Montreal relatives of slain family beg for support

[Spazito]

Religious leaders and relatives of a Montreal family killed during Israel's bombardment of Lebanon are pleading for support from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Seven members of the Al-Akhrass family, including four young children, were on vacation when they were killed Sunday as Israel bombed the southern Lebanese village of Aitaroun.

Hussein Al-Akhrass, the children's uncle, told a Montreal news conference Monday his family were begging the Canadian government to "put pressure on Israel to stop this barbaric behaviour."

"Israel is bombing civilian people and we should not accept that," he told reporters.

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http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060716/mideast_family_060716/20060717?hub=TopStories

[MrPrax]

1. At least , Recall Our Ambassador eom

[Spazito]

2. Harper has no intention of calling the Israeli PM to even ....

discuss the deaths of Canadians. He has NO mention of the deaths of Canadians on his government page.

Dispicable.

[MrPrax]

3. Your right...

I hope the family and their supporters take this all the way. Civil suit in American courts and Canadian courts and petition the Hague for a ruling.

Even if one suspends judgement on any aspect of the conflict, Israel has declared precisely why it operated as it did and that was it's right under international to self-defense. If it one accepts this justification whole cloth, then it still behooves this government to at request an investigation as to what methods Israel to determine how these Canadian nationals posed a threat and what kind of threat that required Israel to kill them.

Israel should be forced to spell out exactly how it came to kill these people and how in killing them is connected to their larger stated aims of security.

But it really does go to show you what exactly the elites think of the little people -- they will take our rights away under the guise of protecting us from 'terror' threats that they love to tell us about, while saying nothing of these bombing deaths done, not by criminal terrorist in regional conflict, but done by a well-armed sovereign state for it's own security purposes.

This is an ally?

The other side of this might be that IF Canada doesn't do something formal -- then what message does this send to the other 'hyphened' Canadians.

Of course it specious, cause the government wouldn't act any differently in this regard anyway, if they were a group of Mennonites peace activists that were killed by the IDF in Gaza. Nonetheless, it might contribute to some of the same 'extremist' elements, presumeably the government and the Islamic community, are attempting to work through.

The government's inactions are caustic to the immigrant community and particularly to Arabs and Islamic citizens.

[Spazito]

4. Well said, I could add nothing to what you have posted. n/t

[daleo]

5. Harper should demand an apology and an explanation

You just can't let your supposed allies kill your people and not expect an explanation. And as far as Harper is concerned Israel is an ally, and a very central one. The Americans apologized for, and explained the friendly fire deaths in Afghanistan, so there is ample precedent. Anything else is a travesty of justice to those children, besides making Canada look spineless to the world.