Marilyn Gladu doesn’t represent me

Sarnia resident Micheline Steele calls for local accountability and action regarding international human rights concerns and their connection to local representation.

“Pull a thread here and you’ll find it’s attached to the rest of the world.”
― Nadeem Aslam

On March 30^th we watched Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and several members of the Knesset pop a bottle of “champagne” in celebration of the passing of a death penalty bill which targets Palestinians while exempting Israelis. They were wearing lapel pins in the shape of a noose.

I’m sitting with this; trying to process the hate and dehumanization. I think about people who still yell from their cars, “Go back home!” to protesters who ARE home. I think about corporate media, a system that has largely failed to report two plus years of atrocities perpetrated on the people of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the power of the language they choose to use when they do. I think about my own MP Marilyn Gladu, who continues to support Israel unconditionally while crimes against humanity pile up; while she sees this apartheid bill passed and celebrated. She doesn’t represent me.

There’s a lot wrong with this bill. A few “low lights” –

• Palestinians in the West Bank are tried in military court where there is a 96% conviction rate, “based largely on 'confessions' extracted under duress and torture." [B’tselem] NOTES: Under international law Israel does not have the right to enforce domestic law in the OPT.
  93.6% of Israeli “settler” crimes against Palestinians are closed without indictment.
• Those sentenced to death will be held in a separate facility. No visits except authorised personnel. Legal consultations only by video link. Executions carried out within 90 days of sentencing.
• Severely restricted appeal rights

This genocide IS a local issue. It may not be happening on our doorstep, we may elect to look away, but our failure to act, to speak up in some way allows injustice to flourish.

It’s never too late to act. Your voice is needed.

– Micheline Steele