Oh, You Mean The Canada-Israel Bond!

"It is unacceptable that so many years after the Holocaust, we still see incidents of hatred against religious groups, such as the appalling anti-Semitic attack on those at prayer in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Shabbat just days ago."
"I am sad to say that Jewish people are the religious group in Canada most likely to be targeted for hate crimes -- whether vandalism, graffiti, hate propaganda or racist online commentary."
"Too often the violence seems insurmountable -- especially so after last weekend. I challenge that view. Let us all champion peace and inclusion in the face of hatred, discrimination and terror."
"Canada's commitment to Israel's security is unwavering and ironclad."
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Jerusalem

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Canada Foriegn Minister Chrystia Freeland. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)

Chrystia Freeland's bullish attitude toward supporting Israel and being an "ironclad" friend of the Jewish state has been publicly embraced by Israel's government. And while she decries anti-Semitism and violence against Jews, she is the progeny of Ukrainian nationalists who during the Second World War allied themselves politically with Nazi Germany. Her grandfather is known to have edited a Ukrainian newspaper which collaborated with fascist Germany and had no hesitation in publishing anti-Semitic tropes designed to dehumanize Europe's Jews, at a time when the Jews were targeted for mass annihilation.

She represents a government which was congratulated heartily by the Palestinian Authority for its decision not to support the Trump administration's recognition of Jerusalem, the de facto Israeli capital, as legitimate. The previous Conservative-led government of Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper meant what it said when he claimed to be Israel's most ardent supporter. In recognition of UNRWA's support of the terrorist Hamas administration in Gaza and its provision of martyrdom rewards for deadly attacks on Israelis, Stephen Harper cut off payments from Canada to UNRWA.

The Liberal-led government of Justin Trudeau was quick to respond when the United States warned UNRWA that it would no longer be funded if nothing was done to reform itself, from employing members of Hamas locally in Gaza, to acceding in the use of school curricula injurious to relations with Israel, teaching Palestinian children in both the West Bank and Gaza that their future lay in violence against Israelis. Canada renewed and increased its financial support to UNRWA enabling it to continue its rewards to the heroes of Palestinian 'resistance' against the 'occupation'.

Palestinians throw stones toward Israeli forces during clashes along border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, east of Gaza City, on September 28, 2018. (AFP Photo/Said Khatib)

A forced occupation in self-defence meant to protect Israeli civilians and the state from violent, deadly attacks by Palestinians whom the Palestinian Authority has taught, from cradle to grave that Jews are their enemies as usurpers of Palestinian heritage, denying the historical existence of Jews on land that saw uninterrupted occupation by its original inhabitants; Israelites, Jews, though the majority was forced into exile during the Roman occupation and the later Muslim conquest.

In reminding her Israeli audience that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to 'apologize' for the government of Canada for its decision in 1939 to turn away desperate Jewish refugees aboard the MS St.Louis, where a German captain on the ship was more concerned and fearful on behalf of his 900 passengers' fate should they return to Germany than the Western powers including Canada that rejected their plea for haven, she leaves the impression that this was then, and Jews now in Canada can be assured of their equal place in society.

It is, in fact, the right impression, but a hard-fought one. Apart from the fact that Canada's intake of Jews during the war years was abysmal, the post-war years saw Canada permitting entry to Nazi war criminals, among them Ukrainians who fought for Germany against the Russians, then nominal allies against the Axis forces. Hostility between Canada's Jewish and its Ukrainian population post-war led to an awareness among Canada's political elite of the time of the Jewish community's approach to government to identify and prosecute Nazi war criminals in Canada, was led by disinterest and expedience to refuse any such initiative outright.

Chrystia Freeland correctly identified the "dangerous neighbourhood" that Israel lives within, mentioning threats from Iran. Those Iranian government threats are related to the destruction of Israel and its people, and what better means to achieve that end than to produce nuclear weapons to accompany the mid- and long-range ballistic missiles Iran has produced? For that reason and Iran's support of terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, the Harper government cut off all diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic. The Trudeau government sought to renew them and was rebuffed by Iran.

So much for its global conscience, so much for its support of Israel. When Israel was struggling to contain Hamas-controlled 'peaceful protests' by thousands of Palestinians out of Gaza urged and determined to destroy the fence separating Israel's border from that of Gaza, Canada was on the front lines of condemning the IDF for using 'disproportionate' force against unarmed civilians, slinging Molotov cocktails, rocks, flammable balloons and explosives across the border and at Israeli soldiers.

A year ago Foreign Affairs Minister Freeland said: "Canada is a steadfast ally and friend of Israel and friend to the Palestinian people. Canada’s longstanding position is that the status of Jerusalem can be resolved only as part of a general settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. [Canada is committed the goal of a] comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, including the creation of a Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel." 

Sounds good, but that opportunity has long flown beyond possibility. When one potential partner in a peace agreement is prepared to bargain in good faith and the other speaks one line to the West and another to its people, urging them not to 'normalize' relations with the Jewish state, and keeps rewarding violence while memorializing murderers of Jews by naming public squares, schools and streets in their honour, intervenors like Canada are delusional when they fail to recognize reality.

Tear gas at demonstrations near the border between Gaza and Israel on Monday. Credit Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images