Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and, to a lesser extent, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair have fallen in line with Stephen Harper’s support of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

None questions the Israeli killing and maiming of hundreds of civilians, including women and children.

All echo the formulation that, given the barrage of (ineffective) Hamas rockets, Israel has a right to retaliate (bombing by air, shelling from the sea, mounting a ground invasion, levelling houses, hitting hospitals, mosques and schools run by the United Nations, and disrupting electricity, water and sewage systems).

Our federal leaders do not ask whether there could have been a less lethal response to the rockets than a wholesale war on Gaza, the third in six years.

They studiously avoid mentioning the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, now in its 47th year. They never mention the Israeli blockade of Gaza that entered its eighth year last month, leaving its 1.7 million inhabitants destitute.

All three suggest that Israel bears little or no responsibility for what’s happening. It’s all the fault of Hamas, the terrorist entity. They ignore a parallel narrative that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provoked this war in order to derail a recent unity agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, an accord that he saw as a threat to the status quo that he prefers.

Those who believe this version include Henry Siegman, a former national director of the American Jewish Congress, and Nathan Thrall, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.

While Harper’s stance has long been well known, the Liberal and NDP positions are highlighted by the Gaza war.

Trudeau issued a statement July 15 that “Israel has the right to defend itself and its people. Hamas is a terrorist organization and must cease its rocket attacks immediately.” He made no commensurate call for Israel to show restraint.

He condemned Hamas for rejecting an Egyptian ceasefire proposal and commended Israel for accepting it “and demonstrating its commitment to peace.” He did not say that the Egyptian military junta is not a neutral party, that it considers Hamas an extension of the banned Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood whose elected president Mohammed Morsi the army toppled in a coup last year. Hamas’ conditions for a ceasefire were rejected. It wanted, among other things, an end to the siege of Gaza. That was, in fact, part of a 2012 ceasefire agreement arranged by Morsi but ignored by Israel and, lately, Egypt.

Trudeau’s statement negated a more nuanced one by his Foreign Affairs critic, Marc Garneau, on July 8.

In adopting a Harper-like stance, Trudeau is facing a backlash, with many Canadians already saying that their infatuation with him is over.

Mulcair maintains, rightly, that “Hamas’ continued rocket attacks are unacceptable” but is mum on the Israeli overreaction, which has led to the killing of 800 Gazans, as of Friday.

Mulcair did urge Harper to help arrange a ceasefire (something the prime minister refused, preferring to let Israel get on with its military mission). The NDP leader also wants Ottawa to work for “restraint, de-escalation and civilian protection within a framework of international humanitarian law.”

communications channel of the Israeli government

The Conservative Party is running a partisan campaign, through emails and on its website, with the flags of Canada and Israel, saying “Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Canada’s Conservatives stand with Israel — are you with us?” The Conservatives suggest that anyone questioning Israeli policies is siding with “anti-Semitic terrorists and extremists.” This is in keeping with the sentiment that anyone questioning Harper or Netanyahu is either an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew.

All this has prompted nearly 500 Canadian academics, lawyers and community leaders to condemn “the unbalanced and partisan position adopted by the government and federal political parties.”

Ottawa’s position “discredits Canada domestically and internationally. Adoption of such a one-sided position subverts Canada’s own official foreign policy of a ‘comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement’ between Israel and Palestine.”

Signatories include Prof. Charles Taylor of McGill University, Canada’s pre-eminent philosopher; Dr. Christos Giannou, former head surgeon of the International Committee of the Red Cross; and University of Toronto’s Izzeldin Abuelaish, “the Gaza doctor” who came to Canada after three of his daughters and a niece were killed during an Israeli airstrike during the 2008-09 war on Gaza.

A Montreal-based group, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, says the three mainstream federal parties have “betrayed Canadian values.”

On Tuesday, about 1,000 people protested on Parliament Hill, denouncing Harper, Trudeau and Mulcair.

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On this, as some other issues, our federal political establishment is offering voters little choice. That would suit Harper just fine.

hsiddiqui@thestar.ca

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