Feb. 3 after more than two years of planning.

During their 1,100-kilometer trek through parts of Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, they experienced thirst and extremes of temperature. “During the day, the heat is unbearable,” said Clarke, who scaled Mount Everest in 1997. “You are cursing the sun as you walk and wishing for it to go away. When night finally comes it’s cold, and you wish for the sun to come back. It’s almost schizophrenic.”

The group survived on brackish water (which was heated in goat skins by the scorching sun), dates, and dried camel meat during the five-week crossing which ended at the Persian Gulf in Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

According to the party the most astonishing natural phenomena were the sandstorms that enveloped them from time to time. The Bedouin guides were a godsend, as they knew from experience when a storm was approaching. Without such advance notice the group risked losing its supplies, equipment and even the camels. The storms start by blocking out the sunlight and then pick up speed and blow sand around the ankle level. The sand then picks up momentum and climbs up around one and begins to suffocate both animals and humans. The only way to survive is to close one’s eyes and only open the mouth partially to breathe.

The Calgary trio was grateful for the advice of Sir Wilfred Thesiger, the renowned British explorer, who inspired the expedition. Thesiger, now 88, crossed the Empty Quarter in 1946. During a meeting in London before the expedition, he repeatedly warned them, “Spare your camels all you can, your life depends on them.”

The Canadians tried to follow the same route and style of their hero but there were some significant differences. The Calgarians were equipped with all the latest electronic gadgetry, including personal locator beacons and Global Positioning Systems. In addition, they had satellite phones and access to e-mail through a laptop computer. Also, the expedition was followed by schoolchildren thanks to a Web site set up in collaboration with the Calgary Board of Education (www.alwaysadventure.net). The trio reportedly answered e-mails from 20,000 children during the crossing.

“I would never do this desert trek again,” said Jamie Clarke to the National Post. “The whole journey was about endurance and discomfort. The desert wore on me day after day. But it was also a land of incredible beauty. The silence of the desert was interrupted by the chirping of birds and rustling of leaves at the three oases we passed.”

A book and a film on the expedition are in the works.

Stateless Family Still Waiting

March 27 was the first anniversary of the day the Bahsous family sought sanctuary in the basement of a Toronto church after an order to stay their deportation was denied by Immigration Canada (see story in May/June 1998 issue of the Washington Report).

Seventy-year-old Nadim Bahsous and his four adult children, Jamal, 42, Faten, 35, Anwar, 32, and Elham, 30, three of whom suffer hereditary physical impairments, have not ventured beyond the walls of the Catholic Maronite church, Our Lady of Lebanon, since March 27, 1998. Food and basic necessities are brought to them by relatives and friends. Warrants have been issued against them under the Immigration Act for failing to show up for deportation.

The family’s unenviable predicament was summed up by the father, Nadim. “We sit here, we have nowhere to go,” said Nadim. “I have no passport, no government…I’ve been a refugee for more than 50 years, Where can I go?”

Upon arriving in Canada in 1995, Bahsous and his family sought refugee status. In January 1997, the Immigration and Refugee Board, the body set up to determine whether a person is a bona fide refugee, ruled that the family did not qualify. In its ruling, the board held that the family had endured discrimination and harassment “but not the serious harm to basic human rights that is normally equated to persecution.” Ironically, the board also noted: “They currently have no legal right to enter any country in the world,” but added that “sympathy is not a ground for a claim to [United Nations] Convention status.”

The family became stateless upon fleeing Palestine in 1948. Since then they have lived in Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and, briefly, in the United States, before coming to Canada. They have no status in any of the countries and do not possess any passports or travel documents. One of the family’s lawyers, Shoshana Green, told the Washington Report that they most likely would be deported to the United States, as this was their last country of transit. Since the family has no legal status there, however, legal experts predict that they would be held in immigration detention.

The family’s appeals were turned down and an application to sponsor them by another of Nadim’s daughters and her husband was rejected on a technicality. The couple, who recently obtained landed status after arriving from the United Arab Emirates, are eligible to sponsor the Bahsous family because under the current law a citizen or landed immigrant can sponsor his or her immediate family and their dependents. However the application reportedly was rejected because the family did not have proof of income for 12 months. The local Arab community’s offer to post a $100,000 bond to cover for this technicality and an offer to repay the $40,000 which the family had received in welfare payments were ignored by the government.

Supporters are hoping that Immigration Minister Lucienne Robillard will come through and grant the family permission to remain. “The minister has adjusted other people in sanctuary. It would not cost Canadians anything,” says Mendel Green, a leading immigration lawyer representing the family.

Observers note that the only thing stopping the family’s deportation is the public relations disaster that such an event would amount to. As the waiting game continues, the minister’s office refuses to comment.

Faisal Kutty is a Toronto-based lawyer and free-lance writer. He can be reached via e-mail at fkutty@law.com