In case anyone thought a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas might end or even pause the anti-Israel protest machine, Chrystia Freeland’s Liberal-leadership campaign launch on Sunday quickly suggested otherwise. The event was a notable gong show, with Freeland having to stop and start over and over again as protesters hurled epithets like “fascist” and “genocide supporter” at her. A sign dubbed her “our deputy PM gravedigger.” (Former deputy PM gravedigger, surely.)
It wasn’t a disaster for Freeland (though disaster seems to await the winner of this race regardless). Reviews of how she handled the mess seem generally positive. In theory, it might even have been a net benefit for someone auditioning to lead Canada in an unpredictable world — except of course that this was entirely predictable, and Freeland’s team therefore should have predicted it and prevented it, and they look inept for having not.
Before the event even began, independent journalist and protest-chronicler Caryma Sa’d had spotted a well-known “usual suspect” protest organizer on a live stream of the event. “It would be a surprise if no disruptions occur,” she wrote, presciently, on X. (Sa’d identified the protester as Gisela McKay, which sounds roughly as Palestinian as several of the event-disruptors appeared.)
There are no bombs dropping on Gaza. Israeli hostages are going home, as are busloads of Palestinian prisoners who were being held in Israel. This is what the protesters said they wanted (although the matter of civilian Israeli hostages came up suspiciously rarely, right?). And yet there they are, as usual, screaming at Canadian politicians for not solving one of the world’s most intractable geopolitical problems.
One of the central absurdities of these endless street protests has always been that there is nothing anyone in Canada can do about the issue being protested. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly does not take critical notes from Ottawa. We hold roughly as much sway over his government’s decision-making as we do over the law of gravity.
The protesters won the arms-export argument. And still they protest. Heck, they have won over the Liberals on pretty much every argument
Canadian arms sales to Israel were a tiny drop in the bucket: From 2019 to 2023, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports, the United States, Germany and Italy together accounted for 99.9 per cent of Israel’s arms imports. (Italy was the 0.9 per cent.) Now they’re an even tinier drop. “We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza. Period,” Foreign Affairs Minister (and Mark Carney supporter) Mélanie Joly said in September in announcing the suspension of 30 arms-export permits to Israel.
Indeed, it’s somewhat ironic that thus far in the Liberal leadership race, our ex-finance minister, ex-deputy prime minister is taking more abuse for Canada’s general position on the war in Gaza than our current foreign affairs minister — but I wouldn’t expect that to last. As governor of the Bank of Canada, in 2012, Carney actually travelled to Israel and met with Netanyahu. Shame!
But the point is, the protesters won the arms-export argument. And still they protest. Heck, they have won over the Liberals on pretty much every argument. It’s not as though Freeland, or Justin Trudeau for that matter, opposed a ceasefire. “Canada has been calling for an immediate ceasefire, an urgent increase in unhindered humanitarian assistance, and the release of all hostages,” Trudeau wrote on social media in May last year, after then president Joe Biden tabled a ceasefire proposal. Freeland called it “an important step.”
So what does the rabble want now? A press release on Sunday purporting to speak for the anti-Freelanders explained: “Having been left with no other choice, protesters are disrupting Freeland’s campaign launch event, demanding that she finally hear them and take meaningful action against Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity.”
She’s not even in cabinet. What do they want her to do, personally join the intifada?
The release continues: “Protesters are demanding that Canada adhere to its international obligations, including respecting rulings from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).” But they already won that argument! In November, Trudeau said Canada would “abide by” the ICC’s arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, were either to set foot on Canadian soil. (We wouldn’t arrest them, of course. The RCMP is going to detain the prime minister of Israel? Ludicrous. But pretending we would is all Trudeau had to offer, and he gave it up willingly.)
The response to Sunday’s gong show has mostly been the same dispiriting, meaningless platitudes we’ve been hearing since October 2023. Adjectives are deployed: “outrageous,” “intolerable,” “un-Canadian,” even “illegal.” But to no end.
“It’s good to protest,” Freeland burbled at her campaign launch, which is an odd thing to say when lunatics are protesting you for not doing something that you couldn’t and can’t. “But it is not OK to stop others from speaking,” Freeland continued.
She’ll get no argument from me on that point … except that it clearly is OK, to the extent that no one ever suffers any consequences for doing it. It’s also not OK to protest Jewish neighbourhoods because they’re Jewish, or businesses because they’re owned by Jews. It’s not OK to fly an antisemitic terrorist organization’s flag. It’s not remotely OK, indeed it’s a national scandal, that many Jewish Canadians are very understandably scared.
But here we are. And no one in charge, or auditioning to be in charge, seems to have anything halfway resembling a plan, strategy or solution to deal with this thuggery.
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