MONTREAL — A Quebec judge is not expected to decide until September whether a lawsuit by a Palestinian West Bank village against two Montreal-based companies can be heard here.
Quebec Superior Court Justice Louis-Paul Cullen heard arguments from both sides over three days last week.
Ronald Levy, the lawyer for Green Mount International Inc. and Green Park International Inc., presented a motion to have the case dismissed. The municipal council of Bil’in is seeking to have the court declare that the companies’ construction of housing for Jewish settlers on land the village lost with the erection of Israel’s security barrier is illegal. It also wants the 16 apartments it has built demolished and $2 million in punitive damages.
Bil’in’s lead lawyer Mark Arnold argued that the companies are committing a war crime, violating both international law and Canada’s own 2000 Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into territory acquired as a result of war.
Levy’s main arguments are that Israeli courts have already determined that the individual plaintiff, the late Ahmed Issa Abdallah Yassin, wasn’t the legal owner of the land on which the companies built. He also maintains that this case isn’t within the jurisidiction of a Canadian court, and the fact the companies are registered in Quebec is irrelevant.
Exam Question Pulled
VANCOUVER — A controversial practice-exam question about Mideast politics has been pulled from the British Columbia education ministry’s website after protests from the Jewish public and Canadian Jewish Congress. The multiple-choice question was meant for teens studying for province-wide Grade 12 history exams. It asked them to identify the following group: “They have been fighting to regain a homeland since they were driven out in 1948. Some have lived their entire lives in refugee camps. Forty years later, Israel still refuses to recognize their right to exist as a nation.” Answer choices were Jews, Iranians, Egyptians or Palestinians. Congress spokesperson Romy Ritter said the question oversimplified a complex issue.
Ex-Guard Can Stay
OTTAWA — A Federal Court judge has rejected an effort by B’nai Brith Canada to overturn a cabinet decision to let a former Nazi guard stay in Canada. In 2001, a Federal Court judge ruled that Ukrainian-born Wasyl Odynsky was a guard at a forced labour camp in Trwainiki, where German SS killed most of its Jewish prisoners in a 1943 massacre. The judge ruled he was confined to barracks during the killings and that he served involuntarily and wasn’t a Nazi, but also that he likely lied about his service to enter Canada. B’nai Brith argued this alone justified revoking his citizenship. On July 19, Judge Robert Barnes ruled, contrary to the group’s claim, that cabinet made a fully informed decision. He ordered B’nai Brith to pay Odynsky’s legal costs, Canadian Press reported.