Sixteen months into the genocide in Gaza, and repression escalating from Palestine to Kashmir to Turtle Island, Just Peace Advocates has focused on research, exposure, action, partnerships and collaboration, focused on the Canadian context. Encouraged by the ICJ Advisory Opinion, and by the engagement by civil society, Just Peace Advocates has appreciated approximately 100 volunteers who have joined in solidarity work during 2024 along with the tens of thousands who follow and engage in the work of Just Peace Advocates.
During 2024, Just Peace Advocates
- assisted with 50+ requests for help related to legal concerns, finding lawyers who could provide advice
- undertook 50+ letter writing campaigns, with almost 500K actions reaching over 5 million inboxes
- sent 25+ media releases on topics that do not make the mainstream media. Our list of 2500 media contacts is Canada-based but includes media from around the world
- had a mailing list that grew to over 60,000 subscribers early in the year, and is now approaching 65,000
- sent out 70+ e-blasts to our followers, reaching more than four million inboxes. We maintained over a 40 percent average open rate, and a 70 percent click to action metric.
- were present on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, IG and YouTube. We have opened channels for 2025 on Bluesky and Telegram.
- provided our Legal Resources and Tactical Guide for Palestine Human Rights Advocacy & Activism, a comprehensive Canadian legal resources and tactical guide for Palestine human rights advocacy and activism, and other related resources to a dozen Canadian student groups and many others especially as people are being silenced these last several months
- maintained a legal network of 100+ lawyers who received about a dozen e-news during the year
- worked to bolster the Palestine solidarity movement across the country by challenging efforts to threaten, harass and legally bully activists into silence and inaction in Canada, providing advocacy support to students, grassroots activists and affected communities who stand for justice in Palestine
- monitored incidents of suppression to expose trends in tactics to silence Palestine activism
- more than a dozen op-eds and articles, and many other mentions in publications such as Mondoweiss, Rabble, TRT World, The Toronto Star, CBC, Palestine Chronicle, Radio Canada, Middle East Monitor, Electronic Intifada, Al Jazeera and others; including interviews and other media coverage of our work
- reached about 10K live through approximately eighteen virtual events including pressers all coordinated in collaboration with other organizations, with several hundreds of thousands viewing the recording. Several of these saw over 1K attending the live zoom, and several were broadcast on CPAC as part of pressers.
- A parliamentary petition which called for the Canadian government to take action related to Canadian charities funding Israeli settlements and the Israeli military was signed by over 12K. However, Niki Ashton, who sponsored it, failed to present it in parliament.
- prepared more than 140 statements and posts that were shared during the year from our website
- Over 100 volunteers joined with Just Peace Advocates to assist with submissions to the United Nations, to assist with legal work, research, graphics and media, and other work.
Campaign Highlights During 2024
Canada-Israel Charity Pipeline
The “Canada-Israel Charity Pipeline” was a key Just Peace Advocates’ campaign through the year. Our work started in 2021 with supporting an initial submission filed to the Canada Revenue Agency regarding the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association, and began to ramp up in late 2022, with an initial submission regarding Mizrachi Organization of Canada supporting Regavim and other settlement organizations. Additional information was provided to CRA in January 2023 in regard to Mizrachi Canada support of Ir David (Elad). Read more about Elad in this Al Haq report. Further information was provided in February 2023 about other charities providing money to Mizrachi, and in March 2023 about donations to the illegal settlement–Kedumim, the home of Smotrich.
Taking a lead from the Palestine based Defund Racism campaign, Just Peace Advocates began to search out the Canadian charities supporting the settlement organizations identified by Defund Racism, and build a campaign endorsed by other organizations. Since then several dozen submissions have been made to the CRA regarding various Canadian charities which seem to be in contravention of the Canadian Income Tax Act. During 2023, Just Peace Advocates undertook to map details associated with Canadian charities. In 2024, the work continued with a call that “not one cent of Canadian tax-dollars should be funding genocide” and continued submissions, analysis, op-eds and articles, reports, press conference, press releases and campaigns calling for the end of the “Israel-Canada charity pipeline” supporting war crimes and apartheid.
During 2024, we held the first ever International Charity Day Action, Sept. 5: Perhaps Largest Coordinated protest at CRA offices. On International Day of Charity, September 5, rallies were held at about twenty Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) offices across the country to challenge the CRA over its lax attitude towards charities assisting Israel’s genocide. In what may be the largest ever coordinated protest at CRA offices, activists were simply calling on the revenue agency to uphold its own rules regarding registered charities financing illegal West Bank colonies, racist organizations and foreign militaries.
