Canadians will not forget the cowardice and criminality of Canadian leaders who continue to support Israel as it commits genocide of Palestinians

The genocidal intent of Israeli leaders towards Palestinians was made clear when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech on October 28th where he invoked a passage from the Old Testament which says: “Now go and smite the Amalekites, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

 

By Fareed Khan

 

When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, instigating World War 2, Polish Jews, who had been watching the persecution of their brothers and sisters in Germany over the previous decade, were suddenly in the crosshairs of the Nazis.  By the spring of 1940 the Nazis controlled Poland and several other European countries, and had begun the process of rounding up Jews in all the territories they had conquered and imprisoning them in Jewish “ghettos” and a network of concentration camps.

 

Over the course of World War 2 more than six million Jews were killed along with 11 million others who did not fit the Nazi image of what “Aryans” should look like, and the names of Buchenwald, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps have become embedded in history.  

 

After the war United Nations adopted the Genocide Convention, and eventually established the International Day of Commemoration for Victims of Genocide and International Holocaust Remembrance Day so that the horrors committed during World War 2 would not be forgotten with the passage of time. But as the world has witnessed since the 1940s genocide has been committed repeatedly in different parts of the world.   

 

At this time another genocide is being committed by Israel against Palestinians, with more than 28,000 Palestinians killed (more than 11,000 of them being children) as of December 23rd, according to the Geneva-based group Euro-med Human Rights Monitor.

 

 

As another campaign of state-sponsored mass murder and genocide takes place in real time nations like Canada and the US, which have repeatedly claimed to be defenders of the “international legal order", do nothing to stop it, and even support Israel by accepting the assertion that it is acting in “self-defence” in response to the October 7th attacks by Hamas, even though under international law an occupying nation cannot claim the right to self-defence against a people it is occupying according to United Nations officials.

 

For 12 weeks Israeli forces have been conducting a brutal military campaign against the people of Gaza with little regard that thousands of innocent civilians are the primary victims of their “war on Hamas”.  The casualty figure for Palestinians show that Israel has, with seeming deliberate intent, targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure.  The death toll of children alone should give pause to anyone who possesses a shred of humanity to stop the assault, but some Israeli politicians have called for the extermination of all Palestinians in Gaza, with one even suggesting that Israel should drop a nuclear bomb on the territory.

 

 

The genocidal intent of Israeli leaders towards Palestinians was made clear when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech on October 28th where he invoked a passage from the Old Testament which says: “Now go and smite the Amalekites, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”  This genocidal rhetoric barely received acknowledgement let alone condemnation from Canada and other western nations.

 

Under Section 2 of the Genocide Convention the crime of genocide is defined as any one of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, including:

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Israel has been committing genocidal crimes against Palestinians for decades with Western complicity, with early Zionist leaders like Israel’s first prime minister David Ben Gurion calling for the “transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) of all non-Jews from the lands of historic Palestine, even through the use of force.  And for almost three months it has been committing three of the crimes defined under the Genocide Convention simultaneously.   

 

Yet neither Canada nor any of its western allies are doing anything to stop Israel’s campaign of mass murder against a defenceless people, who possess neither army, navy nor air force. The question is why?   

 

The only reason that makes sense is a deliberate policy of anti-Palestinian racism and hate within the political ecosystems of Canada and other Western nations and within those societies.

 

Compare this response to how Canada, the US and their European allies have responded to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.  The same crimes that Russia committed against Ukrainians are being committed by Israel against Palestinians.  In response the US has given more than US$46 billion in military and economic aid to the Ukrainian government, while Canada has committed more than CAD$ 9.5 billion.  In addition, Russia has been repeatedly condemned and sanctioned, and the spectre of genocide has been invoked in that conflict, while no such actions or words have been forthcoming against Israel even though Palestinian deaths are more than 250% greater than those of Ukrainians.  The contrast in the West’s response couldn’t be more stark, with the only difference being that Ukrainians are white and Christian while Palestinians are racialized and largely Muslim.

 

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians of all faiths and backgrounds have demonstrated in the streets weekly since early October, along with millions around the world, demanding a full ceasefire and a flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.  But no Western leader has been willing to do what is necessary to stop the slaughter.

 

 In Canada, 71% of Canadians support a ceasefire and have demanded that Justin Trudeau’s government take action which would end Israel’s unceasing attacks on Palestinians.  But despite the death toll, the Trudeau government’s actions have been limited to calling for a “humanitarian” ceasefire, and supporting a non-binding resolution in the UN General Assembly which was overwhelmingly supported by UN members.  Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, was a bit of a maverick on the world stage when he was Canadian prime minister, and occasionally broke ranks with Canada’s allies.  If he were alive today he would be ashamed at his son’s lack of humanity, and unwillingness to speak in defence of a people who are being murdered with impunity.

 

Liberal and Conservative politicians, often say Canada is a “rule of law” nation, a defender of the “international legal order”.  Those statements have been proven to blatant lies based on Canada’s lack of reaction to the genocide of Palestinians.

 

The only solution is for Canada to be more aggressive in its response to Israel if it wants to continue to lay claim to being a defender of the so-called “international legal order”.  The only way to do this is for Canadian leaders of all stripes to demonstrate humanity for Palestinians by taking the following actions:

• Immediately begin working with the UN to implement a ceasefire and permit unrestricted humanitarian aid into Gaza;
• Work with other Western nations invoke the UN doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect" to defend Palestinian civilians from Israeli aggression;
• The Canadian government and parliamentarians officially recognize Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people as genocide;
• Canada work with the UN to bring to trial before the International Criminal Court all political and military leaders in this war under charges of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide; and
• That Canada make a sincere, concerted effort through the UN and other forums to end more than half a century of a brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, which is the ultimate source of the decades of tragedy leading to what the world is witnessing today.

In addition to the anti-Palestinian racism we are witnessing at the political level, we are also seeing an explosion in neo-McCarthyism across society.  Those speaking in defence of Palestinian rights are being persecuted, harassed, intimidated, doxed and even fired from their jobs.  It seems that condemning Israel for the mass murder and genocide of a defenceless people is being criminalized at a societal level.  Doctors, contract workers, and even those on minimum wage have been fired, and Canadian journalists are also being threatened and let go from their jobs for daring to speak publicly in support of Palestinians.

 

Those journalists who have not are having their freedom to tell the truth about Israeli crimes suppressed and restricted by news media executives under threat of sanction, with CTV journalists being told they can’t even use the word “Palestine”.  This is happening to thousands of people across the country simply for defending Palestinian rights, and they are being unjustly accused of being anti-Semitic for expressing their humanity.Western societies (including in Canada) are living in a very dangerous moment in time and all people of conscience have to raise their voices in defence of human rights.  Because if we fail to protect Palestinians today as their rights are egregiously violated, a people who are now the most persecuted minority in the world, it will be at the price of a world governed by barbarity, brutality and the highest form of injustice, similar to when the Nazis began the extermination of six million Jews.

 

Canadians will not forget this moment, and the lack of humanity, cowardice and gutless behaviour shown by Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre and other Canadian politicians.  They have chosen to give in to anti-Palestinian racism, hate and Islamophobia being pushed by Israel and their Zionist allies and agents.  Canadians will remember this severe failure in humanity and morality, and they will make sure all politicians who chose to side with a nation committing genocide will pay the heaviest price possible in their political careers.

 

Fareed Khan is a human rights activist and founder of Canadians United Against Hate.

 

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