As a Jew in Canada with family in Israel, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement last week that Canada plans to recognize a state for the terrorists was like a punch in the gut. I’m shocked that he would reward terror and intransigence with recognition, but that doesn’t even begin to describe the problem given Canadian history.
The Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) was founded in Canada in 1963 to promote independence for the French from the rest of the country, coincidentally around the same time that the PLO was founded. In October 1970, the FLQ kidnapped two people, British Trade Commissioner James Cross and Quebec Vice-Premier Pierre Laporte. The response of the ruling Liberal Canadian government was draconian. They imposed the War Measures Act, curtailing freedom in Canada, and deployed the army. The FLQ killed Laporte, and the government was in an uproar. Yet it negotiated the deportation of the killer kidnappers to Cuba and Algeria, and subsequently arrested other FLQ members.
Now, the Canadian government, once again led by the Liberal Party, which understood the need to crush terrorism here, has the temerity to support terrorists who have murdered thousands of Israelis and vow to continue to murder as many Israelis as they can and destroy Israel? This government has the gall to oppose the deportation of Hamas terrorists. The Liberal Party, which denied separation to the French in Canada, supports granting the right to separate to terrorists? How dare Carney! What a hypocrite.
In the international sphere, Canada’s response is just the beginning.
The Spanish have refused independence to the Basques for more than five centuries. The violence and number of people killed in this conflict are astounding, and yet the Spanish refuse to allow the Basque their independence. But Spain is comfortable recognizing the murderous terrorists in Israel and granting them their own country at Israel’s expense. More hypocrites.
France is so overrun with violent Islam that there are swaths of France that are no-go zones for the police, the fire department, and French citizens, who are attacked if they enter these zones. Riots in France are so commonplace that they aren’t even newsworthy anymore. Nor are the number of churches torched in the region. The French response to the situation is typically French: surrender. French President Emmanuel Macron is so enamored of this situation that he feels strongly that Israel, too, should have similar no-go zones for its terrorists. At least Macron is consistent with his lack of morals and principles, not like the other hypocrites.
Should we discuss England’s response to Irish independence? How many terrorists were dispatched by the loyal British army to prevent Ireland’s independence? U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s support for a terror state in Israel includes him as a full-fledged member of the club of hypocrites.
The list of countries that have supported a terror state for the fake Palestinian people (their own words, not mine) includes a majority of tyrannies and dictatorships too long to list, though one has to wonder about the Holy See. No one in the Vatican has felt the urge to comment on the hundreds of thousands of Christians killed by Islamist terrorists in Africa and throughout the Muslim world or the expulsion of the Christian population from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christianity, by the “Palestinians”? Nor have we heard about the persecution of the Copts in Egypt or the Christians in Lebanon and Syria from the church, which is sure that it must take a hypocritical position in support of the terror against the Jews. Like Macron, it is, at least, historically consistent.
Why are all these countries and feckless leaders taking an immoral position and standing with the murderers?
Because Israel has never given them the space to stand with Israel. For more than 40 years, Israel has told the international community it can and will make peace with the PLO, the Palestinian Authority and the likes of Hamas. The Oslo Accords included a five-year timeline. Once those five years passed, and the First Intifada began, and certainly after the Second Intifada, everyone should have seen that there was to be no peace to be had with terrorists who vow to kill Jews and break every agreement they make. Did anyone need Oct. 7 to convince them?
But Israel has never been willing to stand up and say, “No, there is no peace process with terrorists.”
Why would that have been important? The answer can be seen with another example. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understood long before others did that Iran could not be allowed nuclear weapons. As bad as it was that North Korea acquired nuclear weapons, it seemed everyone considered Iran just another rogue nation that would “get away” with having nuclear weapons without considering the differences between a rogue, deathly poor nation and a driven, jihadist, oil-rich nation. Netanyahu created a space to oppose a nuclear Iran. For a long time, he held that space alone. But he argued about the dangers of a nuclear Iran long enough and strongly enough that others eventually joined him in that space, and agreed to limitations on the Iranian regime.
Why, then, has the Israeli government never created that space for others to join them, not in opposition to a program, not to change a program, but simply in support of retaining the status quo that is more just than any other arguments being made?
Israel has never clearly said, “This is ours.”
After its success in the Six-Day War, Israel never said: Judea and Samaria are the heartland of Israel, which was illegally held by Jordan for 19 years. That resulted in 19 years of ethnic cleansing of Jews, and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas promises to return to that path. But 19 years of ethnic cleansing, after more than 3,000 years of Jewish habitation on the land and in Jerusalem, with and without sovereignty, does not grant anyone else sovereignty in any part of our country. Israel is ours, and we are not going back.
Israel has never said that it liberated Judea and Samaria from Jordan’s illegal occupation and is reuniting the land with the rest of Israel, as per the vote of the majority United Nations.
Israel has not said that as the PA and Hamas have broken almost every clause of the Oslo Accords, including their commitments to recognize Israel’s right to exist, remove calls for the destruction of Israel from their charters, relinquish terrorism and accept no unilateral changes outside of face-to-face negotiations for a final agreement, Israel is forced to accept and agree to the Palestinian’s position that the Oslo Accords are dead.
Israel has not said that, as the Oslo Accords have been broken and the PA security force has repeatedly turned its guns on Israel in terrorism instead of preventing terrorism, the security force is declared disbanded, and all weapons must be handed in to the Israel Defense Forces. Anyone found in possession of a gun will be arrested for further breaking the intent of the distribution of the guns under the Oslo Accords, which was to bring peace to the region.
Israel has not said it paid dearly for this part of Israel with the lives of too many of its brave soldiers and too many terror victims. These precious lives were lost for what the United Nations had already declared legally part of Israel. No one has any prior right to it, and no one will take it away, including the terrorists who have tried. Israel is not giving it away. Israel has paid the price over and over and is keeping Judea and Samaria within sovereign Israel.
Israel’s enemies have no problem saying what they want. As long as Israel does not unequivocally stand up for itself, it is signaling to the rest of the world that it does not believe it is in the right. It is not giving other countries and leaders a space for them to say “Yes” to Israel as well. What is left instead is a space that allows for the support of the terrorists who are willing to say they are in the right, with the result being threats of recognition for a Palestinian state in September and a reward for the terrorists.
The question now is, when will Israel say yes? Yes, to Israel, yes to Israel’s future, yes to every Israeli who believes in Israel, and thank you to all those who have given their lives to allow us to get here. It should have been done in June 1967, and every day since, it has gotten harder to begin creating that space. Now is the time. Things will only start getting better after Israel stands up and says “Yes” to Israel.
