Examining the motion Passed by Parliament on Monday

The Bias Against Israel is Pervasive

Mar 20, 2024

As I was publishing our Monday article, which was an examination of the original text of NDP Member of Parliament Heather McPherson’s motion calling for Canadian recognition of a Palestinian State, the Commons was passing the amended motion which was about the Israel Gaza conflict. None of the original text I examined on Monday remained in the motion that was passed that evening.

Today I am going to look at the text of the motion that was actually passed. This measure was widely condemned by the official representatives of the Jewish community on Tuesday morning, as well as by lobby groups advocating for Canadian Jews and for Israel. The Jewish Federation of Ottawa put out a statement calling the resolution shameful and pointing out that it appears to reward Hamas for the crimes it committed against Israel on October 7 and in the weeks since. The Toronto Federation put out a similar statement.

Here is the text of the motion passed by Parliament on Monday. Everything, including the title is changed from the text discussed in our last article, published on Monday.

SUBJECT
Opposition Motion (As amended - Canada's actions to promote peace in the Middle East)
MOTION TEXT
That, given that,

(i) the situation in the Middle East is devastating to many Canadians, particularly those with friends and family members in the region,

(ii) the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 30,000, with 70% of the victims being women and children,

(iii) Hamas is a listed terrorist organization in Canada whose attacks on October 7, 2023, killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and that over 100 hostages remain in Hamas captivity,

(iv) 1.7 million of residents of Gaza are displaced and at risk of starvation, death, and disease, and Gaza is currently the most dangerous place in the world to be a child,

(v) the United Nations reports over 70 per cent of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, including homes, hospitals, schools, water and sanitation facilities, have been destroyed or severely damaged by Israeli military attacks,

(vi) on January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice ordered six provisional measures, including for Israel to refrain from acts under the Genocide convention, prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to genocide, and take immediate and effective measures to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza,

(vii) all states, including Israel have a right to defend themselves and in defending itself, Israel must respect international humanitarian law and the price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians,

(viii) Israelis are still at risk of attacks by Iran-backed terrorist groups including Hamas and Hezbollah,

(ix) the increase in extremist settler violence against Palestinians and reports of Palestinian communities being forcibly removed from their lands in the West Bank,

(x) the casualties of the war on Gaza and the Hamas terrorist attack include Canadian citizens,

(xi) Canadian citizens remain trapped in Gaza, blocked from leaving,

(xii) Jewish, Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Canadians have reported an increase in hate-motivated attacks and racism since October,

(xiii) Palestinians and Israelis both deserve to live in peace, with full enjoyment of their human rights and democratic freedoms,

the House call on the government to:

(a) demand an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and Hamas must lay down its arms;

(b) cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel to ensure compliance with Canada’s arms export regime and increase efforts to stop the illegal trade of arms, including to Hamas;

(c) ensure continued funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to meet the dire humanitarian need, engage with the United Nations internal investigation and independent review process, and ensure implementation of necessary long-term governance reforms and accountability measures;

(d) support the prosecution of all crimes and violations of international law committed in the region;

(e) support the work of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court;

(f) demand unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza;

(g) ensure Canadians trapped in Gaza can reach safety in Canada and expand access to the temporary resident visa program;

(h) sanction extremist settlers and maintain sanctions on Hamas leaders;

(i) reaffirm that settlements are illegal under international law and that settlements and settler violence are serious obstacles to a negotiated two-state solution, and advocate for an end to the decades long occupation of Palestinian territories; and

(j) work with international partners to actively pursue the goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, including towards the establishment of the State of Palestine as part of a negotiated two-state solution, and maintain Canada’s position that Israel has a right to exist in peace and security with its neighbours.

Looking at this much longer motion line by line, clause (i) is obviously true. The situation is certainly devastating to Jewish Canadians, many of whom have friends and family in Israel and to Canadians of Palestinian origin, many with relatives or friends in Gaza.

Clause (ii) states that over 30,000 have been killed in Gaza and that 70% of them are women and children. This clause is almost certainly untrue in whole or in part. The source for this number is presumably the Gaza “Ministry of Health”. The Gaza Ministry of Health has put out information throughout the war which has been shown to be untrue. Because the Gaza Ministry of Health is not a reliable source, it is very regrettable that this motion puts this claim in the Parliamentary record as a statement of fact.

