Instead of easing diplomatic restrictions on Israel, the international community should be imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions on Israel as an incentive to dismantle the occupation and come to the negotiating table. The UAE’s opportunistic path is not likely to end division and conflict in the region and may in fact intensify and prolong it. This is not something that Canada should encourage.

“I referred to the Palestinian territories as ‘Palestine,’ we apologize.” This surreal on-air apology was broadcast last week on the CBC’s The Current, after guest host Duncan McCue referenced Palestine during an interview with cartoonist, journalist and war correspondent Joe Sacco on “the themes of colonialism and resource extraction.”

The Israel lobby has waged a remarkably successful campaign to bankrupt a small left-wing Toronto restaurant. Despite claiming to fight bigotry, it is the Israeli nationalists who have been guilty of the most overt racism and arguably taken the most anti-Jewish positions in their protests against the eatery.

If we want to identify the real masters of cancel culture, we need to follow the modus operandi of the institutional pro-Israel lobby and its adherents, like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs or B’nai Brith Canada. They can teach us a thing or two about how to kill free speech, and how cancel culture works to stop an utterance before it is even spoken.

The word Nakba is used to describe the period between 1947 and 1949, when over 700,000 indigenous Arabs were driven from their homes during a “cleansing” operation that made way for the creation of the state of Israel. Since the Nakba is intentionally excluded from mainstream narratives, most Canadians receive a narrow version of history.

Palestinians have long understood that no matter what type of struggle they are engaged in, the reaction from the Israeli military is always the same–killing, maiming and destruction. The Israeli government continues to respond with excessive force to all forms of protest in an effort to force Palestinians to abandon any hope of national independence and full rights.

As many Canadians remain isolated in their homes due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Trudeau government quietly announced it was lifting its suspension of arms export permits to Saudi Arabia. It has also renegotiated the government’s $14 billion armoured vehicle deal with the belligerent and repressive monarchy.

The left can’t allow itself to be bullied by the false and cynical allegation of anti-Semitism. To acquiesce in the face of the disruptive and dangerous IHRA definition is utterly unacceptable. It’s high time to confront the slanders and, in a spirit of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, accuse the accusers.

Trudeau and Sajjan’s recent missions to Kuwait are part of the fallout from Washington’s decision to assassinate Iranian general Qassim Suleimani. After the January 3 killing some Canadian forces in Iraq were withdrawn to the base in Kuwait. Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution demanding foreign soldiers leave the country and Iran threatened to retaliate against US troops in the region.

Iranians have good reasons to tolerate their regime more than one the US and its allies would install, again. If it is argued that 1953 is ancient history, or that the US and its allies have changed, the recent failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Venezuela should teach us all that regime change is a reckless strategy that is almost certainly doomed to fail.