‘We are all Palestinian’: 2nd Iqaluit rally calls for Gaza ceasefire
Gathering took place nearly three months after deadly Hamas attack on Israel
A small group gathered in Iqaluit Saturday to call for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
A group of Iqaluit residents held a second rally Saturday, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as the war between Israel and Hamas enters its third month.
The group, numbering 17, met at the Four Corners intersection, marched to the legislative assembly, and then headed back to the intersection, where they briefly stopped traffic for about a minute.
They chanted several phrases including “Ceasefire now” and “We are all Palestinian.”
“We’re here today to try to raise awareness in Nunavut, Iqaluit, but also show support for the Palestinian people, and we won’t stop doing this until a ceasefire happens,” said Jennifer Lane, one of the protest leaders.
The current war in Gaza started after Oct. 7 when Hamas — a Gaza-based militant group which the Canadian government lists as a terrorist entity — launched an attack on parts of southwest Israel.
Approximately 1,200 people were killed in the attack and approximately 250 people were taken as hostages.
In retaliation, Israel declared war on Hamas.
Protesters in Iqaluit briefly blocked the Four Corners intersection on Saturday, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
However, the Israeli Defense Force’s aggressive military campaign is estimated to have killed 22,600 people according figures from the United Nations, and displaced 1.9 million, which represents approximately 85 per cent of the Gaza population.
Martin Griffiths, a UN emergency relief coordinator, said in a Jan. 5 statement that “Gaza has become a place of death and despair” as famine and disease worsens due to the lack of humanitarian aid.
In December, Canada was one of 153 countries that voted at the UN on a motion calling for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in the conflict.
Rallies in cities around the world have called for a ceasefire and for Israel to end its occupation and blockade of the Gaza Strip, which the UN described as an “open-air prison” in 2022.
While the gathering in Iqaluit was small, Lane said rallying for a ceasefire matters.
She said she knows people from Gaza who have been impacted by the war and the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it’s important to show that people here care about what’s happening overseas.
“I think by bringing a community of people together here, we’re showing that resilience and care and steadfastness worldwide, that human rights matter,” she said.
“I think Palestinian rights are Indigenous rights to those lands and we’re on Indigenous land here, and if we’re fighting for the rights of Indigenous people in Canada, in Nunavut, we should be doing the same worldwide.”
After the rally, some of the attendees headed to Iqaluit’s mosque for some food and coffee.
Shall we all be Israelis as well? The Palestinians did some pretty horrible things on October 7. Unprovoked violent attacks on civilians have consequences, and Israel has been trying very hard to avoid civilian casualties in their response. Of course, every terrorist claims to be a civilian, so the uneducated young Canadian activists have lots of them to mourn for. It’s a shame that Hamas uses women and children as human shields, resulting in some additional tragic deaths.
Sorry activists, your protests are losing steam, people are waking up to reality, and Israel is not responsible for Arab terrorism, no matter how you spin it.
So the “indigenous” are always the second last people to occupy a square of planet earth? It’s boggling that these “indigenous” activists can’t clue themselves into the fact that the Israeli jews were there before the more recent muslim arabs from other places moved in and labelled themselves very recently as “Palestinian”.
Inuit displaced prior indigenous folks too in Nunavut. Maybe it’s time we stop being so tribal and all learn to get along. Jews also have a spot on planet earth, whether activists like it or not.
99% sure some of them don’t even know why they are there? Do they know the history of whats going on?
They are there to be seen. To be associated with a chosen ‘thought tribe’ and earn everlasting honor (some say clout) among them.
Looks like about a dozen people showed up. Even NTI elections can get better turnouts.
The quote “we are all palestinians” chanted by the protesters is in accurate. Noting from the photograph of this article, it shows “Inuit” indigenous to Nunavut, and qallunaat who clearly are not immigrants (descendants) of Palestine. And, this group does not speak on behalf of, or, have authority to speak on behalf Nunavunmiut. So, no – Nunavumiittut are not all palestinians. These protestors definitely do not speak for my family.
killing 10,000 children would be considered a very VERY bad thing.
