Betrayal

The Liberals have betrayed Canada’s Jews, and my own MP, Ya’ara Saks, has betrayed her constituents

It’s been a busy week here at Canadian Zionist Forum and it’s been a tumultuous week in Israel and in the war zones of Gaza and the north. Israel’s streets are full of demonstrators demanding a hostage deal and a new government. We’ve seen the disastrous accidental killing of aid workers by an Israeli drone, including a man with dual Canadian American citizenship. We’ve seen the world expressing its outrage and Israel apologizing repeatedly for this tragic self-inflicted wound.

In Syria, Israel killed two generals of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah admitted that the officers that were killed had played an important role in the terror group’s deadly war of attrition against Israel’s north. In Israel, reservists were called up in anticipation of a retaliatory attack from Iran or one of its proxies in the north.

We are grateful to have received two excellent articles this week from our gifted guest contributors. Earlier this week we got Fred Litwin’s article on the deplorable support for Hamas coming out of Ottawa’s Saw Gallery.

Today we have a great new contribution from Brian Henry. Brian writes about his sense of betrayal due to his local MP’s support of the Parliamentary resolution calling for a ceasefire and an arms embargo on Israel. You can read it just below.

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Betrayal

Right now, in my riding of York Centre, the Conservatives could run a housefly against the Liberal incumbent and win. York Centre is one of the most Jewish ridings in Canada, and our Liberal MP, Ya’ara Saks, voted in favour of stopping arms sales to Israel.

Canada claims to be Israel’s ally, and Israel is in a war of self-defense against Hamas, a terrorist group that murdered 1,200 Israelis, that committed mass rape and torture, and took 253 hostages – and still holds 130 of them. As you read this, one of those hostages is likely being raped. Again.

In the north, Hezbollah also launched a war against Israel. Since October 7, they’ve fired missiles and launched drones against Israel almost every day – as many as a hundred in a single day – and they’ve forced eighty thousand Israelis to evacuate their homes.

All told, Hezbollah has 160,000 missiles pointed at Israel, with greater range, greater accuracy, and more destructive power than those in Hamas’s armory. In every way, Hezbollah is ten times more formidable than Hamas, and Hezbollah’s war might escalate at any time.

In Yemen, the Houthis are attacking Red Sea shipping and firing occasional missiles at the city of Eilat at Israel’s southern tip, while terrorists in Syria have also fired missiles across the border.

All these groups are armed, financed, and trained by Iran, a regime dedicated to Israel’s destruction and whose ideology is antisemitic to the core. It’s a regime where “Death to Israel” is chanted daily and which is on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. It’s as if Nazi Germany were about to develop atomic bombs.

Yet the Liberals have decided that Israel ought to be defenseless.

Now, when the need for a Jewish state has never been more obvious.

Israel was founded in part as a refuge, a role it’s had to fulfil too often – for the remnant of Europe’s Jews after the Holocaust, for 700,000 Jews driven out of Arab states and Iran, and for a million Jews escaping the Soviet Union.

Now, Jews in Europe and in the US feel increasingly threatened. Europe has always been worse for Jews than the new world, and now Europe has answered Hamas’s atrocities with a wave of antisemitism not seen since the 1930s and 40s.

Even in the UK, Jews are threatened as never before. The Guardian and the BBC lead the media war against Israel (see more here), while Hamas sympathizers hold mass rallies in London. Every weekend the city centre becomes a no-go zone for anyone visibly Jewish who values their life. While MPs who stand up against the orgy of hate receive death threats (here).

In the US, antisemitism has become the norm throughout much of the left, including the left of the American Democratic Party. It’s the norm also among activists on university campuses and most especially on the elite campuses where future leaders are groomed. Millions of American Jews are wondering for the first time in their history if the day might come when they, too, will need the refuge Israel offers.

In many ways, in Canada, Jews feel even more threatened. We’re a much smaller community – just 1% of Canada’s population. And we are besieged. So-called “pro-Palestinian” rallies target Jewish schools, synagogues, community centres, cafes, and neighbourhoods. If there’s a Jewish connection, it’s a target. And the police have been slow to respond.

Worse, the New Democratic Party (NDP) represents the Israel-haters in Parliament. The NDP’s March 19 motion calling for recognition of a Palestinian state was nothing but an attack on Israel. First, in its every clause, it legitimized Hamas, treating it and Israel as equivalent – as if a fellow liberal democracy were no different from a terrorist group dedicated to killing Jews.

Image: MP Heather McPherson, centre, standing, sponsor of the NDP motion which called for recognizing the state of Palestine — Source Brian Henry

Second, the aim of the long-standing international campaign to recognize Palestine as a state is to forestall any possible peace process. Recognizing a Palestinian state that hasn’t agreed to peace tells the Palestinians: “No need to negotiate with Israel. Go ahead with your terrorism. We’ll recognize you whatever you do.”

