Türkiye cannot accept Israel’s policy of depopulating the Gaza Strip, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday, reiterating that Israel is a “terror state.”

“We cannot and will not tolerate the policy of the State of Israel, which has grown by constantly occupying, seizing land and massacring the oppressed, to render Gaza uninhabited,” Erdogan said at the Algeria-Türkiye Business Forum.

Erdogan paid a one-day visit to the capital Algiers to meet with his Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune and to attend the second meeting of the Türkiye-Algeria High-Level Cooperation Council, where the presidents also discussed Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza.

“The attacks, in which more than 13,000 of our Palestinian brothers were martyred, have once again revealed the true face, intention and purpose of Israel and its supporters.

“In this regard, it is very important that the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israeli rulers are not left without sanctions,” Erdogan said.

All “conscientious” countries, along with the Islamic World, have a responsibility to ensure that Israel does not attempt “similar atrocities” again, he said, stressing: “We need to know this once and for all. Israel is a terrorist state. There is no need to hesitate to say this. This is the truth we know. This is the case.”

Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the tribunal based in The Hague, Erdogan said.

“Netanyahu is a goner. Even the Israeli people no longer support Netanyahu,” he said, adding Türkiye will not allow the issue of nuclear weapons and atomic bombs, whose existence is denied by Israeli ministers, to be forgotten.

“Israel, tell whether you have an atomic bomb or not. (It) Can’t say. But look, we say it. Israel, you have the atomic bomb

“We will take initiatives both before the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on this issue, which threatens the security of the entire region, including Türkiye,” Erdogan added.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks in the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7.

Thousands of buildings, including hospitals, mosques and churches, have been damaged or destroyed in the Israeli offensive.

An Israeli blockade has also cut off Gaza from fuel, electricity and water supplies and reduced aid deliveries to a trickle.

– Bilateral ties with Algeria

Erdogan said recently accelerated contacts and visits are adding significant momentum to bilateral relations between Türkiye and Algeria.

The bilateral trade volume reached a record $5.3 billion in 2022, he said, adding: “Hopefully, we will reach the $6 billion level by the end of the year.”

Around 1,400 companies with Turkish partners operating in Algeria provide employment to approximately 5,000 Algerians, he noted.

“The market value of our companies’ investments has approached $6 billion. With these figures, Türkiye is the country that makes the most investments and provides the most employment in Algeria, excluding oil and natural gas,” Erdogan said.

Türkiye is also pleased with the Algerian investments in the country, he added, stressing that Ankara will continue to provide the necessary facilities for Algerians to increase their investments in Türkiye.

Source : AA

The post Türkiye Cannot Accept Israel’s Policy of Depopulating Gaza: President Erdogan appeared first on Policy Print.

At this point in its term of office, the Biden Administration had hoped for a markedly different Middle East.

Under American tutelage, the Trump-era Abraham Accords would have ideally widened the circle of peace among Arab states and Israel, effectively ending the Arab-Israeli conflict and purportedly bringing stability and prosperity to a region sorely in need of it. As regional rivals reconciled their differences, Washington could refocus its attention on the Indo-Pacific region, shifting military and diplomatic assets to counter China.

In this new, more united Middle East, the threat of Iran would be contained by a formidable array of Arab and Israeli military power, and the Palestinian issue (regrettably resistant to any lasting solution, in the jaded view of government officials and pundits alike) would be safely contained. The Palestinians themselves would be mollified by new aid and investments from the wealthy Arab countries, an ample consolation prize in place of their own state. The threat of terrorism and conflict would have been reduced to manageable terms.

The war in Gaza has changed the entire diplomatic and military landscape into the one that Washington had hoped to avoid. Current conditions present daunting new challenges for the Biden administration, including the fearsome threat of wider regional confrontation.

Of course, the reality today is depressingly different. The war in Gaza has changed the entire diplomatic and military landscape into the one that Washington had hoped to avoid. Current conditions present daunting new challenges for the Biden administration, including the fearsome threat of wider regional confrontation.

As they say in the Pentagon, “No plan ever survived first contact with the enemy,” a wise maxim the Biden administration is currently relearning.

Things Fall Apart; the Center Cannot Hold

In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, President Joe Biden took a safe, traditional position, completely within a longstanding Washington consensus —full support of Israel’s “right to defend itself,’ bolstered by pledges of substantial military aid, and backed in this instance by the dispatch of two aircraft carrier strike groups, the USS Gerald R. Ford and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, to positions off Israel’s Mediterranean coast and in the Red Sea, respectively. But this supposedly safe position rapidly deteriorated into domestic and international political controversy as Biden discovered that fully backing Israel came with substantial political costs he hadn’t, apparently, anticipated.

With Biden’s poll standing eroding, due in no small part to his stance on the conflict, Washington’s diplomatic position has been evolving rapidly. During his tour of the region in early November, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for “humanitarian pauses”—not to be confused with a “ceasefire”—to allow humanitarian aid shipments to arrive in Gaza. In Tokyo a few days later for a meeting of G-7 foreign ministers, Blinken went significantly further, specifying American terms for an immediate post-war future. He said that there must be “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Not now, not after the war…No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza…It is imperative that the Palestinian people be central to governance in Gaza and in the West Bank as well, and that, again, we don’t see a reoccupation.”

With Biden’s poll standing eroding, due in no small part to his stance on the conflict, Washington’s diplomatic position has been evolving rapidly.

This is not only aimed at discouraging Israel’s possible imposition of a security zone in Gaza such as that enforced by Tel Aviv in southern Lebanon for 15 years, but also to suggest a new political horizon going forward. In Tokyo, Blinken hinted at that horizon, albeit in vague terms, saying that “it’s vitally important that Palestinian aspirations for governing themselves, for being the ones to decide their own futures, are realized.” This may fall short of a commitment to doing the long, hard work of bringing about a two-state solution, but it may be a start.

US Politics and Rising Pressure on Israel

Meanwhile, domestic political pressures almost unheard of in Washington are continuing to build: popular opinion in the United States, particularly among Democrats, is breaking sharply against Israel. On November 8, 26 Senate Democrats and Independents signed a letter to President Biden asking pointedly whether his administration can ensure that Israeli military operations in Gaza are being “carried out in accordance with international humanitarian law.” While the pro-Israel foundation in Congress remains generally solid, it seems cracks have begun to appear.

The administration is also faced with almost unprecedented dissent in the ranks of the federal bureaucracy. Foreign Service officers have in recent days signed onto three different dissent channel cables, a mechanism established during the Vietnam War to enable the rank-and-file to speak their minds without going messily public. The cables proposed some form of ceasefire to end the Israeli onslaught. Blinken himself felt compelled to meet with at least some of the signatories. And just this week, around 500 career officials and political appointees from about 40 government agencies signed a letter to President Biden also endorsing a ceasefire, citing polling data showing about two-thirds of Americans in favor of it and a de-escalation of violence.

The increasingly desperate situation in Gaza, including 1.5 million internally displaced persons as well as a death toll now exceeding 11,000, has fueled this rising controversy. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, for one, has taken notice, worrying that Israel has limited time to achieve its stated objective of eliminating Hamas in the Gaza Strip before it is forced to bow to pressure, primarily from the United States, to halt its military operations. It is a message that has been re-enforced this month by senior administration officials in contacts with their Israeli counterparts.

