Canada needs to act now to ban all trade with Israel's illegal settlements to comply with international law and end complicity in abuses.
Joint civil society letter: https://t.co/YWJO9ypeSn
Recently reported in The Lancet, "Petition calls for boycott of Israeli Medical Association". I'm a signatory on this petition, along with more than 1,150 health professionals and organisations.
"Health organisations are calling for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) over what they say are violations of medical ethics and international humanitarian law in the war in Gaza. The People's Health Movement (PHM), Artsen voor Gaza (Doctors for Gaza), and Health Advisory Council of the Jewish Voice for Peace want the IMA to be suspended from the World Medical Association (WMA) over its failure to speak out against the genocide of Palestinians, the destruction of health-care infrastructure, and the torture and killing of health-care workers in Gaza."
Read more here: https://t.co/UOKQZIokmL
Why has Canada found it so difficult to move beyond statements in response to grave violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza?
At the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, former Canadian Ambassador to Israel, Jon Allen, offered his assessment.
This is absolutely insane.
The suffragettes used far more extreme tactics than Palestine Action.
They planted bombs, burned down private homes and smashed up art galleries.
They killed five people!
Her outrageous judgement is based on absurd historical ignorance.
The illegality of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is one of the most well-established positions in international law, resting on four distinct pillars:
📜 GENEVA CONVENTIONS
Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) explicitly prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. Israel ratified the Convention in 1951. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the authoritative interpreter of humanitarian law, has consistently held that this provision applies directly to the settlements.
🌐 UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS
The Security Council has repeatedly affirmed settlement illegality — including in binding resolutions the US did not veto:
• Res. 446 (1979): settlements have "no legal validity"
• Res. 465 (1980): calls on Israel to dismantle existing settlements
• Res. 2334 (2016): passed 14-0 (US abstained), explicitly states settlements constitute "a flagrant violation of international law" and have "no legal validity"
⚖️ ICJ RULINGS
• Advisory Opinion on the Wall (2004): the Court found settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, had been established in breach of international law, and that the wall built to protect them compounded that illegality
• Advisory Opinion on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2024): the Court went further, ruling that Israel's continued presence in the OPT — including the settlement enterprise — is itself unlawful, and called on all states not to recognise or assist it
🏛️ UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Countless UNGA resolutions have reaffirmed settlement illegality, including Res. 77/247 (2023), which requested the landmark 2024 ICJ opinion.
No serious legal scholar disputes this consensus. The settlements are illegal. The only remaining question is whether the international community will act on it.
🍁 🍁🍁🍁🍁
Monsanto wanted its growth hormone in every glass of Canadian milk. One government scientist stood in the way and his own bosses spent 14 years trying to destroy him for it.
His name was Dr. Shiv Chopra.
Born in India, 1934. Came to Canada in the 1960s. PhD in microbiology. Senior scientist at Health Canada's Bureau of Veterinary Drugs. 35 years reviewing drug applications. Approve the safe ones. Reject the unsafe ones. Protect the public.
For 20 years he did it quietly.
Then Monsanto came knocking.
A new drug. Bovine growth hormone. Brand name Posilac. Inject it into dairy cows, get 10-15% more milk. Bigger profits for the industry. Far bigger profits for Monsanto. The FDA had rubber-stamped it in 1993. Monsanto expected Canada to follow.
The file landed on Chopra's desk.
He started reading the science. He started finding holes.
The data was thin. Long-term safety studies were missing. The cow studies that did exist showed lameness, mastitis, reproductive failure, shortened lifespans.
If it was doing that to the cow, what was it doing to the milk?
His recommendation: reject it. Demand real safety data.
His managers had a different idea.
Approve it. The Americans approved it. Why are you holding it up? Just sign off.
He refused.
So the pressure started. Closed-door meetings. Attempts to pull the file and hand it to someone friendlier. Gag orders don't talk to the media, don't talk to anyone. Suspensions. Reprimands. Demotions. Dead-end reassignments.