During 2024, working with Dr. Miles Howe, the Big Gifters to the Revoked Canadian charities. This article provides a look at pro-Israel organizations that lost charitable status in Canada, and the mega-donors who funded his article provides a look at pro-Israel organizations that lost charitable status in Canada, and the mega-donors who funded them.
In July the breaking news that the Canada Revenue Agency had formally revoked the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) of Canada and Ne’eman Foundation of Canada resulted in the CRA providing policy decisions related to funds going to Israeli settlements and the Israeli military, thus providing a stronger case related to other Canadian charities supporting Israeli war crimes and potentially genocide.
During the year other groups became interested in the work of Just Peace Advocates including IJV who asked to work on reports in regard to sanctions against settler organizations and charity calls including press conferences with the NDP National Revenue (CRA) Tax Critic Presser on June 13, 2024 and in November with the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
Submissions made to CRA from Dec. 2022 onwards include among others Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada, Jerusalem Municipality erasure of Palestinians supported by Canadian tax-payers via Ronnen Harary charities, HonestReporting Canada (which Writers Against the War on Gaza Toronto worked with Just Peace Advocates), Magen Heut, the United Israel Appeal (UIA), HESEG Foundation & its patron foundation and others. You can read more about who supports (the donors), who receives the funds, and other analysis as well as actions you can take.
A couple examples of articles by Dr. Miles Howe include:
Genocide as Charity: a critical look at the Mizrachi Organization of Canada (published first in Mondoweiss)
Zionist Philanthropy and Palestinian Erasure: Jgive.com and the Mizrachi Organization of Canada, Miles Howe, June 11, 2024 (published first in the State Crime Journal)
The “Protect Palestinian Children” campaign
- Following the hosting of a virtual event “Childhood Lost in Palestine”, we came together with Defence for Children International Palestine and several Canadian organizations to create the “Protect Palestinian Children” campaign. It demands the Canadian government condemn Israel’s killing, injuring, and detaining of children. The campaign supports the call for Canada to impose a full, immediate arms embargo on Israel.
Other Highlights
- On February 1, Just Pece Advocates co-hosted an online rally against Canada’s complicity in genocide. Gabor Maté, Roger Waters, Vijay Prashad, Ronnie Kasrils and and about forty others joined in calling on our governments to “Defund genocide NOT aid to the genocided.The global rally was a response to Canada and other colonial projects and genocide ongoing
- A roundtable in February addressed the legal frameworks providing parallels and distinctions between settler colonial projects in Palestine, Kashmir, and Turtle Island. View the recording.
- On January 31, 2024, over 1K registered and 500 people joined to watch the virtual event, Palestine & International Law for activists & organizations. Topics covered included the current International Court of Justice cases on the Gaza genocide and the il/legality of the occupation, the International Criminal Court investigations, the application of the Genocide Convention to the situation in Palestine, and the relationship between genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Read more. Watch the recording.
- Following the ICJ Advisory Opinion declaring the Israeli occupation illegal, Just Peace Advocates was pleased to be invited to join the Faculty for Palestine at University of Victoria for this critical and timely session. A Turning Point or More of the Same? The ICJ Advisory Opinion on Palestine and Its Global Impact. Over 300 people registered. with over 150 attending, and many others watching online. Watch the recording.
- In June 2024, Just Peace Advocates with the help of about thirty volunteers, submitted more than 800 applications to the United Nations call to update the Database of Business Enterprises Pursuant to Human Rights Council Resolutions 31/36 and 53/25. This included submissions to include charities in the database.
- In November 2024, Just Peace Advocates made a dozen submissions, and was involved with several others, in regard to call of the Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory to the Human Rights Council 58th session.
- During the June 2024 call by the UN/OHCHR for submissions to update the database, Al Haq and Just Peace Advocates provided additional information to OHCHR in regard to WSP Global: with an updated submission to the UN database. This followed the September 2022, an initial submission (include ‘n’ in submission in link)that was made to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) by Al-Haq and Just Peace Advocates on the Canadian company WSP Global Inc. (WSP, formerly Parsons Brinckerhoff International Inc.). WSP is an integral part of the extension of the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), an Israeli public tramway system that contributes to the maintenance of the illegal Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel in violation of international law, and subjugated under a discriminatory settler colonial apartheid regime. During Just Peace Advocates’ review of disclosed Canadian university investments, it was found that several are also invested in WSP, along with CPP, CDPQ and Fonds FTQ pension.
