 |
| Demo at Parliament Square, London, August 2025 |
IN SEPTEMBER OF 2024, the formerstated:
“First and foremost, our policy has
been clear since January 8, [2024] we and I have not accepted any form of arms
export permits to be sent to Israel… We will not have any form of arms or parts
of arms be sent to Gaza, period.” (The Maple)
So, everything’s copacetic, right? No
arms to Israel. That’s good, isn’t it? Canada is part of a growing number of
countries suspending the sale of weapons to the out-of-control Jewish state.
These include Italy, Japan, Spain, Columbia and several others. A growing list
and one we hope represents reality. It should be the moral thing to do, an automatic admonition and sanctioning by our better selves. But the
levels of obfuscation, propaganda, and outright lies available to our political
and economic elites to hide the truth of things, like selling guns and
munitions to genocidaires, is endless. One hopes Canada is transparent in this
matter. One hoped, anyway.
A 2024 REPORT by the United Nations
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) found
that while Canada is no longer issuing new permits for sales of military
hardware to Israel, those permits in place prior to 8 January 2024 remain
active. Furthermore, the watchdog group, Arms Embargo Now reports that direct military sales to Israel increased sharply during the
months immediately following 7 October, 2023. They note that: “Data from Global
Affairs Canada (GAC) revealed nearly $30 million dollars worth of new [Emphasis
mine] export permits for military goods and technology had been authorized for
Israel in just the first two months of the genocide.”
 |
| Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) Proposals |
IT IS INTERESTING that, even as
Canadian exports of military goods to Israel increased significantly between
October and December 2023, government accounts of the transferred materiel
became more opaque. One small, but telling, example is the change GAC made in
labeling military exports in its records. The original and straight-forward
label: “Exports of Military Goods and
Technology” changed in 2025 to
“Strategic Goods and Technologies Pursuant to Section 27 of the Export and
Import Permits Act”—the later, I'm sure you'll agree, is a title so vague that it could be misconstrued as non-military consumer goods, and therefore less apt to be closely scrutinized by export regulators.
“The data presented in this section,
drawn directly from Israeli import records, paints an undeniable picture: a
steady and substantial flow of Canadian military and strategic goods to Israel
continued, and in some categories accelerated, long after the Canadian government announced its “pause” [in January 2024] on new export
permits.” (Arms Embargo Now)
Another obfuscation used is to claim sales of Canadian military goods to Israel, either shipped directly or via the United States, come with a "rider" stating the exports cannot be used in Gaza. This loophole means that Israel can legally import materiel from Canada for its other conflicts (the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran) and move munitions from those theatres to Gaza as needed. The authors of the report go on to say
that the January 2024 policy “has proven to have little material
effect on stopping these transfers, as the record-breaking volume of permits
issued just prior [emphasis mine] to the announcement ensured the
pipeline of military exports remained
wide open.” Additionally, those sales negotiated in such haste between Israel and Canada in late 2023 will have totaled over ninety-million-dollars when the final sales are completed by the end of 2025. When questioned about Canada’s military exports to Israel, then-Foreign
Affairs Minister Joly used the standard talking point of claiming such-and-such shipment
contained “non-lethal” (whatever that means) military hardware. So,
Canadian-made night-vision goggles used by an Israeli sniper are okay, even if the device helps murder innocent Palestinians? Goggles good. Rifles bad. Is that what we’re
supposed to accept? GMAB!
👉Any shipment
of military goods facilitates Israel’s genocide, no matter how ‘benign’.
Frankly, any trade with Israel facilitates, supports, and ultimately
condones Israel’s actions in Gaza.
|
South African Delegation to the ICJ December 2023 |
Even South Africa’s hands are not
entirely clean in this matter. The brave South African jurists who, in December
2023, brought forward to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) a charge of
genocide against Israel, must contend with a difficult fact: their country still exports coal to Israel, helping, literally, to fuel the genocide they went to The Hague to prevent. Without a
secure electrical grid from its thermal (coal, gas) generating plants, Israel could not
aggress as it does against the Palestinian people—or anyone else for that
matter. Its extensive communications and surveillance apparatus, its drones,
facial recognition programs, AI-generated targeting systems, monitoring and remote
control systems, etc., all use lots of electricity, not to mention the electrical needs of a modern society.
IT SHOULD BE
NOTED: this past August there were protests in South Africa around that country’s
coal exports to the Jewish state and the hypocrisy on the part of the South African government
that charges Israel with committing war crimes on the one hand, while on the other enables Israel to carry out its despicable
deeds using their coal.
“As a country, which took Israel
to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), we cannot again supply coal to
Israel, which keeps its electricity grid on, supporting the industrial military
complex it uses in carrying out the genocide.” (Mametlwe Sebei, president of
the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa.)
THE SOUTH
AFRICAN EXAMPLE calls our attention to understand how complex webs of vested interests—political,
social, institutional, corporate, and private—act at different times and places and intensities, to hobble and compete with even the most obvious and necessary
humanitarian actions.