He kept refusing.
Two other scientists refused with him. Dr. Margaret Haydon. Dr. Gérard Lambert. Same data. Same alarm. Same answer.
In 1998 the Canadian Senate launched an investigation into what was happening inside Health Canada.
Chopra and his colleagues did something almost nobody does. They walked into the Senate and testified under oath. Said managers were pressuring them to approve unsafe drugs. Said industry was running the regulator. Said the system was broken.
It made headlines around the world.
In 1999, Health Canada rejected Monsanto's application. rBGH would not be approved. Europe banned it next. Then most of the developed world.
Sit with that. One immigrant scientist in Ottawa beat one of the largest chemical corporations on Earth — and won.
Then his own government fired him for winning.
July 14, 2004. After 35 years of service, Health Canada fired Chopra, Haydon, and Lambert on the same day. Official reason: insubordination. Real reason: he embarrassed them in front of the country.
The same year, the Prime Minister mailed him a gold watch for "illustrious service." While they were firing him. He called it comedy.
He sued to clear his name. The fight took 13 years. He lost appeal after appeal. The final ruling came down in 2017. Three months later, in January 2018, he died. 83 years old. Never reinstated. Never given his pension back. Never owed an apology by anyone.
But here is what they could never take back.
rBGH is still banned in Canada today. Every glass of Canadian milk is still hormone-free — because one man refused to sign.
And the United States? Never banned it. It's still legal there. Right now.
He kept it out of Canada and they fired him. The system he fought is still pouring it into glasses across the border.
So tell me below was Shiv Chopra a hero, or just a troublemaker who got what was coming to him? Pick a side. Because someone in those meetings is still telling scientists to "just sign off."
.@FIFAcom removed Russia days after they invaded Ukraine for FIFA rule violations, but refuse to take any action against @ISRAELFA – who even play official games on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
"The Toronto activists also said they want to bring attention to Natalie Abu Dayyeh, a 20-year-old Palestinian football player whom Israel detained in the week before the @FIFAWorldCup, and Dr. @HussamAbuSafiya, who was abducted by Israel in 2024 and has been detained ever since...he has shown signs of torture."
#EndTheGenocide
#ShowIsraelTheRedCard
#WorldCup2026
#FreePalestine
Yesterday in the UK, a judge ruled against four direct action activists who damaged Israeli military assets owned by Elbit Systems in 2024. They are facing years of jail time and were sentenced for an “act of terrorism”, for attempting to slow down the weapons production and movement from the UK to Israel where these weapons and technology are used in daily acts of terrorism and genocidal violence against Palestinians in Gaza. We live in a time where the people of conscience who try to stop genocide are labeled as terrorists and the war profiteers and politicians who make the laws to defend them enjoy full impunity.
Israel says it won’t leave Lebanon, Syria, or Palestine.
A genocidal, expansionist state can openly declare the intent to occupy three nations without generating a single headline in Western media.
It should be illegal, even criminal, to sell stolen property in illegally occupied Ukraine.
And it should be as illegal & criminal to sell stolen property in the #WestBank.
London mayor slams event touting illegal Israeli settlement land sales: https://t.co/WoMr1pWc7a
The world’s largest human rights organization published a report today on Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and there’s barely any media coverage.
How is this not newsworthy?
This is a completely fabricated non-crisis. The only crisis is Zionist organizations panicking that they're losing control of the narrative as Israel continues its blatant genocide. Whipping up fake fears is how they hope to distract and further suppress honest discourse.
If a Christian or Muslim politician invoked his faith like this to support war crimes he would rightfully be pilloried by media as a religious extremist.
Silence when it's a Jewish extremist. #cdnpoli
You cannot commit genocide in Gaza, invade Lebanon, bomb Iran, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, violate Geneva and Vienna Conventions, international law, human rights, and state sovereignty, then hide behind anti-Semitism.
There is no rise in anti-Semitism. There is a rise in the number of people who are very angry at what Israel is doing. Your inability to separate the two is equally problematic.