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SubscribedPaintballs, really?
Now, just one doggone minute. Did Anita Anand, Canada’s minister of Foreign Affairs, really say that Canada shipped 180,000- 0.68 calibre “paintball style projectiles” to Israel? Really? What fun those boy-gamers must have enjoyed!! Actually it’s more like in excess of 350,000 “paintballs” but who’s counting? The advertisement in Amazon.ca claims they are “eco-friendly, water soluble, easy to wash and biodegradable”. I hate to say it, but the grand total for the order of 350,000 would have cost only about $42,000 –as 1000 paintballs per box costs $118.00, for each of about 350 boxes. But Anand’s statement was dissembling at the minimum and an out-and-out lie at worst.
Paintballs or 155mm shells
What the Canadian government has allowed to be shipped to Israel are hundreds of thousands of 155 mm shell propellants —made by General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems – Canada (GD-OTS-Canada) in Valleyfield, Quebec. Previous orders were “held in large volumes” in the US’s War Reserve Stockpile Allies-Israel (WRSA-1). This order for the propellants from fall 2024 was worth $55.1 million US ($78.8 million Canadian). As of January 2025, Melanie Joly, our former minister of Foreign Affairs promised no arms would be shipped to Israel—not exactly true. Since the new year, Canadian-made weapons were shipped to the US who then dispatched them to Israel.
Below: 1.5 minute video of 155 mm shells blasted from Israeli tanks in Gaza– courtesy of The Sun, a right-wing rag in the UK.
Project Ploughshares, a Waterloo, Ont.-based research centre, is concerned that Canadian-made military weapons have been supplied through routine US procurement channels and stored in the US ‘War Reserve Stockpile Allies-Israel WRSA-I’. From there, they get shipped to the IDF. Some have labelled the 155 mm artillery shells the “primary driver of civilian harm events”. Watch this Youtube video. Canada also sent $100 million worth of Canadian-made parts for the F-35 fighter jets to the US, bound for Israel.
Did our shells kill Anas al-Sharif or any of the other three Al Jazeera reporters and two freelancers in the media tent in Gaza City on Sunday?
Israel’s slaughter of journalists
Has there been another “war” in which so many journalists from one nation were the targets of the imperializing power? I can’t think of one. Viet Nam, nope. The Falklands, nope. The US invasion of Grenada, no. The war in Afghanistan- from 2000 to 2021 –there were 30 journalists of several nationalities killed—over 21 years. The Iraq War, the Syrian Civil War, the takeover of Libya? Not many. Hell, there have only been four Ukrainian journalists killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine – since 2023.
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Israel killed 200 journalists in Gaza– that is as if an army killed 31,000 journalists in the US
Most western media agree that Israel has deliberately killed 200-250 journalists in Gaza since October 2023. A similar slaughter of journalists if applied to the US population would result in 31,000 deaths. A parallel massacre in Canada would wipe out a third of all journalists in Canada—or pretty much the journalists/reporters who work at every TV network in Canada.
Imagine that – but only now is there an outrage. There wasn’t one before because all the journalists killed were Palestinians who lived in Gaza. Expendable according to Israel and all its western allies. But now anyone can see that Israel’s deliberate targeting of journalists is not only a war crime, but also the pinnacle of Israel’s campaign to silence voices against its Genocide. Only now are some of the western media timidly asking Israel to be “let into Gaza” – with no ceasefire in place. Israel’s not kidding when it says it won’t guarantee journalists’ safety. I wonder how many Canadian journalists will actually volunteer to go and see for themselves?
Image at the top: Paintballs with fake gun, as advertised on Amazon.ca
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