Former Prime Minister Harper visited Israel in February. Before going, he wrote a long opinion piece in the National Post attempting to provide justification for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. It came in the wake of polls show an increasing number of conservatives are breaking ranks with Israel and joining the call for a “ceasefire’. Read more.

The National Post gave lots of space to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper on February 20th to offer his justification for what he called Israel’s “Just war”.

His 1200 word article seems to have been aimed at fellow Conservatives who are increasingly showing discomfort with Israel’s murderous campaign in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice has called “plausible” genocide. Recent polls show declining support for Israel, with 28% of those who voted Conservative in the last election, wanting a full ceasefire now, which Israel and its lobbyists in Canada vigorously oppose. Twenty percent of them already believe that Israel is committing genocide.

“Hamas must surrender or be eliminated”, according to Harper. Few serious observers think that either is likely. Even if most of the Hamas leadership is killed, most analysts think that a new generation of determined resistance fighters will emerge from the ashes.

Unspoken is the widely held suspicion that Israel’s real intention is to expel the Palestinians once and for all in a repetition of the events of 1947/48.

The Harper solution amounts to more ethnic cleansing and more slaughter.

Harper’s essay suffers from a number of important blind spots, which allow him to tell a story which he hopes might reassure those who want to believe Israel is waging a “just” war.

FOUR KEY BLIND SPOTS IN HARPER’S ESSAY

1. Blindness to history: leapfrogging 75 years from Holocaust to October 7^th

Mr. Harper makes historical reference to the Holocaust and the horrors it inflicted on European Jews, and then draws a straight line to the deaths of over 1000 Israeli Jews on October 7^th, which he sees as a second iteration of the genocidal violence of the Holocaust.

But in doing so, he leapfrogs 75 years of relevant history. He ignores what the new Jewish State did and keeps on doing to the Palestinians. He ignores the horrors of the Nakba, the confiscation of more than 75% of Palestine for incoming European Jews, the expulsions of 750,000 Palestinians and destruction of their villages, “apartheid” walls, arbitrary detention, military occupation, construction of settlements, refusing the right of refugees to return, including 16 years of a siege on Gaza.

He also ignores 75 years of Palestinian resistance – demonstrations, diplomacy, elections, peaceful protests, hunger strikes etc. He ignores 75 years of UN resolutions and World Court rulings condemning Israeli war crimes and human rights violations. He ignores the fact that Hamas won the Palestinian election in 2006 but was denied its role in government, as well as the peaceful Great March of Return which was violently suppressed by Israeli snipers who killed over 200 Palestinians.

It is impossible to understand what is happened on October 7th without understanding what options were left for the Palestinians, when all else seemed to have failed. In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterrez, “The Events of October 7^th did not happen in a vacuum”.

• 2 Blindness to the widespread toxic racism in Israeli society today

Harper argues that October 7th is “the consequence of decades of institutionalized antisemitic indoctrination – indoctrination to the point where such murderous acts become regarded as not merely expedient or tolerable, but as necessary and praiseworthy”.

This is nonsense. Palestinians don’t need any “institutionalized indoctrination” to oppose the theft of their land, the expulsion of their grandparents, the incarceration of their children. Palestinians learn opposition to Israeli aggression in the “school of life”. That the perpetrators of these crimes are Jewish does not make Palestinian opposition anti-Semitic.

Ironically, what Harper calls “institutionalized indoctrination”, accurately describes the openly racist language and indoctrination which pervades Israeli society today. Examples abound – whether it’s the coarse language coming from Israel’s leaders – calling Palestinians “human animals”, bumper stickers on Israeli cars urging the IDF to “finish them off’, or Israel’s ‘Nation State law” which proclaims that only Jews have the right to self determination in Israel/Palestine. The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem calls it the ideology of “Jewish supremacy”.

• 3. Blindness to international law – The Palestinian right to resist, including including by armed struggle, is enshrined in International law

The subtitle of the Harper article is “Hamas must surrender or be eliminated”.

But Harper’s (and Israel’s) real objection to Hamas does not start with the events of October 7th. It is rooted in the fact that Hamas is the MAIN Palestinian force able to provide significant resistance to Israeli expansion, domination and oppression.

Like Mandela’s ANC, Hamas never gave up its internationally recognized right to resist through armed struggle. General Assembly resolution A/RES/38/17 (22/11/1983) “Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle”.

Oppressed peoples have a legal right to resist. Hamas is a resistance movement whether we like it or not. (Its full name in Arabic is “Islamic Resistance Movement”.) We don’t have to agree with or support every form of Palestinian resistance.

It does seem clear that Palestinian resistance fighters did kill many Israeli civilians and committed some war crimes on October 7th, though the circumstances are not perhaps nearly as clear as Israel claims. There must be a proper investigation by an impartial group based on real evidence in order to clear the air on this important point. (Hamas has called for such an impartial investigation by the International Criminal Court, but Israel refuses.)

• 4. Blindness to the damage being done to the credibility of the western world order

Harper claims that the world should support Israel not only “because it is right, but because it is in the best interests of global peace and security”.

Most observers come to the opposite conclusion – including Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International who recently wrote an article called “The end of the rules based international order”, in Foreign Affairs magazine “ the destruction of Gaza and the West’s response to it, signals the end of the rules-based order and the start of a new era.”

The Israeli prime minister has already said to the world that he will not be bound by any decision of the world court. The massive criticism of Israel in the UN General Assembly has shown that the global south has lost confidence in the  Western backed “rules based international order”. When the West allows some countries to defy the UN itself, this puts the current international order itself in question.

How Mr. Harper thinks that defending Israel, and allowing Israel to commit a “plausible” genocide against the Palestinian people will contribute to global peace and security remains a mystery.

Canada Talks Israel Palestine (CTIP) is the weekly newsletter of Peter Larson, Chair of the Ottawa Forum on Israel/Palestine (OFIP). It aims to promote a serious discussion in Canada about Canada’s response to the complicated and emotional Israel/Palestine issue with a focus on the truth, clear analysis and human rights for all. Readers with different points of view are invited to make comment.
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