No Country For Anyone

In two weeks, the Israelis will observe a grim milestone.

It will have been a year since Hamas terrorists poured into Israel and killed and kidnapped Israeli and other citizens.

For some reason, this has not sparked outrage:

Canada abstained today from a high-profile United Nations vote demanding that Israel end its “unlawful presence” in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank within a year.

Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae, told the assembly the motion was too one-sided to support, though he said Ottawa agrees that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian territories.

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This morning’s non-binding vote passed 124-14, and Canada was among 43 abstentions.

The State of Palestine brought the motion to the UN General Assembly, and Israel says the vote amounts to “diplomatic terrorism.”

The resolution is based on a July ruling by the International Court of Justice, which condemned Israel’s rule over lands it captured in 1967 by force, saying this violates international laws.

Last December, Canada stopped its decade-long policy of backing Israel in almost any United Nations vote over concerns about the lack of progress toward a humanitarian ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas.

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Israel is fighting for its very survival, but you wouldn’t know it from the treatment it receives at the United Nations.

On October 7, Israel was attacked in an unprecedented massacre by Hamas terrorists. Under international law, specifically Article 51 of the UN Charter, nations have an inherent right to defend themselves when subjected to armed attacks. Yet Israel continues to be disproportionately targeted at the UN.

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In 2023 alone, the United Nations General Assembly passed 14 resolutions condemning Israel — double the total number of condemnations of all other countries combined, all while overlooking major global human rights violators, such as Iran, Venezuela, China and Saudi Arabia. Countries like North Korea and Syria faced just one resolution each.

This is part of a broader trend where Israel has been systematically singled out. Between 2015 and 2022, the General Assembly passed 140 resolutions against Israel — more than twice the number passed against all other countries combined. The irony here is glaring: a country defending itself against terrorism is repeatedly condemned, while states that commit egregious human rights violations remain unscathed by the UN’s criticism.​ ...

Especially disappointing is Canada’s decision to abstain from Wednesday’s vote, rather than take Israel’s side, which represents the moral high ground. Experience tells us that you know who your true friends are during tough times — not when the going is easy.

Canada’s abstention represents a concession to the Palestinian lobby in this country and a stab in the back of its longtime friend and ally. But should we be surprised? This week, Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa — despite the fact that Qatar is one of Hamas’s biggest benefactors.

In this upside down story, Canada seems to have more sympathy for Hamas these days than for its longtime friend and ally. How sad.

 

What can one expect from a country proud of its Nazi-hiding present?

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As a member of Israel’s peace movement, I have always believed that strangers can become partners. On October 7, my belief was shaken to the core when my 84-year-old mother, Ditza, was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.

Scenarios played out in my head, over and over, about who had seen fit to kidnap my mother and where she was being held. I imagined her in a deep, dark tunnel, with angry, armed young men lurching out from the shadows.

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But it turned out that my mother had not been held at gunpoint in Gaza by a gang of fanatical young men. Instead, as she revealed after she was released on Nov. 28 in the hostage deal, Hamas had handed her off to a man named Abed. Abed had kept my mother locked in a small room of his home, with little food and no access to medication for almost two months. He told my mother that he was a teacher at an UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) school. A perfect stranger, instead of becoming one of this war’s angels, Abed ended up as just another of its many demons.

It emerged that my mother was not the only hostage who had been kidnapped or held captive by UNRWA employees, but the ties between the agency and Hamas go much further than kidnappings alone. Weapons, tunnels and server farms were found in and underneath UNRWA facilities.

 

Oh, it gets better:

An announcement on the website for the Palestinian General Delegation to Canada, which represents the interests of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the governing body in the West Bank, is currently inviting people to sign up for the program via a Google form.

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The message, originally posted in Arabic and translated using Google, urges Gazan students in Canada to “register their data as soon as possible” to facilitate distance learning.

Shimon Koffler Fogel, president and CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), criticized the curriculum for indoctrinating youth into hating Israel, Jews and the West.

“This curriculum has been widely condemned for spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and hate, rejecting a two-state solution, and inserting examples of violence into subjects like science and math,” Fogel told National Post in a statement.

“Supporting newcomers and refugees is an integral part of Canadian values — but allowing hateful curriculum to be taught on Canadian soil is blatantly inappropriate.”

 

What Canadian values would those be, Mr. Fogel?

If "inappropriate" (not immoral) is the strongest word that can be conjured for this, then the battle is lost. 

Why we need to abolish teachers' unions:

Parents have reported that a contingent of Toronto school kids were taken by their teachers to a downtown political protest on the grounds that they were going on an Indigenous-themed field trip.

A smartphone video posted on social media showed several dozen students aged 12 to 14 being ushered through a crowd chanting “from Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime.”

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“At a (Toronto District School Board) sanctioned field trip,” read a caption by Maya Fitzpatrick.

A parent, identified as Melissa, called into AM640 to describe accompanying the field trip. Melissa said teachers dismissed letters from parents saying the excursion was “not a good idea,” and emphasized that children were being taken to a “gathering.”

“I’ve been to many protests in my life, and if this was not a protest I will eat my hat,” Melissa said in an interview with Toronto Today host Greg Brady.

I'll take genocides that aren't happening, Alex.

Meanwhile, Israel is pounding Lebanon, just one of its many hateful neighbours out to destroy it.