terrorism – Page 14

Longing for past headlines

How I miss those mundane headlines of my youth back in the ’Peg. Nothing more serious than potholes and (the more serious) urban decay of the city centre.

I even miss those mundane headlines of the local papers here in Israel from mere weeks ago. Nothing more serious than the stuck peace process, disputes with Obama, the Iran nuke deal, stray mortar shells from Syria and the like.

I used to love the quiet of those mornings. Sipping my Turkish coffee with the paper spread out in front of me. Catching up on those mundane Middle East headlines before waking the kids up for school, walking the dog and getting ready for work. A typical start to most days probably anywhere in the world.

Well, my world is not typical anymore.

As of late, the headlines blare the new insanity of terrorism in our midst. Random, lone wolf attacks – how random, how lone wolf? – shaking up our beloved routine. No longer so pleasurable reading the morning papers when the headlines shout about multiple terror attacks around the country. Alright, we might expect it in Jerusalem (don’t tell anyone I said that). But for stabbings and car attacks to take place in the cities of Ra’anana or Holon? Even in Tel Aviv. What the heck is going on?!

What is a car attack? It’s when a crazed terrorist rams his car into a crowd of waiting commuters at a local bus stop and then jumps out and starts stabbing the wounded and shocked. Have I disrupted your morning coffee?

This craziness has done more than ruin my beloved morning time. Not sure if it’s just me – I am kind of embarrassed to ask my friends – but I find myself looking over my shoulder much more frequently. Even when exiting the elevator of my condo, I kind of prepare myself for the worst; if I am with my dog, I will let him go out first, just in case (don’t tell my daughter that).

Of course, I worry more about my kids now. They, too, are also frightened. Especially my 14-year-old daughter. Even my son – with all the bravado of a pre-army teen – is, well, let’s just say, concerned.

I picked my daughter up from an after-school event the other day. Much of the activity took place outside. I had terrible visions. Fortunately, the area was more heavily guarded than usual. Not enough for a paranoid parent, but there were a number of police stationed at strategic points. Probably better not to think about it.

Do I want my son walking home from his friend’s this weekend at 3 a.m.? Or meeting his pals at the local ice cream parlor or mall after school? For sure not! Will he? Probably. Life goes on, he says. He just wants to have fun, as do most teens everywhere.

And take my wife. She called me from a business meeting in Tel Aviv today. The city was on high alert. Those dang terrorists again. Major throughways were blocked. Helicopters hovering overhead. The army moving about in full force. The White City in lockdown mode. Stores and malls shut their doors. People stayed inside. Luckily, my wife’s meeting took place at an excellent restaurant; at least she could enjoy a good lunch. Or could she?

Hmm. Looking forward to a quiet morning tomorrow with my Turkish coffee and newspaper; catching up on the insanity taking the country by force, and hoping it doesn’t become mundane.

Bruce Brown, from Winnipeg, lives in Israel with his Sabra wife and children. He actually doesn’t like Turkish coffee – his wife drinks it every morning with her paper – but took the poetic licence to describe himself as drinking the black goo while reading the headlines of his morning paper.

Incitements to stab

It is an alarming phenomenon, to say the least. Seemingly ordinary Palestinian civilians, acting not on behalf of an organized terrorist organization but apparently on their own, taking everyday household instruments and stabbing Israelis with them on the streets.

Violence, in fact, has been a top-down factor in the Palestinian body politic. As recently as last month, the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was glorifying the murder of Jews, responding to the riots and killings in Jerusalem with this:

“Every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem is pure, every shahid [martyr] will reach paradise, and every injured person will be rewarded by God.”

An imam in Gaza last Friday waved a dagger as he gave his sermon – a sermon broadcast weekly over the internet – urging followers to stab and kill Jews.

These incitements to murder are omnipresent in Palestinian society, from the “radical” Hamas to the “moderate” Fatah. So, the spate of stabbings is the natural fruit of seeds of hatred planted by decades of political and religious leaders, relentless media propaganda and the glorification of “martyrs” gone before.

It is often said that the Israeli-Arab conflict is an intractable one with complexities and nuances that make it drag on. That’s true. There are complexities, but some things are simple – when you inculcate violence, you get violence.

Our hearts go to those killed and wounded, their families and all who are suffering.

More or less immigration?

For political nerds, last week offered a cornucopia. A week ago Wednesday, 11 Republican candidates for president of the United States lined up in front of Ronald Reagan’s Air Force One and squabbled, insulted, demeaned and debated one another. The next night, the three leading candidates for prime minister of Canada lined up and, in a more Canadian manner than their American counterparts (albeit, perhaps, in a more American manner than most previous Canadian debates) did much the same thing.

There was plenty to differentiate the two events. The production values of the American version were Hollywoodesque. The Canadian debate looked high schoolish. With 11 candidates in the American debate, content took a back seat to quips and barbs. The Canadian debate was somewhat more substantive.

What was common between the two was an emphasis on immigration and refugees. With the refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe making front-page news worldwide, and immigration a perennial hot button issue in the United States, candidates came at the topic through particular prisms.

The Republican candidates mostly clamored over one another to burnish their anti-immigrant cred. Who could build the highest, most impenetrable wall along the southern border, it seemed, was the worthiest candidate. The day after the debate, a pro-immigrant organization released a video that contrasted the current crop of candidates’ comments on immigration with those of Ronald Reagan, in whose presidential library the debate took place and who is generally venerated among Republicans.

Reagan, at least in his rhetoric, viewed America as a “shining city on a hill” to which people around the world aspired to come and where, presumably, they would be welcomed. Typifying the prevalent approach of current Republican candidates, Donald Trump said before the debate: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best.… They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Emma Lazarus Trump is not. The American approach to immigration once – before the 1920s and at intervals since the Second World War – was idealized in Lazarus’ poem, affixed to the Statue of Liberty, and it clearly does not demand “the best” from other countries: “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me / I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

It can still evoke chills. Chills that are different from those evoked by the language and views of some of today’s Republicans.

What was encouraging in the Canadian debate the next day was seeing our leaders similarly clamoring over one another, but in this case to burnish their pro-immigration cred.

We recognize that some of the people we welcome have endured great challenges, and need resources and programs to learn the languages of our country, develop or adapt their skills, perhaps recover from deep trauma. Piles of evidence prove that immigrants and refugees who come here succeed brilliantly.

