The Canadian Government’s Double Standard on Terrorism
Over the past
weekend, three opposition members of parliament, currently on a fact-finding
mission in war-ravaged southern Lebanon,
were reported to have issued a call for the Canadian government to remove
Hezbollah from its list of terrorist organizations. The MPs also stated that
there is clear evidence in southern Lebanon
that Israel
committed war crimes in its month-long bombardment of the region.
Predictably, the
Conservative government has refused to address the issue, stating that now is
not the time to have such a discussion. Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day, parroting the lies being churned out by the U.S. and Israel,
stated: “I can't think of anything more damaging for the hope of peace than to
encourage the very group, Hezbollah, that is intent on
the genocide of the Jewish people and the annihilation of Israel.” For
its part, the Israeli government has been trying to discredit the MPs on the
basis that their trip was financed by an Arab-Canadian organization and they
did not visit Israel.
It must be noted that Israel
routinely sponsors junkets of Canadian MPs on “fact-finding” missions to Israel in which they do not set foot in Gaza or the West Bank or
even pay visits to Israeli check points.
Canada’s list
of “terrorist” organizations was drawn up by the previous Liberal government
following the hasty passage of anti-terrorism legislation in the wake of the
events of September 11, 2001. The anti-terrorism legislation makes it a
criminal offense to support or collect funds for any organization listed by the
Canadian government as being a terrorist organization.The list is interesting in that it almost
exclusively contains the names of organizations which are opposed to U.S. and/or
Israeli interests or the interests of their close allies. Conspicuously absent
from the list are the organizations based in Miami
which openly brag about their terrorist actions against the government and
people of Cuba.
Also absent from the list are the U.S.-supported death squads in El Salvador
and Colombia or organizations that have carried out terrorist attacks in Russia
and China and which are widely considered to have links with the U.S. CIA.
The definition
of “terrorist activity” in the Canadian Criminal Code includes any action which
is taken or threatened for political, religious or ideological purposes and
threatens the public or national security by killing, seriously harming or
endangering a person, causing substantial property damage that is likely to
seriously harm people or by interfering with or disrupting an essential
service, facility or system. This definition not only applies to the activities
of those U.S.-sponsored terrorist organizations mentioned above, but is also
clearly applicable to the activities of the Israeli Defence
Forces in Lebanon and Gaza during the past
month. In fact, Israeli officials openly boasted that they intended to set back
Lebanese society 20 years and the IDF bombed hospitals, apartment blocks, power
stations and fuel depots for the stated political purpose of forcing the
Lebanese government and the international community to take action against
Hezbollah. The IDF attacks killed five times more civilians than Hezbollah
fighters. Meanwhile, Hezbollah confined most of its attacks to Israeli military
targets and killed three times as many Israeli soldiers than Israeli civilians.
Yet, the Canadian government sees fit to describe Israel’s
actions as “a measured response”, while it considers Hezbollah’s defence of the sovereignty of Lebanon to constitute terrorism and
“genocide against the Jewish people”.
By early Monday
there were reports that Liberal and NDP spokespersons had distanced themselves
from their MPs’ remarks and had reaffirmed their support for Israel and for
Hezbollah being on the list of terrorist organizations. There are also reports
that the MPs are now denying issuing the call altogether. This merely confirms
that, despite their claims to the contrary, all of the parliamentary parties
support the basic policies of U.S.
imperialism and the Bush regime. Whatever differences they may have are on
superficialities.