Israel’s Reaction

To complicate matters, the Israeli government does not necessarily seem to share the same playbook from which the United States is currently working. On November 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced  that Israel will maintain “overall security responsibility” in Gaza for an indefinite period, with no apparent plans for a transition to a diplomatic process to follow. While this falls a bit short of reoccupation, and certainly of the re-establishment of settlements of which some on the far Israeli right dream, it nevertheless opens the door to an untenable political situation that Washington clearly finds undesirable.

Meanwhile, the situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate. November 10 brought news that Israel has besieged several hospitals in Gaza, alleging that they are being used as storage facilities by Hamas, and demanding they be evacuated. A particular focus of Israel’s ire is Gaza’s largest medical complex, Al-Shifa Hospital, under which Israel claims Hamas maintains a system of military bunkers. Early on November 15, Israeli troops entered the complex and alleged that weapons were found inside; but Hamas denied the claim. The increasing number of casualties, ongoing military strikes, and lack of fuel has brought the medical system in Gaza to the point of total collapse.

Israel has agreed to White House demands for short operational pauses in northern Gaza to permit humanitarian aid to enter, but these will not substantially alleviate the suffering of Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip, and do not necessarily betoken any willingness to consider a broader ceasefire.

Israel has agreed to White House demands for short operational pauses in northern Gaza to permit humanitarian aid to enter, but these will not substantially alleviate the suffering of Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip, and do not necessarily betoken any willingness to consider a broader ceasefire. Netanyahu has in fact resisted American requests for a longer pause, even to facilitate the release of hostages. Intensive US diplomacy to persuade Israel to commit to more on the humanitarian front continues.

For the future, Netanyahu has steadfastly refused to consider a meaningful peace process after the conflict ends. Indeed, violent West Bank settlers seemingly backed by the Israeli Army have embarked on what can only be described as a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank, a development that may prove even more incendiary than the ongoing violence in Gaza.

Regional Context Evolving

The Biden administration is now reduced to trying to stave off a slow-motion wreck of a once hopeful Middle East policy. A formal diplomatic rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia may still take place—despite the Gaza war, both countries have an interest it making it happen—but it is by no means certain and in any case has suffered a real setback. Saudi Arabia has increased its criticism of Israel and reportedly paused any consideration of a deal to normalize relations. Instead, Riyadh hosted an Arab-Islamic summit meeting that included President Ibrahim Raisi of Iran, a diplomatic breakthrough of a very different kind that may not have been possible absent the Gaza crisis. The assembled leaders called for UN Security Council action to adopt a resolution under its binding Chapter 7 authority to halt Israel’s “aggression,” essentially a call for an indefinite ceasefire, cutting against American policy and adding to the international pressure on Washington.

Other Arab states are likewise backing away from Israel. Egypt, which has only ever enjoyed a cold peace with Israel, has made clear that it will not accept a mass transfer of refugees from Gaza to northern Sinai, for fear that they will not be allowed to return, a worry that is by no means unfounded. Cairo has also indicated that it will not participate in defeating Hamas, as it needs the group to help enforce border security. Jordan has declared Israel’s ambassador persona non grata and announced that “all options are on the table” in terms of a response. The United Arab Emirates has adopted a somewhat more measured response, favoring a ceasefire and warning that the United States will lose influence if a solution is not reached soon. Worried about their own domestic politics, several Arab states have individually importuned Washington to do more to pressure Israel to end its military campaign.

The one regional power that seems comfortable with Biden’s policy so far is Iran, apparently seeing it as an opportunity to rally popular and regional leadership opinion to its anti-US and Israel stance.

The one regional power that seems comfortable with Biden’s policy so far is Iran, apparently seeing it as an opportunity to rally popular and regional leadership opinion to its anti-US and Israel stance. The immediate danger of a broader conflict involving Iran and its allies versus the United States and Israel seems not to be imminent, but that does not mean it has gone away. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated significantly in recent days, and the party’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah warned in separate speeches earlier this month that while the group did not intend to enter the war as a full combatant, it would respond in kind to Israeli attacks on Gaza or Lebanon.

For an administration that staked its regional policy on an expansion of the Abraham Accords, these developments are concerning. They do not necessarily mean an end to the administration’s hopes for further regional integration once the Gaza conflict ends, but they do illustrate the many difficulties and fresh complications ahead—probably quite a few more than US officials anticipated just a few weeks ago. And if a broader conflict should erupt, possibly with the direct involvement of US forces, all bets are off.

Is There an Endgame?

As with any crisis in the Middle East, there is an undeniable but limited opportunity to effect fundamental change in the region’s dynamics. Previous conflagrations have led to major, if incomplete, peacemaking efforts spearheaded by Washington. This moment may be no different. Blinken spoke in Tokyo of “setting the conditions for durable peace and security and to frame our diplomatic efforts now with that in mind.” To be sure, there is, reportedly, discussion of the details of a future peace process at lower levels in the State Department.

But still, at the moment there is little obvious appetite in the White House for either a ceasefire, a peace process, or the political heavy lifting involved in bringing about either. Biden himself has talked in general terms about the need for a two-state solution “when this crisis is over,” but if he’s serious, much more needs to be done, and now.

The Biden administration must act quickly and offer specific plans and timelines to shape post-conflict expectations and establish its priorities with the parties. If it doesn’t, the most radical elements on all sides will set the agenda. Above all, Biden himself has to be willing to recommit his presidency to a major diplomatic push, probably one that will involve both pressure and inducements to raise the stakes for all parties if they fail to cooperate. This seems unlikely at the moment, but intense crises have made potent peacemakers of presidents before.

Source : Arab Center Washington DC

The post Gaza, the Ruin of US Policy, and a Transformed Middle East appeared first on Policy Print.

Domestic abuse remains a persistent problem during Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas, and women’s groups caution that wartime stress and relaxed gun regulations aimed at pushing firearms into civilian hands may only exacerbate violence that affected more than 13,200 people in 2022, 69 percent of whom are women, according to figures collected by the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry.

Within a week following the October 7 Hamas massacre, some 41,000 new gun permit requests were submitted, according to data presented to the Knesset’s National Security Committee.

While the Welfare Ministry registered a drop in requests for help attributed to wartime uncertainty and instability, other organizations have said they have had to up their service offering to meet increased wartime demand, in figures released ahead of Saturday’s United Nations-sponsored International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Helpline calls placed in the nearly seven weeks since Hamas stormed Israel and triggered the current war in Gaza have risen 45%, said the director of hotline services for Na’amat, a leading Israeli organization among the two dozen or so that provide services to victims of domestic abuse.

About 70% of those nearly 200 calls Na’amat receives a month are related to domestic abuse, said Gali Brin, using a broad definition that stretches the spectrum from verbal, economic and control abuse to physical violence.

New among callers’ concerns is fear that their partners can now obtain a weapon, either through joining a newly formed community security organization or by applying for a firearms license through criteria recently loosened on October 15.

“This is a type of call that we didn’t have” before the war, Brin said. She added that while she has only received a handful of calls from women concerned about their unreported abusive partners obtaining firearms, “the fact that women start to fear it and it’s rising” indicates a worrisome trend.

The Welfare Ministry released figures on Monday that it had received 18 requests in the weeks since firearm permit criteria were relaxed to conduct a danger assessment related to weapons permits, compared to six in the entire 2022 calendar year.

These concerns were echoed by others from the about two dozen organizations that operate hotlines and shelters for battered women, men and their children in Israel.

On Tuesday, women’s groups told the Knesset State Control Committee that it was urgent to review the new firearm license regulations to prevent femicide. The meeting ended abruptly after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who pushed for the relaxed regulations, ordered the head of his ministry’s Firearm Licensing Department to leave as part of a spat with the committee chair.

