Where We Are
The last two years of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s tenure have been marked by a massive escalation of several interconnected geopolitical crises. Canada remains a feeble and largely irrelevant ‘middle power,’ but is nonetheless actively complicit in worsening these already catastrophic crises. This article will focus on one important example: Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The Trudeau government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide highlights both its legacy as a pro-war vassal regime that is fundamentally subservient to American foreign policy, and its consistent appeasement of the Israel lobby. It is a government rank with hypocrisy on human rights and international law, and one whose record ought to finally put to rest the myth that Canada is a “peacekeeping” nation.
Despite its weak statements calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Trudeau government continues to allow Canadian-made military goods to flow to Israel under existing export permits. After months of activist-led pressure and protests, it paused approvals of new permits on Jan. 8, 2024, and claimed it had suspended “around 30” existing permits over the summer.
Alex Cosh
However, it has allowed potentially hundreds of other existing permits that were authorized before Jan. 8, 2024 to continue to be utilized. Meanwhile, a new record was set in 2023 for Canadian military exports to Israel, with $30.6 million worth of goods shipped.
Before announcing the pause on new export permits last year, the Trudeau government deliberately misled the public and attempted to spin data disclosures concerning exports of Canadian military goods to Israel.
As well, there is no clear or official mechanism by which the government is blocking the flow of Canadian military goods that are shipped to Israel via the United States, including components found in the F-35 fighter jet, which Israel is using to bomb Gaza.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly assured the public that she was working to block a potential shipment of Canadian-made mortar cartridges to Israel via the U.S. following a public outcry in August. That pledge came after she initially denied the existence of the potential contract, which had been made public in a U.S. government announcement.
It is unclear whether blocking goods that flow to Israel via the U.S. is a policy that is being applied to all such exports, and not just those that attract public attention.
The Trudeau government has also continued to rush ahead with procurements of Israeli military goods — even some that have been found to be faulty. It hosted a “sandbox” event in Alberta in the spring that trialled technology from an Israeli arms company whose goods have been used by the Israeli military to maintain apartheid over Palestinians and, according to at least one human rights monitoring group, kill civilians in Gaza.
Alex Cosh
All throughout the genocide, the prime minister has shamelessly repeated lie after lie invented by the Israeli government and its stooges in Canada — whether about racist Israeli football hooligans rampaging through Amsterdam or about pro-Palestine protests here.
He offered pathetic and confusing remarks about the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, with the prime minister stating in January that Canada does not necessarily “support the premise” of South Africa’s case.
Early on in the genocide, officials in the Trudeau government knowingly spread debunked lies about Palestine solidarity protests operating at the behest of Hamas, helping to set the tone for shocking police crackdowns across the country in the proceeding months. The government has fulfilled the Israel lobby’s wishes to designate certain pro-Palestine groups, such as Samidoun, as “terrorist” entities.
Through its “antisemitism” envoy, the Trudeau government has continued to push the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism. The envoy’s handbook on the IHRA definition, published in November, amounts to an instruction manual on how to crush Palestinian activism under the guise of combating antisemitism.
The Trudeau government’s humanitarian efforts to help those trapped in Gaza range from inadequate to failed by design.
Its temporary visa program for Gaza residents with relatives in Canada stands out as a particularly egregious failure, rooted in anti-Palestinian racism. Thanks in large part to the program’s onerous barriers, Canada has granted fewer than 500 visas to those able to pay the extortionate costs to escape, and many families remain trapped in Gaza and at risk of being murdered by Israel at any moment.
In January, the Trudeau government temporarily paused funding for Palestine’s main aid organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), based on Israel’s unproven claim that a handful of UNRWA employees had participated in the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
The Trudeau government’s failures have prompted multiple lawsuits. For example, in November, the Legal Centre for Palestine, representing two Palestinian Canadian plaintiffs, sued the Attorney General of Canada “alleging Canada‘s failure to act to prevent genocide is a violation of its legal obligations under the Genocide Convention (1948) and of the plaintiffs’ rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
How We Got Here
Trudeau is a proud Zionist. By all indications, and despite whatever delusional elements of the Israel lobby might claim, he is a true believer in Israel and everything that it is: a racist state built on ethnic cleansing, and sustained through apartheid and genocide.
Of course, Trudeau doesn’t see it that way, believing as he does in the racist myth of Israel being a lone bastion of liberal democracy in the Middle East.
As his positions on other major foreign policy matters show, Trudeau is also fully on board with the idea of enduring American unipolarity and influence, whether that be in Europe, the Middle East or elsewhere. Canadian foreign policy is ultimately governed accordingly, albeit shaded by Canada’s own domestic pressures and concerns.
Since taking office in 2015, Trudeau’s government has routinely supported, excused or downplayed Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians, save some paltry remarks that invoked Canada’s official support for a two-state solution and the government’s claimed opposition to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
As well, as I wrote in an article published last year, Trudeau has condemned and opposed every peaceful method of Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation.