Indeed, by attempting to recognize a State of Palestine now, in response to Hamas’s atrocities of October 7, the NDP has declared their support for terrorism. To make their intent even clearer, they dressed up for the vote in the keffiyehs of Palestinian terrorists.

Third, the NDP wanted Canada to make a very public declaration that it will stop arms sales to Israel.

The Liberals could easily have defeated the NDPs motion. Perhaps a dozen Liberal MPs are committed anti-Israel activists and would have voted with the NDP. But every Conservative, three Liberals, and an Independent voted against the motion. If the Liberals had chosen to vote it down, the motion had no chance of passing.

They didn’t make that choice.

Instead, the Liberals amended the motion to cut the recognition of “Palestine,” added a line calling for Hamas to lay down its arms, and other amendments designed to make the motion less obviously in favour of terrorism. But the Liberals kept the public declaration calling for a ban on arms sales to Israel.

It is now the position of Canada’s Parliament that Israel should be defenseless, saying in effect that Canada wishes to see Israelis – men and women, children and infants – all at the mercy of Hamas, of Hezbollah, of Iran.

If Hamas survives and regroups to commit more atrocities against Israel, as it has sworn to do, Canada sees no reason Israel ought to be able to defend its people. If Hezbollah launches a mass attack against Israeli cities or Iran directly attacks Israel seeking to wipe it off the map, Canada’s position is a shrug of our government’s shoulders.

No wonder the recent Great Israeli Real Estate Events in Toronto and Montreal were such successes. Many Canadian Jews are checking out the price of a home in Israel. Yes, Israel is threatened, but there at least the government is on our side.

The MP for York Centre, Ya’ara Saks, is Israeli herself. Surely, she doesn’t want to see her family and friends in Israel at the mercy of Hamas. Perhaps she rationalizes her vote in favour of stopping arms sales to Israel by noting that, as a practical matter, these sales don’t amount to much. (Canada is actually far more dependent on Israel than vice versa.)

But if that is her thinking, Saks is a fool. The point of the NDPs motion was never about having a direct effect. Rather, it was just one more attack in the propaganda war against Israel.

Others understood this perfectly. In the UK, the Guardian’s headline read: “Canada to halt arms sales to Israel” – a position The Guardian is very much in favour of. While in the Times of Israel a headline asked: “As Canada halts arms sales to Israel, who could follow?” Hopefully no one. But still every drip of poison wears away at Israel’s legitimacy in the eyes of the world.

Passing this anti-Israel motion wears away at Canada’s legitimacy, too. Our friends and foes alike will have taken note of how unfaithful we are. Canada claimed to be Israel’s ally – until it came to Israel’s hour of need.

And certainly the antisemitic mob has taken heart from the passing of this motion. On X, Toronto4Palestine, which celebrates the atrocities of October 7, tweeted that they’d moved Canada to end military sales to Israel.

This is what my MP, Ya’ara Saks, voted for.

In a January 11 story in The Canadian Jewish News, Saks said that as the Minister for Mental Health, she’s looking for ways to help the Jewish community heal after October 7.  

We do need help, because the echoes of October 7 haven’t stopped.

It’s bad enough that our kids are subjected to antisemitism at school and university, bad enough we see the attacks on synagogues. But we also saw the NDP dress up like Palestinian terrorists to vote against Israel in parliament.  

In her speech bringing forward her motion, we saw NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson quoting from the Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer. Did she not know that besides being a poet, Alareer is also a Jew-hater? Upon learning that the October 7 terrorists burned babies to death, Alareer tweeted: “With or without baking powder?”

We saw the Liberals then give McPherson a standing ovation and vote with her and the rest of the NDP, to pass her anti-Israel motion

Image Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie and Liberal MP Ya’ara Saks with Mahmoud Abbas — Source Brian Henry

So, yes, Canada’s Jewish community is traumatized. We are betrayed.

But, yes, Ya’ara Saks, you can help the community heal.

First, resign as a cabinet minister so that you’re free to criticize your party and vote against it when necessary – as did three of your Liberal colleagues. Second, resign from the Liberal caucus so that you can start making amends with the community you betrayed. And third, resign your seat so that we can have a by-election. Here in York Centre, we need an MP who will speak for Canada’s Jews and, even more importantly, an MP who will speak for human decency.

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Further Reading

You can read more about the deplorable resolution passed by Canada’s parliament in two earlier articles published here at Canadian Zionist Forum. The first looks at the text of the original motion put on the order paper by Heather McPherson.

The second article looks at the final text of the resolution passed by Parliament.

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Thanks again to Brian Henry for today’s article. If you are a paid subscriber to Canadian Zionist Forum, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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