The images are graphic and heartbreaking - buildings reduced to rubble, maimed and dead children strewn among that rubble, families fractured, lives broken beyond repair. Were it not for the distancing effect that television news inevitably brings, the pictures would be overwhelming, leaving room for nothing but despair.
Thus is the reality of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, a seemingly insoluble situation aided and abetted by a West that offers nothing but the staunch bromide of Israeli's 'right to defend itself,' an assertion with which few would disagree.
And therein lies the problem. That reflexive cliche whenever Israeli 'excesses' make the news relies on an uninformed and unsophisticated mode of thinking that sees the world only in terms of absolutes, where things are right or wrong, where you either stand with Israel wholeheartedly and unequivocally, or you are an anti-Semite who stands with the terrorists.
This is certainly the position of the Harper regime, and it is one held by Thomas Mulcair as far back as 2008, and by Justin Trudeau as well, as noted by The Mound of Sound on this blog.
Taking, as they say, a more 'nuanced' public position takes courage for the political risk it entails, and all three leaders of the major parties have shown themselves extraordinarily risk-averse. Unfortunately, their decision to play a safe and defensive game carries with it stakes far greater than their own political ambitions.
It is that cowardice that invites a withering assessment by Haroon Siddiqui in this morning's Toronto Star:
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 question 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).
Siddiqui suggests there is great room for a genuine discussion that all three 'leaders' have no interest in initiating:
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.
Indeed, they hew closely to the official narrative, refusing to allow facts to interfere with expediency:
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.
Nor is the writer impressed by their blanket absolution of Israel for the mass destruction its actions have wrought:
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.
Siddiqui disabuses those who hold out hope for change under young Justin Trudeau:
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.
There is much more in Siddiqui's column that merits reading, including the pushback from 500 prominent Canadians condemning the Harper regime for its uncritical stance on Israel, and condemnation by Canadians For Justice And Peace In The Middle East of all three federal parties because they have betrayed Canadian values.
All in all, much to disturb our Sunday equanimity.
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