Hamas just invaded Israel and now Gaza is under siege. And somehow, it’s all Justin Trudeau’s fault.
Just kidding, nobody’s suggesting that… yet. For now, Canadians seem to understand that Canada is small and peace in the Middle East is complex, and that all the prime minister can really offer at a time like this is moral clarity where it’s desperately needed.
So here’s what Trudeau had to say: “The glorification of death and violence and terror has no place anywhere, including especially here in Canada. Hamas … aren’t … freedom fighters, they are terrorists. And no one in Canada should be supporting them, much less celebrating them.”
Trudeau is exactly right. I support a free Palestine. But the first step toward liberation is freedom from Hamas – a terrorist organization that has used machine guns to impose religious laws from the Middle Ages on Gaza’s 2 million residents for 17 years without an election.
And to be completely clear: Israel, for all its faults, is at war with Hamas, not Palestine. The fact that Israel is preventing electricity and aid from reaching Gaza is horrible, and perhaps even a war crime. But it is in response to war crimes committed by Hamas, who genuinely give zero fucks about human life.
So far, Canada’s other major political parties share this reality-based evaluation of the situation. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh released a statement saying that he is “horrified” by the “terrorist attacks by Hamas on thousands of innocent Israeli civilians.”
And here’s what Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre had to say: “Hamas is not a militant organization; it is not an activist organization; it is surely not a government; it is a sadistic, demonic, genocidal, terrorist death-cult – and it must be defeated and destroyed.”
So our major parties can agree on something. The supporters of our major parties, on the other hand, cannot. Underneath the pro-Israel social media posts from Liberal, NDP and Conservative politicians you’ll find comment after after comment to the effect of: “you just lost my vote” or “you just lost half your votes.” I know politicians and their staff are thick-skinned – but that can’t be easy to take in at a time like this.
The reason Trudeau, Singh and Poilievre can agree about Hamas, if nothing else, is because Hamas really are terrorists … and, if you have the stomach to read the more detailed reports, verifiable monsters as well. But facts don’t matter for many people when emotions run high — and emotions definitely run high when religion is involved.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine is popularly depicted as a classic David vs Goliath story – with the Jews very ironically playing role of Goliath: Never mind that there’s only 16 million Jews and one Jewish-majority country in the world compared to 2.3 billion Muslims and 50 Muslim-controlled countries; and never mind that the Palestine movement is very much bankrolled by the international community.
So will one of Canada’s major political parties choose to forgo reason, change course and court the very popular, if completely misguided, anti-Israel vote? Or will a fringe wing or fringe party rise up to fill this void? And how will this war, should it be as big and drag on for as long as some are suggesting, affect domestic Canadian politics?
My guess, for what it’s worth, is that if any major Canadian political party goes for the anti-Israel vote, it won’t be the Liberals or the Conservatives. It will be the NDP – because of good-old, old-fashioned, left-wing antisemitism. I take no pleasure in saying that.
And my hope, for what it’s worth, is for a quick end to the violence… followed by a complete collective rejection of religion. And yes, I realize that most people claim the Israel-Palestine conflict isn’t really about religion; that it’s really about global geopolitics, or oil, or whatever.
But Hamas literally named this depraved attack on Israel after an ancient church that they’re super pissed is on Israeli land. So no matter what people say, I’m pretty sure religion has something to do with it.