The eased regulations are not the first concern women’s groups voiced against Ben Gvir, who earlier this year delayed, and ultimately softened, legislation to permit electronic monitoring of domestic abusers.

Approved in mid-October by the Knesset’s National Security Committee, the new firearms regulations reduce service eligibility requirements for obtaining a firearm, such that men over 21 can obtain a permit if they served in a combat role for one year or finished two years of general military service. Women will be eligible if they complete a year of national service, as an alternative to military service, and if they live or work in a qualified dangerous area.

The previous regulations required full military or two years of national service for all citizen applicants, or to wait until age 27 to apply.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir poses with members of the civilian security squad in Eilat after handing them each weapons on November 15, 2023. (Itamar Ben Gvir/X)

Israel’s gun permit policy has been historically strict, and is geared towards making weapons available for community and self-defense, rather than as a civil right. The Justice Ministry recommended limiting the new eligibility requirements to a one-year emergency order, but the committee passed them as permanent changes.

Citing reports from social workers, the Welfare Ministry on Monday said that women have expressed concern that “their partners used [a gun permit application] as a threat against them, and informed them that they intended to purchase weapons.”

Na’amat’s Brin said that “many of them are families that are not known to the welfare agencies,” part of a phenomenon she called “silent abuse.”

Illustrative: Children playing in a shelter for victims of family violence, 2020. (Courtesy)

Thus, “when that [abusive] partner goes to take out a gun license, there won’t be a warning identified in the network to prevent it,” she said. As a consequence, the increased accessibility of guns “increases the chance of domestic violence by five to eight percent.”

As of late November 2023, 20 women have been murdered by partners or family members, said Shalva Weil, the director of the Israel Observatory on Femicide at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This figure, she added, is on par with previous years.

Acknowledging the concern “among certain feminist organizations” that looser gun laws “will backfire on women,” Weil said that femicide, the “ultimate end of domestic violence,” has not increased during the war.

Two women were killed by family members since the war started, both by kitchen knives, she added, highlighting the persistent scourge of abuse extending beyond the gun issue.

Still, said Brin, “domestic violence continues” during the war.

“Whoever experienced domestic violence before the war is still dealing with this issue, in addition to all the war-related challenges like anxiety,” she added.

The Welfare Ministry indicated that, for example, social workers placed in hotels serving some of Israel’s about 100,000 civilians evacuated from frontline communities, observed “13 unusual incidents of domestic violence” in the first five weeks of the war.

Evacuees from Kibbutz Nir Oz in the lobby of a hotel in Eilat on October 17, 2023. (Aris Messinis/AFP)

In contrast to Na’amat, the Welfare Ministry said its own independent hotline saw a 30% decrease in domestic violence calls since the war began, receiving 342 in the war’s first five weeks. The ministry said it expects a spike immediately after the war.

“These days, damage to the sense of security, economic uncertainty and concern for children cause many people who are within a cycle of violence to postpone treatment for the problem,” said Eti Kisos, who heads social services for the Welfare Ministry.

Family or intimate partner violence disproportionately affects women. Of the 16,000 violent, sexual and threat-based crimes against women in 2021, 52% were perpetrated by a family member or partner, according to police file data collected by the Knesset.

Women represent 80% of domestic violence victims, according to the data.

Source : Times of Israel

The post Domestic Violence Exacerbated by Wartime, Raising Concerns Over Looser Gun Policies appeared first on Policy Print.

The influential Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries coalition and its allies, collectively known as OPEC+, on Thursday opted against formally deepening production cuts, while de facto leader Saudi Arabia extended its 1 million barrel per day voluntary trim into the first quarter, and other members announced further reductions.

The policy steps were decided in a virtual meeting delayed by internal disagreements over the baselines — the levels off which quotas are decided — of the OPEC group’s largest West African members, Nigeria and Angola. The spat postponed talks initially scheduled to be held in person in Vienna over the weekend of Nov. 25-26. The baselines of Angola, Nigeria and Congo remain under study.

The OPEC+ alliance had already instituted a 2 million barrel per day cut in place until the end of 2024, with several coalition members voluntarily pledging a further 1.66 million barrel per day decline over that same period.

While OPEC+ has not formally endorsed production reductions, market participants are following the possibility of further voluntary cuts announced by key participants to the coalition. Already, Saudi state media has announced that Riyadh will extend its voluntary reduction of 1 million barrels per day, which it has had in place since July, until the end of the first quarter of 2024.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, who represents his country in OPEC+ affairs, has said Moscow will implement a voluntary supply cut totaling 300,000 barrels per day of crude and 200,000 barrels per day of petroleum products over that same period, according to a Google-translated statement on Telegram.

Close Saudi ally Kuwait will enforce a 135,000 barrel per day reduction in the first quarter, while the Energy Ministry of OPEC member Algeria said it would trim a further 51,000 barrels per day. Oman said it will also reduce output by 42,000 barrels per day in that same period.

Source : CNBC

The post Oil Kingpin Saudi Arabia Extends Its Production Cut Into First Quarter as OPEC+ Holds Policy appeared first on Policy Print.

Some McGill students say their right to express support for Palestinians is being suppressed, after a Quebec court temporarily put a stop to a student plan to adopt a pro-Palestinian policy at the university.

Quebec Superior Court issued a safeguard order Tuesday, preventing the student union from moving forward until the court can hear arguments from both sides on March 25, 2024.

A McGill student — who remains anonymous and is represented by a lawyer working for Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada — filed an injunction to stop the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) from adopting a “policy against genocide in Palestine” that was approved in a referendum this week.

The policy calls on McGill University to cut ties with people, corporations and institutions that are “complicit in genocide, settler-colonialism, apartheid, or ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.”  

About 35 per cent of eligible students voted in the referendum Monday. Of the 8,401 students who voted, 78.7 per cent (5,974 students) were in favour of the policy, 1,620 voted against it and 807 abstained.

Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights McGill (SPHR), a student group, said in a statement to CBC News that the court order sets a “dangerous precedent for student democracy and undermines the supposedly democratic structure of Canadian institutions.”

In a response for a request for comment, a member of the SSMU executive committee forwarded an email to CBC alleging that B’nai Brith and the Israeli consulate have publicly identified some McGill students involved in the pro-Palestinian movement, putting them in danger.

The member asked not to be named because they were concerned about their personal safety.

B’nai Brith’s Quebec regional director, Henry Topas, denies the accusation and says that it has never intimidated or harassed a member of the SSMU or another student group such as the SPHR.

“We are here only simply to protect the rights and ensure the safety of the Jewish students at McGill University who we believe are being constantly harassed and intimidated, physically and verbally,” said Topas.

The organization has an app where people can self-report hate incidents which are then tabulated into its annual audit of antisemitic incidents. Topas says the information gathered is not shared with third parties. 

The email said that exposing students is unfair since they “do not have the same resources for legal representation.”

The move, states the email, has caused “great and unnecessary distress” to students and the union.

Human rights lawyer Pearl Eliadis says that in court cases, power imbalances are often disproportionate, but there is a mechanism in place to prevent parties from abusing their status.

She also says the court order is just a way of pressing pause.

“This is simply a safeguard order where the parties have both agreed and particularly the Students’ Society of McGill University has agreed to hold off on the ratification of the vote until the court hears the injunction,” she said. “There has been no decision on the merits of the case.”

Still, SPHR cited the use of the court as a strategy for intimidating Palestinian organizers and anti-Zionist Jews and suppressing the Palestinian movement.

