RANT: THE MORAL QUESTION OF OUR TIME

 

WITH THE CANADIAN federal election just around the corner, I thought I’d better decide who I’m voting for. With five federal parties vying to be the next government, there are a lot of things to consider: from Donald Trump’s trade war and threats to make Canada the fifty-first state; to the health of our healthcare system; to the cost of living and the economy; the environment, global warming and “green energy” initiatives; pensions; the digital space; AI; the increasing restrictions on freedom of expression; new trading relationships outside the U.S. market; foreign policy and foreign interference in Canadian politics. That's a lot of topics and a lot to chew on.

 

SO, TO KEEP IT SIMPLE and not give myself a migraine, I thought of one topic that I’d like the skinny on. And that topic is Canada's stance on Gaza. Where do our politicians stand on what is arguably the first, great moral question of our brand new, bright and shiny, twenty-first century?

Gaza. It’s not a ‘war’ as many call it. The "Gazan" war. The "Israeli-Hamas" war. No. It’s a slaughter, a mass murder that has deservedly earned the label of genocide. It is collective punishment and ethnic cleansing of a population (Palestinians) by an occupying power (Israel) which are war crimes according to the Geneva Convention. The imbalance of power, with Israel having the full complement of a modern military versus Hamas fighters armed with hand-held weapons and a few, largely ineffectual, missiles, is patently obvious. So, a 'war' it is not.

 

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FOR OVER eighteen months Israel has bombarded the Palestinian enclave until it has made the Gaza Strip uninhabitable. Its farmlands and urban centres, its infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals, places of worship have been systematically destroyed by Israel's IDF (Israeli Defense Force) in their declared goal of attritting Hamas forces. But the real goal is not to eradicate Hamas or to get back the hostages, rather it is to depopulate the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from their lands. It's a big job! Crazy logistics! Where they will go is a good question. Egypt's Sinai? Jordon? Syria perhaps? There's even suggestions about Somaliland on the Horn of Africa as the landing pad for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who will leave Gaza (and eventually the West Bank and East Jerusalem) to save their lives and their families’ lives.

UNTIL MORE of the international community applies pressure--real pressure--on Israel to cease and desist its activities in Gaza, deaths through bombings, disease, and starvation will continue to mount.

And, while I see little hope for the Palestinians, it's still important that we make a principled stand against the genocide and ethnic cleansing*. Another state, South Africa, bent to international pressure in the 1980s and early 90s to end apartheid rule over the country's non-white population. And recall, last year, it was South Africa that brought a charge of genocide against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague. [The ruling is still pending. Ed.] South Africa learned its lesson. Is it even conceivable that Israel will learn its lesson, as well? I doubt it.

 

So, that’s a long way round to decide on who I’m voting for in the mid-April federal election. And so, here goes:

 

PIERRE POILIEVRE AND THE CONSERVATIVES: PP already blew it for me when he parroted Trump’s deportation plans whereby uppity international students at Canadian universities, who have expressed pro-Palestine sentiments on social media and/or participated in campus protests criticizing the Israeli government for its genocide in Gaza, would be summarily deported. Criticism of Israel is now judged to be anti-Semitic. And antisemitism is "hate speech" and can be an actionable offense under Canada's growing censorship laws. Poilievre claims that pro-Palestinian rallies are responsible for a rise in antisemitism. I suggest that if there indeed is an uptick in antisemitism it’s due to Israel’s wanton militarism in the Levant and its treatment of the Palestinian people that the world watches in horror each day. Labeling as antisemitic peaceful (for the most part) campus protests or social media posts that are critical of Israel is wrong-headed and an assault on the rights of Canadians to freely express their views, especially at institutions of higher learning where the free exchange of ideas is crucial to maintain a healthy academic environment. 

Remember, if their voices are silenced, then both the speaker and the listener (that’s us) loses. Someone should tell Poilievre that thuggishness is not a winning character trait.

👉More dialogue. Less diatribe.

 

MARC CARNEY AND THE LIBERALS: Both major parties are generally sympatico when it comes to Israel. One difference is seen in Carney's election pledge of $100M in aid for Gaza. [Devil's in the details, of course. Ed.] He’s called for an immediate ceasefire. His rhetoric around pro-Palestinian protests is more muted that Poilievre, but make no mistake, he is pro-Israel. While Poilievre is more stridently in the Zionist camp, all in for arms trade with Israel and deporting international students for “wrong speech”, Carney focuses on the humanitarian aspects to the conflict. It will be interesting if Canada's UN voting record shifts under Carney to one more critical of Israel. We'll see.

 

The Maple online publication had a helpful guide of which politicians were sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. It published a survey done by the grassroots advocacy group Vote Palestine which sent to every candidate across the country a five-point proposal:

👉Install a two-way arms embargo on Israel

👉End Canadian support for settlements [West Bank, East Jerusalem]

👉Combat anti-Palestinian racism and protect pro-Palestine speech 

👉Recognize the state of Palestine

👉Provide funding for Gaza relief efforts, including UNRWA.

 

THE SURVEY also contains a list of parties⁺ that support the platform: the Centrist Party of Canada; the Communist Party of Canada; Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada; the Young Greens of Canada; the Young New Democrats. Which saves me a whole lot of time hunting down party and candidate priorities.

 

IN THE RIDING WHERE I LIVE there are no candidates who have signed onto the Vote Palestine platform, and of the parties registered here, only the Communist Party of Canada addresses fully the manifesto’s demands. So, comrades, I guess I’m voting commie! 👍 

 

 

Cheers, Jake.____________________________________

 

[Picture is of a red-topped table stretching several hundred meters for displaced Palestinian families gathered amid the destruction in Rafah, Southern Gaza, on the first day of Ramadan to share iftar—the evening meal that breaks their daily fast.]

 

*Just a friendly reminder: the next time there's a major happening that will focus the news cycle for a few days—a Trump story or events in Ukraine or the South China Sea, whatever, note the uptick in Israeli bombing in Gaza and the greater number of Palestinian casualties (mostly women and children).  The IDF likes to camouflage their business behind current events when the media is focused elsewhere. (Not that the media, for the most part, is doing its job in calling a spade a genocide.) It’s one reason they want a bang-up war with Iran, with America doing most of the banging, of course. Cloaked under the fog of war, the ‘final solution’ to the Palestinian question can be carried out that much quicker.  

 

+ Thus far more than 240 candidates in the upcoming federal elections have signed onto the Vote Palestine's platform: 162 NDP, 65 Green, 14 Liberal, Block Québécois  0, Conservatives 0. 

 

MONTREAL ACTIVIST Yves Engler and former NDP candidate, Beisan Zubi on a recent "Talking Foreign Policy" podcast discuss the changing NDP stance on the Israel/Palestine conflict, noting Jaggmeet Singh's pointed questioning, during the recent French Leaders Debate, of Liberal PM Mark Carney on why he doesn't use the word "genocide" to describe what's happening in Gaza. Singh may have used this simply as a cudgel to score political points, but it may also represent a growing grassroots change, both inside the NDP as well as in the broader Canadian public, that's increasingly in favour of Palestinian rights and adopting a more critical appraisal  of Israel. 

Singh, who was clearly in the pro-Israel-no-matter-what camp when he became NDP leader in 2017 has been changing his tune recently, according to Zubi. He could be taking heed of the changing attitudes within NDP ranks. As the Vote Palestine survey suggests, the NDP are the most pro-Palestinian of our political parties, at least as far as the recent cohort of candidates is concerned. Let's see if the NDP party platform comes to reflect the changing attitudes of party members and the Canadian public.