The world has watched for six months as Palestinians are murdered, injured and displaced en masse by the Israeli occupation.
Canada has aided and abetted this atrocity. Canadian arms deals with Israel flow freely in both directions: exporting military power to Israel, importing Israeli weapons “battle-tested” on Palestinian children. Since October 7, “the total value of the new permits authorised over two months exceeds the 30-year annual record high of $26 million in Canadian military exports to Israel in 2021.”
This is complicity in its vilest form.
Three months into this genocide, a six-year-old girl died trapped in the wreckage of her family car as Israeli tanks closed in around her.
Four months into this genocide, Gazans were resorting to “eating grass and drinking polluted water” as thousands upon thousands of children entered dangerous stages of starvation.
Five months into this genocide, the bodies of displaced Palestinians were brutally crushed by Israeli tanks. Patients in hospitals were summarily executed. Parents lost their children. Children lost their parents.
And still, Canada trades in blood with the Israeli state.
We cannot allow this to continue. Beyond acknowledging and working to end this genocide, Canada must immediately ensure it is no longer responsible for any part of it.
This is not to say we must return to the world as it was before. Palestine-Israel before October 2023 was already deeply unjust.
We must go further: we must end Israeli apartheid entirely.
There must be a new status quo, in which the Jewish people, and our faith, are not made complicit in the murder and torture of tens of thousands.
Pesach is coming, and with it a reminder of our past suffering. As Jews, we have a duty to prevent others from suffering as we have suffered, under crushing regimes of destruction and death.
As bound by this duty, we demand that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, and the Canadian government enforce the provisional measures outlined by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which include ensuring that the Israeli military does not violate Palestinian rights under the Genocide Convention. We call on the Canadian government to impose a full arms embargo with Israel.
Without an end to arms trade with Israel, there is no denying that the majority of Gazans may face excruciating deaths.
It is the responsibility of all people, including Canadians, to prevent more people of Gaza from being lost. As Jews, we have cried “never forget.” And so, bonded by our duty to our ancestors and families, we must enact the moral logic of “never again for anyone.”