Flying pigs and blue moons. Elder Advice is checking for both. Because he and Justin finally agree on something.
“Hamas's actions are absolutely indefensible and Israel has the full right to defend itself in accordance with international law,” and "I strongly condemn the demonstrations that have taken place, and are taking place, across the country in support of Hamas' attacks on Israel," Justin said.
Would that everyone had said the same.
Elder Advice, like many, was stunned by events of October 7, but beyond the horror of the slaughter of Israeli innocents, he has been troubled by the aftermath and what it says about the state of things.
Since that day, Elder Advice shared his thoughts with a number of Jewish friends and colleagues. Those thoughts included: “all right-thinking people stand with Israel”. What he heard in response however, beyond the anguish of those whose relatives and friends were lost or still missing, was a deep-seated concern that anti-Jewish sentiment is on the rise and that, even as the murderous rampage of Hamas was ongoing, the world seems to be once again turning against the Jewish community. I tried to offer reassurance: the world has always had its share of thugs and terrorists, politicians and academics, media management and union leaders who are anti-Jewish. They say the same things now that they have said for years. And allies of Israel ignore them now, as we have for years. I urged that the apparent source of that concern, social media – or more properly, anti-social media – should be ignored. That all of us who were allies of Israel before the events of the past two weeks are allies still.
But Elder Advice confesses unease.
The contemptible street celebrations by overt supporters of terrorism in Montreal, in Mississaugua, in Edmonton and in Vancouver, where celebrants called for the eradication of Israel, shouting: “Israel terrorist, Canada accomplice”, “There’s no civilians” and other illiteracies, without either arrests or hate crime charges. The disgraceful exaltation of Hamas by Fred Hahn, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario, and other public sector union leaders like the CUPW local at McMaster University which posted: “Palestine is rising. Long live the resistance.” The management instruction to CBC journalists to not refer to Hamas as “terrorists” but instead identify them as “fighters”. The victim-blaming, post-terrorist attack statement of Sara Jama, an Ontario NDP Member of Provincial Parliament that: “violence and retaliation rooted in settler colonialism have taken the lives of far too many innocent people." All this and more is disturbing advocacy that a different standard should apply to the deaths of Jews.
Let Elder Advice be clear. The intentional killing of civilians … too antiseptic a phrase … the wanton murder of grandparents, children and other non-combatants, are the acts of terrorists whatever their avowed political or social cause. Efforts to excuse such conduct, much less condone it, are morally corrosive. And tantamount to criminal aiding and abetting of further terrorist actions.
Look. No one questions that things are complicated. And that there is no place on this earth more complicated than the Middle East. No one questions that Palestinians have suffered. Many were forced from their homes in 1947/48. Neighbouring Arab nations have all refused to absorb them since, although Elder Advice notes that Israel has accepted thousands of Mizrahi Jews who have been made refugees in even more recent years from Iran, Iraq, Algeria and Morocco - and no one argues for a homeland for them in those places - nor do those who deride Israelis as “settlers” bother to make any exception for them. Or for the 20% of Israelis who are not Jewish. No one questions that many Palestinians have been economically and physically harmed by what should be unlawful expansion of settlements in Israel and the right-wing coalition governments that have permitted and encouraged it. And there is no doubt that, in the ever-present shadow of national security, Palestinians have been denied rights and privileges in Israel that those in liberal democracies enjoy, where no such concerns exist.
But none of those wrongs include the intentional slaughter of non-combatants. Indeed, the tactics employed by Hamas and other jihadists prove the point. The reason they have successfully used Palestinian hospitals, mosques and schools as shields for their activities for decades - conduct which is itself a war crime - is their well-founded conviction that Israel will not intentionally kill innocents.
On that issue, in particular the Palestinian narrative that Israel deliberately bombed a hospital in Gaza, killing 500, Elder Advice notes yesterday’s announcement by Canada’s Department of National Defense and Canadian Forces Intelligence Command that: “Analysis conducted independently by the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command indicates with a high degree of confidence that Israel did not strike the al-Ahli hospital on 17 October 2023. Based on analysis of open source and classified reporting, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces assess that the strike was more likely caused by an errant rocket fired from Gaza”. And, as it turns out, the allegation of 500 deaths is also false.
Elder Advice is increasingly weary of the efforts of those we have allowed to capture our institutions - government, schools, media, labour unions - to denigrate liberal principles and inject equivocation into places where it has no business. Those now seeking to rationalize and normalize evil must bear responsibility for encouraging a public mindset which manifests itself in the celebration or exoneration of murder that we have seen these past two weeks. We should all be concerned at the level of ignorance and the lost moral compass such actions evidence, and the failure of our educational institutions, in particular, to address either. Elder Advice has more to say on that subject and the next posting will be devoted to it.
In the meantime, as we all navigate the difficult days ahead, those of us who are both allies of Israel and sympathetic to the plight of ordinary Palestinians know that the overwhelming majority of Israelis will do what they have always done. They will continue to show us the bright line that exists between the people of a civilized, democratic society with a moral code, and jihadists. Even in the world’s most perilous place. Even when, after the events of October 7, the temptation to lash out would be irresistible to lesser folk.
And as for those who say otherwise - those who argue for moral equivalence and seek to glorify or excuse the genocidal intent and acts of jihadists - they need to be banished from the society of decent people. It is no longer enough to ignore them.
We have not ignored them loudly enough.
Well said. But a couple of quibbles. Jordan did take in Palestinian refugees who now live comfortably in houses in a suburb of Amman. I understand that Palestinians who are citizens of Israel enjoy the same rights as Jewish citizens of Israel. They have their own political party, have seats in the Knesset and indeed serve in the military and the judiciary. So there is no ‘apartheid’ as is claimed. As for Palestinians who come from Gaza or the West Bank they are understandably subject to searches for guns, explosives etc. And why not? There have been terrorist attacks in Israeli cities. As for the ‘stolen land’ canard Israel was created by the UN. If anyone doesn’t like that decision take it up with the UN. There have been many displacements of people from various countries over the years the most significant one being the expulsion of Hindus by the newly created Muslim country of Pakistan. But the displaced Hindus are not perpetual refugees and mendicants. They got on with their lives.
Subject to what Robert Taylor has stated below (I completely agree with him), you have provided a wise and fair analysis of the situation, Tim.