Dr Kaukab Siddique | Editor-in-Chief Montreal Perspectives
By Jalaluddin S. Hussain

Canadian Muslims for Jerusalem's Visual presentation: impressive and emotive!

Nadira Mustapha, Outstanding Muslim Canadian Woman

Nadira Mustapha's visual presentation entitled, "Al-Quds, as the barometer of the Muslim Ummah", was an impressive and emotive experience. Held on Sunday, February 6, 2005, at the Concordia University Hall Building, in downtown Montreal, it was an eye-opening account of her trip to the Occupied Territories, in the Winter of 2003. While basing herself in the West Bank, she travelled to the refugee camps, hospitals, mosques and churches, in the cities of Jeruasalem, Ramallah, Nablus, Tulkarem, Bethelem and Jericho.

Fullfilment of a dream

It was a fulfillment of a cherished dream for her, because after having already visited Mecca and Medina, she very much wanted to visit the third important holy site of Islam, namely, Masjid Al-Aqsa.

It is, unfortunate and tragic, however, that even after 54 years of Israeli occupation, with never-ending forced expulsions, home-demolitions, land confiscations, harrassments, ethnic segregations, seizure of identity papers and denial of religious freedoms, the militant and martyrdom-seeking Palestinians are still fighting on, this unequal, Goliath-versus-David war.

Nadira Mustapha is a doctorate student in Islamic Law at McGill University's Institute of Islamic Studies and is also the President of the Canadian Muslims for Jerusalem (CMJ) organization.

In order to support the objectives of this pro-active Montreal Muslim organization and to get to know more about it, readers of New Trend are encouraged to go to their website at: www.cmjerusalem.org and also give them their feedback, by e-mailing cmjerusalem@yahoo.ca.

What Canadians think about the Palestinian struggle

In the February 2, 2005 column, entitled, "Canadians don't share Ottawa's pro-Israel tilt of Paul Martin's federal government", Jeffery Simpson of the Globe and Mail, expressed his frank opinion about the recent celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the prisoners of Auschwitz. He also mentioned, in his article, about the recernt findings of a Study of Canadian Attitudes Towards Israel, conducted by Government Policy Consultants (GPC), an Ottawa firm, for the recently-created Canadian Council for Israel and Jewish Advocacy. This GPC Study reported, besides other things that, "the Palestinians are viewed as the underdogs and the Canadians traditionally identify with the underdogs." It is also important to note that whatever the Canadian Jews may believe about the Canadian media, only 11 percent of Canadians really think that the media is biased against Israel, while more than 33 percent believe that the Canadian media is against the Palestinians.
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2005-02-21 Mon 17:23ct
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