Condemning the State of Israel’s sustained bombardment of Gaza, local man David Starbuck helped launch a federal petition to ban the sale of Canadian nickel to Israel.
Nickel, he clarified in conversation with Sudbury.com, is used in armaments.
Through the local mining of nickel, there’s no telling how much the Greater Sudbury area has inadvertently aided in Israel’s “unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza,” as United Nations Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese put it earlier this year in finding reasonable grounds to determine Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
As of mid-day Friday, the petition, organized by the No Nickel For Genocide part of the Palestine Solidarity Sudbury group, had received 1,420 signatures. It has been sponsored by Timmins-James Bay NDP MP Charlie Angus and will be closed on Oct. 10, after which it will be tabled in the House of Commons.
“I’m realistic. I doubt that the government is going to reverse more than 100 years of policy,” Starbuck said, adding that forcing the conversation is at least a step in the right direction, and the official federal petition will force a government response.
“This question of what to do with Sudbury nickel is a question that is not going to go away,” he said. “This petition has struck a response both locally and nationally, and even if we don’t do anything we’ll get 2,000 signatures by October, and I’m hoping it’ll get more.”
Starbuck has been a member of the peace movement since he was a teenager in the ’60s, and said opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza is an extension of his lifelong advocacy.
“If it wasn’t Vietnam it was Iraq, if it wasn’t Iraq it was Afghanistan, if it wasn’t Afghanistan it was Syria,” he said. “This is not a way for human beings to sort out their differences. ... If there’s anything I can do to find another solution than a violent solution to problems, I’d like to do my very, very small bit.”
Sudbury.com has written about Starbuck’s efforts in the past. During U.S. President George W Bush’s time in office, Starbuck helped organize an anti-war demonstration at Cambrian College as part of his role with Sudbury Anti-War Mobilization. He organized a pro-immigration rally in Sudbury in 2017, around which time he also protested against U.S. missile attacks in Syria.
The latest round of violence in the Middle East follows a long and complicated history, and was sparked on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian groups in Gaza launched thousands of rockets toward Israel and entered Israeli towns to kill and capture Israeli forces and civilians.
In response, the State of Israel retaliated to such a degree that the United Nations called for “an “immediate, full and complete ceasefire.”
“Nothing can justify the abhorrent 7 October terror attacks by Hamas,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres is quoted on the UN website as saying on May 16.
“I reiterate my call for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. And nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. … It is time for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza.”
A ceasefire has not happened.
As of May 10, the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated there were 34,904 Palestinian fatalities in the preceding 217 days, plus 78,514 reported injuries. There were more than 1,200 reported fatalities among Israelis in Israel, and approximately 5,400 reported injuries.
In response to another media outlet’s report on Starbuck’s petition, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs issued a statement in which they said that “attempts to isolate Israel diplomatically or economically are counterproductive, and often serve as thinly veiled attacks on Israel’s legitimacy.”
Sudbury.com reached out to the centre seeking a response to the petition from a local contact. They were unable to line someone up locally, so they sent a quote attributable to Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs vice-president university and local partners Judy Zelikovitz.
“BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns do nothing to promote peace, and they harm efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer together,” Zelikovitz wrote, reiterating that such actions are “thinly veiled attacks on Israel’s legitimacy.”
“BDS campaigns single out Israel for discriminatory treatment, apply double standards, and ignore the fact that, among Israel’s neighbours, are several oppressive regimes that fall well short of the democratic standards upheld by the Jewish State.
“The BDS movement unfairly demonizes Israel as the sole perpetrator of the conflict, creating a one-sided narrative that removes all responsibility from the other parties and rejects both nuance and important facts, including that Arab Israeli citizens enjoy the same rights and freedoms as any other citizens of the country and hold important positions in the judiciary, academia, military, financial, and other major institutions.”
Starbuck’s petition is as follows, and is available by clicking here.
Whereas:
- The State of Israel is carrying out a campaign of genocide against the people of Palestine through indiscriminate military actions against the civilian population, killing and maiming more than one hundred thousand people, and destroying the physical and social infrastructure of Gaza;
- Many of the weapons used in this genocide are supplied to the State of Israel by the United States and other NATO Countries;
- Nickel is an important raw material in the manufacture of these armaments;
- Forty percent of the nickel consumed in US manufacturing originates in Canada;
- The people of Canada do not want the natural resources of this land or the labour of our people contributing to this campaign of terror and mass murder;
- The Government of Canada has banned new contracts for the sale of armaments to Israel; and
- The Government of Canada can enact programs that promote the development of peaceful uses of nickel.
We, the undersigned, Citizens and Residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to:
- Institute a ban on the sale of nickel to Israel and to those armament manufacturers that supply Israel; and
- Require purchasers of Canadian nickel to certify that they will not resell Canadian nickel to Israel or to arms manufacturers supplying Israel.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.