What Kind Of An Ally Are We?

The war that Israel is waging today, just like the war Ukraine has had forced on it the last couple of years by Russia, and the war Taiwan could have forced upon it tomorrow by China, seems distant and not of immediate importance to many Canadians. However, the war Israel wages today, is part of a wider struggle between the forces of liberal democracy, and the forces of tyranny and barbarism. As was the case in the struggle against Hitler’s Germany and Tojo’s Japan, Canada stands on the side of the civilized world, the democracies. Or does it? I wish I didn’t have to ask this, but after a particularly embarrassing speech at the UN by foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly, I have to. Whose side are we on? What do we stand for as a nation? I say ‘we’ because this government represents Canada on the world stage whether we voted Liberal or not, and therefore has a duty to champion the values that built this country. The current government is failing us on this point, and the latest stunt by the minister underscores that point rather harshly. 

As a liberal democracy, we have a duty to stand by our fellow democracies under attack. We’re not too bad about this on the Ukraine question, save for the turbine affair and some paltry aid packages, but then again, our own armed forces have been on a budgetary diet. (for which multiple past governments are also to blame) However, when it comes to Israel, something has changed. In the immediate aftermath of 10/7, the statements were actually fairly good coming from the prime minister Justin Trudeau. Perhaps he really was as shocked as everyone else at the sheer brutality of Hamas terrorists. But it has become a pattern over the last several months that the Liberal government’s tune has changed and the government has been sharply critical of its democratic ally. Most of these statements have come from Joly or Ahmed Hussen, but one can only assume they have the prime minister’s assent since the most pro-Israel voices in the Liberal party like MPs Anthony Housefather and Marco Mendocino have been all but relegated, and other ministers have joined in the Israel bashing. 

Perhaps this was a part of the agreement with the stridently anti-Israel NDP. Maybe the Liberals fear losing votes on their left flank to the NDP and so they’ve made the calculation that they can punt on the Jewish vote and the math will work out, and maybe they’re right on this front, but they’ve exposed one important truth about themselves. This government has no core principles, no driving ethos, no trustworthiness. This has become a deeply cynical government that will say and do anything to stay in power. We’ve seen it on other issues, not just this. We have an opaque, condescending government that cares little for the concerns of the people they represent. 

All this said, I want to highlight a more fundamental issue. We are in a Cold War that can turn hot for us very soon. What prevents the levee from breaking is the efforts of the frontline democracies that are currently fighting. Ukrainian young people are fighting and dying so that ours will not have to, fighting Russians elsewhere in Europe as our own government has admitted. The same point is true of Israeli young people. When you read or hear that an Israeli soldier was killed in Gaza, remember that while that soldier was fighting first and foremost for Israel and the Jewsh people, that sacrifice was also for the wider cause of liberal democracy. The same Hamas, Houthi and Hezbollah terrorists who rape and pillage in the Middle East would gladly repeat such atrocities here if given a chance just like the Russian would repeat their brutal subjugation of Eastern Europe if they could. What holds these terror groups and their sponsors in the Iranian regime back is the skill of Israeli soldiers, pilots and sailors just like in 1948 and 1967 and 1973 and so on.

So when the Canadian government paints Israel as the villain in this latest escalation in Lebanon, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s at stake for the wider Middle East, and for the world. It shows a complete lack of gratitude for the intel Israel routinely provides western allies to get ahead of potential terror threats, the technological know-how that facilitates life for all of us, and the sacrifices Israel’s young continue to make so that our girls aren’t the ones getting raped and murdered one day at music festivals. More importantly though, it sends a message to other Canadian allies including Ukraine that we’d happily sell them down the drain also for political expediency, or out of a loss of interest. It sends a message that we cannot be trusted. 

Closer to home, this new anti-Israel attitude even in the face of a multi-front war they neither wanted nor anticipated shows the Canadian government to be a rotten ally to Canada’s Jewish community, and to the public as a whole. Yes, those pro-Hamas riots we’ve been dealing with for months are aimed first and foremost at Jews, but the hostile and threatening behavior at these marches is a threat to everyone. It disrupts peaceful events that families want to simply enjoy, makes parents wary of sending their kids to school, and destroys the prestige of our institutes of higher learning. Remember, what starts with Jews never ends with Jews. Our government in Canada does us a massive disservice by continually kowtowing to these mobs for votes, and makes us more unsafe in our own homes, and a government who can’t be trusted with the safety of its own citizens will rightly be seen with suspicion and outright derision by allies. 

It’s been almost a year since 10/7, and this government needs to be better, and punished at the ballot box if it doesn’t improve. Right now, our allies view us as unserious about the struggle between tyranny and freedom, and hypocritical about the progressive values we claim to hold dear. Our foreign minister talks about women’s rights at home in question period, but provides diplomatic cover for the worst misogynists at the UN. Our feminist prime minister can no longer come up with a short statement denouncing the activities of the Hamas and Hezbollah rapists that doesn’t sound technocratic and pre-canned. On the world stage, we have become a joke, and a rotten ally, who proclaims itself pro-Israel through thick, but will join the jackals in denouncing whatever Israel does in its national defense through thin because we have a government devoid of principles or character.