B’nai Brith Canada pleased

Topas says B’nai Brith Canada welcomed the court order and he described the student referendum question as “continuity of singling out the state of Israel.”  

“Year after year, there is some form of referendum or question that they [SSMU] have people vote on to basically condemn Israel where they would not condemn other countries,” said Topas. 

Topas added that while B’nai Brith acknowledges “collateral civilian suffering” in Gaza, Israel must defend itself following the murders of 1,200 Jews. 

“To turn it around and say there is genocide being committed in Gaza is nonsense,” he said. 

Gaza’s Hamas-run government has said at least 13,300 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 5,500 children, by unrelenting Israeli bombardment. 

In the 2022 winter semester, the SPHR submitted the “Palestine solidarity policy,” which also called on the university to boycott and divest from “all corporations complicit in settler-colonial apartheid against Palestinians.” It passed with 71.1 per cent approval from students but was not ratified. 

At the time, McGill administration said the “Palestine solidarity policy” was inconsistent with the students’ society’s constitution. Ultimately, the SSMU board of governors agreed, saying the policy did not follow the SSMU constitution and could not be adopted. 

Last year, McGill warned the SSMU off adopting “contentious” policies about Palestinians and threatened to cut funding and even ban it from using the school name.

A spokesperson for the university said in a statement Wednesday that McGill administration maintains that the latest policy, if adopted, will “sharpen divisions in our community at a time when many students are already distressed.”

Source : CBC

The post Quebec Superior Court Halts Adoption of Pro-Palestinian McGill Student Union Policy appeared first on Policy Print.

Washington, DC – The agreement between Israel and Hamas to pause the fighting in Gaza and release dozens of captives highlights the power of diplomacy and creates an opening to end the violence, advocates in the United States say.

But they stress that the truce is not sufficient, with many pledging to continue pressuring the administration of US President Joe Biden to pursue a long-term ceasefire.

“This is an important break in the fighting. It’s important that these families are reunified,” said Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy at the advocacy group Friends Committee on National Legislation.

“But it’s not enough. We have to continue building momentum to reach a permanent ceasefire, a return of all the hostages, unfettered aid access and a solution for peace for Israelis and Palestinians.”

The deal will see Hamas release 50 women and children held in Gaza, and Israel free 150 Palestinian women and children from its prisons. The exchange will be accompanied by a four-day pause in the fighting and an increased delivery of humanitarian aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.

The agreement, which was approved by the Israeli government late on Tuesday, is expected to go into effect on Friday. It will mark the first stop in the fighting since the war broke out.

Biden welcomes deal

Israel has pledged to continue its military campaign after the pause. But El-Tayyab stressed that “more war” is not the answer, and that there is no military solution to the crisis.

“The question is: Will we fall back to where we were for the past six weeks, with indiscriminate bombing and civilians dying and the hostages being held?” he told Al Jazeera.

“Or are we going to take a step forward towards more negotiations, an extended truce, to get everybody home and finally resolve some of the underlying issues that are creating the cycles of violence, which include the systemic oppression of Palestinians?”

President Biden welcomed the deal and thanked Qatar and Egypt for helping to broker it. He also applauded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement on Wednesday.

“I appreciate the commitment that Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have made in supporting an extended pause to ensure this deal can be fully carried out and to ensure the provision of additional humanitarian assistance to alleviate the suffering of innocent Palestinian families in Gaza,” Biden said. He did not comment on the future of the conflict.

The Biden administration has been calling for “humanitarian pauses” in the war while firmly rejecting demands for a ceasefire, at least until Israel achieves its stated goal of eliminating Hamas.

A truce or a pause is a temporary halt of fighting for an agreed-upon period of time — in this case, four days. A ceasefire is an indefinite end to hostilities that often comes with a negotiated agreement between the warring parties.

Nancy Okail, president of the Center for International Policy, a US-based think tank, called the truce a “step in the right direction”.

She said the pause could be used to deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza, push for a lasting ceasefire and ensure the safety of humanitarian workers, medics and journalists.

“This would be important not just for the immediate objective of helping secure the release of the hostages but also to save lives and stop the bloodshed,” Okail told Al Jazeera.

‘Allow the truth to come out’

More than 14,500 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its offensive in response to the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis.

Hamas also took more than 200 people captive from Israel. Thousands of Palestinians are in Israeli jails, including hundreds of children, many of whom are held in so-called administrative detention without formal charges.

The scale of the violence in Gaza has prompted many scholars and United Nations experts to warn of the risk of genocide.

The Israeli army has forcibly displaced most of the population in the north of the territory — more than one million residents — raising concerns about the possible ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, especially if they are not allowed to return to their homes.

Okail said the halt in violence should extend to the West Bank, where more than 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since October 7.

If the fighting resumes, Okail also explained that she would like to see the US take a firm stance against any war crimes, including the use of collective punishment, civilian hostages and indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.

“The Biden administration should also draw a clear red line around the use of US-supplied arms and make clear that there will be consequences if those weapons are not used in accordance with international law,” Okail added.

The White House and Pentagon have repeatedly said that they would not draw any “red lines” to restrict the Israeli operation in Gaza and how American arms are used.

Israel receives $3.8bn in US aid annually. Biden is seeking more than $14bn in additional assistance for Israel this year.

Leading rights groups like Amnesty International, however, have accused Israel of imposing apartheid on Palestinians. But the appeals for Biden to rein in Israeli abuses appear to be going unheard.

Politico reported late on Tuesday that the Biden administration is concerned that the pause “would allow journalists broader access to Gaza and the opportunity to further illuminate the devastation there and turn public opinion on Israel”.

Against that backdrop, El-Tayyab called for independent observers to assess the carnage of Gaza.

“We need to allow the truth to come out. If the truth leads the public to say: This is a war we don’t want to be a part of, then we have to let the chips fall where they may,” he told Al Jazeera.

‘No backbone whatsoever’

Rights advocates have also expressed fear that renewed bombing after the truce might target southern Gaza, which has become more densely populated since the start of the war, as families flee bombings and other attacks.

But Biden’s support for Israel is not expected to waver after the pause.

​​Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan, said Biden’s green light for the war is one of the main reasons the Israeli campaign “has gone on for this unspeakably long period”.

“My reading of the Netanyahu government is that they’re incorrigible, that nothing would stand in their way if they want to start back up the destruction,” Cole told Al Jazeera.

“And then President Biden has shown himself to have no backbone whatsoever when trying to stand up to Netanyahu.”

Cole noted that Netanyahu has been under pressure from the captives’ families to accept the deal, despite opposition from his far-right political allies. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for instance, called the agreement “immoral”.

Despite the push in some right-wing circles for the relentless bombing to continue, Israel does not appear close to destroying Hamas. The Palestinian group continues to fight Israeli troops in northern Gaza, killing dozens of soldiers since the ground invasion began.

Hamas’s top political and military leadership remains intact as well.

It’s not clear how and if Israel can eliminate Hamas militarily and what would come after the group if it were destroyed. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007.

That’s why many progressive activists in the US are urging a political solution to end the violence — one that goes beyond the current deal.

Usamah Andrabi, communications director at Justice Democrats, a progressive group, called for the US to end its unconditional support for the Israeli government that “continues to openly tell us its plans to annihilate and displace the Palestinian people”.

Andrabi said the pause is a temporary but necessary reprieve from the “incessant bombing and destruction by the Israeli government”, which will allow for the release of captives.