- During 2024, Just Peace Advocates continued with its analysis and campaigns related to the Canada and Quebec legislated state pensions, CPP Investment and CDPQ, but also undertook analysis on additional public and private sector pensions where disclosure could be obtained. This showed billions of our public pensions invested in Israeli war crimes. This information was provided to the United Nations as part of their call.
- Specifically, this was the fifth year that Just Peace Advocates has conducted related to businesses complicit with war crimes. Analysis of the Canada Pension Plan Investment, with the CPPIB investment in war crimes and potentially genocide increasing to over $16 B in 2024. Like in 2022, Just Peace Advocates in 2024 called for questions to be asked during the bi-annual stakeholder meetings. In the fall of 2024, there were advocates asking questions at all the meetings held by CPP across the country. During these stakeholder meetings, the Canada Pension Plan ignored its $16 billion investment in war crimes and potential genocide.
- This was the third year that Just Peace Advocates has analyzed the CDPQ (the Quebec public pension). This showed the CDPQ has investments of $14B in war-crimes-and-genocide-complicit companies even as the International Court of Justice considers Israel’s genocide in Gaza. In 2024, the Quebec divest coalition made this campaign come alive using the JPA efforts, taking the action to the street including an encampment, to the boardroom and the media. However, faced with its complicity in war crimes, the CDPQ is unable to answer the questions of the Quebec Coalition URGENCE Palestine.
- See the analysis of other pensions by Just Peace Advocates during 2024:
OTPP Investments in companies that are complicit with international law violations
IMCO: Investments in companies deemed to be violating international law
HOOPP: Investments in companies in complicity with international law violations
OMERS: Investments in companies that have complicity with international law violations
University Pension (Ontario): Investments in companies complicit with international law violations
Federal PSP: Investments in companies complicit with war crimes and genocide
BCI: Investments in companies complicit with international law violations
Liuna Staff and Affiliates Pension Fund: almost $16 million USD invested in war crimes
- In 2024, Just Peace Advocates undertook a review of Canadian financial institution complicity with war crimes and genocide. This showed that the big five Canadian banks along with Desjardins were heavily invested in companies listed as complicit with war crimes by the United Nations, AFSC Investigate and other sources. This information was submitted to the United Nations November 30th call related to businesses complicit with war crimes. The following provide details of the analysis.
$1 billion USD invested by Desjardins in war crimes & genocide!
$2.1 Billion USD invested in war crimes and genocide by CIBC
RBC Investing $37B in war crimes and genocide
BMO investments in war crimes, over $120B USD
TD Bank has more than $6.6 billion USD (over $9B Canadian) invested in war crimes & genocide
Scotiabank is invested in over $15 Billion Canadian ($11 billion USD) in war crimes & potentially genocide (also: Tell ScotiaBank to Divest Completely from Elbit Systems!)
- Near the end of 2024, Just Peace Advocates consulting with members of the Hassan Diab Support Committee made a call in that Canada must protect Hassan Diab from hate crimes and death threats, and declare Diab’s innocence and refuse a second extradition
- During 2024, Just Peace Advocates spoke out about police violence and silencing of those advocating for stopping the genocide on Palestine. One example was in regard to condemn the Toronto police violence against Palestinian protesters.
- During October 2024, a year into the genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza, Just Peace Advocates joined with over 100 organizations internationally to support the International Week of Resisting Genocide, Boycott for Palestinian Liberation
Just Peace Advocates helped to organize several events including:
Journalism to reveal and Journalism to deceive: Palestine and Journalistic integrity
Lost Childhood in Palestine: The Impact of War Crimes & Genocide on Children
Resistance Until Return: Addressing the Root Causes within a Rights-based Decolonization Approach
- Over this year, Just Peace Advocates has undertaken with the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute several campaigns calling for Canadian government accountability such as a call to List IDF as terror organization and demanding Israel stop escalating violence that could spur World War III.
In solidarity with the students at McGill and elsewhere, Just Peace Advocates along with the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, continued the solidarity by Roger Waters with McGill students which began in 2022, with letter writing, op-eds and an online rally, Students over Donor Money: The Suppression of Palestinian Solidarity at McGill University and Beyond.
Just Peace Advocates 2024 report:
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