MONTREAL — More than 100 Quebecers – describing themselves as including those on the political left and right as well as sovereignists and federalists – issued a manifesto declaring their unequivocal support for Israel in its battle against Hamas.

Among the signatories of “Nous appuyons Israël,” published in the daily newspaper Le Devoir on Aug. 5, was Paul Estrin, president of the Green Party of Canada, who specified that he did so in his own name, but that appears not to have satisfied the party.

The day after, Estrin, who lives in Quebec City, resigned the presidency. He said in a statement on the party’s website that, “I never intended to create confusion or have any of my actions negatively impact the party.”

Estrin was already at odds with the party for a July 25 post on his blog, hosted by the party website, defending Israel’s military intervention in Gaza. Leader Elizabeth May said then his opinion did not accord with the party’s position on the crisis.

Among the other 119 signatories are longtime union organizer Ken Pereira, a former Quebec Federation of Labour employee; conservative political pundits Eric Duhaime and Joanne Marcotte; Pierre Simard, a professor at the Ecole nationale d’administration publique in Quebec City; and Marlene Jennings, former Liberal member of Parliament.

The others are not household names, and include people from many walks of life and from different parts of the province: lawyers, educators, and administrators, but also truckers, shopkeepers and a bus driver.

Most have French-Canadian names. Others are diverse, including a couple associated with the Berber community.

“We do not recognize the apparent unanimity of a certain elite that is currently stigmatizing Israel,” they affirm. “We do not recognize the anti-Zionist or anti-Israel positions promoted by organizations that assume the right to speak in the name of Quebec society.”

They are “revolted by those people who criminalize Israel, but keep silent on the real war crimes of Hamas, which with each rocket fire targets innocent Israeli civilians, while cowardly hiding behind innocent Palestinian civilians.”

The signatories wonder why “a certain Québécois elite” is saying nothing about “the genocidal anti-Semitism at the heart of the jihadist ideology of Hamas.”

The manifesto came out a few days after 133 Quebec intellectuals and public personalities made an open appeal to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, deploring his government’s “blindness” in its one-sided support for Israel, a stance that they believe is worsening the conflict.

They want the government to “work concretely for the establishment of a durable peace in the Middle East rather than stirring up the present conflict by its partisan positions.”

They also call for a boycott by the public of “companies that do business with the Israeli settlements.”

Among the signatories are historian Gérard Bouchard, who co-chaired the Quebec government’s commission on reasonable accommodation of religious minorities in 2007-2008; Université de Montréal philosophy professor Michel Seymour; lawyer Julius Grey; and former Montreal city councillor and Parti Québécois cabinet minister Louise Harel.

The signatories also called on the Quebec government to not remain silent on the conflict in Gaza.

In an interview with the CBC’s French-language network, ICI Radio-Canada, Seymour noted that there are Quebec companies selling military equipment to Israel.

“We are not neutral,” he said. “We have, in a way, blood-stained hands.”

Meanwhile, on Aug. 5, Federal New Democratic Leader Thomas Mulcair issued an open letter to Harper asking for the government to back a proposal by Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish to bring injured Palestinian children from Gaza to Canada for treatment.

Three of Abuelaish’s daughters were killed in 2009 when his home in Gaza was hit by Israel Defence Forces shelling. Now based at the University of Toronto, Abuelaish is aiming to bring 100 injured Gazan children to Ontario alone.

Mulcair would like to see this project became a nation-wide effort.

The official Opposition leader has been at odds with some NDP members for what they feel is his bias toward Israel, according to media reports.

On Aug. 5, member documentary filmmaker Mary Ellen Davis held a “die-in” in front of Mulcair’s Montreal office on Laurier Avenue, symbolically tearing up her NDP membership card.