“But we cannot let up on our demands for a permanent ceasefire,” Andrabi told Al Jazeera.

Sandra Tamari, the executive director of Adalah Justice Project, an advocacy group, echoed Andrabi’s comments. She said the halt is simply a “pause of genocide”.

“How can we settle for a pause to that kind of violence? We have to continue to push the US government to call for a complete ceasefire,” Tamari told Al Jazeera.

Source : Al Jazeera

The post ‘Important but Not Enough’: What Does Israel-Hamas Deal Mean for US Policy? appeared first on Policy Print.

The announcement of a possible “humanitarian pause” in the Gaza Strip can be considered a triumph for the small Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.

Early on Wednesday morning, the Qatari Foreign Ministry put out a statement announcing a four day “pause” during which all sides — the Israeli military, the militant Hamas group and Hezbollah’s armed wing in Lebanon — would agree to stop fighting. This would allow for the release of 50 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, in exchange for the release of around 150 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. It would also allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas-held hostages would be women and children and the Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli jails would also be mainly women and minors aged under 18.  

On October 7, Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the US, EU and others, launched an attack out of Gaza that killed around 1,200 Israelis and foreigners. The militant group also took an estimated 240 hostages back into the Gaza Strip. Since the attack, Israel has been bombing the around-360-square-kilometer enclave and has also prevented most water, food, fuel and medical supplies from entering.

In the past six weeks, 13,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to health officials in the Hamas-controlled territory. 

The hostage negotiations have been going on for weeks. At one stage, the Israeli government reportedly turned down a similar offer in favor of launching its ground offensive into Gaza. However, pressure has grown — from the international community, from Israel’s major ally, the US, and from the families of hostages who have demanded that their government focus on freeing their relatives.

Egypt, which signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 and shares a border with Israel and Gaza, has also helped in the negotiations. But it is Qatar that is seen as leading them.

After the Qatari announcement, US President Joe Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted messages on X (formerly Twitter) thanking Egypt and Qatar for their “critical partnership” in the negotiations.

Previously even Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi had praised Qatar’s role, writing on social media that, “Qatar’s diplomatic efforts are crucial at this time.”

But not everyone is so pleased with the small Gulf state. Some commentators said negotiators should have tried harder to secure the release of more hostages. Others argued that because Qatar has been home to Hamas’ political leadership since 2012, it was somehow complicit in Hamas’ attacks.

Qatar has regularly said it supports the “Palestinian cause.”

Foreign policy tightrope

Experts agree that Qatar is walking a fine line when it comes to its foreign policy, playing the “Switzerland of the Middle East” and keeping doors open to all comers.

“Qatar’s role is particularly sensitive because the emirate has been relying on being an intermediary for well over two decades now,” Guido Steinberg, a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told DW recently.

In the past, Qatar has also acted as an interlocutor between the international community and the Taliban in Afghanistan (who also have political offices in Doha), between the US and Iran, and even Russia and Ukraine. It also hosts the largest US military headquarters in the Middle East, al-Udeid Air Base, which played a significant role in evacuations from Afghanistan in 2021. This led to Qatar being described as “major non-NATO ally.”

The country has also already mediated between Israel and Hamas — such as during the 2014  Israel-Gaza War. Qatar froze relations with Israel in 2009 but allegedly maintains a relationship behind the scenes. In 1996, at a time when other countries in the region were firmly opposed to any ties at all with Israel, Qatar allowed the state to open a trade mission in Doha.

“Qatar has long had a pragmatic relationship where it has used financial incentives to manage and de-escalate various rounds of tensions and war between Israel and Hamas,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the UK-based think tank Chatham House told DW last month. Vakil saw Qatar as “a natural go-between to secure the hostages and find entry points to de-escalate and protect people on the ground as the humanitarian issue worsens.”

Qatar operates in a kind of grey zone, Joel Simon, a US journalist and author of the 2019 book, “We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages, and Ransom,” wrote in the US weekly magazine The New Yorker last week.

“Though the country’s officials say that they are guided by humanitarian principles and a desire to reduce conflict and promote stability, they have clearly used their leverage to gain influence and visibility, a posture which they believe enhances their security in a volatile region,” he explained. Playing both sides makes Qatar a valuable ally and Qatar knows it, he concluded.

Big spender in Gaza

In the recent past, Qatar was spending an estimated $30 million (€27.4 million) a month on Gaza. But the arguments around this money are yet another example of how fraught Qatar’s role is when it comes to Palestinians and Hamas.

Some have suggested Qatari money subsidizes Hamas’ military wing and is used for nefarious purposes. Hamas has ruled the enclave since 2007 and also manages payments for the civil administration of Gaza.

Replying to Reuters queries about the Gaza money last month, a Qatari government official told the news agency that its cash was for needy families and the salaries of civil servants, including doctors and teachers, in the impoverished enclave. The UN says that 80% of Gaza Strip inhabitants were dependent on international aid even before the current crisis, due to the blockade Israel established after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, two years after Israel withdrew from it.

Qatari money actually goes through Israel, the Qatari official explained to Reuters. It’s transferred electronically to Israel, which then passes it on to the Hamas-run Gaza authorities, and all payments are “fully coordinated with Israel, the UN and the US,” they said.

US officials note that Hamas’ fundraising system is wide, varied and intricate. Some money, including that coming from Qatar, is likely being used illegitimately, they have suggested, along with other funding, such as that from Iran, which plays a major role in supporting Hamas — as do other financial intermediaries around the world. For example, after the October 7 attack, the US sanctioned further entities it associates with funding Hamas, including an intermediary in Qatar as well as others in Sudan, Turkey and Algeria.

Will Qatar’s role change now?

Despite Qatar’s success in this round of negotiations, one outcome of the current conflict appears to be an agreement between Qatar and the US that the Gulf state will have to distance itself from Hamas further after the current conflict quiets down.

In mid-October, over 100 US politicians demanded that Qatar expel Hamas officials from the country. “The country’s links to Hamas…are simply unacceptable,” a letter addressed to the US president stated.

At the same time, the Qatari leadership has stated that it thinks further diplomacy is the answer for peace.

“The Qatari-negotiated deal between Israel and Hamas marks the first important diplomatic gain since the start of the war,” Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, confirmed. And this is “an opportunity to wedge open space to advance a full ceasefire predicated on a wider diplomatic pathway,” he said in a statement to DW. 

But as others have pointed out, if Qatar expels Hamas officials altogether, the militant group’s representatives may well end up in another country far less disposed to help anybody out, should further diplomacy be required.

Before 2012, Hamas’ political leadership was based in Syria.

Source : DW

The post Hamas-Israel: Qatar’s Foreign Policy Balancing Act Pays Off appeared first on Policy Print.

“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades,” asserted US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on 29 September.

“Now challenges remain, but the amount of time that I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11 is significantly reduced.”

Sullivan’s comments have aged horribly. Just eight days later, Hamas waged its incursion into southern Israel, triggering a brutal Israeli campaign of bombardment of Gaza. The fighting since 7 October has thus far killed more than 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza and 1,400 Israelis.

The violence has spilled into Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Egypt. At this point, the escalating crisis risks spreading to other parts of the Middle East, possibly entailing direct US and Iranian involvement.

Now a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of Gaza looms and Palestinians are concerned about a ‘Nakba 2.0’. Considering rhetoric coming from high-ranking Israeli officials and Tel Aviv’s plans and actions this month, such concerns are entirely valid. As usual, the US has not put any real pressure on Israel to change its destructive and destabilising behaviour.

