The Canadian Muslims for Jerusalem (CMJ) sent out an action alert calling on recipients to "lobby the Canadian government to remove Hezbollah from Canada's list of banned terrorist organizations".

The CMJ was launched to "ensure that the concerns of the Canadian Muslim community regarding Jerusalem and its environs are understood and respected in the formulation of Canadian policy".

Opposition lawmakers from the Liberal Party, Bloc Québécois and NPD are currently conducting a "fact-finding" mission in Lebanon, sponsored by the National Council on Canadian-Arab Relations, a lobby group that opposes Canada's classification of Hezbollah as a "terrorist" group.

The MPs argue that removing Hezbollah from Canada's "terror list" would contribute to peace negotiations in the Middle East.

However, Canada's Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Days dismissed the MPs' demands, insisting that the government won't take Hezbollah off the list to "preserve Canada's credibility".

The Montreal-based CMJ said that it changed a similar alert originally issued by the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) "due to recent developments".

CAF had earlier demanded all Canadian political parties, unions, churches and civil society organizations to pressure the government to call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Lebanon.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper, like President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, has rejected all calls for a ceasefire and defended Israel's deadly offensive against Hezbollah as a "measured response".

The Canadian premier also refused to condemn Israel when it killed eight Canadian civilians and a Canadian UN peacekeeper in Lebanon, fueling critics' accusations that the West's stance emboldened Israel.

A fragile UN-brokered ceasefire took effect last week after more than 1,200 civilians, 30% of them children under 12, have been killed in the Israeli offensive, which also displaced nearly a million others, sparking what aid agencies describe as a humanitarian crisis.

Hezbollah (meaning Party of God), led by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, is a Lebanese political and military party founded in 1982 to fight the Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon. Its resistance forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 after a two-decade occupation.

The resistance group, which runs a large network of health, education and social centers in Lebanon, has 23 seats in the 128-member Lebanese Parliament. It also has two cabinet ministers.

Source:Islamonline.com