Just Peace Advocates

Activities

• Just Peace Advocates is a “Canadian Campaign National Partner” for “No Way to Treat a Child,” a campaign initiated by Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P) and American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), aimed at “challeng[ing] and end[ing] Israel’s prolonged military occupation of Palestinians by exposing widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system.” The groups call upon the Canadian government to pressure Israel to end alleged “abuse of Palestinian children” and encourage supporters to write members of Parliament on behalf of their cause.
  • Other “campaign partners” include Amnesty International Canada, Canadian Friends of Sabeel, Christian Peacemaker Teams – Canada, Mennonite Central Committee- Canada, and Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CPJME).
• Just Peace Advocates endorses the Independent Jewish Voices’ campaign titled “Stop JNF Canada” to “revoke JNF Canada’s charitable status and expose, challenge and stop the JNF’s discriminatory and harmful activities.”
• In September 2024, Just Peace Advocates organized rallies at 20 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) offices across the country to “challenge the CRA over its lax attitude towards charities assisting Israel’s genocide.” According to Just Peace Advocates Executive Director Karen Rodman, “On International Day of Charity we are telling the Canada Revenue Agency that groups promoting genocide shouldn’t be considered charity…Forcing all Canadians to subsidize the Israeli military, racist organizations and West Bank colonies is a perversion of charity.”
• In January 2024, Just Peace Advocates held a “seminar for activists and organisations in Canada” on the “current International Court of Justice cases on the Gaza genocide and the il/legality of the occupation, the International Criminal Court investigations, the application of the Genocide Convention to the situation in Palestine, and the relationship between genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”
• In October 2023, in response to an explosion outside the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, Just Peace Advocates published an article referring to “Israel’s massacre at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital” and calling on Prime MInister Trudeau to “stop enabling genocide in Gaza.” Just Peace Advocates ignored the videos, images, and intelligence materials demonstrating that an Islamic Jihad rocket had “misfired” (i.e. detonated in Gaza instead of Israel) and hit the hospital parking lot.
• In October 2023, Just Peace Advocates launched a petition to the Canadian government to “condemn Israeli war crimes against Palestinians…the international community must cooperate to end Israel’s illegal occupation and dismantle Israel’s apartheid regime.”
• In February 2023, Just Peace Advocates was a signatory on a letter to the Canadian Minister of Transport Pablo Rodriguez and Minister of International Development of Canada Ahmed Hussen “opposing the use’ of the IHRA definition. According to the letter, “applying the IHRA WDA for the purposes of vetting, attestation, and training sets a dangerous precedent that would suppress the fundamental rights of Canadians to freedom of expression protected under section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In effect, it would institute a different double standard, singling out Israel and its policies for protection from anti-racist critique, while permitting similar speech in reference to other countries.”
  • The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, adopted by nearly 30 countries and counting, represents the international consensus definition of antisemitism, as well as how to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. An example of the latter includes denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
• In May 2022, Just Peace Advocates launched a collective statement of solidarity in support of Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat and Samidoun.
  • In February 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense designated Samidoun a terrorist organization and “a subsidiary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).” According to the Ministry, Samidoun was founded by “members of the PFLP in 2012,” and Khaled Barakat, identified by the PFLP as “coordinator” of Samidoun, “is involved with establishing militant cells and motivating terrorist activity in Judea & Samaria and abroad.”
• In October 2021, Just Peace Advocates participated in a campaign titled “No Tech for Apartheid,” calling on Google and Amazon to “end all ties with Israeli apartheid and cut the Project Nimbus contract.” According to the campaign, “Technology should be used to bring people together, not enable apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and settler-colonialism.”

Lawfare

• In January 2024, Just Peace Advocates was a signatory on a statement calling on Canada to “support Gaza genocide case at the ICJ.” According to the statement, “We applaud South Africa for honoring the fundamental legal imperative to prevent and stop genocide, and exhort Canada to fulfill its own obligations by supporting South Africa’s timely and necessary initiative at the ICJ.”
• In October 2023, Just Peace Advocates was a signatory on a letter to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to “Issue Arrest Warrants, Investigate Israeli Crimes and Intervene to Deter Incitement to Commit Genocide in Gaza.”
• On November 28, 2022, Just Peace Advocates and 197 other regional and international civil society organizations sent an open letter to ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan urging him to “Investigate and Deter Israel’s Apartheid Regime.” According to the letter, “Though mindful of the Court’s limited resources and budgetary complications, as well as your office workload and challenges, we are compelled to stress that Palestinian victims deserve justice and require equal attention as in other situations…we will continue our cooperation with your office and our support of your investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine.”

