Across the country, week after week, chants of “ceasefire now” ring through the streets as thousands call for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza. From the beginning of the onslaught, Israel weaponized starvation and dehydration, shutting off water and electricity and stopping food from entering the region. The people of Gaza continue to endure a devastating famine that has left them eating leaves and animal feed.
Israel wiped out entire lineages off the map, turning whole neighbourhoods into dust and rubble, finally forcing the people of Gaza into a small enclave of land in Rafah. Even the injured were not spared as Israel bombed convoys of ambulances, shelled hospitals, and repeatedly obliterated refugee camps.
And while our political leaders now feign humanitarian concern for Israel’s imminent massacre in Rafah and the conditions of starvation imposed upon Palestinians, Canada precipitated the crisis by cutting vital UNRWA funding. Now home to nearly 1.5 million mostly displaced Palestinians near Egypt’s border face down Israel’s war machine as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to send ground forces into the southern city of Rafah.
More than five months of Israel’s war and total siege on Gaza has left over 31,000 Palestinians dead. And Canada is deeply complicit, too.
Our MPs continue to debate the legitimacy of a ceasefire even as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has affirmed the plausibility of genocide committed by Israel in Gaza.
Canadian complicity
Liberal and Conservative MPs set the tone early by extending unconditional support for an unfolding genocide. Canada provided diplomatic cover for the genocide by abstaining on an emergency resolution at the UN General Assembly in November, calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities in Gaza.” Canada stood firmly on the side of Israel even as the motion passed with 120 votes in favour. Mass movement pressure eventually forced Canada to support the motion in December, but the refusal one month earlier was damning enough.
In fact, in the last decade, Liberal and Conservative governments have voted against 149 UN resolutions on Palestinian rights—which, per The Breach, makes it Israel’s 2nd main backer after the US. Canada continued to provide Israel with unwavering support even though Israeli leaders openly admitted—with total impunity—their intent to erase Gaza through a military strategy focused on “damage and not accuracy.”
From Justin Trudeau to Pierre Poilievre, Canada’s ritual endorsement of Israel’s “right to self-defence” helped give Israel the diplomatic cover to execute its plan of destruction. When pressed on the demand for a ceasefire and an end to the bombardment, other than paying lip service to the rules of war, Canada stands by Israel’s right to defend itself while calling on all parties to respect international humanitarian law. But Canada’s position calls for the impossible: you cannot stand “firmly” in support of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and still call for the protection of civilians. Israel’s military strategy targets civilians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech describing Israel’s expanding war on Gaza as Israel’s second war of independence. Netanyahu signalled that Israel aimed to finish what the first war started: the expulsion of Palestinians from historic Palestine.
Israel has shown genocidal intent, and it matches that with genocidal action.
Even though two-thirds of Gaza’s people are already refugees of previous displacements, the Israeli Intelligence Ministry suggests relocating Gazans to Sinai after its war with Hamas—a draft document prepared by the Israeli intelligence ministry indicates an option to initially relocate Gaza’s population to tent cities in northern Sinai. The leaked Israeli paper describes forcibly transferring the entire population of Gaza across the border into the Egyptian Sinai. The intelligence paper named Canada as a potential site for the expelled Palestinians.
An attack on Rafah may leave the people of Gaza with little choice but to try to force their way across the border fence into Egypt.
All of this happens in a context where Canada’s arms exports to Israel accelerated in recent years—reaching a 30-year high in 2020. Explosives, bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, and other explosive devices are all characteristic of Canada’s exports to Israel.
End the siege, end the occupation
Canada’s complicity with Israel stretches back before the tragedy of October 7.
Israel is a profoundly racist, apartheid state, and our parliamentarians know this, too: a 2022 Amnesty International report criticized Israel’s policy of building an apartheid state in its occupied territories, but Canada has said it rejects the view that “Israel’s actions constitute apartheid.”
For sixteen years, Gaza has lived under air, land, and water siege, entrapping a population of two million, half of them children. Israel implemented policies like calorie controls to spread malnutrition and disability.
The sixteen-year siege has created a humanitarian catastrophe with most of the population unemployed, sub-standard hospitals where Gazans are refused permission to leave for life-saving care, and electricity that lasts for a few hours a day because Israel limits the amount of fuel allowed into Gaza.
For seventy-five years, Israel has subjected Palestinians to routine massacres, restrictions on electricity, medical attention and water, a suffocating blockade of resources and aid, and continuous bombings, all crimes against humanity. In the past year, the most right-wing government in Israeli history has escalated attacks against Palestinians through an intensification of attacks by its armed forces and settlers.
Ending Canada’s complicity with the genocide
Canada could immediately place sanctions to impose a ban on businesses with illegal settlements in the West Bank and the sale of arms to Israel until Israel complies with international law. The International Court of Justice’s rulings on the separation wall, the illegality of Israeli settlements, and altering the face of Jerusalem should have become the drive for Canada to impose sanctions against Israel.
But our political leaders cannot say they did not know. Israel has openly signalled their intention to commit genocide since October 7.
We must be clear: given Canada’s long track record of upholding Israeli state violence against Palestinians inside Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, Trudeau’s refusal to call for a ceasefire amounts to an endorsement for ethnic cleansing and genocide.
We will not stand by and watch a massacre in Rafah. Neither should our MPs. There is a moment in which we can stop this, and Canada must call for an immediate ceasefire. The moment is now.
On Monday, March 18, Members of Parliament will vote on the NDP’s Opposition Day motion calling for a ceasefire. Click here to tell your MP: Support the motion, and vote for a #CeasefireNow.
The featured photo was originally taken by Nur Dogan.
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