Israeli President Isaac Herzog recently stated that the State of Israel has been “offended” by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s demand that Israel exercise “maximum restraint” in its attacks in Gaza where some 19, 000 defenseless Palestinian civilians have been killed and 52, 000 injured. “I have been clear that the price of justice cannot be the continued suffering of all Palestinian civilians. Even wars have rules. All innocent life is equal in worth — Israeli and Palestinian,” Trudeau said. “I urge the government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint. The world is watching, on TV, on social media”. Like virtually all other Western leaders intimidated by Israel and the pressure of the various pro-Israel Zionist organizations, Justin Trudeau would not go as far as to call for an immediate ceasefire to halt the appalling brutality and inhumanity of Israel’s attack on Gaza which is being referred to as a genocide. Their silence is the evidence of their complicity with Israel’s barbaric campaign.
Two-thirds of Palestinian fatalities are women and children. “Euro-Med Monitor made clear that women and children in Gaza are disproportionately suffering from the effects of Israel’s war. Approximately 52,500 infants in Gaza are currently at risk of starvation, death, dehydration, and other health hazards due to overcrowding, in addition to 55,000 pregnant women, of whom 5,500 are expected to give birth this month.” It also stated that “pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition, which will have a substantial negative impact on the survival and development of their children”, pointing out that as access to food and water is restricted, mothers found it “increasingly difficult to care for and feed their families, raising the risks of malnutrition, illness, and death.”
Half of Gaza’s population is on the point of starvation; there is a lack of drinking water, a lack of medication and medical services due to bombed-out hospitals. Israel has bombed with malice aforethought Gaza’s hospitals –forcing the hospitals to evacuate patients when evacuation was a logistical impossibility –bombed UN-run schools, mosques, including Gaza’s oldest mosque, churches, residential buildings, cultural centers and destroyed entire Gazan neighborhoods through a carefully conceived process of carpet-bombing supported by an Artificial Intelligence program. Israel has destroyed 80% of rescue vehicles and equipment in Gaza making it extremely difficult for civil defense teams to reach disaster areas and areas of generalized massacres.
Some 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced by force by the Israeli Occupation Forces this being in itself a crime against humanity (See Article 7 of the Rome Statute (Elements-of-Crimes PDF (www.icc-cpi.int) In fact, in its genocidal attack on Gaza Israel has clearly transgressed all three Articles of the Rome Statute (6, 7 and 8) governing the definitions of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity respectively). Yet, ‘Blessed, Virtuous’ Israel is offended by Trudeau’s statement! How dare any public figure or organization protest at Israel’s right to enact genocide!
There were some 1, 200 Israelis killed during the attack by Hamas which took place this past October 7. An estimated 360 Israelis were killed at the Nova music festival which took place at Kibbutz Re’im. Israel claimed that all of them were killed by Hamas gunmen. Hamas operatives also took a number of hostages whom were brought to Gaza. Herzog qualified it as the work of an “empire of evil” that has ambitions “beyond his country.” The Israeli narrative has serious cracks in it, however.
An Israeli police investigation into the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival near the Gaza border on 7 October revealed that an Israeli attack helicopter killed some of the attendees. First-hand accounts from Israeli witnesses of Israel’s clash with Hamas operatives on October 7 suggest that “in their desperation to contain the surprise incursion, Israeli troops indiscriminately fired on their own citizens with heavy weaponry, resulting in potentially scores of Israeli deaths from so-called “friendly fire.” It is not clear as to the number of Israelis who were killed by Israeli helicopter and tank shells at the kibbutz. Unverified claims by Israel that Hamas militants had beheaded Israeli children – denied by Hamas – helped justify and spur the genocidal attacks On Gaza’s civilians and infrastructure which followed the October 7 attack.
