Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Canada’s Minister of International Affairs Mélanie Joly stroll in direction of the Treaty Room on the State Division, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. [AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta]
US President Donald Trump proposed this week to grab management of Gaza and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian inhabitants, in a transfer that will quantity to one of the horrific conflict crimes since World Conflict II.
In response, Canadian International Minister Mélanie Joly posted a perfunctory 4 sentence assertion on X, which reiterated Canada’s official help for a two-state answer to the Israeli-Palestinian battle. Whereas she discovered house in her 51-word assertion to sentence Hamas, she didn’t even point out the fascistic President or the truth that his proposal is a gross violation of worldwide legislation.
“Canada’s longstanding position on Gaza has not changed,” Joly declared. “We are committed to achieving a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely within internationally recognised borders. There is no role for Hamas in the governance of Gaza. We support Palestinians’ right to self-determination, including from being forcibly displaced from Gaza.”
Trump made his proposal this week whereas assembly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the White Home. The President referred to as for the resettlement of the Palestinians to different nations and the switch of management over the Gaza strip to the US in order that it may very well be rebuilt right into a “Riviera on the Mediterranean.” Netanyahu, who’s being sought by the Worldwide Prison Courtroom on conflict crimes charges, and his fascist authorities responded enthusiastically, with the Prime Minister praising Trump for his capability to “cut to the chase.” Defence Minister Israel Katz directed the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to arrange plans for the “voluntary” relocation of all 1.8 million residents of Gaza talked about by Trump, a determine a number of hundred thousand lower than the two.3 million residents who lived there previous to the launching of Israel’s genocidal assault on the enclave.
The US and worldwide media have feigned shock at Trump’s endorsement of ethnic cleaning, and European governments expressed criticism of his readiness to violate worldwide legislation. That is all a lot hypocrisy. American imperialism, and its Canadian and European imperialist allies, have backed Israel to the hilt since October 2023 because it has carried out a genocide towards Gaza’s residents.
Trump’s pledge to forcibly resettle the Palestinians expressed explicitly the plan for annihilating and driving the Palestinians from Gaza that Netanyahu’s far-right authorities has been finishing up since October 2023, with weapons provided by and the political help of the imperialist powers. The IDF has forcibly displaced your complete inhabitants, flattening practically the entire territory’s constructed infrastructure and killing a minimum of 47,583 folks, largely ladies and youngsters. Consequently, life expectancy in Gaza has been slashed practically in half, in line with a current report in The Lancet.
Whereas the federal government of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterates its help for a two-state answer and claims to oppose the forcible displacement of the Palestinians from Gaza, Ottawa has been among the many main backers of the genocide. At residence, the Trudeau authorities has spearheaded a crackdown on demonstrations towards the genocide and for a ceasefire. This has included backing the breakup of peaceable pupil encampments on college campuses by the police, and smearing anti-genocide protesters, lots of whom are Jewish, as “antisemites.”
Joly’s mealy-mouthed assertion is aimed toward masking up the importance of Trump’s proposal and turning consideration away from the true intentions of Israel, the US and its imperialist companions for Gaza and their pursuit of a “final solution” to the Palestinian query. The International Minister won’t state the plain: that what has been carried out by Israel over the past 16 months is a genocide, and that plans are below dialogue the like of which haven’t been heard because the Nazis rampaged throughout Europe through the Second World Conflict.
Some members of Parliament have been considerably extra forthright of their condemnation of Trump’s Gaza proposal, however solely to cowl their very own tracks and put far between the genocide they’ve been supporting and Trump’s bare assertion of intent. Worldwide Growth Minister Ahmed Hussen and Justice Minister Arif Virani joined a letter signed by different Liberal MPs describing Trump’s plan as “preposterous and a complete violation of international law.” It “amounts to ethnic cleansing.”
New Democratic Occasion (NDP) chief Jagmeet Singh declared Trump’s proposal “utter madness” and warned that it might “Destabilize the region. Threaten the ceasefire.” NDP International Affairs Critic Heather McPherson went additional, writing on X, “New Democrats condemn in the strongest possible terms the suggestion by US President Donald Trump that Gaza should be ethnically cleansed. This is a war crime. Gaza belongs to the people of Gaza, Palestinian people. Gaza does not belong to a convicted abuser and felon. The Canadian government must state firmly: Donald Trump has no authority on the future of Gaza and Canada will always uphold international law.” She referred to as on the Liberal authorities to formally acknowledge the State of Palestine.
Whereas the NDP cries crocodile tears over Trump’s pledge to ethnically cleanse Gaza, the occasion propped up Trudeau’s minority Liberal authorities because it backed the genocide. The NDP signed a “confidence-and-supply” settlement with the Liberals in 2022 to make sure “political stability,” in Singh’s personal phrases, because the Liberals performed a serious position within the bloody US/NATO conflict on Russia in Ukraine. Final March, the NDP rewrote a “ceasefire” decision in coordination with the Liberals in order that it in the end made clear Ottawa’s continued help for the genocide. Even after Singh formally “ripped up” the confidence-and-supply settlement final September, his occasion continued to again the Trudeau authorities as a “progressive” ally towards the far-right Tory chief Pierre Poilievre because it repeatedly illegalized employee job motion and broke strikes.
The Canadian ruling class has lengthy offered itself as a forthright defender of worldwide legislation. This has now been uncovered for the utter fraud it has at all times been.
Its political representatives are determined to succeed in an settlement with Trump that preserves the pursuits of Canadian imperialism as a part of the fascist president’s “Fortress North America.” To uphold Canadian imperialism’s eight-decade-long military-strategic and financial partnership with Washington, the Trudeau authorities is at pains to not ruffle Trump’s feathers, and so pointedly prevented criticizing Trump’s felony statements calling for ethnic cleaning in Gaza.
Trump has repeatedly derided Trudeau as “governor” and made clear his intention to annex Canada because the “51st state.” To keep away from the specter of punishing tariffs on all Canadian exports to the US, Ottawa is sort of pleased to go together with the US President as he runs roughshod over democratic rights at residence and descriptions a program of world conquest, ethnic cleaning and colonial annexation, simply as long as Ottawa’s personal predatory pursuits are revered. Crucial to those are securing a acknowledged place in Trump’s “Fortress North America” as Washington’s junior companion, with assured entry to the profitable US market.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford—who warmly welcomed Trump’s November 2024 election victory, solely, in his phrases, to have “the guy pull out the knife”—has made this clearer than most together with his public marketing campaign for the White Home to undertake a program of “Fortress Am-Can.” As spelled out by Ford, this would come with additional integration of the US and Canadian economies, already one another’s largest buying and selling companions, joint financial warfare towards China, and a large navy buildup on the expense of public companies and social protections.
The response of the Liberals, NDP, Conservatives and the commerce union forms to Trump’s reelection and tariff threats has been to pump out the poison of Canadian nationalism and name for unity round “Team Canada,” i.e., the pursuits of company Canada, for whom these exact same events and unions have carried out ruthless austerity on employees for many years.
The working class in Canada should oppose all factions of the ruling class with a purpose to develop a mass motion in unity with employees in america and Mexico towards conflict and in protection of the roles and social and democratic rights of all employees. The protection of the rights of the Palestinian folks, in addition to immigrants who’re being scapegoated for the disaster of capitalism by the US and Canadian ruling elites, is simply potential by way of the impartial mobilization of the working class on the idea of a socialist program.
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