Carson Jerema: Does Mélanie Joly know she works for Hamas?

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals might imagine themselves as taking a balanced view of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, but again and again, the government sides with the terrorist thugs who started the fighting. Since Hamas killed, unprovoked, close to 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in Israel on October 7, Trudeau has said repeatedly that Canada supports the Jewish state’s “right to defend itself.” But such words are clearly a lie, because the only right the government is standing up for is the right for Hamas to manipulate the West into turning against a democratic ally.

Canada has not issued an export permit for “lethal” military equipment to Israel since 2018, but to appease the large anti-Israel contingent in the Liberal caucus, as well as the NDP, which had been propping the government up, the Liberals banned all non-lethal military exports last winter. That includes equipment like night vision goggles and light armoured vehicles.

Then on Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly went even further and said she would block the export of ammunition to the U.S. that would be destined for Israel. “We will not have any form of arms, or parts of arms, be sent to Gaza. Period. How they’re being sent and where they’re being sent is irrelevant,” she said.

Therefore, explosive mortar cartridges that were to be manufactured in Quebec by General Dynamics, will not be sent to our American allies, despite longstanding treaties and military cooperation with our southern neighbour.

Israel has a right to defend itself, according to Trudeau and Joly, just so long as it isn’t with military equipment, or ammunition, or so long as it doesn’t defend itself in Gaza, where the threat lies. And now, the Liberals want to put our relationship with the U.S. at risk, to show just how much Canada supports Israel’s right to defend itself.

And for what? The best guess is that the Liberals are in a tight three-way race in the Montreal riding of Lasalle—Émard—Verdun, and the Gaza war could be the defining issue. The NDP candidate is campaigning explicitly on the war, with a pamphlet that carries an image of his face in front of a Palestinian flag.

The pamphlet also carries the nonsensical phrase, in French, “I’m voting for Craig Sauvé to stop the genocide in Gaza.” That statement is nonsense for multiple reasons. For starters, whatever influence the Canadian government, never mind an opposition MP, might have over Israel’s war policy, it is something approximating nil. Why would Jerusalem ever listen to Ottawa, given how the government keeps siding with Hamas? The most outlandish claim, however, is that a “genocide” is happening in Gaza.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims some 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza, but those numbers cannot be trusted and they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The argument that Israel is committing “genocide” is farcical and not backed up by evidence.

Hamas uses its own population as human shields and embeds itself in schools, mosques and hospitals, and yet, the ratio of civilians to combatants killed in Gaza is among the lowest of any recent conflict.

Israel is conducting a war to eliminate a threat. Conflating acts of war, which are often by nature quite ugly, with genocide is an unserious proposition motivated by hatred of the world’s only Jewish state.

Joly and Trudeau have already done their utmost to torch what’s left of Canada’s relationship with Israel, and they are putting relations with the U.S. at risk, in order to gain leverage, it would seem, in a byelection that will have no practical effect on how Parliament is run. What other reason could there be? It is certainly not because of any moral reasoning, given how reluctant the government has been to take a stand of any kind on the war.

The Liberals no longer have to worry about keeping the NDP onside, since leader Jagmeet Singh ended the confidence and supply agreement he had with Trudeau last week. The nominal reason for that was because the Liberals ordered an end to the CN/CPR railway work stoppage with binding arbitration, and not its approach to Gaza.

We do know Trudeau could face louder calls to step down if they lose the byelection, making the decision to block the export of arms entirely craven, gutless and opportunistic.

It is also exactly how Hamas wishes western governments to react. The terrorist group has no interest in negotiating for a ceasefire, or in returning hostages to Israel. Its aims in starting the war last year have been to sacrifice civilians to turn global pressure against Israel.

And, rather than take a moral stand, the Canadian government repeatedly falls for it. It started in October when Canada blamed Israel for an explosion at a hospital that turned out to have have been a misfired Palestinian rocket.

More recently, in August, Joly’s department posted on X that “Canada condemns the Israeli strike that killed Palestinian civilians sheltering at a school in Gaza, including children.”

However, the evidence from Israel showed that there was no strike on a school, or even on the nearby mosque, but in a part of the complex where Hamas was positioned.

Canada supported a motion at the UN last year that called for ceasefire, but which placed no conditions on Hamas.

So if Israel has a right to defend itself, when would that right apply precisely? If it doesn’t apply against the threat from Hamas, then it is no right at all.

Joly accepts terrorist version of events and modifies Canada’s foreign policy to align with Hamas’s goals. Does she know who she is working for?

National Post