I guess the electoral calculus shows that there aren’t enough Jewish votes to be gained by backing Israel, so Justin Trudeau is going for the Islamic vote instead:
It’s not typical that an Israeli leader will issue an English-language excoriation of a friendly government in a time of war, but this week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an exception for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“While Israel is doing everything to keep civilians out of harm’s way, Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm’s way,” said Netanyahu in a statement addressed to the Canadian leader. He added, “the forces of civilization must back Israel in defeating Hamas barbarism.”
.@JustinTrudeau It is not Israel that is deliberately targeting civilians but Hamas that beheaded, burned and massacred civilians in the worst horrors perpetrated on Jews since the Holocaust.
While Israel is doing everything to keep civilians out of harm’s way, Hamas is doing …
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) November 15, 2023
Netanyahu was reacting to prepared remarks Trudeau delivered in B.C. where he accused Israel of killing “women, children and babies”. The statement — which did not place any blame on Hamas for the carnage — urged Israel to exercise “maximum restraint” as “the world was watching”.
It’s but the latest incident in an official Trudeau government response to the Israel-Hamas conflict that has been checkered by confusion, contradiction — and a noticeable alienation from Canada’s usual international allies.
In the first days after the Oct. 7 massacres, Canada was left out of a strongly worded joint statement issued by five fellow members of the G7.
“The terrorist actions of Hamas have no justification, no legitimacy and must be universally condemned,” read the statement co-signed by the leaders of the U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy and France. The statement then urged Israel to “set the conditions for a peaceful and integrated Middle East region.”
Ottawa explained that the statement was issued by Quint – an organization of five countries separate from the G7 that has never included Canada.
But while it might make sense for Quint to exclude its other G7 ally, Japan, it’s more conspicuous that the co-signers never called the G7 member with a substantial Jewish population and a lengthy history of diplomatic support for Israel.
And while Trudeau’s official reaction to the Oct. 7 massacres carried much of the same sentiments, it did include a routine equivocation absent from the Quint statement: Israel had a right to defend itself “in accordance with international law”.
