The Canadian parliament created a real tempest in a teapot last night, They voted to approve allow. Let’s be clear. There is nothing in this resolution to change Canadian policy regarding Israel except to call for not sending arms to Israel from Canada. Israeli purchases of military equipment in Canada are all done from private manufacturers. The government does issue licenses for export, and it does not appear that any of those licenses are going to be changed. The only winner in this internal political game is the opposition party that managed to make the government a little bit more uncomfortable.
There is a more serious side to this. The justification for the resolution (which initially even included recognition of a Palestinian State!) was the large number of children reported killed in Gaza. In other words, it was a humanitarian motivation. Those who have been following my posts know that I am extremely suspicious of any reports that come from anywhere under Hamas control. All casualty figures from Gaza come from the Gaza Ministry of Health (A Hamas controlled entity!). I have not heard of any Canadian media or government source mentioning having any doubts about the validity of those numbers. (There are no other sources for those statistics). Beyond that, there is an obvious advantage for Hamas to make the reports. The Hamas policy of using civilians as human shields is, or should be, well known. But mentioning that as a possible reason for high casualty figures is a step neither the politicians nor the reporters seem prepared to take (not even indirectly). Potential cases of malnutrition and famine are predicted on a regular basis with no better evidence than those same Hamas sources that have been given to UN agency representatives (and accepted with the same blind faith in their accuracy). I believe the chances of getting unbiased reports from Hamas controlled sources are almost as good as the chance of seeing rain in the Chilean Atacama desert.
Wetherhorn 