July 30, 2006
Qana Bombing is Beyond Barbarism
MCC demands Israeli leaders be tried for War Crimes

TORONTO- The Muslim Canadian Congress has asked the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms. Louise Arbour to investigate the possibility of charging Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for War Crimes.

The MCC was reacting to the barbaric bombing of the Lebanese city of Qana where more than 54 civilians, at least 34 of them children, died as result of an air strike. The dead were part of displaced families that had been sheltering in the basement of a house in Qana, which was crushed after a direct hit by an Israeli bomb.

Lebanon's prime minister is right when he denounces "Israeli war criminals" and has appropriately cancelled talks with the US secretary of state, who by giving Israel the license to kill, has herself become complicit in the murder of Lebanese children.

The MCC statement said that while Hizbollah may be guilty of capturing two Israeli soldiers, Israel is guilty not only of kidnapping Lebanese sovereignty, but of acting like an unleashed pitbull set loose among the innocent children of Lebanon.

"We demand that for its own good, the Israeli pitbull be put back into its leash by its owner, the United States," said Jehad Aliweiwi, a board member of the MCC currently visiting Hebron in the occupied Palestine.

In the statement released this morning, Aliweiwi said, "As much as Israel may want us to believe, this war is no longer about Tel Aviv seeking security on its northern borders. Far from it, Israel's actions have immeasurably strengthened Hizbollah, not just in Lebanon, but across the Arab World," he added.

The MCC statement denounced Israel's bombing of UN outposts and Red Cross ambulances. It called for

• an immediate ceasefire and cessation of all hostilities by all parties
• introduction of an international peace keeping force on the border between Lebanon and Israel
• implementation of UN security resolution 1559
• handing over the captured Israeli soldiers by Hizbollah into the hands of the Lebanese government so that Israel does not have a pretext of destroying the country under the excuse of trying to secure the release of its soldiers

The MCC statement also asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper to take a more balanced position on the Middle East conflict. "Surely, Prime Minister Harper must have realized by now that the Israeli attacks on Lebanon were anything but a 'measured response' and that it is his obligation as a Prime Minister of all Canadians to reflect the views of all of us, not that of the White House," said Aliweiwi.

The statement noted that Hezbollah had shown flexibility in accepting the sovereignty of the Lebanese government over all of Lebanon. The MCC said there is a need for the Canadian government to use its good offices with both the US and Israel to impress on them the need to save innocent lives as the first priority. An immediate ceasefire must be implemented if we are to stop the catastrophe unfolding in the Middle East.

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