Green Party removes Palestinian rights defender from leadership race without justification
Photo Credit: (CJPME / Google Images)
Written by: Mohammed Abdullah
Yesterday, May 26, the Green Party of Canada removed fierce class action lawyer, Dimitri Lascaris, from the party’s leadership race. Dimitri has been a staunch defender of Palestinian, Indigenous, labour, environmental, and student rights.
As a Palestinian, when I heard that Dimitri Lascaris was running to lead the federal Green Party, I thought it was too good to be true. How could an actual advocate of human rights, one who supports Palestinian rights, and supports the boycott of the Israeli apartheid state, have a chance to be the leader of a federal party? Currently, all of the major Canadian federal party leaders have opposed the peaceful boycott movement by Palestinian solidarity groups and they have ignored or even supported Israel’s repeated violations of international law.
I, as a Palestinian, have been told for too long that my support for Palestine will destroy my future. That I need to keep quiet, while Zionists are “unapologetically” bringing colonial Israeli soldiers to our universities and expressing themselves freely. Why is it that Canadian supporters of Palestinian rights are always shut down? Where is the justice?
Unfortunately, all around the world, this is the reality for many supporters of the Palestinian cause. The Israeli lobby works extremely hard to instill fear in any opposition towards it by working with governments and organizations, globally, to suppress Palestinian voices.
The Zionist lobby, however, has not been able to suppress Mr. Lascaris. Mr. Lascaris has fearlessly condemned Israeli colonialism in the Canadian public. He has disrupted Canadian ministers and Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, expressing his outrage to the shooting of Palestinian-Canadian medic, Tarek Loubani, who was shot by Israeli snipers in Gaza in 2018. When Dimitri Lascaris ran in the Green Party of Canada’s leadership race, I immediately began telling everybody that I knew to register as a member of the federal Greens. I must note that I was never even a supporter of the Greens prior to Mr. Lascaris’ run, but as a young person, there was finally a potential leader I could be excited about.
Should the Green Party of Canada go through with their unjust decision to deny Mr. Lascaris from running in its Leadership race this fall, it will not only lose the support of many of its own members, but it will lose many potential members. Mr. Lascaris is a very intelligent, strong, and likeable person who could attract the interest of many Canadians who have been disenfranchised by the Canadian left.
Mr. Lascaris has not received any justification as to why the party is denying him the right to run in the race, although many, including myself, are suspecting that the Green elite, which has recently adopted the slogan of “not left, not right, but forward”, is not interested in providing space for an ecosocialist candidate who relentlessly stands with the Palestinian people and other oppressed groups, regardless of the potential opposition against his views.
Mr. Lascaris is currently appealing the Green Party’s decision to remove him from the race. I and many others will support him through this process and afterwards. I hope Mr. Lascaris’ appeal is successful and that the party will allow democracy to unfold.
Mr. Lascaris, throughout his race, has given me the strength to speak out against Israel’s human rights abuses. I know now that I can support Palestinian human rights and maybe one day, run for a federal party in Canada. This shameful decision by the Greens will only motivate me further to advance the Palestinian cause. It is only a matter of time before the tides change and Palestinian voices are heard loud and clear in Canadian politics. Justice is on our side.
#Justice4Lascaris
#FreeTheGreens
#FreePalestine
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