Of course, Jewish Canadians especially may be torn between heart and head on this matter. Our families came here, more often than not escaping repression and violence, and we understand the life-and-death implications of immigration policies.

We also understand that many immigrants and refugees today are coming from places that deliberately inculcate antisemitism in their citizens, who have been known to then act out on these impulses once they move to places where Jews exist. However, the current crisis involves refugees who are fleeing violent jihad and are likely to be among those Canadians who are most vigilant against that form of hatred.

Above all, we need to understand that we are one world. We need to address security challenges at home and confront, with our allies, the sources of those challenges. This security imperative impacts on our immigration policy, but we should not delude ourselves or punish those who need refuge by pretending we can immunize ourselves from world realities by closing our doors.

Kenney discusses priorities

Jason Kenney, Canada’s minister of national defence and minister for multiculturalism. (photo from forces.gc.ca)

Jason Kenney, Canada’s minister of national defence and minister for multiculturalism, says this country should prioritize Christian refugees and other minorities who constitute the most imperiled of the millions fleeing Syria and Iraq.

“Some people are in an understandable wave of emotion … telling me that we should just send C-17 aircraft over there to refugee camps and load them up and bring them to Canada,” Kenney told the Independent. But the refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) that Kenney sees as most vulnerable are not even in the United Nations refugee camps, he said.

“I know these issues extremely well and I can tell you that there are certain vulnerable Syrian and Iraqi minorities who cannot and do not even go to the UN camps,” said Kenney. “Why? Because they are the persecuted minorities. Ismaili Muslims, Druze, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syrians, Armenians – e.g. the Christians – do not go to the refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey because they’re afraid of their minority [status], the implications of that. These are the people who are living in urban slums in Amman, Jordan, in Beirut, Lebanon, and some in Ankara, Turkey, who we have said we will focus our refugee resettlement programs on.”

These minorities are less likely, Kenney said, to harbor individuals who could pose a threat to Canada.

“These are the victims of the doctrine of armed jihad,” he said. “I can tell you that these people, when they come to Canada, they want to keep us safe from what drove them out of their homes. This is why I think we need to be intelligent about refugee resettlement.”

Kenney emphasized that he wishes peace and protection to all of the refugees and IDPs regardless of their faith or political views. But, he added, “I’ve been to the camps, alright? When I go into people’s tents and I see there’s very few young men, I’ve asked in Turkey and Lebanon and in Jordan: where is your father, where is your husband, where’s your son? I see the pictures in the tents.”

The response he has received often, he said, is that the men are off fighting with the al-Nusra Front or other Islamist militias.

“This is a vicious stew of violence and we must ensure that that cult of violence doesn’t inadvertently come to Canada,” said the minister, who is running for reelection in Calgary. “So that’s why we need to be careful and prudent about security screening and, I think, ensure that to the greatest extent possible the refugees who we welcome to Canada are those who are amongst the most vulnerable.… I don’t apologize for saying we should focus on the most vulnerable and on Canada’s security at the same time.”

Kenney, who has been the Conservative government’s point person for ethnic communities, spoke with the paper as the image of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian-Kurdish refugee child whose body washed ashore on the Turkish coast, was animating the world to act on the refugee crisis.

“The image of that boy represents thousands of others who die in human smuggling operations and the tens of thousands who have – excuse me, the hundreds of thousands – who have died in the Syrian civil war and as victims of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” said Kenney. “It galvanizes collective attention on the total humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq and Syria.”

Canada is the largest per capita resettler of refugees worldwide, Kenney said, welcoming one in every 10 resettled refugees in the world. (CBC and Global News have both analyzed this claim and note that it refers to refugees resettled from an asylum country like Lebanon or Jordan to a country that has agreed to take them as refugees. Because most refugees flee to an adjacent country – or, as seen in recent months, trek to European countries – the news outlets assert that Canada is not first, but 41st, in the world. Canada accepts one in 10 resettled refugees, but most refugees remain unsettled, they claim, making Canada’s acceptance rate of total refugees about one percent, not 10%, of the world’s refugees.)

In any event, the enormity of the problem, Kenney said, means “resettlement is not a solution.”

This is where Kenney differentiates the Conservative government’s position from those of the opposition parties. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees cites 15 million Iraqi and Syrian refugees and IDPs, he said.

“It’s a cruel myth if we think we can solve a humanitarian crisis with 15 million IDPs and refugees and here’s the key thing – new refugees are being created every single day,” he said. The world needs to address the root cause of the massive refugee problem, he said, which is the genocidal terror of ISIS (also called ISIL or the Islamic State).

“We have a moral obligation to play a role in degrading and ultimately defeating ISIL in its campaign of terror,” he said. “And, we also need to provide humanitarian support to the IDPs and refugees, which we are doing…. We’ve contributed between the two countries over $810 million in emergency humanitarian assistance. We will do more.”

The defence minister took a shot at New Democratic party leader Thomas Mulcair and Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, both of whom oppose Canadian ground troops in the fight against ISIS.

“What we’re doing is important,” Kenney said. “The military contributions that we are making through our airstrikes and the training of the Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq are making a meaningful difference but, in the grand scheme of things, are relatively modest contributions. So, for the Liberals and NDP to suggest that we should completely withdraw even from the air campaign or, in the case of the NDP, from training, is, I think, morally irresponsible and reprehensible. If the world is moved by the images of the Kurdi family on the Turkish beach, we must recall that these were people who fled the violence of ISIL and there will be more Kurdi families unless and until the world stops this genocidal terrorist organization. That’s why we believe there is a moral obligation and a security imperative for us to participate in the international coalition degrading and, hopefully, ultimately defeating ISIL.”

On the issue of domestic security, Kenney also lashed back at critics of Bill C-51.

“If you look at the additional security powers included in Bill C-51, they are modest compared to most of our liberal democratic peer countries,” he said. “Most of the new powers included in Bill C-51 are actually invested in the courts, the judiciary, not in the police or intelligence agencies and certainly not in the hands of politicians. And many of those additional powers themselves are very modest.”

Kenney said RCMP were keeping an eye on Martin Couture-Rouleau, the “lone wolf” terrorist who killed Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in Quebec last year.