“Looking ahead, it will be increasingly difficult to imagine the Global South taking the Biden administration’s rhetoric about human rights with anything more than a grain of salt. The hypocrisy from America is just too great”

The timing of this crisis is also particularly horrible given that President Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election next year, doesn’t want to appear to be giving Israel anything less than ironclad support.

As the world witnesses Israel’s war crimes in Gaza carried out with Washington’s blessing, the US’s capacity to be taken seriously when criticising Russia’s rogue behaviour in Ukraine has been severely, and most likely permanently, damaged.

Looking ahead, it will be increasingly difficult to imagine the Global South taking the Biden administration’s rhetoric about human rights with anything more than a grain of salt. The hypocrisy from America is just too great.

“It’s been an unseemly spectacle to see Washington and its European allies support Israel as it cuts off aid, water, and food to besieged civilians in Gaza,” Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International and a Middle East analyst, told The New Arab.

“It is exactly what these same nations denounced the Syrian regime for doing in Homs, Ghouta, Aleppo, and other places. They didn’t mince words when Russia stepped up to support Damascus and vetoed UN condemnations. Now when their own ally blocked aid and food in the same way, they couldn’t muster even mild criticism,” added Lund.

A foreign policy blunder

It is increasingly difficult to deny the major failures of Washington’s foreign policy in the Middle East. While continuing many aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to the region, the Biden administration has made expanding the scope of the Abraham Accords central to its agenda in the Arab world.

The White House naively believed it could bring Libya into a normalisation deal with Israel, which backfired disastrously.

The Biden administration has also invested massive amounts of diplomatic energy into trying to pull Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords – something that no expert can imagine happening any time soon given ongoing developments in Israel and Palestine.

“The recent events have punched a giant hole into the paper-thin superficial Biden administration policy on the Middle East, which has deluded itself into believing that establishing close ties with apartheid Israel and dictatorships in the Middle East is some kind of recipe for stability,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told TNA.

What is being painfully demonstrated is that lasting peace and security for Israel will not come from diplomatic deals with Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which were arguably never confrontational toward Israel.

It can only come from a lasting solution to the unresolved Palestinian question. Attempts to bury the Palestinian issue based on the assumption that the Palestinian cause stopped mattering to the Arab world have proven extremely misguided.

“As with Israel, one of the assumptions of US foreign policy in the Middle East has been annihilated in the past three weeks: that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be contained, and that the region could move on,” said Dr Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, in an interview with TNA.

“This was predictably an unsustainable assumption, but it was one of the premises of American foreign policy under Biden (and Trump) nevertheless. There are still some positive elements to the Abraham Accords – the stabilisation of relations among Israel and key Arab states – but to be sustainable, it needs to be accompanied by genuine, not fictitious, progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front,” added Dr Juneau.

“Recent events have punched a giant hole into the paper-thin superficial Biden administration policy on the Middle East”

Arab backlash

Anger at the US is growing in the Middle East. Large scale protests in capitals from Amman to Manama, Sana‘a to Baghdad, and Rabat to Beirut speak to the widespread support that the Palestinians are receiving across the Arab world.

In response to public opinion in their own countries, Arab leaders and policymakers have had no choice but to strongly condemn Israel and express support for the Palestinian cause.

Each Arab government faces slightly different circumstances given differences in these countries’ relationships with the US and Israel. Yet, the dynamics across the region are putting pressure on all of them to speak up in defence of the Palestinians and, at least in the case of most Arab states, refrain from directly criticising Hamas.

It was notable that Saudi Arabia, which only several weeks ago was flirting with normalisation with Israel, referred to Israelis as “occupation forces” in its response to Hamas’ Operation al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October.

Despite the Abraham Accords, the UAE, in its capacity as the only Arab state currently on the UN Security Council, has been highly critical of Israel and condemned various aspects of its response to Hamas’ surprise attack. As the humanitarian suffering in Gaza worsens, it’s safe to assume that such criticisms from the UAE will increase.

However, this appears to be about safeguarding regimes from internal legitimacy crises rather than a true commitment to the well-being of the Palestinians.

“It is heartening to see that kind of a pretty united Arab response, but I think it probably has more to do with their concerns about popular unrest in their own countries and wanting to temper that than any pure or genuine concern for Palestinians,” Whitson said.

“All Arab states want Washington to be more mindful of Palestinian and Arab interests, but they’re not equally vocal about it,” explained Lund.

The failure of Biden’s Middle East foreign policy threatens to undermine US standing in the region as well as the US president’s position in the upcoming election. [Getty]

“Governments like that in Syria, which is already hostile to the United States, delight in the opportunity to denounce Washington’s support for Israeli policies,” Lund added.

“Some Arab states, including US-allied nations in the Gulf and states that normalised their ties with Israel, mainly seem to be turning up the volume on Palestine for domestic reasons, or to avoid exposing themselves to criticism from rivals.”

Lund explained how many of these Washington-friendly Arab states are not comfortable confronting the Biden administration about their problems with blind support for Israel.

“You see them criticising Israel in harsher terms than on a normal day, but they haven’t said much about the US support that enables Israel’s actions,” noted Lund.

“On the other hand, I think most realise that if this situation is going to be de-escalated somehow in the future, it’ll have to be the United States that leads the way.”

A time to reassess US foreign policy

When it comes to the White House’s approach to the Middle East, the Biden administration would be wise to change course and ask some tough questions about how we arrived here. But this is unlikely for two principal reasons, said Whitson.

First, Team Biden, “continues to calculate based on short-term interests – namely the upcoming elections – and continues to believe that [Biden’s] victory in the polls is tied to demonstrating extreme support for Israel,” which Whitson sees as a “growing miscalculation”.

Second, the “deeply held personal biases of the Biden administration, of people in the State Department who are not approaching this conflict with clear eyes, with independent thinking, with thinking that prioritises the interests of the American people,” explained Whitson.

“Rather, as Secretary Blinken amply demonstrated during his visit to Israel, their approach to Israel is driven by their own personal, familial feelings of affinity for Israel.”

Source : New Arab

The post Biden’s Foreign Policy Failure in the Middle East appeared first on Policy Print.

Montreal, Canada – More than a month into its bombardment of Gaza, the Israeli military issued a warning: Ground troops had surrounded the largest hospital in the Palestinian enclave, al-Shifa. A raid would be launched “in minutes”.

The impending siege of the Gaza City health complex sparked panic among the thousands of injured patients, medical staff and displaced Palestinians sheltering there.

But amid urgent international pleas to protect Gaza’s hospitals, much of the focus in Canada was on the tougher tone of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“I have been clear: The price of justice cannot be the continued suffering of all Palestinian civilians. Even wars have rules,” Trudeau said in a news conference on November 14, around the time the al-Shifa raid began.

“I urge the government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint,” he continued, offering his toughest comments since the war began. For weeks, Trudeau had been ignoring calls – and some of Canada’s largest protests in recent memory – demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

“The world is watching. On TV, on social media, we’re hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who’ve lost their parents. The world is witnessing this. The killing of women and children – of babies; this has to stop.”

The response from Tel Aviv was swift. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted publicly to Trudeau’s speech, arguing on social media that the Palestinian group Hamas, not Israel, was responsible for any civilian casualties. Netanyahu pointed to Hamas’s attacks in southern Israel on October 7, one of the events that precipitated the war.

Pro-Israel lobby groups in Canada echoed that argument, saying “the blood of dead babies – Israeli and Palestinian – is on Hamas” and accusing Trudeau of fuelling anti-Semitism.

