Page. 2 - The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, December 16, 1982
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■ -By.; ,■ RABBI W. GUNTHER PLAUT
Not infrequently I receive ja telephone call which goes something like this:
"Rabbi, I know you are a member of the Human Rights Commission; But I have to tell you that when I made a coitiplaint they merely took everything down on paper. Instead of believing me they talk of 'looking into the situation.' I don't know why we ca:ri't have officials who really help people."
Or words along these lines.
The problem is that, like many others, the caller does not understand the nature and function of the commission.
It has existed since 1962 and since last June operates under
Rabbi Plant
a new Human Rights Code which may be described as one of the basic, laws of the Province of Ontario. Similar codes exist in the other nine Provinces, and for interprovincial and federal matters there is a nation-wide Canadian Code as Well.
Basically all these sitatutes operate along the same lines, although they exhibit some differences in scope and procedure.
If a person in Ontario believes that he or she has been discriminated against on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, color, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, age, rriarital status, family status or handicap, a complaint should be launched with the commission which presently consists of ten comrriissioners (appointed by order-in-counciJ) and has a professional staff in all the major centres.
Once a complaint has been laid, Human Rights officers will help the complaiinant fill but the proper forms and then begin a process of investigation.
Frequently, a conference between the complainant and the respondent will resolve matters satisfactorily. But where this is notthe case all aspects will be thoroughly examined, witnesses to the alleged infringement will be questioned, and when the file is complete it will eventually be placed before the commission.
The latter has regular monthly sessions and decides on the basis of the accumulated evidence where there is sufficient reason to believe that discrimination may have occurred in contracts, employment or other areas covered by the code. If so, it sends the case on to.aboardof inquiry (appointed by the minister of labor) whose decision maiy be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada.
If on the pther hand the commission finds that the complaiht lacks merit it will dismiss it, aithough the complainant has d right to have it reconsidered.
the handling of complaints is. not the only functidn of the commission, which, deals with the whole problem of systemic discrimination, engages in community education and in numerous other activities designed to enhance the climate of interpersonal relations in ■Ontario.;:; ••;;;;
Of course, the- commissioners cannot make : people love each other, but they can help to enforce a Code which sets standjfrds for decent behavior and trieis to make the province, more liveable for all its people;
Switch in
/By — •.
SHELDON KIRSHNER
Palestinian refugees made homeless by the wa;rin Lebanon no longer necessarily dread the approach of winter.
Thousands of Pales-^ tinians who lost their homes after Israel's invasion last Junis feared that they would have to endure hardship with the onset of Cold weather^
But as a result of a switch in Israel's policy, they will be able to begin to rebuild their lives and thus minimize their deprivation in the months ahead.
After driving the PLO out of southern Lebanon, the Israelis began to level major Palestinian refugee camps like Ain Hilwe and Rashidiye. These camps, hotbeds of Palestinian nationalisin, flowed over with PLO
members and sympathizers. So IsraeLdecided to destroy them.
For no clear and officially annonhced reason, Israel changed its policy radically, not only pledging to provide the re-fogees with housing but also promising to protect them from Christian extremists of the type who wreaked death and destruction in Sabra and Shatila last September.
Yaacov Meridpr, the Israeli economics minister who is in charge of rehabilitating the camps, sa,id in November that conditions in southern Lebanon were returning to its pre-war normalcy. David Mai-mon, the Israeli general who has channeled aid to the refugees, said that the campis were being rebuilt and that the status quo ante was being re-established.
Yaacov Meridor
Tents have been erected, and refugees have started to put up permanent structures to replace those which were hit in the fighting.
Contributing to the assistance program, beside Israel, are the U.S., the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Terre des Hommes, Caritas, the International Rescue
Committee arid the American: Jewish joint Distribution Committee.
According to Meridor, each homeless family will get a $450 UNWRA grant, a cleared plot of land, a tent, cement blocks and cement for construction of a new home.
Israeli businessmen have been trying to sell the refugees prefabricated homes ranging in price from $3,600 to $16,200, but with only mixed success.
At present, many of them live in nearby damaged or unfinished buildings, makeshift structures and empty garages and schools.
The Lebanese government, which has yet to exert its authority in southern Lebanon, has exhibited.a cool attitude toward the rebuilding program. It has no objec-
reGOgoition of PLG, says
By
JANICE ARNOLD
MONTREAL —
Intergovernmental affairs minister Jacques Yvan Morin told a Jewish community delegation last week that it is the Parti Qaebecdis policy to support a Palestinian state and the participation of the PLQ, as the spokeisman of the Palestinians j In future peace negotiations.
He said there has been-a shift in the government ' s position Which he referred to ais ' 'evolutionary;" Quebec's Mid-die East policy is now closertathatof the European countries than to that of the United States.
Representatives of the Canada-Israel Commit-. tee, Canadian Jewish Congress, Ca;nadian Zionist Federation and B'nai B'rith met vk-ith Morin to discuss his participation at the Association of Arab-American university graduates cdnfereince held in Mont-real in October,.
He ishared' the same platform with two high-level PLO members, Shafik-El Houk and Fahti Arafat.
At the conference, maps depicting all of Israel as Palestine, and
''anti-Israel books and hate literature" were also displayed, said the delegation.
The delegation expressed its "deep concern" and objection to the minister accepting an invitation to such a conference. "Considering that there are 100, OOO Jews in Quebec and that Israel is central for the Jewish people and in Judaism, it was painful for the Quebec Jewish community to witness the participation of Mr. Morin with the PLC rep-presentatives at the conference,' ' the delegation said. The PLO, it reminded the minister, remains devoted to the destruction of the State ofIsrael. .