“The RCMP went to the prosecutors and said we want to apply for a preventative detention order or peace bond to restrict this guy’s movements because we think he’s going to do something crazy and violent,” said Kenney. “The prosecutor said, sorry, but we just do not have the legislative, the statutory, tools to do this. We would have to prove to a court that he will commit a terrorist offence and there’s no way to do that.”

Under the new law, said Kenney, police can go to the prosecutor, who in turn can go to the court, and the court determines whether an order for preventive detention can be issued.

“And, by the way, the maximum order for that can be seven days,” he said. “In Britain, it’s 28 days. It’s why I say the powers here are relatively modest.”

Another example of what Bill C-51 does, he said, is to allow the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to interrupt a possible terrorist event.

“What does this mean practically? If CSIS is observing that a 15-year-old kid’s spending hours every day on terrorist websites, instead of just waiting for him to blow up metaphorically, they can go to his parents now and say, ‘Are you aware that your son appears to be in the process of radicalization?’” Kenney said. “Is this a violation of civil liberties? No. As the prime minister says, the most important civil liberty is the right to live safely and securely.”

Kenney described the idea that C-51 could be used to infiltrate or disrupt civil society protests against things such as oil pipelines as “rubbish.”

“I think the criticisms of Bill C-51 have been massively overblown,” he said. “If they advocate going and blowing up pipelines, yes, possibly. But protesting the construction of pipelines? Absolutely rubbish. No police officer would be interested in that, no prosecutor would bring a charge on that, no court would accept it. It is ridiculous.”

The Conservative government has often been alone on the international stage in defending Israel’s right to defend itself, a position that has been criticized on several fronts, including accusations that the Tories have turned Israel into a partisan political issue. The Independent asked if the government’s vocal position is driven by theology, politics or ideology.

“What drives that is principle,” Kenney said. “Israel is not a normal state. Israel is a moral cause. Israel is the refuge of the survivors of the Shoah and, therefore, the world has a moral obligation to ensure the protection of that refuge, that one and only Jewish homeland in the world.”

He dismissed political expediency as a factor, noting that fewer than one percent of Canadians are Jewish – and that not all of them are committed Zionists – and Canada has little of the Christian Zionist movement that exists in the United States.

“So, it’s not political,” he said, adding that it is also not based on “some kooky Christian reconstructionist millennial theology.”

“I have never heard a Conservative political actor in Canada make reference to Christian Zionist theology in articulating our support for Israel,” he said. “That’s a phantom for some paranoid minds on the left. The truth is this … we see Israel as an emblem, a symbol, a surrogate for Western civilization in the Middle East, by which we mean that Israel is predicated on the belief in human dignity, which is manifest in a liberal democratic political system, protection for human rights, religious freedom and pluralism.”

He said Israel’s enemies are motivated by what they view as “an unacceptable presence of those Western civilizational values in the Middle East, but secondly because the enemies of Israel are motivated by a deep and irredeemable antisemitism.”

“Most of Israel’s enemies do not seek a conventional peace – negotiations toward a two-state solution or a conventional political solution to the conflict there. They seek one thing, which is the elimination of the so-called ‘Zionist entity’ and the driving of the Jews into the sea. A second Holocaust.”

In addition to foreign affairs, Kenney said he wanted to remind Jewish Canadians of programs the government has undertaken domestically.

“We’ve taken a zero-tolerance attitude to antisemitism here domestically and that’s not just rhetorical,” he said. “We’ve paid a price for it. I’ve defunded organizations that were receiving grants – perversely – to provide integration services to newcomers, like the Canadian Arab Federation and Palestine House, whose leadership were openly antisemitic. I’ve been sued for it, our government’s been sued for these decisions, but we did the right thing.”

The government, he said, has also funded security infrastructure projects to upgrade security at synagogues, Hebrew schools and Jewish community centres.

On the issue of whether Canada is in a recession, Kenney said there was a sectoral contraction in oil that’s affected Alberta.

“No doubt about it, Alberta is in a recession due to the crash in oil prices,” he said. “But the rest of the country and the other industry sectors are growing. Employment remains strong. This is hardly a recession by any broadly understood definition and, according to the June StatsCan report, we’re back into a growth phase of two percent annualized growth. The dumbest thing we could do would be to act as though there is a serious, deep recession by going out and borrowing tens of billions of dollars as the other parties [would] do, which constitute deferred taxes. We think fiscal discipline, low taxes [and] expanded trade markets continue to be the right recipe for growth.”

The Independent has interviewed Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and has invitations out to NDP leader Thomas Mulcair and Green party leader Elizabeth May. The federal election is on Oct. 19.

Can terrorism deliver results?

Does terrorism work? This is the question that opens Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947 (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015). Western leaders insist that the work of terrorists will never lead to the ends they seek, but one of the lessons from this book is that this may well be wishful thinking.

Anonymous Soldiers – the title is from the anthem of the Irgun, the Zionist paramilitary force led by Menachem Begin – is the latest book by Bruce Hoffman, an expert on terrorism.

In the aftermath of the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Britain came to control the region known as Palestine, a victory that would prove confounding and tragic. Hoffman’s book is a story of endless miscalculations, under-preparedness and overreactions on the part of the British military and police.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was a statement of intent by the British government to create a Jewish national homeland in Palestine and the Jewish people there and elsewhere saw this as a sign that Britain would be their fiercest ally. However, almost from the moment the British Mandate began, until the forces of the empire departed with their tails between their legs three decades later, Palestine was riven with not only violent clashes between its Arab and Jewish residents, but by both those parties against the British and, as brutally detailed by Hoffman, fraternal conflict between Jewish militias.

The Haganah was the “establishment” militia, associated with the Jewish Agency and intended as a self-defence organization after the British proved incapable of or unwilling to protect the Jews of Palestine. In 1929, Arab riots led to mass killings of Jews and, while British police killed almost as many Arabs as the Arabs killed Jews, the balance demonstrated an inability of the British police and military to control the area. The diplomatic response was to attempt to appease the Arabs, which appears to be the first example in the book to prove that terrorism works.

