March 15, 2024
Hon. Jagmeet Singh, Leader of the NDP
Government of Canada
Re: Upcoming NDP Motion on Israel-Canada Relations
Dear Mr. Jagmeet Singh;
I am writing on behalf of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation in light of your party’s Motion scheduled for March 18th to be debated in the House of Commons, respecting Israel-Canada relations.
We are gravely concerned and deeply disappointed with this Motion. It is highly inappropriate in both content and timing.
In the latest conflict in Gaza, Israel was savagely attacked. Approximately 1200 civilians were horribly killed and about 140 hostages remain in Gaza. The most recent report by the UN investigator, Pramila Patten, states that the abuse of women in captivity continues and hostages are being sexually abused and gang raped.
Israel did not start this war and did not seek it. Israel did not break the ceasefire; Hamas did.
Your Motion, in effect, is to reward terrorism. It further ignores the reality on the ground, it ignores the heinous terrorist entity that Hamas is and the fact that the Palestinian Authority celebrated the massacre and kidnapping of civilians including babies and the elderly, on October 7. There is no moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas.
Your Motion does not ask for Hamas to change its Charter which calls for the destruction of Israel, nor does it call for Hamas to surrender. It is, in fact, a Motion that rewards terrorism and ignores Hamas’ barbaric acts of October 7, 2023.
It is also an incredibly inopportune time to table this Motion given the increasing presence of extreme Jew hatred all over the country. Your Motion implicitly, if not explicitly, blames Israel and places the onus of a ceasefire on Israel. On the date of this letter, Hamas continues to refuse a ceasefire on terms negotiated by the U.S., Israel, Qatar and Egypt. Hamas is responsible for every death in Israel and in Gaza.
The pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel marchers on our streets do not speak of peace but call for a state “from the river to the sea" and "no to two states, back to ‘48’”, as well as other calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and people.
This is not complicated. Hamas does not seek peace nor do many Arabs in the disputed territories. Recent polls in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria (wrongly referred to as the West Bank), show the majority support Hamas and “armed resistance,” in other words, they support the slaughter of Jews.
These are undisputed facts.
On cannot impose on Israel a two-state solution in this or any context. Without the parties themselves negotiating directly, as has been the international formula for decades, your Motion is irrelevant. I remind you that Israel is still waiting for a counter-offer from the P.A. to Ehud Olmert’s very generous offer of 2008!
Even more importantly, without vast reform of the Palestinian Authority’s education system that teaches extreme Jew hatred to kids from age 3, peaceful co-existence is not a realistic possibility.
Nowhere in your Motion do you call on the Palestinian Authority or Hamas to radically reform their curriculum which is delivered in UNRWA schools, funded in part by Canada. The vile attacks on October 7 did not rise in a vacuum, but are the stepchildren of the multi-generational hate machine in Palestinian Arab education and culture.
This must end. Without it, the talk of peaceful co-existence is a pipedream. In a wider context, consider this quote from Bahrain based Arab journalist, Amjad Taha:
“Even when Israel was considered an enemy, it never attacked Muslim shrines or created groups to kill Muslims. Palestinian Arabs have declared Iranian assassin Qasem Soleimani (of Iran) the “martyr of Jerusalem”. Iran created an alliance of terrorist groups and killed 4 million Muslim Arabs.”
In a much broader historical context, Israel did not start the War of Independence in 1948, the '67 war nor the ‘73 war, but was attacked each time, as it was in October 2023.
Your motion is completely devoid of the historical context of this conflict and ignores Israel’s many attempts to seek peace, and the fact that every war it has fought has been defensive. Thus, your party’s Motion is highly ahistorical, unfair and biased.
In terms of UNRWA funding, we note that in February, Minister Hussen stated in the House of Commons that any restoration of funding of UNRWA would only take place after the results of the UN investigation. This investigation is not yet complete. At the very least, we would expect the NDP and the Government of Canada to await the final result of such investigation.
Your Motion is an expression of haste and unfairness in that the investigation is not yet concluded. What makes this pre-mature call for restoring the funding even more troubling is that UNRWA has been found by the UN, the Government of Israel, and others to have actively participated in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israeli civilians.
Given this, we find your Motion on this issue and the Government of Canada's decision to restore funding deeply troubling and, frankly, unacceptable. The following countries continue to withhold funding pending the completion of the UN investigation and so should Canada: U.S.A., Australia, Austria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland and Italy.
No one employed by UNRWA has yet been held responsible for participation in the October 7, 2023 attacks. What is Canada doing to seek justice for those massacred, and to end the teaching of violence to Arab children who see their goal in life to be killing Jews?
The Wall Street Journal has reported extensive involvement by UNRWA employees in the October attack and its ties to terror groups. The Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research has filmed the training camps where young children are taught how to invade Israel and kill, rape and torture Israeli civilians, and the result was seen on October 7th.
There are other UN and international organizations that could easily supply humanitarian aid to Gaza, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC), the UN Refugee Agency.
We request the immediate withdrawal of your Motion as it seeks to restore funding to UNRWA, reduce and restrict Canada’s support for its ally Israel, calls for recognition of a state of Palestine that would no doubt create a terrorist state in the heart of the Jewish homeland. The current leadership of the PA has frequently declared it does not support two states, only one, free of Jews.
More appropriately, given UNRWA’s deep involvement in the above-mentioned October attack, we would expect de-funding to be permanent and another international organization to be mandated to supply humanitarian aid to Gaza. UNRWA is not essential.
Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully,
Charles Cooke, Director and Government Relations liaison for CAEF
Cc Anthony Housefather, M.P. Ya’ara Saks, Minister for Mental Health
Pierre Poliviere, Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
Melissa Lantsman, Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
Marty Moranis, M.P.