BDS Activities

• In May 2024, Just Peace Advocates published an article “stand[ing] in solidarity with the courageous students around the world, and those close to home, whose peaceful encampments, spirited rallies, and inspiring protests are focused on the demand that their universities divest from Israeli war crimes.”
• In February 2024, Just Peace Advocates was a signatory on a letter to the Canadian government calling to “Stop Arms Transfers to Israel.”
• In November 2023, Just Peace Advocates was a signatory on a statement urging states to issue a “Two-Way Arms Embargo on Israel,” demanding that “The US, the UK, Germany, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and other States that authorise the continued transfer of arms, and other forms of military support to Israel to immediately bring an end to such transfers….” 
• In February 2023, Just Peace Advocates was a signatory on a statement “welcom[ing] the historic announcement by the Barcelona City Council to suspend all institutional relations with apartheid Israel.” The statement called for “arms embargo against apartheid Israel, stopping trade with Israel’s illegal colonial settlements, and ending projects and agreements that sustain the illegal situation, including the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the EU-Israel Association Council, international agreements for gas pipes through the Gaza coast, and the Euro-Asia Interconnector project receiving electricity from Israel’s colonial settlement enterprise.”
• In September 2022, Just Peace Advocates and Al-Haq published a report calling to “Update the UN database annually” and “Continue to exert the necessary efforts to ensure transparency and promote accountability for business activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, to counter the pervasive impunity stemming from corporate- related violations and grave breaches of international law in such contexts.”
  • The UN BDS “blacklist” of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line selectively targets Israel apart from all other nations, is aimed at economically damaging companies that are owned by Jews or do business with Israel, and is ultimately meant to harm the Jewish State.

Board of Directors

• Jonathan Kuttab
  • Kuttab, co-founder of Al-Haq, also serves on the board of Sabeel.
  • Kuttab has advocated for a “one-state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which seeks to eliminate Jewish self-determination. In December 2017, Kuttab gave a lecture titled “A Vision for One State in Israel/Palestine.” In 2009, Kuttab, wrote an article stating that “Zionism will ultimately need to redefine its goals and aspirations, this time without ignoring or seeking to dispossess the indigenous Palestinian population. Palestinians will also have to deal with this reality, and accept — even enthusiastically endorse — the elements required to make Jews truly feel at peace in the single new state that will be the home of both people.”
  • In August 2022, Kuttab published a statement denying Israel’s right to self-defense. According to Kuttab, “In any military confrontation, the primitive rockets Palestinians use are no match for Israel’s massive firepower, but serve as a wonderful excuse for Israel to attack Gazans with massive bombardments from air, land, and sea.”
• Ali Mallah
  • Mallah serves on the Board of Directors of Alternatives Canada. Alternatives Canada engages in political advocacy against Israel, through its use of demonizing language such as “apartheid” rhetoric, BDS, and promoting a Palestinian “right of return.”
  • In July 2020, Mallah delivered a speech at a “DAY of RAGE – No to Annexation Rally” in front of the Israeli Consulate in Toronto claiming, “We support resistance, the resistance by any means necessary.”
  • In July 2016, Mallah spoke at an Al Quds Day rally and appeared to justify terrorism against Israelis, claiming, “In the United States, if somebody makes a mistake and walks into somebody’s home, he will be shot, right? Here in Canada, if somebody attacks us we will attack and shoot them, correct? So why is it okay then to occupy Palestinian land and oppress Palestinian people?”
• John Philpot
  • Philpot is a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Coalition BDS Québec.
  • In October 2023, Philpot participated in a press conference led by the Palestinian Youth Movement claiming, “When people are fighting for their freedom, after years of being slaughtered, massacred, losing their children––it is not tidy…It’s not a calm process. It’s a revolution.”
• Karen Rodman
  • In 2018, Just Peace Advocates Executive Director Rodman founded Palestine Just Trade to “bring distinct, quality Palestinian products into Canada on the basis that all of its activities must support ‘just’ trade related to international law and human rights, and be considered through the len of providing the message of ‘just peace’ in regard to Palestine.”
  • In 2014, Rodman participated in the Ecumenical Accompaniment for Israel-Palestine Program as a ‘human rights monitor.” EAPPI sends participants  to the West Bank to “witness life under occupation.” Upon completion of the program, they return to their home countries and churches where many engage in anti-Israel advocacy, including advocating for BDS campaigns in churches, comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany, and other delegitimization strategies.