The riots led to an investigative commission, a white paper and another British obfuscation on Zionism. The white paper blamed Arab violence on “excessive” Jewish immigration to the area in the mid-1920s and the purchases of land by Jews. This led some Zionists – notably those of Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Revisionist party – toward the idea that Britain may not be a reliable ally. In 1931, Revisionists defected from the Haganah and formed Haganah-bet (later the Irgun), which did not see itself solely as a self-defence force but opened the door to “sabotage, bomb making and hit-and-run attacks – in other words, the core tactics of terrorism.”

From 1936 to 1939, Palestine was in a state of near civil war in the form of an uprising by the Arab populations against the British and the potential of more Jewish migration. At precisely this time, the fate of Jews in Europe was being sealed and countries, including Canada, were slamming shut the gates.

Clouds of war in Europe were accompanied by fear of Muslim uprisings in the vast British Empire. The priority, in the words of foreign secretary Lord Halifax, was to avoid “arousing antagonism with the Arabs.” Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister at the time, said it was “of immense importance to have the Muslims with us. If we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs.”

This, too, was a miscalculation that did not take into account the determination of the Irgun. British caving in the face of Arab violence was taken by the Irgun as proof that terrorism works.

And a third group, which had broken away from the Irgun – Lehi, also known as the Stern Group (or the Stern Gang by the British) – went further. They attempted an alliance with the Axis, viewing Hitler as “just another antisemite” and proposing a mutually beneficial partnership based, the author writes, “on the fatally erroneous assumption that for Hitler the crux of the Jewish problem in Europe could be solved by evacuation, not annihilation.”

Meanwhile, as terror was rocking the Middle East, Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader who was plugged into the British establishment, was mending fences in London and urging the Haganah to crack down on the Irgun and Lehi.

Weizmann was warned by then prime minister Winston Churchill that if the violence didn’t end, “we might well lose interest in Jewish welfare.”

Of course, the Irgun did not expect to defeat the British Empire militarily. “History and our observation,” Begin later said, “persuaded us that if we could succeed in destroying the government’s prestige in Eretz Israel, the removal of its rule would follow automatically.”

Weizmann’s diplomacy and the cooperation of the Haganah with the British forces in Palestine regained the trust of Churchill, but that was of limited value after the war leader lost the 1945 election and the Labor party came to power at Westminster.

The new prime minister, Clement Atlee, inherited a paralyzed Palestine, in which there seemed to be no winning position. At a 1947 conference, the British tried to share the mess with the United States, but that failed and they eventually dumped the problem at the podium of the new United Nations.

So, does terrorism work? In the Palestine example, Hoffman demonstrates that the Arab riots of 1921 resulted in restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine and the 1929 riots resulted in Britain backpedalling from its commitment to Zionism. The Arab Rebellion, from 1936 to 1939, resulted in a huge reconsideration of Britain’s policy in Palestine and, though the author doesn’t make this explicit, possibly the deaths of millions of European Jews.

On the Jewish side, violence seems to have had its intended effect, as well. “By September 1947, the Irgun had achieved its objective,” Hoffman writes. “Each successive terrorist outrage illuminated the government’s inability to curb, much less defeat, the terrorists. Already sapped by World War II, Britain’s limited economic resources were further strained by the cost of deploying so large a military force to Palestine to cope with the tide of violence submerging the country.”

The author sees the Irgun’s campaign as critical to understanding the evolution and development of terrorism in the second half of the 20th century and the already bloody 21st century. “Indeed, when U.S. military forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001, they found a copy of Begin’s seminal work, The Revolt, along with other books about the Jewish terrorist struggle, in the well-stocked library that al-Qaeda maintained at one of its training facilities in that country.”

Fighter returns to Israel

Former British Columbian Gill Rosenberg spent nine months fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. (photo from Gill Rosenberg)

Gill Rosenberg returned to Israel a month ago, after spending nine months fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Born in Surrey, Rosenberg, 31, grew up in White Rock and graduated from King David High School before continuing her studies at B.C. Institute of Technology, finishing a program in airport operations management. She moved to Israel in 2006 to serve in the Israel Defence Forces, volunteering through a program called Mahal (the overseas volunteer IDF program). During the course of her service, she made aliya. She now lives in Jerusalem.

“I served as a search and rescue NCO (non-commissioned officer) and as an instructor at the Search, Rescue and Civil Defence School,” Rosenberg told the Independent. “It was a great experience.”

She also spent time training the Kenyan Armed Forces and helped them establish a disaster response unit in their country.

Growing up in British Columbia taught Rosenberg “to respect the diversity of culture, beliefs and religion,” she said. “As well, being raised Jewish, I had a strong education on the Shoah and participated in the March of the Living, visiting the concentration camps in Poland.”

After that experience, Rosenberg was invited to speak at the B.C. Legislature on behalf of Jewish youth when the government voted to enact Holocaust Memorial Day legislation, when Ujjal Dosanjh was premier.

Intolerance and totalitarianism are two things that she has vowed to never tolerate. “I fully believe that when we say ‘Never again,’ we don’t mean just for us Jews,” she said. “We can’t stand by and stay silent to any genocide taking place – and that’s what I saw happening to the Yazidi population on Sinjar Mountain. The Christians and Yazidis in Iraq have lost the most in this war.”

Rosenberg fought in Syria with the YPG/YPJ (Kurdish militia groups) for three months and then headed to Iraq for six months, fighting with the Assyrian Christian militia, Dwekh Nawsha.

“In Syria, I was in Serekaniye and it was a pretty static front over the winter months,” she said. “It was bitterly cold, always raining, muddy, and darkness like I’ve never experienced anywhere else.

“There’d be a firefight at least once a day, but it was mostly from a distance of over one kilometre. My first day on the frontline, a suicide bomber blew himself up about 50 feet from our checkpoint. He intended to get closer, but because of the deep mud, his vehicle got stuck and, thank God, he was the only casualty that day.

“In Iraq,” she continued, “I was at a frontline 25 kilometres from the city centre of Mosul. They were in Baqofa and Telskuf, and the next town over, called Batnay, was already Daesh-occupied.

“The Daesh [ISIS] are hitting that position with mortars, Katyusha rockets and heavy machine gun fire daily and especially at night. They attempt to ambush, but both Dwekh Nawsha and the Peshmerga at that frontline have prevented any advancement of ISIS forces.”

Rosenberg said she was treated with the utmost respect and not any differently than other fighters. “They feel like the world has forgotten them, so for an Israeli Jewish woman to pick up a weapon and stand with them on the frontlines meant a lot to them,” she said. “I still keep in touch with the leader there and he tells me I’ll be a part of them forever, that we’re family.”