Isaac Herzog issues the usual Israeli lie about the “morality” and “compassion” of the Israeli Occupation Forces. The Israeli president said Israel “truly” cares about civilians in Gaza and “warns them of imminent attacks through leaflets, text messages and other methods to give them time to flee.” What extraordinary compassion, indeed! Herzog goes on to say, “”We tell them please move out of your premises, because out of your premises missiles were launched against us, terror operations came out of your premises, from your houses, from your shops, from your mosques.” Herzog then goes on to express the mantra that has always served as the pretext .and justification for Western colonization of non-White Indigenous populations: the need to “civilize” inferior,”uncivilized” people for their own good (while despoiling them of their natural resources), a constant replaying of ‘The White Man’s Burden’, or stated otherwise, the cult of the Ubermenschen and Untermenschen. “The forces of civilization must back Israel in defeating Hamas barbarism,” Herzog said.
In November, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Ronan Bar addressed a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in which Bar stated Israel’s intent to ‘complete its mission’ in Gaza. “All those who aspire to see a safer world should refrain from interfering or stopping us”, Bar goes on to state. This is another way of saying, “We expect the rest of the world to give Israel full reign to eradicate Gaza’s population as it sees fit’. Genocide for the good of humanity!
Ronan Bar then goes on to say in what is certainly one the most intellectually dishonest, cynical and hypocritical statements that have been uttered on the human catastrophe of Gaza in the following terms:
“The UN Charter states that the goal of the organization is to ‘renew belief in the most basic human rights, in human dignity and the importance of human life, and the equality of rights between men and women.’ Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip for 17 years and grossly ignores these principles, and the needs of the 2.2 million citizens living in Gaza,” he wrote.
There is an unspoken and unwritten message which is understood here and that is “Arabs and Muslims are something less than human.” Israel (and the West via its clear complicity in the genocide in Gaza) is that bastion of civilization meant to “civilize the Arab-Muslim untermenschen, apparently via genocide, for the ‘good of humanity.’ What could be simpler and clearer than the need to exterminate the civilian population of Gaza – largely Arab-Muslim but also Arab-Christian – for the ‘good of civilization’?
In another one of Israel’s unending lies, Bar contends that Hamas has ruled Gaza for 17 years. In effect, Israel has effectively exercised control over Gaza for the past 16 years after sealing it off with a blockade, the objective of which had nothing to do with Israeli ‘security,’ but which had as its objective (as noted in an earlier Canada Files article) to take control of a vast natural gas reservoir located in Palestinian territorial waters some 30 kilometers off the coast of Gaza. Gaza has been under a criminal and inhuman blockade ever since. The source of the violence which victimized citizens of Israel on October 7, 20023 stems from that situation. It is worthwhile to note that the Hamas party (which has a military wing) was elected in 2006 in a fully democratic process as recognized by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. (Netanyahu has from the outset worked to promote factionalism in the ranks of the Palestinian liberation movement by playing Hamas against Fatah. According to Israeli journalist Ben Caspit, Netanyahu views Hamas as a “treasure.”)
In effect, what Herzog states – like Ronan Bar – is really Israel’s official genocide narrative: that all Palestinians in Gaza are terrorists which justifies Israel killing them all, destroying their homes, hospitals, religious sites, schools, cultural centers and then blackmailing any and all who dare to criticize Israel’s clear intent to genocide. Major General Giora Eiland (retired), former head of the National Security Council and current advisor to the Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (who referred to the Palestinians as ‘human animals’) decided to spell out genocide as explicitly as Herzog using the same language. In a Hebrew article on the printed edition of the centrist Yedioth Ahronoth titled “Let’s not be intimidated by the world,” Eiland clarified that the whole Gazan civilian population was a legitimate target:
“They are not only Hamas fighters with weapons, but also all the ‘civilian’ officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population that enthusiastically supported Hamas and cheered on its atrocities on October 7th.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Turkish President Erdogan has called the “Butcher of Gaza” made his call to genocide against the Palestinian population clear in his metaphorical use of the call to genocide against the Biblical Amalek people. According to the Hebrew Bible, the nation of Amalek was an ancient archenemy of the Israelites whose extermination was commanded by God to Saul via the prophet Samuel. Here is what Netanyahu had to say in linking Amalek to the Gazans as reported in Common Dreams: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible” 1 Samuel 15:3 “Now go and smite Amalek, 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 is a clear incitement to genocide and is certainly worthy of a mandate to arrest to be issued against Netanyahu for incitement to genocide.
