Picasso's Guernica partial.  A cry for war's end and liberated peace

Blinkers and Noise Protection in Use

Would that the Palestinian cries for truth, justice, peace, and liberation were heard as clearly as Picasso did when Guernica was annihilated by Nazi bombers in 1937.  His famous painting extolled nothing, but exposed and judged the brutality and inhumanity of war.

I don't know what it will take for Western nations to take seriously the endless bombing that Israel, provisioned by USA and other nations including Canada,  has been inflicting upon Palestine.  Nor only bombing, of course.  The tyranny and terror being imposed on Palestinians of all ages is unimaginably innovative in its evil ways.

But this has hardly troubled the Western nations, including Canada.  Oh yes, we've uttered stern warnings about this cruelty or that injustice, this murder or that hostage-taking into abusive prisons, this block of humanitarian necessities or that assassination of medical personnel, journalists, and children.   Hollow words.  Deaf to cries for help.  Blind to the suffering.  No substantial action.

Parliament Speaks

Well, yesterday the Parliament of Canada demonstrated its ongoing willingness to be patient with the Israeli-American assault on Palestine.  It voted down on secoond reading Jenny Kwan's private member's Bill C-233 the No More Loopholes Act.  Every MP was compelled to stand up for the recorded vote and testify for or against.   

The Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs all voted against the Bill.  Significantly 30 Liberal MPs refused to follow the Carney government lead with half  abstaining and the other half voting for the Bill.  All NDP and Green MPs backed Kwan initiative. 

The Arms Trade

Canada is a signatory to the 2014 Arms Trade Treaty - a peace initiative of the United Nation.  It  aims to stop weapons and components from being traded to nations breaking international laws by committing humanitarian crimes.   Canadian legislation complements this treaty but affects only about 40% of the armaments actually exported.   

The "loop hole" is that the USA buys more than half of exported Canadian-made weapons and components, but they cross the border without permit or review of their destination  under a general permit.  Mind you, USA doesn't allow Canada to buy weapons without scrutiny about their end use.   Only USA  among Western allies gets Canada's free ride enabling the USA to pass any weapons or components on to Israel or any other proxy.

Arms created in Canada serve our defensive and peace keeping needs and those of other nations.  But we want to sell more - it is good for our economy.   So our biggest customer is the USA.  Without review or scruples, we close our eyes to the proven fact that these tools of war are going to Usrael and its genocidal offensive against Palestinians.  That's what the vote on Bill C-233 tried to stop.   

The fact is Canada okays moral blinkers  and is tone deaf to Palestinian cries about what these tools of death and destruction of humans and their habitations accomplish.  We are complicit in the death and suffering caused by Israel's military in Middle East countries, especially Palestine.

Nuremberg Trials

After World War II the victorious Allies decided that war crimes needed to be prosecuted.  They created a new court in Nuremberg, Germany to try the criminals who had carried out the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity.  They aimed to prevent this unfathomably evil genocidal crime from happening again. 

Alas, their virtuous purpose was thwarted by human power mongering and territorial greed at the cost of inhabitants.   The settler colonial syndrome seemed bred into the bones of Western imperialists nations.

Genocide is a favourite means to achieve the end.   In too many other countries it still happens, e.g. Sudan, Rwanda, Rohingya/Myanmar, and currently most visibly in Palestine.   Palestinians in general, even children, have been equated with Hamas militants and therefore are targets of the Israeli war machine. 

Identified have been 75,000+ dead but many more are still under the rubble, 125,000+ have been injured or maimed for life, and 80% of the homes and facilities are in ruins.  And in the illegally Occupied Territories Israeli settlers, backed by Israeli military, rain terror on residents on ancestral lands.

Given the global demonstrations advocating for ceasefire and  justice in Palestine - humanity's voice is calling for this tyranny to end.   But most of our Parliamentarians have not yet arrived at this conclusion;  or were they "whipped" to vote no?  One day before the vote, Arms Embargo Now lobbyists, including me on behalf of The United Church of Canada as a signatory to the AEN movement, hoped that many MPs would embrace the legislation that might help to stop this Israeli-USA assault and murder.  Alas, it was not to be.

Why?

Is this just a void of moral awareness or ignorance about the horror in Palestine?  Is it too risky for an MP to vote their conscience against the party leader's stance ?   Is there so little political understanding about settler colonialism's immoral assumption that white western nations espoused a high purpose of subjugating indigenous peoples, like Palestinians, so that they might eventually learn to assimilate with white, European, capitalist settler nations?  Or is it that we are still too frightened of the bully in the White House that we'd prefer to watch people being killed by our Canadian-made weapons rather than risk poking the bear? Or is it that our military is so integrated with the USA military colossus that distancing is unwelcome and resisted?   Or was the Bill so badly written that supporting it as is was impossible (but suggested amendments were welcomed but not offered and besides, improving the Bill is the purpose of second reading votes to send the bill to committee.)

Whatever makes the Conservative, Bloc, and Liberal parties' leaders decide to impose moral and ethical blinkers on our no-voting MPs?   Effectively they rendered all Canadians complicit in this "never again" crime of transferring arms via USA to a combatant known to be committing crimes against humanity and genocide against indigenous Palestinians.   

No excuse can satisfy the requirement of all faiths to "Love your neighbour, (close & distant) as yourself" or to  " Do unto others as you want them to do to you!" 

The Parliament of Canada, led by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney may have avoided "poking the bear".  But if Canada is ever on the receiving end of gross and deadly injustice by a foreign force, can we expect that neighbours might care about and for us?  Can we expect the international organizations to protect our sovereignty and safety from land and resource grabbing imperialists?   Can we really expect others to observe international laws and conventions, when we don't have the ethical courage or will to uphold law and order, to advocate for respect and decency in God's one human family?

Canada continues our peculiar way of undermining the international frameworks of law and order as we speak out of both sides of our mouth, but put blinkers and ear protectors on legislators when they are called to act morally with integrity.

Yesterday's vote in Parliament reveals our nation's and Western nations urgent need for a moral compass leaning toward justice!  I welcome the vibrant presence of many younger generation advocates for truth and justice.   I hope and pray that as the next generation of leadership they can continue their courageous public witness and get elected in future elections to restore hope and the quest for just and liberating peace.