As she was fighting, Rosenberg wore the Canadian flag on her uniform proudly. “I feel that Canada is one of few countries that still stands tall and supports democracy and freedom, and it isn’t afraid to condemn those committing evil in this world. And that’s something to be very proud of.”

Earlier in the interview, she noted, “Stephen Harper is the only world leader condemning the nuclear deal with Iran and speaking out against the evils of this world and standing with our best allies.”

Since returning to Israel, Rosenberg has met with several members of the Knesset and shared with them some of her experiences. She also has been approached by several nongovernmental organizations working in Syria and Iraq for her help with their efforts.

“I want to continue helping women and children in Syria and Iraq,” she said, “so I have to determine where my experience and abilities can be best put to use. As far as returning to the frontline, I have no plans to return at this stage.”

Rosenberg was very clear that she does not see herself as a recruiter. “I very adamantly would advise against anyone traveling to the region to fight,” she said. “There are many ways to help, including a Montreal Jewish foundation called CYCI (the Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq), which are buying and liberating the children that are sold like sheep in the market in ISIS-controlled areas.

“Pikuach nefesh [to save a life] is an obligation we have as Jews, and the Talmud even requires us to spend money to save a life if we have that ability,” she said. “This organization [CYCI] gives us that ability.”

Another Canadian organization, also coming from the Jewish community, is Rape Is No Joke (RINJ). This group provides medical care to women and children who have been victims of rape and other brutality in Syria and Iraq.

From what Rosenberg has been hearing, the dynamics on the battlefield have changed in recent weeks, with the Iranians making gains in Iraq against ISIS. However, she was quick to add, “They might be fighting ISIS just as I was, but, ultimately, they’re not a friend and I believe they’re a much greater threat than is ISIS.”

Reiterating her discouragement of anyone traveling to the region to fight, Rosenberg said, “I believe that if we don’t stop ISIS now, they’ll be at our doorstep before we know it. ISIS are geniuses at social media and media and know how to look strong and strike fear in the hearts of the West.

“I can tell you, from my personal experience on the ground, that they fight in a very cowardly manner and often run away when challenged. This is especially true when it’s the women of the YPJ. Their beliefs are such that they think if they’re killed by a woman, they will go to hell. So, my only question is this, What happens to them when that woman is also Jewish and Israeli?”

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

תוגברו אמצעי הביטחון

ג’ון נוטל ואמנדה מרי קורודי, שתכננו לפוצץ את בית המחוקקים של המחוז בוויקטוריה. (צילום: RCMP)

תוגברו אמצעי הביטחון בקהילה היהודית לאור פרשת הזוג נוטל וקורודי שהתאסלמו ותכננו להרוג ילדים יהודים

זוג קנדי שהתאסלם תכנן להסתנן לאחד מבתי בית כנסת יהודיים באזור ונקובר, כדי להרוג ילדים, כך עולה מחקירת שוטר סמוי במסגרת דיוני בית המשפט העליון של מחוז בריטיש קולומביה. מדובר בפרשת ג’ון נוטל ואמנדה מרי קורודי, שתכננו לפוצץ את בית המחוקקים של המחוז בוויקטוריה, ביום העצמאות הקנדי ב-1 ביולי 2013. השניים שהתאסלמו תכננו לפוצץ את הבניין באמצעות חומרי נפץ תוצרת בית שיוטמנו בסירי לחץ. הם הציבו את הפצצות הביתיות מחוץ לבית המחוקקים, אך השוטרים שעקבו אחריהם דאגו לנטרלן ולא נגרם שום נזק. הזוג הטרוריסטי טכננו לבצע פעולות טרור נוספות ולהרוג מספר אזרחים לא ידוע. השוטר הסמוי אמר עוד בחקירתו המעניינת, שנוטל וקורודי חשבו “שרצח של ילדים יהודים, שלדבריהם מחונכים רק לשנוא ערבים ומוסלמים, דווקא יעשה להם טובה. כי אז הם יגיעו לגן עדן”. לפי תפיסתם המעוותת לעומתם הילדים “יהודים מבוגרים לאחר מותם מגיעים הישר להגיהנום”. הזוג האמין שכיוון שהם לבנים לא התהיה להם בעייה להצטרף לאחד מבתי הכנסת על תקן של חברים, לאחר שיתחזו ליהודים. כך ירכשו את אמון המתפללים האחרים.

נוטל וקורודי נעצרו לפני כשנתיים לאחר חקירה מורכבת וממושכת של משטרה הפדרלית, סוכנות הביון הקנדית וסוכנות הריגול הקנדית. השניים הפכו לג’יהאדים קיצוניים לאחר שהושפעו מהתעמולה של ארגון אל-קעידה. הם רצו להשתתף במלחמת הקודש נגד מדינות המערב, “לאור מה שהן עושות לאיסלאם”. לטענת נוטל וקורודי הם הופללו על ידי שוטרי המשטרה הפדרלית, שאף עודדו אותם והאיצו בהם לבצע את פעולות הטרור. שני הנאשמים הורשעו כבר והדיונים בית המשפט העליון לקביעת עונשם יתחדשו בחודש אוקטובר.

לאור פרשה החמורה של נוטל וקורודי הוחלט בפדרציה היהודית של אזור מטרו ונקובר להגביר את הביטחון בקרב הקהילה היהודית, תוך שיתוף פעולה מלא עם הארגונים היהודים השונים.

מנכ”ל הפדרציה היהודית, עזרא שאנקן, מציין כי הפדרציה לוקחת את האיומים כנגד הקהילה היהודית באופן רציני ביותר. עם זאת הוא מדגיש כי לא ידוע בשלב זה על גידול כלשהו בסכנה לקהילה היהודית. שאנקן אומר עוד שלפדרציה יש כיום פרוטוקולים מסודרים וברורים לנושאי ביטחון, ונעשה בהם שימוש ברגע שיש התראות ביטחוניות. לדבריו לפדרציה יש קשרים טובים מאוד עם סוכנויות המשטרה השונות באזור ונקובר בהן המשטרה הפדרלית, והיא בקשר קבוע וישיר עימם בכל הנוגע לאיומים על הקהילה היהודית.

