
Canadians of Palestinian descent seek legal options against government
jackson rennebohm, contributor
Gaza, Palestine, 1967. The homeland of 15 year-old Hany El-Batnigi and his family. Hany does not know it yet, but his time in his home is to be cut tragically short: Israeli forces are soon to launch an offensive which will displace roughly 500,000 from their centuries-old homes. It will be known as “The Six Day War”, and Hany and his family will be forced to leave under the threat of death. He will not see his homeland again for over half of a century. Israeli forces will occupy Gaza for nearly as long, until 2005 when they disengaged from the strip.
Ottawa, Canada, 1989. A new city in another land, and an opportunity for the El-Bagniti family and Hany, now 27. Over the course of his life here, Hany will earn his Canadian citizenship, and will work hard to create a new home in this new country, known to many for its people’s supposed kind and polite nature.
Gaza, Palestine, September 2023. 56 years later, and at the age of 71, Hany El-Batnigi finally returns to his homeland for the first time since his departure. However, it will not be a lasting or cheerful homecoming. In a few short months since Hany’s return, Israel will have bombed his homeland to rubble and dust.
Two million Gazans will have been displaced from their homes. Hany’s niece and her children will be lost to an airstrike. His sister will be shot by an Israeli sniper. Amidst the carnage, a fellow Palestinian-Canadian from Gaza, named Tamer Jarada, will lose both parents, two sisters, two nephews, an uncle, an aunt, and eight cousins. This left Hany El-Batnigi, the 71 year-old Palestinian-Canadian pensioner, no other option than to make a dangerous trek to cross the Egyptian border, where he managed to narrowly escape the genocide of his people.
Ottawa, Canada, November 2024. As of the fifth of the month, Hany El-Batnigi and Tamer Jarada, together represented by a team of seven lawyers, have filed a litigation against Prime Minister Trudeau’s government. Their case alleges that Trudeau’s government violated its duty under Article 1 of the Genocide Convention to prevent genocide, and has violated the Plantiff’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (CCRF).
The litigation’s team have outlined five of many instances where Canada failed in its duty to prevent the genocide of Palestinians: “Canada’s suspension of funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA); Canada’s increased arms exports to Israel; Canada’s procurement of arms from Israel’s state-owned industry; the maintenance of the Canada-Israel Strategic Partnership; and cooperation between the Canadian military and the Israeli military.”
Canada’s failure to prevent genocide has led the case to seek four declarations from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The first states, “that Canada has a common law duty to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide.” The second states, “that Canada has violated the Plaintiffs’ rights to security of the person, contrary to section 7 of the Charter”. The third states, “that Canada has violated the Plaintiffs’ rights to equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination, contrary to section 15 of the Charter.” The final declaration states, “that [Canada’s] violations of the Plaintiffs’ rights… do not accord with principles of fundamental justice and are not saved by section 1 of the Charter”.
The Legal Centre for Palestine (LCP) state on their website that “these declarations will set an important legal precedent, and pave the way for future legal actions aimed at holding the Canadian government accountable for its complicity in the genocide of Palestinians.” El-Batnigi and Jarada’s seven-person legal team receive funding by the LCP, a non-profit run on donations and volunteer work and dedicated to providing legal aid to Palestinians. The Plaintiff’s seven lawyers are Prof. Faisal Bhaba, Prof. Emilio Dabed, Shane Martinez, Jouman El-Asmar, Yavar Hameed, Asaf Rashid, and Dimitri Lascaris.
This November, the Carillon spoke to Dimitri Lascaris over the phone. During the interview Lascaris was asked for his opinion as to why Canada is doing little to stop the death toll from rising in Palestine.
“What is their agenda? Basically, the agenda of Western governments is hegemony. They want to be in charge, they want to control as much of the world’s resources and material wealth as possible. So, if achieving those goals would be undermined by respecting international law and human rights, then they simply disregard international law and human rights. So that’s exactly what’s happening here. Israel is situated in the world’s most oil-rich region. It is also a place of great geopolitical significance, because West Asia is essentially a nexus between Europe, Africa, and Asia. The trade routes of West Asia are extremely important. So they want to control that region, they want to control its resources, which are fundamental to the functioning of the global economy, and Israel is basically their attack-dog in the region,” Lascaris claimed.
When asked whether or not it’s possible to hold Western governments accountable, Lascaris explained that “Protest is probably the least important thing,” going on to say that what’s most important are boycotts and legal action. Beyond this, Lascaris says that the outcome of the war in Gaza is going to be “decided by non-Western powers. It’s going to be decided by resistance groups in the region, and their supporters, and the resistance groups in the region are supported by Russia and China. Russia and China, unfortunately for Western governments, especially when they get together in a partnership, they become so powerful that they can no longer be dominated by the West. Ultimately, I think all of that together is going to result in Israel’s defeat and the West’s defeat in West Asia.”
Since the Carillon’s interview with Lascaris in November, a ceasefire deal has been struck between Israel and Palestine’s militant group, Hamas. Several Israeli and Palestinian hostages have since been released.
In closing, Lascaris spoke to those losing faith in governmental leaders and institutions. Lascaris stated that he “unequivocally” opposes violence against fellow citizens, but that “we need to disrupt the system in a serious way” by engaging in “civil disobedience” that is persistent and large-scale. According to Lascaris, “one-off protests are not going to do the job. But even if just three or four million Canadians, ten percent of the population, repeatedly took to the streets, and ground cities’ economies to a halt for an entire day, have general strikes, this government would come to its senses pretty fast. We just have not, as a population, answered the call. Some of us have, but not enough of us.”