In the days that followed, Canadian ministers sought to temper Trudeau’s comments.

“The prime minister, quite understandably, is concerned about innocent lives on both sides of that border,” Defence Minister Bill Blair told the Canadian network CTV. “We’ve also been crystal clear: Israel has the right to defend itself.”

The episode is one of many examples in recent weeks of what observers have described as Canada’s “schizophrenic” foreign policy when it comes to Israel and Palestine.

“Whenever [Trudeau] does show any mettle with respect to this, he invariably then steps back from what he said after any sort of criticism coming from either the Israel lobby in Canada or Israeli leaders,” Michael Lynk, a former United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, told Al Jazeera.

Unlike its powerful neighbour and Israel’s foremost backer, the United States, Canada says it aims to tread the middle ground in its policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It supports a two-state solution, opposes illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and says international law must be respected by all parties.

But experts say Canada has two policies when it comes to the conflict: one on paper and one in practice.

They note that Canada has cast UN votes against its own stated positions and opposed Palestinian efforts to seek redress at the International Criminal Court, and argue that it has backed hardline, Israeli policies and failed to hold the country accountable for rights abuses.

“This government, as well as previous Canadian governments, have unfortunately had a blind spot with respect to Israel,” said Farida Deif, Canada director at Human Rights Watch.

She added that Canada’s stance has not changed despite the nearly two-month-long military campaign in Gaza, where bombs have struck hospitals, refugee camps and schools serving as shelters. More than 15,200 Palestinians have been killed.

“What we’ve seen with respect to Canada’s policy on Israel-Palestine is really a lack of coherence, confusion, and essentially not really engaging with the reality on the ground,” she told Al Jazeera. “And the reality on the ground that we’ve seen – that Palestinian organisations, Israeli organisations, international organisations have documented – is the reality of apartheid and persecution.”

So what drives Canada’s position?

Al Jazeera spoke to nearly a dozen human rights advocates, politicians, former officials and other experts about how foreign and domestic calculations influence Ottawa’s stance – and whether public outrage could shift its strategy.

Canada has had close ties to Israel for years. It recognised the country shortly after it was founded in 1948 and established an embassy there not long after.

The two countries have had a free-trade agreement in place since 1997, with two-way trade totalling 1.8 billion Canadian dollars ($1.3bn) in 2021. Last year, Canada also exported 21.3m Canadian dollars ($15.7m) worth of weapons to Israel.

Some observers argue that the countries enjoy a natural affinity because of the similar ways in which they were created. Like Israel, Canada was built on the dispossession and forced removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands.

But relations truly flourished during the almost decade-long tenure of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. “Canada and Israel are the greatest of friends and the most natural of allies,” Harper said in a speech to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in 2014.

A year later, the Conservatives would lose to Trudeau’s Liberal Party in the federal elections, ending Harper’s tenure.

Yet, while Harper’s support for Israel was largely motivated by right-wing, Christian ideology, Trudeau and his more centrist government appear driven by political pragmatism.

Part of that pragmatism stems from Canada’s need to maintain good relations with the US, the country’s largest trading partner and most important ally, according to Peter Larson, chair of the nonprofit Ottawa Forum on Israel/Palestine.

“Canadian policymakers make a political calculation that coming out strongly or critical of Israel or supportive of the Palestinians is likely to get the Americans angry with us,” Larson said.

The government’s perspective, he said, was that Canada has “no control” over what happens in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. “We have no purchase there, we have no trade there, we have no military there. So why in the world would we get the Americans mad at us when we can’t really do anything anyway?”

Michael Bueckert, vice president of the advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), agreed. “Every time we see an indication of a policy position [from Canada], it’s closely following whatever the US says,” he told Al Jazeera.

He pointed out that Canada has continued to mirror US positions during the war in Gaza.

“It just seems like everything that Canada does is triangulated based on what the US and Israel are saying,” Bueckert said. “That’s more important to them than being aligned with all other members of the UN, for example, or every humanitarian agency, or a majority of Canadian public opinion.”

Yet sources with knowledge of the government’s inner workings say that domestic politics is the primary driver behind Canada’s position. One of the most important factors, they maintain, is the pro-Israel lobby.

Corey Balsam, national coordinator of Independent Jewish Voices Canada, an advocacy organisation, said the lobby groups have an “unmatched” ability “to be in the room” with political decision-makers.

“The lobby writ large is very well-resourced and influential and well-placed,” he said.

That has forced the Liberal government to weigh whether their decisions will spark a backlash among pro-Israel lobby groups, which could lose them votes, notably to their Conservative rivals, Balsam said.

“I don’t know exactly the calculations that they’re making, but these are the things that they pay attention to – votes in certain ridings [electoral districts], for instance. Also funds and fundraising for the party, I think this is a big factor for them.”

Lynk, the former UN special rapporteur and Canadian law professor, also said Ottawa’s position on the conflict relates in large part to “who has access to the corridors of power”.

The Trudeau government attacked Lynk’s UN appointment at the outset in 2016, as did pro-Israel lobby groups, which put out statements arguing that he had an anti-Israel bias. Green Party leader Elizabeth May and Lynk’s colleagues at Western University in Ontario came to his defence, but the damage was done.

“I tried to engage with as high a level of political and diplomatic decision-makers as I could. I didn’t get very far [in Canada],” he told Al Jazeera.

“What I was trying to do is say, ‘I’m showing you what international law says. I’m showing you what, in fact, your own foreign policy ends up saying … Why is your foreign policy so schizophrenic when it comes to Israel and Palestine?’ Doors weren’t open for me.”

Several people Al Jazeera spoke to for this story described a pervasive fear of being accused of anti-Semitism for speaking out on Israeli rights abuses.

“There’s a certain weight [to anti-Semitism accusations] that is instrumentalised,” said Balsam.

“I think racism influences whose complaints are taken more seriously and whose pain is taken more seriously more broadly,” he added. “Complaints that invoke anti-Semitism – whether or not it is actually anti-Semitism – are taken seriously, whereas on the other hand, with Muslim and Arab groups or Palestinian groups and individuals, they can be much more easily brushed off.”

During the Gaza war, nowhere has Canada’s position been more clearly on display than at the United Nations. After the UN Security Council failed to pass any resolution to address the situation, the focus shifted in late October to the General Assembly, where a non-binding motion was put forward to urge a humanitarian truce.

The measure passed with overwhelming support, but Canada abstained. It also put forward an amendment to the resolution to condemn Hamas.

“Unfortunately, Canada cannot support the text as it is currently proposed. We cannot act as the UN General Assembly without recognising the horrible events of October 7 and without condemning the terrorists behind them,” Canada’s UN ambassador, Bob Rae, said as he presented the amendment on October 27. It failed.

Peggy Mason, president of the Rideau Institute, an Ottawa-based nonprofit, said whereas Canada previously was seen as a bridge-building country, the amendment was a “bridge-weakening exercise”.

“And it was unconscionable, in my view, in the context of efforts to curtail an unfolding humanitarian crisis of horrific dimensions,” she told Al Jazeera.

Canada came under even closer scrutiny when its UN mission voted against a draft resolution on November 9 condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as illegal – even though the government’s stated position is that the settlements violate international law.

In a statement explaining the vote, Canada said it was concerned by the number of resolutions that “unfairly single out Israel” at the General Assembly every year.

“Canada reiterates the importance of a fair-minded approach at the United Nations and will continue to vote ‘no’ on resolutions that do not address the complexities of the issues,” the statement read.