מנכ”ל הפדרציה היהודית המקומית אומר כי הארגון נקט לאחרונה במספר פעולות מורכבות בתחום הביטחון. בהן: פיקוח, בידוק וביקורות על תחום הביטחון בארגונים היהודים השונים באזור, שידרוג מערך הביטחון של ארגונים אלה תוך הקצאת משאבים כספיים ואחרים על ידי הפדרציה, המשך אספקת מערכי תדרוך, הכשרה, תרגול ותמיכה בארגונים בתחום הביטחון. כן הוחלט לאחרונה על הקמת ועדה מיוחדת בנושא תחום הביטחון בפדרציה היהודית, שתעזור ותייעץ בקביעת מדיניות הביטחון הרחבה, כולל קבלת החלטות ומימון בהמשך הדרך.

עזרא שאנקן אומר כי לאור צורך בפעילות ביטחונית בקרב הקהילה היהודית באופן שוטף ומתמשך, נדרש מימון יציב וקבוע לנושא חשוב זה. ולכן לדבריו יש מקום להשיג את מקורות התקציב, במסגרת הקמפיין השנתי החדש של הפדרציה לשנה זו (ערב הפתיחת הקמפיין של 2015 נקבע ל-17 בחודש ספטמבר). שאנקן אומר עוד כי הקצאת משאבים כספיים מהקמפיין השנתי החדש, היא אחת מהדרכים החדשות בה נוקטת הפדרציה היהודית, שמתאימה עצמה לדרישות המשתנות של הקהילה המקומית.

Trudeau talks with the JI

Liberal Party of Canada leader Justin Trudeau in an interview with Cynthia Ramsay of the Jewish Independent. (photo by Adam Scotti)

Justin Trudeau said he is cautiously optimistic about the Iran nuclear deal, insisted he is committed to fighting ISIS and reiterated his commitment to the environment and social fairness in an exclusive interview with the Jewish Independent.

The federal Liberal leader, who hopes to be prime minister after the Oct. 19 federal election, acknowledged the implications of Iran’s agreement with Western powers over its nuclear program, which the Tehran regime maintains is for energy purposes only.

“We all start from the same place on this – a nuclear-armed Iran is a threat not just to Israel, not just to the region, but to the entire world, and we have to make sure that Iran doesn’t achieve that,” Trudeau said.

There are only two ways to reach this objective, he said: direct military intervention on the ground against the Iranian regime or a diplomatic agreement. “We don’t have such a great record of military intervention in that part of the world,” he noted, stressing that the agreement is “not based on trust but on verification.”

“We are cautiously optimistic about the deal,” he said. “We’re not saying we should drop the sanctions today. Obviously, there are a lot of milestones to be addressed, but I think anything [is positive] that sets us down the path of both delaying the ability significantly of Iran to get the nuclear bomb and increases the ability of the Iranian people to put pressure on their regime to change – because we all know we can make a tremendous distinction between the Iranian citizens and their government that doesn’t represent them particularly well.”

Trudeau also advocated reopening diplomatic relations with Iran eventually. “I do feel that it would be very nice to hope to reopen that embassy at one point because you don’t have embassies with just your friends, you have your embassies with the people you disagree with,” he said. “However, on top of addressing the nuclear concerns, Iran has to do an awful lot to demonstrate that it’s no longer going to be a state sponsor of terrorism in the region, around the world, and they have to do an awful lot around human rights and repression of their own citizens and dissent within Iran before they can rejoin the community of nations. But I think we’re on a path that should be cause for at least a level of comfort that perhaps we’re in a positive direction now.”

In speaking with the JI after a speech to the Richmond Chamber of Commerce last Friday, Trudeau, in his second exclusive with the paper, clarified his stance around confronting ISIS.

“This is a great opportunity for me to spell out our position on this,” he said. “The Liberal party feels it is extremely important that Canada be a significant part in the effort against ISIS. We are absolutely supportive of being part of that coalition and, indeed, we feel there is a military role for Canada in the fight against ISIS that can make a very big difference. We disagree that bombing is the best way for Canada to do that. That’s why we voted against the mission and voted against the expansion of the mission into Syria, because it has a likely side effect of strengthening Bashar al-Assad’s grip on power and that we don’t necessarily want.”

“We are absolutely supportive of being part of that coalition and, indeed, we feel there is a military role for Canada in the fight against ISIS that can make a very big difference. We disagree that bombing is the best way for Canada to do that.”

What Trudeau would prefer, he said, is for Canada to provide more humanitarian aid, for example, and for this country’s military to provide the kind of role it does in Afghanistan. “We’ve developed tremendous expertise,” he said, “which is training the local troops to be able to take the fight more efficiently to ISIS. That would happen far from the frontlines because we don’t want Canadian troops to be involved [there] but also because we know that it is the local troops that are going to be effective at taking back their homes, their communities, and dropping in Western soldiers doesn’t make the situation better as, unfortunately, the Americans understood in Iraq awhile ago.”

He sees an opportunity for Canada to make an impact without being directly involved in the conflict. “We feel there’s a role for Canada to be a significant resource in training the local military, not in a direct combat role that Mr. Harper is proposing with the bombings,” he said.

Trudeau welcomed the opportunity to explain his support, with caveats, for the federal government’s anti-terrorism bill, C-51. “The Liberal party has always understood that we need to protect Canadian security and uphold our rights and freedoms – and you do them both together,” he said. “To our mind, Bill C-51, even though it has clear elements in it that increase the safety for Canadians – which is why we supported it – it doesn’t go far enough to uphold our rights and freedoms, which is why we’re committed to bringing in oversight, putting in a sunset and review clause onto our anti-terror legislation, and also narrowing and tightening some of the rules around what behavior CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service] can have – warrantless searches and all those sorts of things.”

His political opponents, he said, go too far in each direction. “Mr. Harper thinks, ‘No, no, we don’t have to do anything more around rights and freedoms, we have enough, we’re just giving more power to our police,’” Trudeau said. “I think that’s a problem.

“Mr. Mulcair says, ‘No, we don’t need to do anything more on security. Even those things in C-51, we don’t need them, we’re fine the way it is.’” That is also a problem, according to Trudeau. “We have to do more,” he said. “But we have to do more on both sides.”