The delegation also pointed out that a conference booklet noted that the Arab association had received a financial subsidy from the Quebec goveniment to defray the costs of the meeting.
According to a sum-: mary report issued after the meeting by the delegation , Morin responded! that'the decision for his participation had been made at the governrhent level, after sorne discussion.
He called" the con-
WASHINGTON —
The U.S. department of justice has sought the assistance of the World Jewish Congress in the location of witnesses to the use of dogs by the SS at concentration camps during W9rld War 11.
The department's office of special investigations has advised the WJC it is currently in-Vestigating a case con- . ceming a dog handler
who was at Buchenwald concentration camp. The office of special Inyesii-gations was established in 1979 by the attorney-general to take legal action against former Nazis and collaborators currendy residing in this country who had engaged in persecution during the years 1933-1945. ■ :''y■.;';.,
The justice depart-, nient has not released
the name of the individual; being investigated who was at Buchenwald from October 1942-January 1943. From then until April 1944 the subject of this investigation was a dog trainer and instructor of other dog handlers at the Training and Research Department for Service Dogs of the Waffeh SS in Oranien-burg,.near Berlin,, which may have been connected with the. Sachsen-
haiisen concentration " camp., .'
At the request of the: j ustice department, the WJC is asking anyone with knowledge of the use of dogs at Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen concentration camps to come forward. Contact Bessy Pupko at (212) 679-0600 or write her care of the World Jewish Congress, 1 Park Ave^ New York, NY. 10016;
Jacques-Yvan Morin
ference a meeting of "serious academics" and said he personally did not hear any outrageous statements. In addition, his assistants told him that there were no anti-Israel attacks during the conference.
Arafat lauded
His impressions from conversations with Fahti Arafat — brother of the PLO leader — were that he Was a ''genuine humanist" and Shafik-El Houk a "very able politician. .
"If one believed in free speech," said Morin, "then in a dev mocratic society every-. one has the right to be heard."
Specific reference was made by the delegation to Morin's denunciation at the conference of the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila camps and the violence in Lebanon in general without mentioning, in the first case, that the Christian Phal-angists were the attackers and, in the second case, that 100,000 people in Lebanon were killed by the PLO .and Syrians over a 7-year p
This left the impression the Israelis were responsible, said the delegation.
In explaining his reference at the conference to a "structure etatique pour les P;aIestinlans,'V Morin said that Israel has to accept the "reality of a Palestinian state." He said he felt the situation had deteriorated for too long and a solution mast be found, quickly for the Palestinians.
The Palestliilans have "chosen'' the PLO to represent them, he continued, and becasae they have fought iand spilled blood have the right to be
. respected.
The delegation also
; brought up the subject of the establishment at a PLO office in Montreal last year and the existence of "a number of organizations in Quebec which are front organ-
; izationsfprthe PLO."
A schedule was presented to the minister which sh o wed that wherever a PLOoffice is established violence follows within two years. There is already the beginning of violence, against Jews on university campuses in the province, the delegation said.
It also stated that "if the climate in Quebec were not so accepting of the PLO" the pro-PLO resolution passed by the party's national executive last month would not have been framed the way it was.
.■ According to the report, Morin at first tended to minimize the feairs of the Jewish community but later in the meeting said he would give careful attention to this mat ,ter.;;t:^/:;:
He added that he understood the concerns of Jews but-must also recognize the new reality of the presence of 80,000 Arabs in Quebec.
tions to housing , the Palestinians in tents, but it apparently' opposes any permanent solution in southern Lebanon;
Observers say the Lebanese do not want Palestinians to form large concentrations in that region contiguous to Israel. They believe the government would prefer to scatter the Palestinians throughout Lebanon and, if it were politically, feasible, to-expel most of them.
There are no exact figures as to the number of homeless refugees.
UNRWA claims 60,000 .were rendered homeless, while Israel speaks of 30,000. Howard Adelman. a York University (Toronto) professor who carried out a study, puts the figure at about 40,000. He bases his istatistics on aerial . photographs of the camps taken before and after the war.
It is ironic that Israel, having launched Operation Peace for Galilee to deal the PLO a knockout blow, has become something of a champion of Palestinian refugees in -atsjurisdiction.
Ki«el's policy may be atonement for the embarrassment of Sabra and Shatila, but It may be motivated by a desh« to deflect Palestinian attention away from the idea of a state on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.
One might. also say that, since Syria was not keen about letting refugees into its zone in northern and eastern Lebanon, Israel was left with little choice but to resettle the Palestinians in their old homes.
Not surprisingly, Israeli policy has not been met by unanimous approval .
All Israeli all-party pariiamentaiy committee has said that Israel's attempts to provide the Palestinians with shelter have been late, limited In scope and sluggishly executed.
Geula Cohen / Tehiya's fiery member of Knesset, has charged that the government "is guilty of a gross short- . coming due to the very ' fact that it has agreed to let the refugees resettle in southern Lebanon.''
They are, she said, "the source and root of terrorism."
The refugees, she added, should have been settled farther away from Israel's border.
The Palestinians themselves, disconsolate after Israel's rout of the PLO, are refugees once more in the wake of the war. Theyhave ... burned tents to protect the austerity of their shelters, claiming they lack basic amenities like toilets and water.
But they can do Uttle else; to , expresis their ; discontent. With the PLO having been defeated militarily in southern Lebanon, the refugees are powerless once :
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