According to Bueckert of CJPME, no one is buying that excuse. “They’ve created this rationale for it, but good luck convincing Canadians of this, that these actions make any sense. That it makes sense to vote against things that you say you support,” he told Al Jazeera.

The resolution to condemn the Israeli settlements is among a number of Palestinian-related motions that come up for a vote at the UN General Assembly every year.

And the way Canada votes on these resolutions is dictated by the prime minister’s office, according to a source familiar with the matter, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.

“It’s unusual that the [prime minister] would directly intervene on an issue before the United Nations,” the source said. Usually, foreign policy files are handled by Canada’s foreign affairs department, known as Global Affairs Canada.

Lynk, the former UN expert, also told Al Jazeera that most foreign policy issues “are decided at Global Affairs and rarely ever make it to the prime minister’s office for yea or nay”. But matters related to Israel and Palestine are different. They are “determined and directed out of the prime minister’s office”, Lynk said.

Meanwhile, the anonymous source said Canada’s UN mission has faced direct pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists. That person described a meeting years ago in which a top lobbyist urged Canada to change its votes. The mission told the lobbyist no, but 24 hours after their meeting, the prime minister’s office directed the mission to vote the way the lobbyist had wanted.

“I thought it was outrageous, and I was angry and offended,” the source said. “It’s not the way to run a country. It’s not the way to run a foreign policy.”

Trudeau’s office redirected Al Jazeera’s question on whether it handles Canada’s UN votes to Global Affairs Canada. Global Affairs Canada did not answer the question when pressed by Al Jazeera.

“When it comes to votes at the UN, Canada reiterates the importance of a fair-minded approach,” the department said in an emailed statement.

“We will continue to vote no on resolutions that do not address the complexities of the issues or address the actions of all parties. We also remain opposed to the disproportionate singling out of Israel for criticism. Canada rejects the suggestion that there is any kind of ‘double standard’ at play.”

Many people Al Jazeera spoke to said there is a growing sense that the Canadian government’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict could change in the face of shifting demographics.

“As Parliament gets more diverse and has connections to different communities, I do think that the calculus – in terms of, ‘Is this going to hurt me or help me electorally?’ – is shifting,” said Bueckert.

“It clearly hasn’t shifted enough to change Canada’s position in a meaningful way, but that is how we can make sense of the change in tone where Canada at least has to appear to care about what’s happening to people in Gaza.”

Since the war began, there also has been a split within the Liberal Party between politicians who staunchly support Israel and those calling for a ceasefire despite Trudeau’s own reticence to do so.

Less than two weeks into the Israeli military operation, Liberal MP Salma Zahid, who represents a district east of Toronto, Canada’s largest city, stood up in the House of Commons to urge Ottawa to call for a ceasefire.

“It’s very, very important that Canada be a strong voice to call for a ceasefire and make sure that we put an end to the killing of these innocent civilians,” she told Al Jazeera in a phone interview in November.

Asked about divisions within her own party, Zahid said the Liberal Party is a “big tent” and that all views can and should be heard. But she said she aims to represent her constituents, many of whom are Muslim Canadians.

“Some people have called me a terrorist sympathiser. That is sad to see that. But I will not stop because of these comments on social media or anything. I think it is really very important that I be there as a strong voice for the Palestinian people and also for the community,” Zahid said.

Uthman Quick, communications director at the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said a recent poll showed the disconnect between public opinion and the Liberal government’s positions.

The poll, released by the Angus Reid Institute on November 7, found that 30 percent of Canadians said they wanted an immediate ceasefire, compared with 19 percent who did not. Among Liberal voters, 34 percent supported a ceasefire compared with 12 percent who were opposed.

While Quick said the federal government’s tone has shifted since the war began, rhetoric alone is not enough. “For the amount of violence and killing that we’ve seen in Gaza, I think that warrants a more drastic approach from our government to really call for peace and for a ceasefire,” he told Al Jazeera.

He also said the government’s position could lead to political ramifications that extend beyond Arab and Muslim communities, as anti-war protests draw people of all backgrounds. “It’s not just a purely Muslim slash Palestinian slash Arab community divide on electoral fronts,” Quick said.

According to Deif at Human Rights Watch, Canada should be trying to pursue a “consistent policy” rooted in international law – and condemn war crimes regardless of who is responsible and who is the victim. It also should suspend weapons sales to Israel so long as “Israeli forces commit widespread, serious abuses against Palestinian civilians with impunity”.

“What we would like to see is Canada engaging on Israel-Palestine in the way that Ambassador Bob Rae engaged on Myanmar and the Rohingya crisis, in the same way that [Foreign] Minister [Melanie] Joly engaged on Ukraine following the Russian invasion,” she told Al Jazeera.

The consequences of inaction, she added, can be devastating.

“When powerful governments, whether it’s Canada or other Western states, turn a blind eye to the Israeli government’s abuses and serious violations of international humanitarian law, it certainly sends a message that it can continue to commit those acts.”

Source : Al Jazeera

The post Israel, Palestine and Canada’s ‘Schizophrenic Foreign Policy’ appeared first on Policy Print.

Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, condemned on Saturday the killings of civilians in Gaza, saying that they cannot be justified by Israel’s claim of self-defence. He also criticized Israel’s policy of collective punishment, targeting of civilians and forced displacement of Palestinians.

Shoukry spoke at a press conference with the foreign ministers of Jordan and the United States after the Arab-American ministerial meeting in Amman on the developments in the situation in Gaza. He called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza and urged the international community to stop applying double standards to the Palestinian issue.

The foreign minister said that the number of civilian casualties in Gaza was unacceptable and demanded an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression. He reiterated Egypt’s firm rejection of any attempts to undermine the Palestinian cause or the rights of the Palestinian people.

He also stressed the need to revive the peace process based on the two-state solution and to launch an international investigation into the violations committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.

Shoukry said that Egypt was doing everything possible to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and to provide medical assistance to the wounded civilians. He added that Egypt faced many obstacles in its efforts, but would continue to work for the sake of peace and stability in the region.

He said that Egypt and the United States had many points of agreement on the need to stop the war and protect the civilians, and that Egypt would always cooperate with the United States on this matter.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi echoed Shoukry’s sentiments, saying that the war in Gaza was against all religions and human values. He said that the war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip must stop and that Israel must not enjoy impunity from accountability.

He called for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the destruction caused by the war. He rejected Israel’s characterization of its actions as self-defense, saying that it would not bring security to Israel or peace to the region.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken affirmed on Saturday that the United States aimed to end the crisis in the Gaza Strip and to achieve a lasting peace in the region. He expressed his gratitude to Egypt and Jordan for their hard work on the two-state solution and their dedication to achieving a safer and more stable Middle East.

Blinken expressed his concern over the escalation in the West Bank and said that the United States condemned the violence and called for holding the perpetrators accountable. He said that the United States believed that the two-state solution was the best way to ensure the freedom and dignity of both peoples. He also said that the United States would take some practical steps to advance this goal.

He said that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was very critical and that the United States would work with its partners to ensure the delivery of aid to the Palestinians. He said that the status quo before the war was not sustainable and that the international community had a responsibility to create a new path for a better future. He said that the United States would intensify its efforts to achieve this objective.

US Secretary of State said: “The humanitarian pause is very important to get aid in to the Palestinians; to ensure that people move safely, buildings are rebuilt; and we will continue to work with our partners to ensure that aid gets in.”

Source : Daily News Egypt

The post FM Shoukry Condemns Israel’s Policy of Collective Punishment appeared first on Policy Print.