Alex Cosh
This includes Trudeau condemning Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in 2019, and stating that Israeli Apartheid Week has “no place” on Canadian campuses.
In 2018, Trudeau backed down from an initial call to investigate Israel’s shooting of Canadian physician Tarek Loubani, along with 36,100 Palestinian demonstrators, during the peaceful Great March of Return protests.
Trudeau then met with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, who gave assurances that the prime minister “expressed full confidence in Israel’s capacity and will to hold its troops to a high ethical standard.”
Meanwhile, his government continued to authorize arms exports to Israel year after year, while constantly invoking Israel’s “self defence” propaganda mantra, even as it carried out brutal attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and other occupied territories.
For years, the Trudeau government consistently voted against various United Nations (UN) motions affirming Palestinian rights and criticizing Israel’s actions (although this now, finally, appears to be beginning to change on some motions). In 2020, it opposed the International Criminal Court’s right to investigate Israeli crimes carried out in occupied Palestine on the basis that Canada does not recognize the State of Palestine and its accession to international treaties.
When Amnesty International published a landmark report in February 2022 affirming that Israel maintains a system of apartheid over Palestinians, the Trudeau government rejected its findings without even bothering to cite evidence for doing so.
The Trudeau government also helped excuse and cover up Israel’s deliberate killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022.
Alex Cosh
In particular, Joly’s office worked behind the scenes to try to edit an international statement regarding Abu Akleh’s killing which did not even name Israel as the perpetrator.
Joly’s office wanted to add a reference to a discredited Israeli military report which falsely claimed Abu Akleh was killed “accidentally,” but the request was rebuffed due to time constraints. Joly’s office then unsuccessfully tried to delay the statement, citing the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The Trudeau government also embraced the most openly fascistic elements of Israel’s political spectrum in the year preceding Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and its recent attacks on Lebanon and land grabs in Syria.
When Benjamin Netanyahu, now a fugitive war criminal, returned to power as Israeli prime minister in December 2022, he did so with support from the leaders of Israel’s most extreme right-wing political factions.
This included convicted racist and far-right terrorism supporter Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is now Israel’s minister of national security. Ben-Gvir has openly supported raping Palestinian detainees, and has overseen the running of some of Israel’s notorious torture camps.
When Netanyahu won the Israeli legislative election in 2022, Trudeau warmly congratulated him. But it wasn’t just Netanyahu himself who was welcomed. To this day, the Liberal government lists Ben-Gvir as a “key international contact” on the Public Safety Canada website and has offered nonsensical excuses for keeping him there.
After Netanyahu’s far-right government took power, the Trudeau government offered muted words of concern and criticism against some of its most egregious statements and actions.
For example, when far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for a Palestinian village to be “wiped out” last year, Global Affairs Canada condemned his remarks as “reprehensible” in an unsigned statement.
But that statement only came when asked by a reporter, and did not come with any sanctions against Israeli settlers or condemnations of the Israeli military’s direct complicity in settler violence.
This year, the Trudeau government finally imposed sanctions on 11 Israeli settlers and five settler groups, but failed to target Israeli ministers who are complicit in violence and left theft against Palestinians.
By working for years to excuse or downplay Israel’s brutal killing of Palestinians and its theft of Palestinian land, the Trudeau government, along with Israel’s other international partners, helped embolden Israel’s leaders with the sense of impunity they needed to carry out the genocide in Gaza and other acts of aggression against neighbouring states.
Where We Are Going
If Trudeau’s Zionism is proud, then Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre’s is fanatical — as is that of his deputy leader, Melissa Lantsman. Jeremy Appel and I explored this in an article published earlier this year.
Poilievre’s record demonstrates a commitment to unquestioningly championing everything Israel does, and vilifying its critics. If he becomes prime minister, Poilievre has pledged to starve UNRWA of Canadian funds and has indicated he will return Canada to marching in lockstep with Israel at the UN. In short, it will be a return to the Stephen Harper years.
Alex Cosh
It is ludicrous to say that Canada’s harm to Palestinians will be materially “worse” under Poilievre when Israel is, right now, being permitted by its allies to commit genocide and acts of aggression without any restraints or real consequences.
But there is every indication that under Poilievre, any pretence of concern for Palestinian life will be discarded in favour of unapologetic support for everything Israel does. Especially given the second incoming U.S. presidency of Donald Trump, Canada may support or at least not stand in the way of moves by Israel to illegally annex Gaza, the West Bank and perhaps land in other neighbouring countries coveted by Israel’s government.
The lies and propaganda needed to justify the Canadian government’s existing support for Israel are already stretched thin, but will be kicked into overdrive by Poilievre. As well, more crackdowns on expressions and actions in support of Palestine should be expected.
Along with some of our colleagues in independent media, and activists who have worked so hard this past year to force some concessions from the current government, we will be ready for Poilievre and his incoming war on support for Palestine, should he be elected.
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Member discussion