There is also the fact that Israeli authorities had been informed of the planned Hamas operation a year before it took place, yet nothing was done to prevent it happening, as “Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.” At least, that is the official response. But does that mean that Netanyahu was not aware of the intelligence document or was it more a case of his deciding to let it happen? After, all, the Hamas attack gave ‘Bibi’ the justification for launching his genocidal attack on Gaza. It cleared the streets of Tel Aviv of the thousands of Israeli protestors who had spent eight months protesting Netanyahu’s proposed changes to Israel’s judicial system. So, cui bono?
In a relevant article in Truthout, Aidan Orly points to the fact that many Christian Zionists are using the same Israeli hasbara (propaganda) trope to support the genocide against Gaza’s civilian population. In a paragraph which merits quoting, Orly writes:
This is not the first time that right-wing religious groups across the globe have invoked Amalek against those they oppose. For centuries, Christian leaders have used Amalekite language to justify genocide, including against Native Americans and against Tutsis in Rwanda. Right-wing Jewish groups have also employed the Amalek trope. Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994, likely influenced by Amalekite language employed by the far right Kahane movement of which he was a part. (Israel’s current minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is also associated with this movement, which has largely dissipated but is still technically outlawed in Israel as a terrorist group.)
As for the genocidal apartheid State of Israel, while it has bludgeoned Gaza to the point that its reconstruction will be decades in the making, Israel itself has no future. Some 500, 000 Israelis have fled Israel with others intending to leave as quickly as possible. Those Israelis who hold double nationalities have the flexibility to leave as soon as they can get a flight out. In effect, it is an aliyah (the immigration of Jews to Israel, either as individuals or in groups) in reverse. Approximately 20% of Israel’s workforce is jobless; one in three businesses have closed or are operating at no more than 20% of their capacity. The Butcher of Gaza is so desperate that he has just asked his war cabinet of fascists to give the green light for the return of Palestinian workers to Israel because of a shortage of workers there. Just imagine, murdering thousands of Palestinians and then inviting them to come back to work in Israel! Not surprisingly, Netanayhu’s cabinet refused the proposal. The Palestinians have given their response: they have held a general strike and called for a global strike in support of Gaza. There has been a call across the Arab world not just for a boycott of Israel but for a boycott of Western and particularly U.S. products.
Contrary to Herzog’s fable about Israeli “tolerance and compassion”, within Israel the calls to genocide against the Palestinians have come from a wide spectrum of Israeli speakers, including politicians, military instances and media personalities. It is against this background of the call to genocide and the actual enacting of genocide against Gaza’s population that we now can turn back to Herzog’s spurious claim of Israel as “offended victim”, the need to push Trudeau (and a host of other individuals) into a corner, and the role of pro-Israel lobby representatives –some of whom lurk in the caucus of the Liberal Party of Canada – and Gatekeeper organizations such as the B’nai Brith and the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs and academic institutions in intimidating and silencing critics of the Israeli genocide . In the face of what amounts to either direct or indirect support for Israel in its genocidal campaign in Gaza, there may be sanctions encountered by the Gatekeepers down the road. They are apologists for genocide. Their impunity is not an absolute.
There is a bitter irony in the Gatekeepers and their allies use of conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in that this paradigm actually increases anti-Jewish sentiment: Because it has been the Zionist project to absorb both Judaism and Jews into the concept of the State of Israel as the embodiment of Judaism, thereby substituting the State for God, it is now in the public imagination to conflate Zionism with Judaism and Israel as the embodiment of world Jewry. Hence, the blame for heinous acts enacted upon the subjugated Palestinians under the colonial rule of Israel fall upon the collective shoulders of the Jews, although there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Jews who are critical of Israel and bound to their Jewish culture by virtue of Judaism’s humanist values, not to the worship of the State.
