The Montrteal Gazette reports:
Quebec solidaire leader Amir Khadir made no apology yesterday for asking people to boycott a family-owned shoe store in his riding because it sells shoes made in Israel.
"Just because a business is in my riding, I am not going to abandon my principles," Khadir, the National Assembly member for Mercier, said in a phone interview yesterday.
Khadir took part in a demonstration last Saturday in frontof Le Marcheur on St. Denis St., handing out flyers and asking customers to boycott the shop until it stops selling Israeli-made shoes.
The demonstration was organized by Palestinian and Jewish Unity, a Montreal based human rights group that advocates for the right of Palestinians to live in safety.
Khadir said he was asked to join the demonstration by PAJU, and that he has participated in other PAJU demonstrations.
PAJU has held regular pickets outside Le Marcheur since October, because the store sells Beautifeel shoes, a brand made in Israel.
The store's owner Yves Archambault said he was "sickened" to learn his own MNA was picketing his store. "I was sickened to see him distributing flyers and stopping people who were coming into the store to tell them they shouldn't support a business that sells Israeli products. In Quebec we have free enterprise, and as long as it is legal, nobody has the right to tell me what I can and cannot sell in my store," he said.Le Journal de Quebec reported (translation by Google translate):
Embarrassed by its active presence in a demonstration urging a boycott of a shopkeeper in his constituency, Mr. Amir Khadir tried to explain yesterday, citing a "terrible misunderstanding" between him and the shoe salesman Yves Archambault.
Last Saturday, the member of Québec solidaire visited the shop the Walker Street Saint-Denis for distributing leaflets calling for a boycott of the family business of Mr. Archambault, on the pretext that it contained a few models Israeli brand of shoes.
In the Journal interview, the dealer said he was "horrified" at being thus harassed and intimidated by his own deputy.
Below is a first hand account of attempting to buy a pair of shoes at Le Marcheur in Montreal:
My mother just came back from purchasing Israeli-made shoes from the store in down town Montreal that is being subjected to a boycott because it sells Israeli-made shoes. Twenty people showed up to buy shoes after Eric Duhaime called on Montrealers to show solidarity with the embattled store owner. She, with others, was greeted by about a hundred threatening Arabs with Hezbollah flags shouting anti-Semitic slogans and blocking the street completely. She says that several intimidating Arabs took her picture as she was going inside and one was even filming. One young Arab called her a Jewish sow. The store owner is getting death threats and is seriously depressed. He said that he won’t give in to these terrorists’ demands. But how long can he keep it up before going out of business? Montreal in 2010.
In le Journal de Quebec, journalist Eric Duhaime lets us know the following about Khadir (google translation from French):
Surprise Saturday: Amir Khadir joined the demonstrators, along with his comrades Jafar Khadir, a former member of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Quebec, and William Sloan, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada.
RADICAL POSITIONS
A member, paid by your taxes, tries to harm a single trader who sells his riding legally products from a country with which Canada has an agreement of free trade and cooperation agreements Quebec.
For his activism group "Islamo-Marxist terrorist scored his public support for George Galloway, propagandist paid by Iranian state television, Khadir is not at its first controversy with his extreme views on issues of Middle East.
Non-practicing Muslim, Khadir does not support certain causes by Islamist religious belief, but rather contributes to the alliance "anti-imperialist struggle" between the far left and Islamists who forges throughout the West.
LONG LIST
Following the September 11 attacks claimed by al-Qaeda, Khadir raised the possibility of a conspiracy by the CIA.
In 2006, amid armed conflict initiated by Hizballah, Khadir was not the only politician to condemn Israel without saying a word against Hezbollah.
Last March, Khadir receives the National Assembly Jamal Zahalka, the Arab-Israeli political leader advocating the dissolution of Israel.
Last September, Khadir participates in the commemoration of the martyrs of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance. [ed- - a group designated as a terror organization by the Canadian government]
h/t BlazingCatFur
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