Last week, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly was amplifying Hamas talking points against Israel.
Again.
On Aug. 10 — and for the second time — Joly posted a Hamas talking point that is still at the top of her official X account, now read by 1 million people.
“Canada condemns the Israeli strike that killed Palestinian civilians sheltering at a school in Gaza including children”
Truth is, Canada doesn’t condemn that. Because it didn’t happen.
But because the minister didn’t do her job and vet what she saw in the press citing Hamas, the world thinks the Canadian government believes Israel bombed a school, killing civilians and children and “condemns” it.
Meanwhile, Israel — Canada’s ally — has provided detailed maps, images and before/after strike reports on exactly how they eliminated 31-plus confirmed Hamas and Islamic Jihad thugs hiding in a command centre on the third floor of a mosque next to the Al Taba’een school complex at 5 a.m.
That number has been rising as they carefully identify every terrorist. Even Hamas has now dropped their initial casualty estimates from over 100 to 40 in the face of Israel’s evidence.
Joly’s bogus “Canada condemns” post is not aging well.
The last time she did this was 10 months ago.
On Oct. 17, 2023, a hospital in Gaza was hit. Hamas quickly told the world that the Israelis bombed it — to obscure the fact that Hamas/Islamic Jidad had hit it with their own rocket.
Israel was specific in their denial, just like now, and provided facts. Then, as now, Joly ignored Israel (and presumably the intelligence reports she certainly has access to) and decided to post immediately — at the worst moment for Israel — the following vapid statement.
“Bombing a hospital is an unthinkable act, and there is no doubt that doing so is absolutely illegal,” she wrote.
Using her official Canadian Foreign Affairs account to repeat the Hamas ‘bombing’ libel played perfectly into their narrative that it was an Israeli bomb and not a Hamas/Islamic Jihad rocket. This gave Hamas direct access to 2.5 million readers of Canada’s minister of Foreign Affairs official account, allowing them to launder their lie through the naivete and self-righteousness of a Minister who won’t do the hard work of verification.
It was left to Canada’s Minister of Defence Bill Blair to clarify that Joly was in the dark.
“Canadian Forces Intelligence Command indicates, with a high degree of confidence, that Israel did not strike the hospital on October 17, 2023,” Blair posted.
Unfortunately, only 250,000 people read Blair’s corrective post whereas 2.5 million read the Hamas version on Joly’s account which was never retracted.
Journalists can be half-assed and quick to rush to judgement in a limited information environment like war, which is fluid, complex and tragic in every way. Interpreting what is happening and who is responsible is hard.
But that is why government ministers are meant to be circumspect with “news.”
Canadians and our allies should assume that when our Minister of Foreign Affairs condemns another nation — especially an ally fighting terrorists — that her view is backed up by national intelligence and rigorous diplomatic review.
Joly either isn’t using — or is ignoring — the assets at her disposal that exist expressly to avoid public statements that are precipitous, uniformed and deeply damaging to Canada — or our allies.
It’s been five days now.
Is Joly going to retract the latest Hamas PR, or leave it to someone responsible to correct the record, again?
Either way, that’s twice now.
This isn’t how a minister of Foreign Affairs is supposed to communicate.
— Dr. David Knight Legg is an advisor to governments, energy and investment firms as Chairman of Elements Capital Advisors and is Chairman of IntelligenceSquared, a global debate platform.