Vandalism and intimidation against Jews and synagogues is deplorable and should be denounced. It should, however, be noted that it is the failure to differentiate the state of Israel from Jews as a collectivity which is at the heart of the current rise in anti-Jewish sentiment. Is it less deplorable for Israel to bombard mosques and churches? Certainly not, but our valiant ‘transparent’ mainstream media and ‘virtuous’ political class remain silent
Israel’s local Gatekeepers would do well to take note of the changes which the conflict in Gaza is in the process of effecting. The Gatekeepers may very well have a firm belief in the impunity of Israel and in their own impunity. That is likely to change over the coming months and next several years. It is worth noting that there is no statute of limitations on acts of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity. Israel is guilty of all three in its genocide in Gaza. Those who aid and abet that genocide are equally guilty. Those countries that have given their unconditional support to the Israeli onslaught of Gaza have blood on their hands! That includes Canada.
Only just recently, CJP Legal Working Group for Canadian Accountability (ICJP LWGCA) has written a notice of intention to seek prosecution of Canadian government officials, for aiding and abetting war crimes in Gaza. Prime Minister Trudeau is one of four Canadian politicians who have been served with the legal notice. The three other government ministers are Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, Minister of National Revenue Marie-Claude Bibeau, and Minister of Justice (Attorney General) Arif Virani. “The notice included a stark warning that Canadian government officials could be individually liable and face before the International Criminal Court if there is evidence they have aided and abetted Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity (a violation of Article 25(3)(c) and (d) of the Rome Statute).”
That Trudeau has been pushed into a corner by Israel and its local disciples here in Canada is of no surprise. He has been an eager and duplicitous endorser of all Israeli policies, absolutely anti-Palestinian in its scope. His government has consistently voted against UN resolutions seeking justice for the Palestinians. He and his colleagues have turned a blind eye to Israel’s apartheid system and the constant suffering of the Palestinian people under the debilitating and dehumanizing yoke of Israel’s violent and illegal occupation of stolen Palestinian land. That other cowards in Liberal ranks have not come forward to Trudeau’s rescue is of no surprise either. They are what they are, and the people see them for what they are. They also recognize the moral turpitude and general inadequacy of Parliament’s opposition parties. Clearly, the Emperor has no clothes!
There is a clear lesson to be learned by Canada’s Arab and Muslim communities. After Christianity, Islam was the second most commonly reported religion in Canada in 2021, with nearly 1.8 million, or 1 in 20, people. In 20 years, the share of the Muslim population in Canada has more than doubled—up from 2.0% in 2001 to 4.9% in 2021. There are almost 1 million Arab-Canadians (947,820) according to the 2016 census, as analyzed by the Canadian Arab Institute (CAI), largely residing in Quebec and Ontario. This is a major increase in the population of about 75% since the 2006 census. In 2001 44% of Arabs were Christian and 44% were Muslim. It is high time that Canadian Arabs and Muslims recognized their political clout and unified their forces. Come the next federal election the Arab-Muslim communities, especially in Quebec and Ontario have the numbers in certain federal ridings to make and unmake candidates. They have no real friends in the Liberal and Conservative parties of Quebec. They have no reason to vote for a Trudeau or a Poilievre. Their rallying cry should be: ‘Remember Gaza!’
As for Herzog’s appalling statement that the genocidal State of Israel –a pariah in the eyes of the peoples of the world – is ‘offended’ by criticism of its lawlessness and institutionalized racism which justly goes by the term ‘apartheid,’ it is Israel that embodies a deep and pervasive ‘evil’, that has ‘ambitions beyond the country,’ which has destabilized the entire region of the Middle East as proxy for Anglo-American imperialism from 1917 onward. Nevertheless, the entire world- minus a bevy of complicit political classes and institutions in the West – has passed judgment: guilty as charged! There will be no return for Israel to a state of grace.
Bruce Katz is a founding member and co-president of PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity), a Montreal-based pro-Palestinian solidarity organization founded in November of 2000.