On other topics, the Liberal leader expressed support for increased trade with Israel. “We obviously support the latest announcement around Canada-Israel free trade,” he said. “I know it was a lot of agricultural stuff in this round, but it’s a very good thing. This was a deal that was signed by [Liberal prime minister] Jean Chrétien back in ’97 and the Liberal party believes in trade. We believe in free trade, and we’re happy to continue trade with Israel.”

Trudeau took the opportunity to reiterate his opposition to the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction (BDS) Israel.

“You can have all sorts of debates over positions, but when you’re engaged in demonization, delegitimization and double standards, that’s just not what we are as a country.”

“I think the BDS and anti-apartheid movement, as I’ve said many times, runs counter to Canadian values,” he said. “You can have all sorts of debates over positions, but when you’re engaged in demonization, delegitimization and double standards, that’s just not what we are as a country.”

The Independent also asked Trudeau about the Liberals’ approach to climate issues and social equality.

“At a very basic level, we get it, as Canadians, particularly here in B.C., that you cannot separate what’s good for the environment and what’s good for the economy anymore,” Trudeau said. “You have to do them both together, and you can’t get one without the other.

“You still have people saying, ‘Oh no, we have to work on the economy, so let’s forget about environmental oversight,’ or ‘We need to protect the environment, so, no, we can’t create jobs.’ Canadians know we need them both together,” he said. “One of the problems is we’ve had 10 years of such a lack of leadership on the environmental level that it’s hurting our economy. We need to get our resources to market in responsible, sustainable ways. We’re not able to do that right now because nobody trusts Mr. Harper to do it right. Restoring that sense of public trust, [so] that people know, we need jobs, we need economic growth … in a way that understands that it’s not just about governments granting permits, but about communities granting permission, as well.

“One of the things we’ve put forward in our environmental plan is that, in the 10 years of lack of leadership on the federal side, the provinces have moved forward,” Trudeau continued. “B.C. has a very successful carbon tax, Alberta put in a carbon levy-style tax, Ontario and Quebec are doing a cap-and-trade. What that means is that 86% of our economy has already put in a mechanism to put a price on carbon, so the federal government can’t suddenly say, ‘OK, we’re doing cap-and-trade. Sorry, B.C., you’re going to have to change your system,’ which would make no sense; or vice versa, ‘We’re doing a carbon tax.

Sorry, Ontario, you can’t do it.’ What we have to do is recognize that different jurisdictions will have different ways of reducing their emissions – the federal government has to be a partner, a supporter, an investor in our capacity to do that across the country, in order for us to reduce our emissions and be responsible about the environment.”

Trudeau acknowledged the solutions won’t be immediate. “We need to move beyond fossil fuels, but it’s not going to happen tomorrow,” he said. “Right now, a lot of people who are blocking and opposed to pipelines aren’t realizing that the alternative is a lot more oil by rail, which is really problematic – more expensive, more dangerous.” Under the circumstances, he said, people are just saying no: “No to everything, because we don’t trust the government in place.”

He said he hopes to form a government that addresses climate change, invests in clean technology, renewable resources and the kinds of jobs that advance beyond a fossil fuel economy. For now, “we have to make sure that our oil sands are developed going forward in a responsible, efficient way that doesn’t give us the black eye on the world stage and with our trading partners,” he said.

“The Liberal party believes in evidence-based policy and we believe in harm reduction. My own hometown, Montreal, is pushing hard to set up an Insite-type clinic. The Liberal party supports that. The Supreme Court supports that. This government, for ideological reasons, is pushing against it. I think that’s just wrong, and we’re happy to say that. ”

Vancouver has been the testing ground for new ways of dealing with addiction, particularly the Insite supervised drug injection clinic. “The Liberal party believes in evidence-based policy and we believe in harm reduction,” Trudeau said. “My own hometown, Montreal, is pushing hard to set up an Insite-type clinic. The Liberal party supports that. The Supreme Court supports that. This government, for ideological reasons, is pushing against it. I think that’s just wrong, and we’re happy to say that.”

In the same week that Canadian parents were receiving Universal Child Care Benefit [UCCB] cheques in the mail calibrated to the number of children in their home, Trudeau was promoting his party’s “fairness plan.”

“Mr. Harper’s child benefit, for example, goes to every family regardless of how wealthy they might be,” Trudeau said. “We, instead, decided, let’s make it means-tested so that people who need the help the most will get the best help. For a low-income family, it means up to $533 a month, tax-free, and then it grades down until someone making over $200,000 doesn’t get any child-care benefit at all. And the benefits that will go to the nine out of 10 Canadians will be tax-free, so the money you get is actually money you get to spend.”

The plan also proposes to lower the middle-class income bracket from 22 to 20.5, which will result in about $3 billion in lost revenue. “In order to get that $3 billion,” said Trudeau, “we’re bringing in a new tax bracket on the wealthiest Canadians, people who make over $200,000, to even things out. And it’s not just about redistribution, it’s also about growing the economy because we know, when middle-class families and the working poor have money in their pockets to spend, to grow, it stimulates the economy.

“Interestingly enough, the NDP is lined up with the Conservatives on those positions,” he added. “They support the Conservatives’ UCCB that gives big cheques, and they’re opposed to us bringing in a higher tax bracket for the wealthiest Canadians, which I don’t understand. They have their reasons for it but, for me, the NDP is supposed to be a party that stands up for the most vulnerable.”

Montreal can be the model

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre at the Jan. 11, 2015, rally in Montreal in support of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting. (photo by Gerry Lauzon via commons.wikimedia.org)

A hate crimes department within the city’s police force might be a good idea, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said following a meeting with Jewish community leaders from Quebec and France at Montreal’s city hall on June 25.

Coderre and members of his executive committee held a two-hour closed-door session to discuss what role cities can play in combating antisemitism in Montreal and globally. He underlined the frequent link between antisemitism and radicalization and its violent expression.

Unlike forces in many North American cities, the Service de Police de Montréal (SPVM) does not have a unit dedicated to investigating crimes suspected to be motivated by hatred of identifiable groups. Coderre said he will meet the SPVM to pursue the possibility.

“We have good people [in the police] who are doing a good job now, but we have to look into whether we can do things a better way and learn from best practices [elsewhere],” he said.

That was the most concrete suggestion coming out of the meeting.

