Canada's Abandonment of Democratic Embattled Israel

"About a year ago, we had this whole debate about judicial reform. That didn't actually happen in the end, right? So right now, at this point in time ... there's absolutely no argument about how independent the courts in Israel are."

"When it comes to civilian casualties, every strike, every single strike, goes through legal evaluation. Also the larger humanitarian situation within war zones, and Gaza specifically, is always something which the international law department of the army always accompanies. And so you always have this legal envelope in order to ensure that everything is done according to international law."

"Canada as a country over the years, has been an incredible friend of Israel. But after having said that, I have to say that I've been very disappointed with a lot of things that have come out of Canada."

"...Since October 7, in the beginning, we felt a lot of support, but then very quickly, we've seen a lot of actions we've been very disappointed with. That includes the famous vote [in Parliament]."

"And yes, there's a lot we've been very disappointed with in Canada's policy in general."

Dan Illouz, transplanted Montrealer, current Likud member of Israeli Knesset

"It's likely that they will issue these warrants that the prosecutor asked for, which means that the prime minister and the defence minister can no longer travel to any country in western Europe."

"So this means that if the president of France wants to speak with the prime minister of Israel, he'll have to come here."

Shmuel Rosner, Israeli journalist, political commentator

Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Credit: Loey Felipe/U.N. Photo

 

Arrest warrants, according to International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan are awaiting production. Three meant for the Hamas leaders who are responsible for the orchestration through practise, and eventual execution of a planned-for border invasion from Gaza into Israel for the very specific purpose of terrorizing and victimizing Israeli citizens, mostly Jews, but including some Muslim Israelis and a number of foreign farm workers. In total 1,200 people were mercilessly slaughtered while countless Jewish girls and women were systematically raped, tortured and murdered.

As were infants and children, along with their families, many burned alive when their homes were set fire, their safe rooms that sheltered them becoming the ovens of their destruction. The sheer savagery of the attacks represented a hell on Earth; men, women and children slaughtered because they were Jewish Israelis. Jewish Israelis living in border kibbutzim who empathized with Palestinians living in Gaza to the extent that many of the Jews committed to hiring Palestinians as farm workers, and many others were regularly transported as a humanitarian gesture to Israeli hospitals for treatment.

None were spared. Among the Palestinian civilians who flooded across the border from Gaza into Israel with the terrorist invaders were those who had formerly shared food in the kibbutz mess halls with Israelis when they worked on the kibbutz farms. They knew the locations within the kibbutzim of the buildings that housed the community's security personnel, and those were the first of the buildings to be entered by the terrorists, their security residents summarily executed before moving on to the homes of community families.

The estimated 3,000 members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, alongside Palestinian Gazan civilians dispatched any Jews they could find, and there were hundreds hunted down and murdered at the site of the Nova music festival taking place that holiday weekend in southern Israel, young men and women gathered for a celebratory music festival when their gaiety and comradeship suddenly turned on Saturday, October 7 into a desperate flight for survival that not all succeeded with.

Karim Khan's announcement of the arrest warrant requests included Israel's Prime Minister and its Defence Minister; Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Nothing to distinguish these two Jewish-Israeli leaders who are overseeing their nation's response to that mass murder of October 7 by invading Gaza with the direct purpose of destroying terrorism's future opportunities to wreak such sadistic violence again on Israel's citizens. Acting in complete accordance with international standards of conflict, but in the style that Israel has pioneered, with far fewer civilian casualties than any similar conflict.

It should be noted that the International Criminal Court's mission is not to prosecute figures from nations with law-objective judiciaries enabled to handle their interior/exterior affairs in the finest tradition of Western democracies where any and all potential violations of international are investigated thoroughly without fear or favour. Dan Illouz with his law degree from McGill University served with the Israel Defense Forces as an adviser on international law. The IDF is mindful that its actions be in keeping with international obligations, supported by strict procedures. 

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau , his foreign minister and deputy prime minister refused to take a position to deny support for the ICC's request for arrest warrants, much less whether Canada would commit to arresting Israeli state figures should the warrants be granted. It has been made abundantly clear over the months since the October 7 invasion that equivocation, uncertainty, and eventual abandonment now marks Canada's relationship with its erstwhile friend and partner in democracy.

 

Seven in ten Palestinians responding to a poll approved of the Hamas barbarity of October 7. The Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas has an approval rating in the single digits; seven in ten Palestinians call on his resignation. Abbas at 88 won his electoral mandate close to two decades ago. It is a certainty that if an election were called today for leadership of the West Bank and Gaza Strip Hamas would win a wide and clear majority of votes. Not only is the Trudeau government playing to its home audience comprised of a far larger Muslim than Jewish population among whom Palestinians  have mounted a pro-Hamas campaign, but it seems to find itself in favour of promoting a Hamas future government as well.

"[The attempt to get Netanyahu and Gallant arrested is an] unrestrained frontal assault on the victims of October 7 and our 128 hostages in Gaza."

"While Hamas murderers and rapists commit crimes against humanity against our brothers and sisters, the prosecutor mentions in the same breath the prime minister and defense minister of Israel alongside the vile Nazi-like monsters of Hamas—a historical disgrace that will be remembered forever."

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz

"The statement of the chief prosecutor at the International Court of Justice on his request for arrest warrants against Israel’s leaders is a shameful act of moral bankruptcy."

"Comparing Israel—a democracy that cherishes and protects civilian life—to Hamas terrorists who commit atrocities and glorify death, is a scandalous and shameful distortion of justice. …"

"This disgrace must be strongly condemned and will not be allowed to pass without a strong response."

Dan Illouz, Likud Knesset member

In the wake of the recent release of a video showing the abduction of female soldiers from the Nahal Oz base, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has requested the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to release a modified version of the 43-minute video documenting the brutal events of the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7. JNS