KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) joined the Con­cerned Mus­lims of T&T (CMTT) in call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to cut diplo­mat­ic ties and trade with Is­rael.

MSJ po­lit­i­cal leader David Ab­du­lah joined the CMTT ral­ly at Palms Club, San Fer­nan­do, on Sun­day for its In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Pales­tine as the war con­tin­ues be­tween Is­rael and Hamas. Ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing, Ab­du­lah said bul­ly­ing in the world must end. He said T&T, Cari­com, and more Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries should fol­low Bo­livia in break­ing its re­la­tion­ship with Is­rael.

Last week, Bo­livia be­came the first Latin Amer­i­can coun­try to take such ac­tion, de­scrib­ing Is­rael’s mil­i­tary ac­tion in Pales­tine as “ag­gres­sive and dis­pro­por­tion­ate”.

Chile and Colom­bia re­called their am­bas­sadors to Is­rael. Ab­du­lah la­belled Is­rael’s Am­bas­sador to T&T, Itai Bar­dov, as “fast and out of place” for crit­i­cis­ing Cari­com’s po­si­tion on the war, say­ing it de­test­ed the at­tacks on Is­rael and the counter-at­tacks on Pales­tine’s Gaza Strip.

Cari­com called for an im­me­di­ate cease-fire and an end to hos­til­i­ties by all par­ties. Ab­du­lah said no diplo­mat should crit­i­cise his host coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy.

“We have to call on our Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs to diss that Am­bas­sador, re­move his cre­den­tials for Trinidad & To­ba­go now. Fast and out of place. In­ap­pro­pri­ate,” Ab­du­lah said.

He wants Gov­ern­ment to in­struct the board of the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund to re­move any in­vest­ment it has in­volv­ing Is­rael. Ab­du­lah says sol­i­dar­i­ty must oc­cur across all re­li­gions and every­one in T&T be­cause it is a hu­man­i­ty is­sue. He said that West­ern su­per­pow­ers were not call­ing it what it is: geno­cide.

He said there are scores of fam­i­lies in Gaza who were dec­i­mat­ed from the earth as Is­rael’s bombs killed every­one who shared DNA in some cas­es.

CMTT plans to write to Gov­ern­ment this week to re­move the Star of David from the Po­lice Ser­vice’s em­blem, say­ing it has no sig­nif­i­cance to T&T but was re­lat­ed to Is­rael and Jews.

Spir­i­tu­al ad­vi­sor to the CMTT, Mufti Abraar Ali, said every­one should be­come ac­tivists, raise their voic­es and ral­ly to send a clear mes­sage of sol­i­dar­i­ty.

“Let us get thou­sands of peo­ple to ral­ly, not in T&T’s name. We do not stand for this. We want our Gov­ern­ment to sus­pend all diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with this op­pres­sive coun­try. We want to call for that, not in our name. Trinidad & To­ba­go will not stand for that,” Ali said.

The Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) de­mand­ed an im­me­di­ate cease-fire and an end to the eco­nom­ic block­ade on Gaza, which ex­ist­ed since 2006 and the il­le­gal set­tle­ment of Is­raelis there. JTUM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ozzi War­wick said the or­gan­i­sa­tion sup­ports the call for T&T to end re­la­tions with the “ter­ror­ist state”. War­wick called for a free and in­de­pen­dent state of Pales­tine with Jerusalem as its cap­i­tal.

“The Joint Trade Union Move­ment stands as de­fend­ers of jus­tice be­cause that is what the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple and strug­gle rep­re­sent: jus­tice and free­dom. We stand with the de­fend­ers of jus­tice here in this hall this af­ter­noon as we call for a free Pales­tine,” War­wick said.

The Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee (ESC) al­so con­demned the war, call­ing it Is­rael’s re­venge and pun­ish­ment ap­proach against Hamas. ESC mem­ber Shaba­ka Kam­bon crit­i­cised Is­rael’s cut­ting off food, wa­ter, and elec­tric­i­ty to Gaza, say­ing it was a crime against hu­man­i­ty and in­ter­na­tion­al law.