Open letter to RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme

Open letter to RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme

Dear Commissioner Duheme:

Why have you not publicly announced your investigation into those Canadians and Canadian organizations who have participated in Israel’s genocide under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program?

Where is the RCMP hotline?

Where is the dedicated RCMP webpage?

Where are the RCMP media interviews denouncing such breaches of Canadian Law?

Where are the RCMP questionnaires soliciting witness testimony from those trying to flee Israel, and/or the families that have not been able to get their loved ones out of danger?

You have done so much for the Ukrainians.

Why have you done so little for the besieged Palestinian civilians? Why isn’t the RCMP providing the same level of assistance to the victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza?

Palestinians are being bombed and buried under the rubble of their homes.

Palestinians sheltering in schools have been blown up.

Palestinians are being burned to death in tents in refugee camps.

Palestinians are being starved, and then shot when trying to get humanitarian aid to feed their families?

Palestinians have been forced to evacuate of Gaza hospitals, sometimes leaving premature babies to die alone.

Palestinian medical professionals and their patients have had their hands ziptied and been bulldozed into mass graves in hospital courtyards.

Palestinian toddlers have been targeted and shot in both the chest and the head according to MSF doctors trying to save them.

In March of 2024 the UN determined that more children had been killed in Gaza in less than 6 months than all the children killed in four years of conflict in the rest of the world.

The International Court of Justice has ruled Israel’s occupation of Gaza illegal.

Unlike Ukrainians, the people of Palestine have no air force, or air defence, nor do they have an army or navy with which to defend themselves from Israel’s sophisticated aerial bombers, fighter jets, naval vessels, army tanks, artillery, and killer drones.

Palestinian Hospitals, Ambulances and medical workers are being targeted, and killed

Palestinian Journalists are being targeted and killed.

Humanitarian Aid Workers are being targeted and killed.

Foreign media are locked out of Palestine, and yet there are many Canadians volunteering in the IDF, killing Palestinian civilians as part of the Israeli military attack. Canadians like me are helpless as we watch the dehumanization and massacre of innocent Palestinians, often recording their own Genocide in real time.

Why does the RCMP have such a poor track record of applying Canadian law when it comes to Isreal? Is Israel somehow above International Law?

What happened to the formal legal complaint concerning individual Canadians violating the Foreign Enlistment Act by inducing Canadians to join the Israeli military?

I know I am disturbed at the thought Canadians participating in the carnage will be returning home and worse, disregarding Canadian Law because they will feel the same impunity for antisocial behavior here that they had enjoyed in the Middle East.

As Canada’s premier law enforcement Agency, the RCMP must apply the law. Period.

The RCMP should not bow to political pressure or bullying from foreign countries or special interest groups.

Nor should the RCMP’s ties with the IDF influence the service’s enforcement of Canadian Law. Having seen many videos of IDF soldiers routinely mistreating the innocent Indigenous population of Palestine, and learning Canadian law enforcement agencies send their members to be “trained” in Israel, perhaps such “training” has influenced RCMP scandals in which innocent civilians and Indigenous people have been similarly mistreated.

Canadian politicians claimed our nation is a Rule of Law country. But failure to enforce Canadian laws when it comes to friends like Israel undermines the credibility of both the Government of Canada and the RCMP.

Why should Canadians respect (much less follow) Canadian Law if the RCMP fails to enforce it?

There are no good reasons– only disturbing possible reasons – for RCMP’s failure to investigate and enforcing Israel’s violations of Canada’s War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Act with the same vigor the RCMP has employed in respect of similar breaches of International Law in respect of Russian activity in the Ukraine.

This is not a good look for a nation that prides itself for its diversity.

Especially when civilians in Gaza are enduring an active genocide.

If none of the above is of concern to the RCMP, perhaps the prospect of being charged with complicity for failure to enforce appropriate Canadian Humanitarian Laws at the International Court of Justice and/or the International Criminal Court should be of concern.

As a Canadian citizen, I must insist your agency should do its job.

Sincerely,
Laurel L Russwurm

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My letter began with the the letter sponsored by Just Peace Activists and the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute on the Action Network’s The RCMP must investigate Israeli War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity letter campaign.

They’ve provided a form letter (at the link below) which participants can send as is, or add to or edit as I a have. I encourage you to click the link below and send your own letter. In a democracy, even as poor a democracy as ours, we must hold our institutions accountable.

Free Palestine!

https://actionnetwork.org/letters/rcmp-investigates-israeli-crimes-demand-they-apply-law

Laurel L Russwurm 2025-02-21 12:14:04

The people who convinced BBC to take down "Gaza: How to Survive a War zone" weren't worried about the deputy Minister of Agriculture.

They didn't want us to see the children.

They were afraid we would see they are children like our own. They worried we could see them as human beings.

Seeing the world in which they live through their eyes humanizes them.

That is what they don't want us to see.

instagram.com/damegh/reel/DF5f

Laurel L Russwurm 2025-02-21 12:09:31

One of the things I have seen over and over in video coming out of Gaza has been systemic targeting of civilians, health care workers, paramedics, hospitals, humanitarian aid workers, and civilian infrastructure by the IDF. These are all crimes under international law.

Yet the only fault they could find with this documentary is that one of the featured children is related to the Deputy Agriculture Minister.

x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/18

Laurel L Russwurm 2025-02-21 12:04:14

Gaza is an Occupied Territory. Palestinians are a captive population denied self determination & a sovereign state, subject to Israeli Martial Law.

The Hamas political wing is effectively a municipal government.

Since around 2 million Palestinians live in the tiny Gaza Strip, there's never been enough agricultural land to feed its people. Their fishing boats are limited to a "safe zone." If they stray too far from shore they are shot.

x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/18

Laurel L Russwurm 2025-02-21 11:52:14

This is why Gaza has been called "the world's largest open air concentration camp."

When this "war" started, more than half the population was made up of children... none of whom were alive, much less able to vote in that election that Israel insisted on holding.

My understanding is that voters in Gaza chose Hamas politicians over the Palestinian Authority politicians because of systemic corruption in the PA.

x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/18


Laurel L Russwurm 2025-02-21 11:51:40

x.com/SaulStaniforth/status/18

has removed the video, which has been attacked because one of the children in it is the son or nephew of the Deputy Minister of Agriculture in the Hamas "government," elected in 2006.

Although Israel famously "withdrew" its illegal settlements, the International Court of Justice ruled Gaza is still part of the Occupied Territory of Palestine,
the enclave has been under siege ever since. Israel controls who/what can go in or out.

Laurel L Russwurm 2025-02-21 11:10:53

The people who got the to take down : HowtoSurviveaWarzone were never worried about the Hamas Deputy Minister of Agriculture.

Gaza: How to Survive a War zone introduces us to the latest generation of the children of .

After decades pf dehumanizing and victim-blaming, we get to see children are people.

Children.

Human beings.

And we get to see their word. A world no child should see.

instagram.com/damegh/reel/DF5f