Tag Archives: SFSC article

SFSC/rabble: Who’s afraid of a map? Palestine bus ads spark debate in Vancouver

By Brian Campbell, Seriously Free Speech Committee, rabble.ca, Sept. 12, 2013

Palestinians and supporters of Palestinian human rights are constantly frustrated by the near-monopoly of the Zionist perspective in the dominant media. Most people find it difficult to learn the consequences of illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine and to hear the stories of Palestinians.

Avenues explored to increase international awareness of the Palestine situation have included Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, protests, conferences, teach-ins, web sites and alternative media. These efforts have contributed to the dramatic changes taking place in North American and European understanding of the occupation and the daily lives of Palestinians.

Using billboards and transit advertising space to present a public educational message about Palestine has been a recent tactic. Following the lead of other North American cities, Vancouver Palestine supporters bought advertising space on buses for maps depicting Disappearing Palestine. The Palestine Awareness Coalition (PAC), consisting of seven Vancouver solidarity organizations with a wide-range of political and activist orientations, purchased $15,000 worth of advertising space in one Skytrain station and on the sides of 15 buses for one month. Continue reading

SFSC: Ad Series Brings “Disappearing Palestine” to Vancouver Public Transit

transitadPalestine Awareness Coalition, August 27, 2013 – The realities of Palestinian land loss are on display in Vancouver, as a new series of transit ads has been posted at the Vancouver City Centre SkyTrain station and on 15 TransLink buses, on August 27, 2013. The ads, created by the Palestine Awareness Coalition, made up of seven Vancouver-area peace and justice groups, depict the “disappearance” of Palestine due to Israeli occupation over the past 66 years. Continue reading

SFSC: DISAPPEARING PALESTINE! HELP MAKE IT VISIBLE!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. What about four pictures- graphic images depicting “Disappearing Palestine” and placed strategically on the Vancouver transit system? We think they are worth a lot. We hope you do too. This fall they will be seen by hundreds of thousands of people in Metro Vancouver.

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SFSC: What must be said – Poem by Gunter Grass, translation by Michael Keefer & Nica Mintz

What must be said

Günter Grass

Why have I kept silent, silent for too long
over what is openly played out
in war games at the end of which we
the survivors are at best footnotes.

It’s that claim of a right to first strike
against those who under a loudmouth’s thumb
are pushed into organized cheering—
a strike to snuff out the Iranian people
on suspicion that under his influence
an atom bomb’s being built.

But why do I forbid myself
to name that other land in which
for years—although kept secret—
a usable nuclear capability has grown
beyond all control, because
no scrutiny is allowed.

The universal silence around this fact,
under which my own silence lay,
I feel now as a heavy lie,
a strong constraint, which to dismiss
courts forceful punishment:
the verdict of “Antisemitism” is well known.

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SFSC Video: Sh*t Students Can’t Say (About Israel)

Video by the SERIOUSLY FREE SPEECH COMMITTEE

Video Clip References:

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SFSC: Presentation to the Vancouver Public Library Board re Palestine Statehood Event

Presentation to Vancouver Public Library Board, 2 Nov. 2011

My name is Anne Roberts and I am representing the Seriously Free Speech Committee, a group of people in this region who work to ensure – and encourage – free and open debate about the contentious issue of Palestine and Israel. Seriously Free Speech began in 2008 as a defense organization for three activists who were being sued by Canwest for putting out a parody of the Vancouver Sun and its one-sided Middle East coverage and support for Israel.

The letter that you received from the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver — and the even more strident letter from the Simon Weisenthal Centre — are  prime  examples of why our group’s work is necessary to defend the right of free speech.

The federation urged city council and the library board to shut down a discussion of Palestinian statehood that involved an analysis of the legitimacy of the State of Israel.  Their reasons: 1) the discussion is intensely political; 2) it is hostile to Israel; 3) no political propaganda either for or against Israel should be allowed in the library.   As well, the Federation charged that the event would 4) endanger people’s safety and physical security.

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Georgia Straight: Labeling criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic is the new McCarthyism

Jack Chivo constructs a sham argument in defence of Israel that relies on a false – and dangerous — definition of antisemitism.  To give it credibility, he calls it the European Union’s definition.  Not so.  It’s connection, at best, is quite tangential.  What it is is a “working definition” adopted by a monitoring committee established by the EU, but it was never adopted by the EU.  The EU’s monitoring committee (EUMC) doesn’t even exist anymore.  It’s successor, the Agency for Fundamental Rights, has no plans for using the “working definition.”  It has no future use except as it can be used for propaganda.

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SFSC: CPCCA report threatens Canadian’s democratic rights, free speech

The report issued last week by an unofficial coalition of parliamentarians is a threat to the  democratic rights of Canadians as the group makes recommendations to protect Israel from international criticism.

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SFSC: CPCCA Report is a “McCarthyist diatribe”

I published the book Antisemitism Real and Imagined last year in response to the already clear evidence of bias, bad faith, and fakery in the work of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism. Now, more than a year behind schedule, the CPCCA has published its own Report. I hope Canadian journalists will be forthright enough to represent it to the public for what it is: a McCarthyist diatribe that exaggerates the actuality of antisemitism in this country, misrepresents the evidence of the Coalition’s own inquiry, makes scurrilous insinuations about human rights activists and NGOs, and draws inflammatory conclusions from discredited ‘experts’.

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SFSC: CPCCA Releases Report more than one year late

The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA) released its final report yesterday, more than a year after it was first promised to appear. For the last two years, the Seriously Free Speech Committee has been involved in national campaign to expose the CPCCA and its agenda to demonise and silence critics of the state of Israel. Continue reading