The mayor’s main message after the meeting was that “we have to call a spade a spade.… Antisemitism exists, here and around the world. We have to denounce it, we have to talk about it, we have to understand that clearly something is going on and we must be there to fight it.”

The meeting was the fulfilment of a promise that Coderre had made to leaders of the French Jewish community when he visited Paris in February, shortly after the murderous terrorist attacks at the Charlie Hebdo magazine office and Hyper-Cacher kosher grocery store.

Present at the meeting, from France, were Serge Dahan, president of B’nai B’rith France, and Yonathan Arfi, vice-president of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France, as well as leaders of Federation CJA, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the Communauté Sépharade Unifiée du Québec and B’nai Brith Canada.

Julien Bauer, a Université du Québec à Montréal political science professor, and Mount Royal MP and human rights activist Irwin Cotler participated as experts on antisemitism.

Coderre hopes that Montreal and Paris can cooperate especially closely on strategies to combat antisemitism and make their cities safer.

Coderre called antisemitism “the oldest and most persistent” form of racism and warned against a tendency to “trivialize” it. He also recognized that anti-Zionism often cloaks contemporary antisemitism.

The meeting was also a followup to the June 10-11 Montreal Summit on Living Together, a gathering of 23 mayors from around the world convened by Coderre to examine how municipalities can prevent radicalism and ensure security, starting by promoting respect for diversity and harmony among the different cultural groups in their citizenry.

The City of Montreal, also in the wake of the Paris attacks, announced plans for a new centre aimed at preventing violent radicalism. So far, it consists of a telephone hotline to report information on suspected radical activity. Coderre said that the centre can play a role in preventing antisemitism. He wants to form partnerships with the schools, civil society and others in this endeavor.

Coderre said he plans to make the discussion on antisemitism an annual event, and believes that Montreal can serve as a model of how to combat racism and radicalism, while achieving “a balance between openness and vigilance.”

“The more we talk about it, the more it will have a positive effect,” he said.

CIJA Quebec vice-president Luciano Del Negro applauded Coderre’s commitment in taking on the “challenge” of combating antisemitism.

He especially appreciated that the mayor recognizes the distinctiveness of antisemitism among forms of racism, and that antisemitism is not only a phenomenon of the extreme right, but also the far left.

Similarly, Cotler applauded Coderre’s “exemplary leadership” and recognition that “municipalities not only have a role, but a responsibility, to combat antisemitism.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

Nonsense is Trudeau’s

The Islamist group ISIS is the most technologically and media-savvy terror group ever. Their propaganda employs the highest calibre of videography and documentation. The images they capture – and successfully disseminate to the world – are among the most gruesome imaginable.

Just last week, well-produced films showed the group drowning five men in a cage and included footage of the men’s deaths captured by underwater cameras. The same video showed men being bound together at the neck by a fuse connected to explosives, like a chain of firecrackers.

On the very day that these horrendous images were leading every newscast, federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau appeared on the CBC in an interview with veteran reporter Terry Milewski. Trudeau, who voted a few weeks ago against extending the Canadian military’s contributions to fighting ISIS, insisted that, were he to win the election this October, the Canadian military’s efforts against ISIS would end.

“If you don’t want to bomb a group as ghastly as ISIS, when would you ever support real military action?” asked Milewski.

The would-be prime minister’s reply to this legitimate and, indeed, crucial question: “Terry, that’s a nonsensical question.”

The nonsense is Trudeau’s.

It is true that Western powers cannot cure the world of every despot and dictatorship. The United States military has worn itself out and tested the dedication of military families trying. Yet there are times when action cannot be avoided.

Milewski gave Trudeau the opportunity to clarify what he was saying, to ensure that this was not another of the Liberal leader’s rookie mistakes. But, no, this was what Trudeau had come on television to say.

Whether one adheres to ethical pacifism or not, it is a coherent ideology. But this is not what Trudeau is proposing. He is not suggesting that Canada abandon its military or become a neutral state. He is saying that Canadian forces should not be deployed against ISIS. OK, then. If our admittedly limited military force is not mobilized against ISIS, what cause would we mobilize against? In what circumstances does “Never again” come into play, if not against the actions of a group such as ISIS?

It must be noted, of course, that Trudeau’s position mirrors that of New Democratic party leader Thomas Mulcair. The New Democrats also voted against extending the mission against ISIS and this position is equally flawed. But it is at least consistent with the worldview of a party that has never been burdened with the mantle of government. NDP governments at the provincial level have often risen to the occasion and discovered pragmatism when power has been thrust upon them. Should some current polls bear out and Mulcair were to become prime minister, the confluence of common sense, the magnitude of power and the need to reach out to experienced hands would almost certainly adjust their foreign policy. Perhaps we are being too generous, but Mulcair has taken a party whose foreign policy (especially vis-a-vis Israel) had become a fringe circus and brought it more in line with European parties of the left (for whatever that is worth).

Unfortunately, the Liberal case is quite different. Say what one will about the value of the Senate these days, those who served as Liberals in the upper chamber represented a cache of experience at governing that Trudeau desperately lacks. Last year, Trudeau threw them out of his caucus in a showy spectacle meant to demonstrate leadership. He is left with a caucus of 36 MPs, most of whom, in the immortal words of a former prime minister who happens to have been the current Liberal leader’s father, are “nobodies 50 feet off Parliament Hill.” It is not clear that he is seeking out or receiving rational foreign policy advice from anyone.

What makes Trudeau’s position most atrocious is that it seems to have been taken for the worst reasons. The Liberals, as is a perennial problem for opposition parties, must oppose. But foreign policy is a tricky area in which to plant a political flag. Foreign affairs should not be off limits, by any means, to criticism and differences of opinion. Yet neither should the serious issues of foreign policy be subject to knee-jerk political considerations. But this seems to be part of the explanation for Trudeau’s position.

Another likely motivating factor is that the NDP has been peeling anti-Harper votes away from the Liberals. There is a very real possibility that, if polling trajectories continue, the majority of Canadians who seek to end the Conservative government’s tenure will move en masse to the party that polls suggest is most fit to achieve that end. To stanch the flow to the NDP, Trudeau seems ready to abandon the victims of ISIS.

The irony of this entire balagan is that Trudeau’s actions will probably have precisely the opposite effect on potential Liberal voters.