This article in the Jerusalem Post explains why the daily casualty figures put out by the Gaza Ministry of Health are almost certainly made up. We know of many false statements put out by them, including the claim that Israel bombed a hospital and killed 500 people during the first week of the war. In spite of this evidence that they are not a reliable source, the UN, much of the global media, international aid groups, “human rights” groups and now Canada’s Parliament take their word for it that seven out of ten people killed Gaza during the current war was a woman or a child.

Clause (iii) is true as far as it goes. Hamas did kill almost 1200 Israelis on October 7 and it is holding over 100 Israeli hostages. The clause fails to mention that Hamas committed mass rape, or that they tortured many of their victims before they were killed. It fails to mention that Israeli hostages suffered and likely continue to suffer rape and mistreatment while in captivity.

It does not mention the thousands of rockets that were used to bombard Israeli civilians since the beginning of the war, each one a war crime. It does not mention the Gazans killed by the one rocket in six that fails and falls inside Gaza. It doesn’t mention the Gazans shot by Hamas “police” when those police steal aid from convoys meant for civilians, including the 21 civilians shot by Hamas last Thursday in Gaza City. It doesn’t mention the deadly attacks perpetrated by Hamas, which prevented Israel from delivering food in Gaza city through people that Hamas does not control.

It doesn’t mention the 17 years of totalitarian rule over Gaza or the murder of opponents and suspected collaborators which was a routine part of life under the Hamas regime.

This clause fails to express how profoundly evil the Hamas actions of October 7 were, and is completely silent on the fact that Hamas has operated a criminal regime in Gaza for 17 years.

Clause (iv) says that 1.7 million Gazans are at risk of starvation. The source of this number is not known to me and I’m not sure what at risk means, except that presumably it means that they are not starving at the moment.

The second claim, which I have heard repeatedly depends on the (almost certainly made up) numbers put out by the Hamas Ministry of Health which claims that seventy percent of the dead are women and children. I find the claim that Gaza is the most dangerous place to be a child unlikely. In any case, this unprovable statement does not belong in a measure put on the Parliamentary record.

Clause (v) could be true. The statement does not say which UN agency put out the number. It may be UNRWA. If so, be aware that UNRWA also says that it’s schools don’t teach antisemitism and that it was unaware that it had Hamas members in its ranks. So consider the source.

Clause (vi) is factual, if inflammatory. For balance it should have mentioned that the court did not find that Israel was engaged in genocide in spite of the alarming accusations brought by South Africa against Israel.

Clause (vii) acknowledges Israel’s right to defend itself and states, correctly, that Israel must do so lawfully. Whether some or all Palestinian (or Israeli) civilians suffer is not fully under Israel’s control, given that they did not initiate the war. Notably there is no reference to the suffering of Israeli civilians in this clause. Having just been in Israel I can bear witness to the fact that Israelis are also suffering.

Clause (viii) acknowledges that Israelis are still at risk of attack by Iran-backed terrorist groups, which is true. In fact Israelis are being attacked daily by Iran backed terrorist groups. So it is more than a risk.

Clause (ix) mentions an increase in extremist “settler” violence against Palestinians, which is something that has been happening, but fails to mention the much more common violence by extremist Palestinians against “settlers” and other Israelis.

Clause (x): It is true that Canadians have died in both Israel and in Gaza during the war. It is inflammatory to refer to the “war on Gaza”. An unbiased description would refer to the “war between Hamas and Israel”.

Clause (xi) may be true.

Clause (xii) is true, but most of the increase has been in attacks directed at Jews.

Clause (xiii) is certainly true and nobody could object to it.

Given this long list of statements, some of which are true and many of which are almost certainly false in whole or in part, the non-binding resolution then goes on to issue a number of calls to action in the name of the House.

The first, clause (a) calls for an “immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages and that Hamas should lay down its arms”. This puts the cart before the horse as Israel will not cease fire without a way of freeing the hostages. The two things are put together in the same sentence, which is good, but the causal connection between them is not made clear. In addition, the demand that Hamas should lay down its arms is subject to different interpretations.

If “lay down their arms” means that Hamas should surrender, end their criminal regime in Gaza and be subject to justice in an appropriate international forum, then it is good that this is included. We know that Israel must not and will not cease fire permanently unless Hamas is defeated.

