Sixty- First Anniversary of the State of Israel

Honourable senators, sundown this evening will mark the beginning of the celebrations of the sixty-first anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel according to the Jewish calendar.

In 1948, the United Nations determined that what was then Palestine should be divided into two parts, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state. The Jews agreed to that partition, but the Arabs did not. The Palestinians really had nothing to say about the matter because the surrounding Arab states did not permit them to express any preference.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Honourable senators, the philosopher and historian George Santayana taught us that those who forget the lessons of history are condemned to relive it.
 
Today is Yom Hashoah, the day of remembrance of the Holocaust that witnessed the virtual destruction of European Jewry and the wanton murder of 6 million Jews solely because they were Jews.
 

Treaty on Cluster Munitions

. . . I support Senator Hubley’s inquiry and congratulate her for having initiated it. . . I wholly support the thrust of the inquiry, which is intended to encourage the permanent banning of cluster bombs.

I paid special attention to the speech given by Honourable Senator Prud’homme last Tuesday in connection with this inquiry. Regrettably, it contained three great flaws…

Anti-Semitism

Honourable senators, yesterday, I was unable to complete my statement about anti-Semitism because the time required for Senators’ Statements had terminated. I propose to complete my statement now.

Anti-Semitism

Honourable senators, we are witnessing a distressing series of events in Canada that are reminiscent of darker chapters in world history. The first event is the passage of a resolution on February 22 by the Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees calling on its members to support a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and, by definition, Israeli academics.

Canada can make a difference in Darfur

Since 2003, more than 300,000 people have died as a result of the conflict in Darfur. Chronic violence and instability have also displaced 2.3 million people in the region, one million of whom are children. Looting and attacks on civilians are commonplace, and it is estimated that thousands of women and girls have been raped.

ISRAEL’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY

Honourable senators, today marks the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Honourable senators, today, May 1, marks Holocaust Memorial Day, commemorating the wilful, diabolically planned and systematically planned extermination in a most unimaginably brutal way of an entire people — the Jewish people — before and during the Second World War. This extermination was not a by-product of a civil war or an insurrection. It was a planned, intended hate-motivated campaign against Jews solely because they were Jews.

Iran-Efforts to Establish Trade Relations

"Honourable senators, Iran has been referred to as a member of the ‘axis of evil.’ That country is ruled by a dictatorial president who is maniacally psychotic and seeks the destruction of Israel.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

"…Honourable senators, on January 27, 1945, the Soviet army marched through the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp liberating the pitiful few remaining prisoners. Shortly before this date, the Nazis had taken 60,000 of those prisoners on a forced death march and 15,000 of them perished on that march.