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Written by: Daniel Xie

On Wednesday September 16, 2020, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East reported results from a survey co-sponsored by itself, Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV), and the United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine-Israel. This survey shows that Canadians do not want Israel to be treated differently than other nations with regards to alleged war crimes or human rights violations. The survey shows that 84 per cent of Canadians would support a possible ICC war crimes investigation into Israeli officials, while 86 per cent of Canadians believe that Canada should not overlook Israel’s human rights violations simply because Israel is an ally, and 82 per cent of Canadians do not support the position of the Netanyahu government that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and should be recognized as such; said viewpoint is even shared by 54 per cent of Conservatives.

According to Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME, these results highlight that Canadians support an impartial ICC that holds all nations guilty of human rights violations to account, and that Canada has no right to interfere in ICC investigations it doesn't like, citing the fact that only a third of Canadians believe that the country should consider intervening if Canada is opposed to an investigation.

These findings by CJPME are consistent with earlier findings published by CJPME that further demonstrate that Canadians are opposed to an uncritically pro-Israel foreign policy at the expense of the Palestinians. On June 16, 2020, CJPME published the first part of a two-part series of surveys examining the stance of Canadians towards their foreign policy regarding Israel (the September 16th, 2020 report being the second part of this series). According to CJPME, the survey revealed that:

74 per cent of Canadians indicated that Canada should oppose Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank
A slim majority (40 per cent) of Canadians believed that Canada should support Greater human rights for Palestinians
A majority (54 per cent) of Canadians believe that Canada should not decrease their support for human rights for Palestinians in favor of Israel
A large percentage of Canadians believe that Canada’s interests should align with the interests of the international community as a whole in the UN

The findings from the 2020 surveys are consistent with earlier surveys conducted by CJPME such as the 2017 surveys conducted to gauge Canadian’s views on BDS and the Canadian government’s policies towards Israel. The surveys published in 2017 reveal that:

Far more Canadians have a negative view of the Israeli government than have a positive view
Most Canadians consider the Canadian government to be excessively biased towards Israel
More Canadians view the media as biased toward Israel than Palestine
Canadians overwhelmingly believe that criticizing Israeli government policies is not necessarily anti-Semitic
Most Canadians (40 per cent) believe boycott, divestment and sanctions to be a reasonable measure to defend Palestinian rights

According to Michael Bueckert, Vice President for CJPME, the results in the 2017 and 2020 surveys indicate a running theme within the Canadian electorate indicating a trend of openness towards Palestinian self-determination and opposition to the idea that Israel should be treated as more exceptional than any other country globally.

Context: ICC Seeks to Investigate Israeli War Crimes, Canada seeks to obstruct them

This survey is framed in the context of recent efforts by the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, to investigate Israeli War Crimes, particularly war crimes carried out in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge, as well as investigation into the possibility that Israel’s attempts to build illegal settlements in Palestine and their killing of protesters in Gaza between 2018-2019 would also constitute war crimes. Her efforts to hold Israel to account for war crimes has been condemned as “pure anti-Semitism” by the Netanyahu government.

In response to the ICC investigation, Canada has submitted a letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at Israel’s behest, that threatened to intervene in the ICC investigation, claiming that the ICC has no jurisdiction to intervene in Israel because Palestine had failed to achieve statehood. This is despite the fact that, as Bueckert pointed out in our correspondence, 138 countries recognize Palestine as a state. Canada’s uncritical support of Israel consequently puts them at odds with much of the world’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a fact that was evident when the world rejected it’s bid to sit on the UN Security Council and potentially leverage that power to impose a pro-Israel stance within the United Nations.

Recently, according to Bueckert, the Chief Prosecutor published her viewpoint that the ICC has jurisdiction to investigate war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian teritorries. In response, the US has issued sanctions on the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC and another ICC official. This not only obstructs investigations of Israel, but also of war crimes carried out by the US in Afghanistan. Canada has thus far taken no action against the US-imposed sanctions. This, to Bueckert, is a test for the ICC with regards to whether it can investigate the war crimes of powerful states such as Israel and the US.

Trudeau and the Canadian Political Class out of Touch with the Vast Majority of Canadians

What these surveys demonstrate is that the Trudeau government’s foreign policy regarding Israel is completely out of touch with the demands of the vast majority of Canadians. As Prime minister, Trudeau has facilitated Canadian complicity in Israeli apartheid, voting against various measures in the UN supporting Palestinian soverignity and equating support for BDS with anti-semitism and hate crimes directed against Jews, while continuing various commercial and bilateral relations with Israel that sees Canada sending exports valued at $500 million as of 2018 and contributing $1 million annually to bilateral Canadian-Israeli cooperation in the fields of industrial research and development.

This pro-Israel foreign policy, it should be noted, is not only supported by the Conservatives but also by the establishment wings of the Greens and the NDP, either because of unwillingness to criticize Israel or outright support for the Israeli government. While progressive and leftist NDP MPs such as Alexandre Boulerice, Charlie Angus, Matthew Green, Niki Ashton, and Leah Gazan have spoken out against continued ties with Israel, the NDP under Jagmeet Singh has refused to move away from the pro-Israel foreign policy of former leader Thomas Mulcair, and has also refused to sign on to CJMPE’s pledge to oppose Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. With regards to the Green Party, outgoing leader Elizabeth May has consistently opposed BDS even as it’s members support the key tenets of BDS.

At the same time, the Green Party itself has taken measures to suppress leftist candidates within their leadership race seeking to embrace a pro-Palestine foreign policy. When Dimitri Lascaris (who as Justice Critic pushed for the Greens to adopt a pro-BDS resolution in 2016) filed his candidacy, the Green Party’s vetting committee initially rejected him; only changing their stance after pressure from activists. Very recently, another candidate with pro-Palestinian and eco-socialist views, Meryam Haddad, was briefly expelled by the Green Party before being readmitted on appeal.

Even earlier in the Green Leadership race, eco-socialist Alex Tyrrell, who supported the BDS movement, withdrew from the leadership race on the basis that Elizabeth May was meddling in favor of the Green establishment. It seems that the Green Party establishment is taking steps to suppress the growing eco-socialist movement in their ranks, and facilitate the rise of a pro-Israel candidate such as Elizabeth May-backed Annamie Paul.

Michael Bueckert expresses his hope in our correspondence that these reports published by CJPME will show that taking a stand for universal human rights, and holding Israel to the same standards as any other country is a fair and very popular stand to take. He explained that progressive parties fearful of electoral damage due to a pro-Palestinian policy should embrace supporting human rights for Palestinians. This is because the Canadian population actually supports a foreign policy defending Palestinian self-determination, and in suppressing calls to respect Palestinian human rights, the Canadian political class is out of touch with their own electorate.

Both parts of the CJPME Survey, along with earlier findings by the CJPME, ultimately reveal that the Trudeau government’s continued favoritism towards Israel, and by extension the pro-Israel positions of the Canadian government, has put them at odds not only with the rest of the world, but also with their own electorate, who are increasingly sympathetic to the idea of Palestinian human rights and in opposition to the idea that Israel should be treated more leniently than other countries. It is high time for Canadians to hold their government’s uncritically pro-Israel foreign policy to account and demand that Canada not intervene in the ICC investigation into Israeli War crimes and stand up for Palestinian self-determination.

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