Some of Israel’s main supporters now claim to hate the scale of Israel’s wanton massacres of Palestinians, with barrages of bullets, bombs and rampaging bulldozers.
Earlier this week, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak joined France and Germany in calling for a “lasting ceasefire” to end the killings.
Like his European allies, Sunak declared that “too many civilian lives have been lost”.
Sunak’s belated warning raises several questions: When did he realize that “too many (Palestinian) lives had been lost”? How many dead Palestinians constitute “too many”? Why aren’t 5,000, 10,000 or 15,000 dead Palestinians “too many”?
It’s touching, isn’t it, to see Sunak and his Craven company surprisingly find a moral compass when, all along, we had warned them that this was what was going to happen.
We told them that their full support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would necessarily mean the litany of horrors the world has witnessed in the ruins of Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
But Sunak and Craven Company didn’t listen. They ignored us. Thus, they supported, once again, Netanyahu’s permanent authorization to kill as many Palestinians as he wants, for as long as he wants.
Netanyahu obliged them. Fortunately. Strongly. Without discernment. Nearly 20,000 Palestinians were killed – mostly children and women. Thousands more are buried under the rubble. Thousands more were mutilated physically, mentally and perhaps even spiritually.
Netanyahu, true to his filthy nature, referred to each of these dead and injured human beings, including boys and girls, as “collateral damage.”
Apparently, Netanyahu killed too many Palestinians, too quickly, for the tastes of London, Berlin and Paris. Hence the qualified about-face.
Israel has the right to defend itself, they say. But it should not kill so many Palestinian civilians so quickly. It’s not a good idea, they say.
The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, finally had a “humanitarian” revelation.
Not long ago, Trudeau also told Netanyahu that he could indeed do whatever he wanted in Gaza and the West Bank since Israel had the right to defend itself.
Stupid, almost juvenile pride. As if Netanyahu needed Trudeau’s blessing to do what he did in Gaza and the West Bank.
Regardless, several weeks later, like Sunak et al, Trudeau appears to have doubts. Today, he acknowledges that Israel may have gone too far, too fast, in Gaza and the West Bank.
Trudeau asked Canada’s Ambassador to the UN, Bob Rae, to announce this sudden change in strategic direction. Rae told the General Assembly last week that Canada supports a ceasefire.
Trudeau’s decision provoked a furious rhetorical response from no-ceasefire supporters, inside and outside the Liberal caucus, who, predictably, insisted on the fact that the young prime minister had not only abandoned Israel, but also sided with the murderous Hamas.
The carnage in Gaza is no longer acceptable. Only fanatics refuse to recognize that the tides have turned. Trudeau can see what most of us can see.
It is of course an indelible shame that he and other pusillanimous prime ministers and presidents waited so long.
Had they heeded the alarm, they could have saved many Palestinian boys and girls from what former British Defense Minister Ben Wallace described as Israel’s “murderous rage”.
However, despite the ceasefire refrain that is emerging, I do not believe that Israel will soon end its “murderous rage”. It’s too late. As long as US President Joe Biden continues to tell Netanyahu that he can do whatever he wants to the Palestinians, for as long as he wants, the “murderous rage” will claim even more Palestinian lives.
Inevitably, 20,000 will become 30,000 and so on until Israel, and Israel alone, decides that its “murderous rage” is over.
This is not to say that Trudeau is powerless to help the Palestinians in a desperate situation. To help alleviate their shocking difficulties and suffering. Holding a generous and welcoming hand to a people whose generosity and welcoming spirit are familiar to anyone who has visited Gaza or the West Bank.
Trudeau can help, but that will require the will to help. It will take Trudeau standing up to harmful naysayers who will denounce him for doing the right thing, at the right time – just as he did when Syrians and Ukrainians, fleeing want and fear, found refuge in Canada.
Trudeau did so on Christmas Eve in 2015. At the time, in a major show of solidarity, Trudeau welcomed the first Syrian refugees to Canada at airports as part of “Operation Syrian Refugees.”
“As a country, we have opened our arms and our hearts to people and families fleeing conflict, insecurity and persecution,” Trudeau said in December 2020.
Later, many of the thousands of Syrian refugees who arrived in Canada would become citizens. They built a new life here. They went to school. They opened businesses. They have become “valued members of the community.”
And, as a concrete expression of gratitude, they, in turn, helped the refugees who arrived after them because they understood, as Canadians, that it was their duty.
In 2022, Trudeau removed bureaucratic barriers to allow many Ukrainians to settle in Canada. This was a humanitarian emergency, Trudeau said, which required a rapid humanitarian response.
By the end of November 2023, more than 200,000 Ukrainians had settled in Canada – far from the disfiguring war that forever changed their lives and their homeland.
Applications for “temporary residence” for nearly a million additional Ukrainians in Canada were approved, as were new immigration rules aimed at making this “temporary” status “permanent.”
Canada has confirmed its good faith in matters of compassion.
The test will be whether Trudeau can show the same compassion towards the Palestinians. Will he open the “arms” and “heart” of Canada to Palestinian families “fleeing conflict, insecurity and persecution”?
The realist in me doubts he will. Political calculations trump humanity, even in the face of machine-gunning, starvation and siege that Palestinians endure.
The lives of Syrians and Ukrainians matter. The Palestinians are the unwanted orphans of the “international community”.
Trudeau will not risk the wrath of harmful opponents – and their loyal friends in the establishment press – who traffic in odious caricatures of the identity of Palestinian civilians.
Which is why, I suppose, Trudeau broke his word, as prime minister, to 100 injured Palestinian children whom he had promised, as leader of the opposition, to help arrange care in Canada for repair their broken bodies and minds.
A politician who abandons children is, I fear, probably incapable of the decency to admit he was wrong and try to save them.
This will be Trudeau’s other lasting shame.
When he had the means and opportunity to heal children, Trudeau avoided them and their families because they were Palestinian.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
