In criticizing the Liberals and New Democrats for falling in line with Stephen Harper’s ardent support of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, I was remiss in not noting the more principled stand taken by the Green Party.

Before the ceasefire took effect this week, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said: “I am heartbroken to watch such death, destruction and violence. The death toll has soared to unspeakable numbers, mostly civilians.”

Unlike Harper, Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau, who have consistently placed a higher value on Israeli lives and security than those of Palestinians, May asserted: “I firmly believe that Israeli children and Palestinian children have an equal right to grow up free of bombardment.”

She rightly condemned Hamas for sending rockets over Israel but said that the “Israeli retaliation and the invasion of Gaza violates international law and humanitarian norms. The death and destruction in a place that was already experiencing a humanitarian crisis is simply unjustifiable.”

The crisis she was talking about predates this war. It is the cumulative disaster of the seven-year Israeli siege of Gaza that left the 1.7 million Gazans locked up in the narrow strip of land controlled by Israel by land, air and sea. (That siege, too, has had the vocal support of Harper and the silent assent of the Liberals and New Democrats.)

Unlike Harper’s refusal even to call for a ceasefire during the current crisis, the Green Party passed an emergency resolution at its national convention, July 18-20, calling for “the immediate cessation of hostilities.” That echoed both the UN Security Council’s call for a ceasefire and Barack Obama’s assertion about the “U.S.’s serious and growing concern about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives, as well as the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

May denounced the three main federal parties for “parroting” Benjamin Netanyahu’s positions:

“It should be possible for all other political leaders to continue to press for a two-state solution, one that defends the right of the State of Israel to exist, but equally calls for a secure Palestinian state.

“It is simply not credible to take the stance of all three other leaders —Messrs. Harper, Mulcair and Trudeau — that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s siege of Gaza is legal and meets humanitarian standards. It does not. The death toll among Gaza’s civilians provokes the conscience of the world.

“Hamas is to blame for provocation, but to imagine that Israel is blameless is untenable. “

May called for Canada “to stand up for human rights and international law wherever they are violated. Canada should continue to condemn Hamas rockets and terror but any prime minister of Canada worth his or her salt would also say, as a friend and ally of Israel, ‘you’ve gone too far.’ ”

As the Green Party only has two MPs, May has little or no parliamentary clout. But she should be lauded for her forthright enunciation of the traditional Canadian commitment to international rule of law.

The immorality of the Conservative, New Democratic and Liberal positions becomes shockingly clearer considering the grim toll: in Israel, three civilians and 64 soldiers killed; but in Gaza, 1,875 people killed, 85 per cent of them civilians, according to the head of UNICEF in Gaza.

The war had a “catastrophic and tragic impact” on children, she said, with more than 400 killed, 2,502 injured and about 373,000 suffering from trauma.

“There isn’t a single family in Gaza which hasn’t been touched by direct loss.”

Meanwhile in Britain, a minister in David Cameron’s Conservative government has quit in protest against his “morally indefensible” position on Gaza.

Baroness Warsi, foreign office minister, said her government’s support of the Israeli actions has not been “in Britain’s national interest and will have a long term detrimental impact on our reputation.”

Warsi, former chair of the Conservative party, said that she “couldn’t sit silently by as the Israeli military committed acts that have been described by (UN Secretary General) Ban Ki-moon as ‘moral outrages’ and ‘criminal acts,’ and by the French foreign minister as ‘massacres.’ ”

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She called for an arms embargo on Israel, echoing the position of Amnesty International.

Those alleged to have committed war crimes in the conflict should be held to account, she said, criticizing the government’s “continued pressure” on Palestinians not to take Israel to the International Criminal Court.

Haroon Siddiqui’s column appears on Thursday and Sunday. hsiddiqui@thestar.ca

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