👉There are supposed to be checks in the system to ensure Canadian armaments and munitions do not go to third parties like Israel where “arms or items
would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave
breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian
objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes” as per the UN sponsored 2013 "Arms Trade Treaty" of which Canada is a signatory. According to GAC, Canada has not made new trade contracts with Israel since 8 Jan 2024. It remains to be seen whether further military export deals are made between Canada and Israel once the old ones are completed. Canada also has a trade treaty with the United States called
the “Defence Production Sharing Agreement” which cuts through red-tape and
facilitates sales of Canadian weapons and materiel to the US Department of Defence
War to the tune of one-billion dollars annually, and does not require
export permits, so we have less understanding of what's being sold to our great southern neighbour and what they do with our stuff afterwards. We don’t know definitively how much Canadian kit is being forwarded
on to Israel. Tracking the Canadian footprint in all that is like tossing a
hundred or so fluffy, white kittens into an automatic dryer and adding a black
or grey into the mix as it's tumbling. Hard to track, in other words. 😒 This lack of oversight and rigorous export controls with respect to third-party use of our military exports suggests our weapons trade regime needs more comprehensive monitoring and regulatory procedures. [How about not selling weapons, period?! Just sayin'. Ed.]
To recap: Military exports get to Israel from Canada as direct sales, as indirect sales or donations via the United States, and also as “diplomatic cargo”. For example, 16,883 tons of container shipments were
classified as 'diplomatic cargo' by the Israeli Consulate in New York and destined
for Israeli ports between 2011-2014 without any inspections of the shipments. (I imagine they contained memo pads and paperclips. You can never have too many paperclips.)
IN CANADA, recent “export data
reveal that air shipments labeled as ‘diplomatic cargo’ originated from the
Israeli Consulate in Montreal, Quebec. Which raises the question about the
content of these diplomatic shipments.” (Arms Embargo Now) So, something similar may be happening here, too.
Israel's military also gets financial help from wealthy Canadian donors and 'charitable' organizations that provide funds or services directly to the the IDF (Israeli Defence Force)*
Isn't it about time we stop making excuses and actually do something?
CHEERS, JAKE. ____________________________________
|
View of Gaza 'Targets' Through Sniper Scope |
FUN
FACT: IDF policy has it that for a single Hamas fighter targeted by Israeli
intelligence, one-hundred non-combatants, i.e., ‘collateral damage’,
can be killed, if necessary, by Israeli
bombs and missiles. A 100-to-one kill ratio is deemed acceptable to Israel’s
military and political leadership. If that isn’t a recipe for mass murder, I
don’t know what is!
(p.s., I have no idea how many Hamas there
are, but, given the murderous
rampage Netanyahu and his Sturmtruppen are conducting, with the
acquiesce and even the approval of most Jewish Israelis it must be said, there should be
plenty of volunteers signing up at the local Hamas recruitment centre in the
near future.
* Jewish organizations like JNF Canada, Friends of Israel Defence Forces, Mizrachi Canada, etc., are registered in Canada as charities. They offer tax deductions to donors whose funds go to support the IDF, a foreign military. In general, Canadians are allowed to send money to the IDF, but they cannot claim their donation as a tax deduction on their income tax returns, unless they go through Jewish charities here in Canada. The rules seem pretty clear and it's a wonder how this loophole remains active even now. In fact, these Jewish organizations are not charities. They are agents of a foreign government and should have their charitable status revoked and a "foreign lobby" label attached to their incorporation papers.
IF A DONOR gets a charitable tax receipt from one of these so-called 'charities', the rest of us are on the hook for the amount of the deduction. In addition, the CRA, by allowing this charitable loophole to remain active, makes the Canadian taxpayer indirectly complicit in funding a genocide. 😕 And that's a very unpleasant thought, indeed.
👉Wyatt Reed of the Grayzone says of other Canadian charities: "A separate report published by Just Peace Advocates
found that in 2023 up to $100 million went completely untaxed as it was
funneled to Israeli universities from their ‘charitable’ arms in
Canada. The money went to a variety of schools with strong ties to
occupation forces." [i.e., the IDF] Several Israeli universities received Canadian charitable donations to conduct research, provide occupational and technical training for IDF soldiers, promote as legitimate Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, as well as providing reports and research tools and technical expertise for the IDF. 👉Again, it is illegal for Canadian charities to make donations to a foreign military. Individuals are free to do so, but they cannot claim charitable tax exemption status for their donation. Why this loophole continues to exist is another very good question. 😠
"From Economy of Occupation to Economy
of Genocide." Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights
in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967:
“By supplying
Israel with coal, gas, oil and fuel, companies are contributing to civilian
infrastructures that Israel uses to entrench permanent annexation and weaponizes
in the destruction of Palestinian life. The same infrastructure services the
Israeli military while it obliterates Gaza, including the network supplying the
resources that these companies have provided. The ostensibly civilian nature of such
infrastructure does not exonerate a company of responsibility.”
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy-of-occupation-to-economy-of-genocide-report-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-palestine-2025/
%20Prof.%20Jeffrey%20Sachs%20-%20Netanyahu%E2%80%99s%20Vulgar%20UN%20Lies%20-%20YouTube.jpg)
%20Israel's%20DARK%20SECRET%20Genocide%20Economy%20EXPOSED%20Francesca%20Albanese%20-%20YouTube.jpg)
