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On May 4, Prime Minister Trudeau issued a statement celebrating the “shared values that unite” Canada and Israel and attacking those who criticize Israel for its crimes against the Indigenous Semitic Palestinian people since 1948. It should be recalled that a year earlier, Trudeau had harshly attacked Canadians who support the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel.

Over the last 12 months, indisputably well-documented reports by United Nations (UN) institutions and reputable human rights groups – including the Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council Canadian Professor Michael Lynk, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Israel’s leading human rights organization B’Tselem – found Israel guilty of war crimes and the crime against humanity of apartheid against the 7 million Palestinians under Israel’s control and the six million exiled Palestinian refugees denied since 1948 the right to return to their homeland.

Furthermore, HRW’s report called on the Trudeau government to take action against the “crimes against humanity” by the Israeli government and Amnesty’s report accused governments with the responsibility and power, like Canada, of refusing  to take any meaningful action to hold Israel accountable.

In addition, over the last year the following academics, students, and Jews in North America have expressed their support for sanctions against Israel:

• The Middle East Studies Association (Mesa) of North America – consisting of nearly 3,000 faculty, students and practitioners from around the world – voted overwhelmingly in late March 2022 to pass a resolution supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement (BDS) targeting apartheid Israel.
• Student unions at McGill, the University of Toronto (UofT), the University of British Columbia (UBC), and Simon Fraser University (SFU) passed resolutions in March 2022  in support of BDS; and were joined in April 2022 by the student union of Simon Fraser University (SFU).
• A US poll conducted in February 2022 found that 16% of American Jews support BDS.

By attacking critics of Israel and especially those who support BDS, Trudeau is attacking UN institutions, reputable human rights groups, academics, students, Palestinians, Jews, and any Canadian who opposes apartheid and war crimes.

Disappointingly, Trudeau’s May 4th statement also appears to equate criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews, which would be like accusing critics of the former apartheid regime of South Africa of being haters of whites.

A survey commissioned by the Jewish Electorate Institute in June 2021 shows 25% of US Jews agreed that “Israel is an apartheid state” and 22% agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.”

Among younger US Jewish voters, 33% agreed that Israel is committing genocide and more than 33% agreed that Israel is an apartheid state.

Hence, equating Israel with World Jewry, which Israel  claims to represent, is a serious mistake since it may be exploited by racists to blame Jews for the war crimes and the crime against humanity of apartheid that UN institutions and human rights organizations have found Israel guilty of committing against the 13 million Indigenous Palestinian Semites.

Trudeau’s attack against Canadians who oppose apartheid and war crimes came on the same day Israel’s High Court issued its ruling that legitimized a war crime, and rubber-stamped the permanent occupation and de facto annexation of the West Bank, by approving the mass expulsion of the Indigenous Palestinian Semitic inhabitants of 8 villages in the occupied West Bank.

This court ruling that violates international law, made me relive the horror and suffering I experienced when I was expelled from Haifa in 1948 and of not being allowed to return since then because I am a Christian, even though I was born there and my family has lived in Palestine for centuries. In the meantime, Irwin Cotler, Trudeau’s appointed Special Envoy who was born in Canada, can move to Israel at any time and obtain citizenship.

Trudeau’s statement was also insensitive to the pain and fear that the vulnerable Palestinian community in Canada had experienced during April 2022, when Israeli occupation forces daily raided and desecrated places of worship in occupied Jerusalem – using weapons, stun grenades and drones – arresting and wounding thousands of unarmed worshippers and restricting Muslim and Christian Palestinian worshippers’ respective access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during Ramadan and Easter.

Trudeau’s government talks about human rights and democracy but Canadians will judge it by its actions.

Trudeau’s government has to choose between supporting apartheid and war crimes or pressuring the Israeli government to treat all who live within its borders, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, as equal citizens with equal civil, human and national rights.

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This article was originally published on One Democratic State.

Khaled Mouammar is a Christian Palestinian Canadian who was forced to flee his hometown Nazareth in 1948. He is one of the founders of the Canadian Arab Federation and a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. He received the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Award from the Governor General of Canada in 1977.

Featured image is from ODS