Betraying Israel, Rewarding Terror

"Our NDP motion does not mean Canada would be recognizing Hamas."

"Hamas is a terrorist organization and it is not the government of Gaza. In fact, it is far from it."

"This was supposed to be a motion that aligned with international law, aligns with Canadian policy. So we're hopeful that we will have some support from the Liberals and we're certainly seeing more movement from them over the last few days."

"[Canada's official position that there should not be movement toward recognition until after final-status talks between the two parties is] an excuse."

"This is a moment in time where we need to come up with a better solution for peace in the Middle East." 

"I don't believe that stopping killing children, the end of the bloodshed, the end of starvation, getting humanitarian aid to innocent people, getting the conflict to stop so that we are, we are able to move toward something that's more peaceful and just for Israelis and Palestinians, I don't think that's rewarding Hamas."

NDP Member of Parliament Heather McPherson

The House of Commons passed a softened NDP motion on Monday night that no longer calls for the federal government to officially recognize Palestinian statehood after last-minute amendments brought in by the governing Liberals.

In mid-March, in the Canadian House of Commons, parliamentarians saw members of the New Democratic Party wearing keffiyeh scarves, putting forward a motion that would recognize a Palestinian state. This is the sentiment of the Liberal-government-supporting NDP; that Palestinians deserve a state of their own, one they've yearned to achieve for close to 80 years, while simultaneously using every opportunity they can muster to denigrate and violently attack Israel. Israel, apparently, is the aggressor as an 'occupier' forced to defend itself from deadly Palestinian attacks.

Palestinians view themselves as victims of a catastrophe that occurred when the United Nations in 1947 offered a solution to Jews and Arabs in the area of the Middle East historically from the age of the Roman occupation, called 'Palestine'. Both Jews -- whose ancestral land it is, dating back thousands of years -- and Arabs -- who claim the land to be their heritage, though they migrated there in fairly modern history -- reacted differently to the UN's Partition Plan. Although the area offered represented a modest part of Judaic geography for a nascent State of Israel, the Jews gratefully accepted.

Palestinian leaders rejected the very idea of sharing the land they claimed for themselves with Israel, and launched violent attacks against Jewish towns. When Israel declared itself an independent state in 1948, surrounding Arab nations assembled a joint military to counter Israel's declaration, while sending Jews who had lived for generations in Arab and North African countries into exile, some 800,000 who then mostly gravitated to Israel, while the 700,000 Arabs calling themselves 'Palestinians' left as refugees, some voluntarily with the intention of returning once Israel was vanquished and others forced out.

When the Palestinian refugees entered neighbouring Arab states they assembled in refugee camps with the aid of the United Nations. And since the invading Arab militaries failed to achieve their objective to destroy Israel left no option for the Palestinian refugees to return, they were refused citizenship in the Arab countries they had migrated to. The intention being to keep them as a festering sore of discontented victims dedicated to ongoing violence against the Jewish State.

Since the ghastly October 7 invasion of southern Israel by Hamas terrorists resulting in a heinously savage massacre of Jewish children, women and men and the hostage abduction of hundreds of children, men and women by Hamas, taking raped and mutilated women, alive and dead, back to Gaza, a number of polls taken by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research have revealed how Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank feel about their prospects of statehood, a statehood they could have had in 1948 had they not rejected it then, and multiple times since then when Palestinian leaders rejected every peace initiative Israeli negotiators offered.

 

 

When the poll asked about how to "break the stalemate", 55 percent of Palestinians supported confrontations and armed intifada", and 45 percent chose "unarmed popular resistance". Asked to make a choice of a method to end Israeli occupation and establish an independent state, 39 percent of Gazans chose "armed struggle" over "negotiations". And since the October 7 massacre a March 20 poll saw a strong wish to have Hamas continue control of the Gaza Strip once the current conflict is resolved.

"If it was up to you, which of [these[ would you prefer to see in control of the Gaza Strip?" In Gaza, 52 percent of respondents chose Hamas; significantly greater than the 21 percent who wanted the Palestinian Authority to rule -- under someone other than its current President, Mahmoud Abbas. Asked how satisfied Gazans felt with the Hamas performance and its leader Yahya Sinwar, a total of 62 percent were satisfied, with 52 percent satisfied with Sinwar.

The poll established that should elections be held now, 34 percent of Gazans would vote for Hamas, the second choice was Fatah, the party of the ruling PA in the West Bank. An earlier survey, post-October 7 held by the Arab World for Research and Development found close to 60 percent of Gazans held a positive opinion of Hamas. Still, when McPherson addressed Parliament with her motion, she claimed Gazans do not support Hamas, and Canadians "were horrified on Oct 7 by the vile terrorist attack on innocent civilians in Israel by Hamas terrorists".

 

March 18, 2024 - "We've given the Liberals our red lines," says NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson ahead of a vote on the opposition day motion brought forward by her party. The non-binding motion calls on the Canadian government to take a number of actions in response to the war in the Gaza Strip, including "officially" recognizing "the State of Palestine." Plus, we have reaction from Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, who is calling the motion a "huge slap in the face" for Canada's Jewish community.

 

One would expect Canadians to be repulsed by the slaughter of 1,200 people, the raping and gang-rape of women before they were murdered, the tortured men, women and children, the mutilated bodies and kidnapping of 250 people. These horribly epic events had ample proof they occurred since the Hamas terrorists proudly took videos of their vile, sadistic actions, and circulated them on social media.  Among Palestinians who had not seen the videos, 87 percent said Hamas committed no atrocities on Oct.7

Among those who had seen the videos, 81percent claimed no atrocities were committed by Hamas. Four of five Palestinians who had watched the videos must have felt the atrocities were just desserts for Israelis, with Hamas behaving quite acceptably against an enemy by its barbarous atrocities against civilians. Canada, and its governing parties, the Liberals and the NDP, are anxious to recognize Palestinians' state aspirations, preferring to believe they would accept a two-state solution and peace, despite ravening pro-Palestinian crowds protesting the Israel response to October 7, with cries of "From the River to the Sea!", "Intefada!", and "Final Solution!".

"[Canada's Jewish community is feeling] demoralized and intimidated [as it grapples with a spike in antisemitism]".

"[The motion] rewards Hamas [because it creates] a false equivalency between the State of Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas."

"Canada should be standing with Israel. Canada should be defending the right of Israel to fight back against a terrorist organization. We should not be passing motions that make a terrorist organization equivalent to a democratic state."

Liberal MP Anthony Housefather

Relatives mourn at Kibbutz Beeri  Aris MESSINIS / AFP