Last week’s announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza was met with incredible relief and even greater trepidation. As if anyone thought that somehow peace would return. It only took days before Israel was back to killing people in Gaza and cutting off food to the hungry.
No one was surprised.
But even if the bare minimum of “peace” returns, the genocidal campaign will not end. It will just move into the next phase – denialism.
What comes now, will be a determined campaign to rewrite the history of the horror, to deny the crimes the world witnessed online, day after day. To make us forget.
And Western leaders will have a large stake in going along with the attempt to whitewash the horror of Gaza. So many failed to speak up or make any attempt to push for an end to the atrocities.
One has only to look at the dismal role played by British PM Keir Starmer. This past week, he was huffing and puffing about the decision by Birmingham police to bar Israeli soccer hooligans from attending a match in the UK. If only he had shown such indignation about the mass starvation of children.
Canada’s response will be important to monitor. Because even if the aid flows and the uneasy peace remains, the work of the International Criminal Court must go on - and Canada has a long history of supporting the work against war crimes.
Consider Srebrenica and the horrific mass killings of civilians during the Yugoslav wars of 1995. The difference in the scale of death at Srebrenica and Gaza is enormous: 8,372 men and boys murdered, 25,000 people were forcibly displaced compared to more than 70,000 killed in Gaza and 1.9 million displaced.
Gaza was a two-year killing operation targeting journalists, medical workers and included the systematic destruction of the infrastructure. Srebrenica, on the other hand, was a massacre that occurred over the space of a week.
And yet, despite the enormous differences in magnitude, the International Criminal Court ruled that the killings in Srebrenica met the test of genocide.
Canada played a huge role in shining a light on this genocide. As signatories to the Statute of Rome and the Genocide Convention, we pushed for recognition of the crimes that had been committed.
Canadian jurist Louise Arbour was chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal. She brought down numerous indictments against key perpetrators. Canada’s parliament recognized the genocide thanks to the work of my colleague MP Brian Masse in 2010.
The survivors and their families had pushed for this recognition because if the atrocities were allowed to be forgotten, an even greater crime against the people would be committed.
But thanks to international solidarity, the whitewashing of the genocide didn’t happen. The perpetrators of those horrific crimes learned that even though a ceasefire had been signed, they couldn’t walk away.
In the case of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, major war crimes investigations are already underway. The International Criminal Court has indicted both Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Others, like Lieutenant Colonel Beni Aharon, who is accused of the brutal killing of 5-year-old Hind Rajab and her family, have been referred to the criminal court.
It will be difficult for Israel to claim these actions were “defensive” when so many key leaders and voices in Israel championed the mass killing and ethnic cleansing. Israeli newspaper Haaretz had been documenting from the earliest days that the Gaza “operation” was an unprecedented attempt to eradicate the Palestinian people.
There is a mountain of evidence of media and politicians cheering on the notion of crimes against humanity. Journalist Shimon Ricklin went on Israeli television to promote the crimes against civilians:
“I am for war crimes, I don’t care if I’m criticized, I am unable to sleep without watching homes in Gaza being destroyed, more houses, more buildings, I don’t want them to have anything to go back to.”
David Azoulai, head of the Metula Council in Israel, stated that the country “should imitate the lessons of the Nazis. Israel should make Gaza like the Auschwitz museum.”
The selfies and IDF videos will provide an enormous trove of evidence that would never have been available to the investigators at Srebrenica. But we must expect that this work will be interfered with by Israel and its Western allies.
Canada must step up.
Our country has a long history of playing a leading role on the international stage. That reputation now faces its greatest test. The Prime Minister will need to be firm. Work needs to be done to allow investigators to explore the crime scenes from October 7 by Hamas and the mass killing by the IDF.
We must be ready to pursue indictments whereever the evidence leads. The international community cannot be complicit in a cover-up.
Key steps will be to get into Gaza as early as possible (before evidence is hidden or disposed of) and establish legal forces powerful enough to bypass Israel’s pushback and intimidation. Tribunals must be impartial and be able to determine if actions met the test of genocide and war crimes. Eliminate denialism by documenting everything, supporting efforts to memorialize the victims and to collect testimonies.
The ceasefire may have been declared but it was broken almost immediately.
What cannot waver is our role in re-establishing the international rule of law. We cannot let the dead suffer the indignity of having these crimes whitewashed by the perpetrators of a modern genocide.
I really hope that the Canadian government doesn't embarrass its population and stands up to those that want to deny the genocide in Gaza. I/we expect our government to do the right thing, regardless of the cost. We cannot let this atrocity be disregarded and forgotten. Stand strong PM Carney and do what you know must be done.
Thank you Canada! We in the US are depending on you to be the adults in the world until our demented uncle and his mentally challenged family are replaced as head of this family!