You can’t have it both ways. Either, “Gaza has become a place of death and despair”
or Gaza was already an “open-air prison”
The Benjamin Netanyahu administration is surviving in power with war as the reason for its hold on power. You need to read news from multiple sources to learn what is happening. George Galloway, Yanis Varofakis, Ben Norton are a few that give a less bias read. As millions are spent by the press to influence public opinion and as many do not read beyond a headline we are a society too easily manipulated into believing half truths and propagandas.
I believe Canada called for a “humanitarian pause” not a ceasefire, as the latter would give the Hamas time to re-group for their next attack.
I think a “we are Israel” protest would attract more followers in Iqaluit. And to compare Inuit to Palestinians is a joke. Even other muslim countries including Egypt do not want to take Palestinians as they always spell trouble. But now Canada is welcoming them in. .
Anyone siding with Israel in this “unprovoked” war must ask themselves “why has Netanyahu for years actively supported Hamas?” as is widely reported in Israel and abroad.
Have some strangers take over your land, build walls, control, oppress – for decades – and then commit genocide against you. And then argue about semantics. A few words.
It is odd how people like Lane can claim to be ‘oppressed’ but at the same time act as ‘oppressor’. with their hateful antisemitic rhetoric. Jeeze, maybe the world isn’t a simple binary of oppressed-oppressor and that people wear many hats simultaneously.
Oh well, on a positive note I didn’t see any of the genocidal ‘From the River to the Sea’ signs, so that is an improvement. Shows that they are learning.
Here’s the thing. The Israeli govt wants to empty gaza of gazans. That’s why they ARE killing non-combatants and children. This is literally genocide. Israel wants its lebensraum
Lets not play pretend with ourselves. If Israel wanted Lebensraum it would probably just take it. This fight is hardly The Thrilla in Manilla …
Yet another person who doesn’t know what genocide is.
I despair for our education system.
We should be protesting , housing conditions , suicide, homeless, 30 percent of children go to bed at nite hungry, cost of food, airline ticket prices, transportation costs, unemployment in smaller community’s, lack of skilled tradespeople, education, spousal abuse, lack of mental health support, not enough doctors,why in gods name do we let these elites get front page news , wake up in the morning and try to help Nunavut be better .
Ian, what’s stopping you? Go and do it
In case you haven’t noticed, Inuit are not radical, aggressive social justice warriors. That doesn’t mean that we enjoy oppression. We all deserve homes and quality of life.
To Radical:
Inuit are indeed the most effective, radical, aggressive social justice warriors. That is how we got acceptance of contol of the largest piece of land in the world.
.
We did it without outward violence, though that suppressed outrage might be part of the reason for our high level of domestic violence.
I believe saying anything supporting Palestinian, especially a group of civilians being killed by Israel as antisemitic is rhetoric…who is actually spewing rhetoric.
Of course the iqaluit mosque sponsored this event. Thugs on both sides of this conflict. Current palestine government and current Israel government don’t seem to care much for peaceful resolution. Palestinians should be fighting against hamas the same way Israel should be demanding Netanyahu resign. Middle East is not Nunavut. So sad seeing people try to bring Middle East problems to Canada. Taima.
In your opinion, where do those things you want come from?
It’s actually Jews who were always indigenous to their land and Judea which is part of Israel land -guess what? Jews were named by this area and were living there for thousands of years. stunning, eh? and actually, Arabs were those nomads, Shepards, and slave dealers that were moving from place to place due to their native usual life habits. Propagating terrorism won’t paint you in beautiful colors, shame on you!
just wondering, who allways comes up with the ideas of a march to protest for this and protest for that in iqaluit and then the news say, us inuit made a march for wich ever thing was on flavour and fashion at the time, some qabloonak out there making us do this just cause they are protester,and watch the news like a hawks to make shure she or he dont miss the opportunity to have us inuit march for a fly on the breed after seeing a report of bad breed on tv news kinda like, wich ever happen or subject you ask us and make us walk for,are not our ideas,but yours., its such a long time i have that in my head, about some darn Qabloonaq activist/Arnarchist forcing us and using us as puppets for their on ideas, not ours, we are more concern about nortmart price,local income,jobs,food insecurity,Housing,Freedoom and police brutality then your abstract colonial concept of in order to be good we got to comply and manifest about everything that are in the current media.why ?
