Islamist MPs Nibbling Away At Canada's Moral Compass

"I call on Canada to support South Africa's application to the International Court of Justice regarding the current conflict between Israel and Hamas and the impact this conflict is having on the people of Palestine."

Member of Parliament Salma Zahid, Toronto area MP

"[The International Criminal Court prosecution of Israel, brought by South Africa claiming that Israel was engaged in a genocidal war against Palestinians is] an outrageous and cynical abuse of the principles underlying the international legal order that was set up after the Second World War."

Former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella

 

"Just last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa was preparing to host Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit in Johannesburg following frequent one-on-one meetings between the two."

"When it became clear that a court would rule that South Africa would have to arrest Putin in terms of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes related to his invasion of Ukraine, the government relented, and Putin attended the summit virtually."

"Prior to that, South Africa had refused to arrest then Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was charged with a litany of war crimes. Among these were, to quote the ICC, 'five counts of crimes against humanity: murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, and rape; two counts of war crimes: intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking part in hostilities, and pillaging; three counts of genocide: by killing, by causing serious bodily or mental harm, and by deliberately inflicting on each target group conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction, allegedly committed at least between 2003 and 2008 in Darfur, Sudan'."

The Brenthurst Foundation: Ray Hartley, Greg Mills

 

Supporters of Hamas demonstrating outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. Photo: Reuters/Jehad Shelba

 

Member of Parliament Zahid, known as a longtime critic of Israel was one of a number of Liberal Members of Parliament who a month ago managed to convince Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to join forces with others who sat fit in the United Nations General Assembly to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. Clearly the message of a ceasefire was aimed directly at Israel; Gaza is not an established 'state' and nor would the terrorist group that rules Gaza be bound by an humanitarian urge to cease and desist. Israel's agreement to a ceasefire would not put an end to the Hamas rocket bombardments, a well-known reality.

But that's the direction that the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau chose to take, marking an extraordinary move by Canada, to abandon its allied relationship with the Jewish State to satisfy elected Muslim Members of Parliament who make no secret of their bias against Israel. While the current government has not yet expressed any position on the ICC case which began today, both the Palestinian 'ambassador' to Canada and South Africa's high commissioner in Ottawa publicly urged Canada to support the argument of genocide.

 

Jan 11th 2024 | JOHANNESBURG Ties bound in struggle   image: AFP

South Africa's argument is that the widespread bombardment of Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces and Israel's siege on Palestinians in Gaza "are genocidal in character". Israel's bombardment of Gaza has a direct and distinct purpose; to eliminate any future opportunities for the Hamas terrorist group, along with that of Palestinian Islamic Jihad to ever again commit atrocities against Israelis as they did on October 7 when both, along with Palestinian civilians surged across the border into southern Israel in the thousands to rape, torture, mutilate and murder.

Committing atrocities so foul it's difficult to imagine human minds even imagining them, much less engaging in them to exact pain and remorseless anguish on vulnerable girls, women, children, and entire families burned to death in their homes. That deadly pogrom and the abduction of 250 elderly people, infirm and ill, residents of border towns and kibbutzim, infants and teens, foreign farm workers and other civilians, along with Israeli soldiers constituted a crime against humanity, not the response by Israel to extinguish terrorism in Gaza geared to Israel's destruction.

Others in the Liberal caucus, including MPs Marco Mendicino and Anthony Housefather describe the court application by South Africa as "baseless and unconscionable" for the very reason that Israel's offensive is a defensive one, in its efforts to prevent terrorists out of Gaza from repeating such horrendous attacks -- murdering over 1,200 people in a single day -- leaving the remains of so many dead bodies strewn about that identification of the dead is still being processed, three months later.

South African, in the meantime, sees nothing amiss itself in maintaining friendly contact and support by those responsible for a magnitude of killing amounting to genocidal slaughter condemned by the same ICC. Soon after launching the ICJ proceedings against Israel, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomed the leader of the Sudanese Janjaweed Arab group responsible along with the Sudanese government for the genocide that took place in Darfur two decades ago, once again under the Rapid Support Forces perpetrating crimes against humanity in Sudan, massacring Black Sudanese farmers, and committing sexual violence.

"Hypocrisy has, it would seem, no limits when it comes to South Africa’s foreign policy. Exactly a week before the country was due to accuse Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on January 11th, President Cyril Ramaphosa played host to Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, a Sudanese warlord whose Janjaweed militia and its successor are accused of genocide and war crimes in Darfur. Adding to the insult, Mr Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, later visited the genocide museum in Kigali, Rwanda."

"Just as jarring was a ceremony on December 5th marking ten years since the death of Nelson Mandela, a man seen by the world as a symbol of reconciliation and peace. A Hamas delegation led by Bassem Naim, a senior official, joined Mandela’s grandson, Mandla, in a march through the streets of Pretoria, the capital. At their destination—the statue of Madiba (as Mandela is honorifically known) that stands proudly outside the president’s office—they laid a wreath with Lindiwe Zulu, the social-development minister."

The Economist

Exterior view of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)