However, I’ve seen at least one person saying that the laying down of arms is redundant because it is already covered by the call for a ceasefire. If it merely means that Hamas will stop shooting, but remain in power in Gaza, then this is completely unacceptable and puts the Canadian Parliament on record as favoring the termination of the IDF’s mission with its most important objective unmet.

Clause (b) appears to advocate measures against both Israel and Hamas but the measures against Israel don’t seem justified by any of the facts listed in the first part of the motion. It calls on the government to “cease authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel to ensure compliance with Canada’s arms export regime”. This would seem to imply that Israel is violating that regime, but nothing in the preamble provides any basis for such an implication. The only possible grounds for such a measure are the unproven and reckless accusations of genocide made by South Africa against Israel.

The clause also calls on the government to “increase efforts to stop the illegal trade of arms, including to Hamas. How this might be done is left unexplained, in contrast with the very specific measures advocated against Israel.

This measure has been the focus of a lot of the criticism leveled against the measure by Jewish organizations, as it seems to put restrictions on Israel’s ability to defend itself at a moment when it is fighting a lawless enemy that committed crimes against humanity when it invaded Israel on October 7. Or it would, if Canada were actually exporting any arms to Israel. As it is, this appears to be a mostly symbolic rebuke of Israel for unproven allegations of war crimes that are constantly being advanced by demonstrators and commentators who appear on the news.

Clause (c) calls for the resumption of funding to UNRWA. Unlike Israel, UNRWA is known to have been involved in the commission of war crimes in the course of the current war. We have seen video evidence released by Israel of an UNRWA employee, 45-year-old Faisal Ali Mussalem Al Naami, taking a body in a UN truck from Kibbutz Be’eri. Israel released information about 12 UNRWA employees, who were immediately fired when UNRWA got the evidence. Israel claims that 10% of UNRWA staff are members of Hamas.

Obviously, the restrictions on arms trade with Israel coupled with the restoration of funding to UNRWA would only make sense if it was Israel and not UNRWA which was known to be implicated in war crimes. The fact that the opposite is the case makes this measure particularly egregious and hurtful to the pro-Israel community in Canada.

Clause (d) and clause (e) cannot be objected to, but it seems likely that people making baseless accusations of war crimes against Israel will use these clauses to demand that the government take measures against Israelis who may be baselessly accused in the future.

Clause (f) is a big ask in the middle of a war. We know that Israel is doing a lot to get aid into Gaza, in spite of the ongoing conflict.

Humanitarian groups keep insisting that only a ceasefire will allow them to get help to those who need it. It seems that this is a back door way of calling for an immediate ceasefire, a demand that Hamas supporters have been repeating since the earliest days of the war. This is not acceptable to Israel and may be used as justification by the government for putting pressure on Israel to give up on its war aims in the weeks to come.

Clause (g) is easy to write down but hard to accomplish in the middle of a war. It too, may be used to put pressure on Israel to stop fighting prematurely.

Clause (h) again creates a false parallelism between Hamas and Israel. While extremist settlers are bad actors and the Israeli government should do more to contain them, the putting them in the same boat as Hamas seems extraordinarily contrived. It would make more sense to put them in the same category as the lone wolf attackers who frequently target Israelis both in the territories captured in 1967 and in Israel proper. However these long wolf attackers are not mentioned at all in the resolution.

Clause (i) calls for an end to the decades long occupation, reaffirms that Israeli settlements are illegal, and that settlements and settler violence are obstacles to peace. There is no reference here to the enormous obstacle to peace created by Palestinian violence. So this clause also seems to be blaming only Israel for the persistence of the conflict. We know that this is untrue.

Clause (j) was the last minute amendment that replaced the call for recognizing a State of Palestine. It largely restates existing Canadian policy. The NDP sacrificed the call for recognition of Palestine for all the other anti-Israel language that I’ve described above.

The reaction by the Jewish community to the passage of this resolution has been pretty much unanimous. We are dismayed and disheartened to see the majority of Canadian MPs vote for this resolution, many citing some of the reasons I’ve outlined above.

Anthony Housefather, one of only three Liberals to vote against the resolution made a heartfelt speech explaining the many reasons he opposed it. You can watch it by clicking on the image below.

Image: Liberal Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather — Photo from National Post

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