What nonsense. If these people cared about Gaza, they would demand that Hamas surrender. Hamas is a genocidal Islamic terrorist group, and there can never be peace until it surrenders or is destroyed.
Yeah…no.
Palestine, historically, has never actually existed. Israel, as a historical region, has always existed.
I do not stand with Hamas. I stand with Israel.
Pretty shocked by the majority of comments here. Almost like people have been miseducated for 75 years or something… or you’re bots? Hm.
Learn about what happened in 1948, learn about the decades of displacement of people from the region, the occupation of the area, the squeezing of the population into smaller areas, isolated from the rest. Go read statements of the current Israeli government – they are an extreme right wing government with extreme, racist policies intended to dehumanize Palestinians to gain more territory.
Human rights are non negotiable. Period. You cannot pick and choose, deciding that some human lives have value and others don’t, or else we’re all on the chopping block. That’s the point of these rallies. That’s the point of “we are all Palestinian” because we are all human with inherent rights. Our tax dollars are also being spent on supporting Israel’s efforts, so every Canadian absolutely has a stake in this.
The way the Nazi’s convinced Germans that Jews should be killed was by dehumanizing them. We cannot allow this to happen now. Never again means never again.
Try critical thinking instead of buying into the narrative. This is a hamas problem not an Israel problem. Many middle Eastern countries still believe in ethnic cleansing, punish homosexuality with death, think Islam is the only acceptable school of thought, and want women to remain oppressed. 75 years is nothing compared to the thousands of years of true oppression that the Palestinians have had to endure in the name of religion.
Human history, particularly human history in the Levant goes back a lot farther than 1948.
It’s curious to me that so many of the “colonialism bad” crowd are willing to apply this kind of hard limitation on indigeneity. At what point did it stop mattering that the Levantine Jewish population had been driven out of their lands? My ancestors were forced to come here almost 200 years ago. When does this limitation apply to me? Or am I correct in my assumption that it will never apply to me?
Nunavut has not been touched lightly by the hands of organized religion. I think people should have some consideration for that before they import in more religious conflict into here from the other side of the planet.
When one set of religious guys attacks another set of religious guys, and then they get battered in return I say, was there ever any serious doubt? The worst atrocities are always committed by the religious zealot. The only thing yet to be determined is how long it will take Hamas to reconstitute itself to attack again, or for the Zionist to provoke him again.
Until such time as the people of the middle east figure out how to use free rational thought and the principles of humanism, and not religion, to solve their problems, nothing warrants a protest or support march here.
Keep your banner waving crae-crae to yourself.
How many thousands of dead babies before the slaughter deserves a protest, in your opinion?
Israel has existed in the Bible for a few thousand years. On maps, not so much.
Yea, that’s not the thing. The thing is most definitely not the thing that the thing tellers tell you what the thing is. In whatever is trending down is up and the thing is whatever you identify as.
Jews were “driven off their lands” in the 4th century AD by the Romans. They popped up 1400 years later saying “Your house is on my land”. If 1400 years absent doesn’t void a land claim then nothing does.
Why denigrate Arabs as “slave dealers” when the Old Testament (written by Jews) is essentially a love-letter to slave ownership?
Not without jeopardizing the annual tens of billion$ in weapons from the USA they wouldn’t. Outrage in America at the baby body count in Gaza has never been higher – Israel knows it can’t go full-genocide on Palestinians, which is why the IDF use the term “mowing the grass” to refer to the periodical massacre of Palestinian civilians to control the population and “encourage” the survivors to leave.
Canada must remain neutral during any conflict between countries or people.
After all it is non of it is our business what happens on the other side of the world.
Canada needs to be focused on Canada and Canadian issues. We do not need to meddle in other peoples affairs.
After the fighting, Canada needs to be prepared to help them rebuild only after peace deals are in place and being followed.
Anyone siding with Israel in this “unprovoked” war must ask themselves “why has Netanyahu for years actively supported Hamas?” as is widely reported in Israel and abroad.
Did you see the underground weapons factory the IDF found? Hidden under hospitals, the Hamas are very cunning.
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