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You know it’s bound to be serious when one politician holds a news conference and orders two other politicians to stand slightly behind him like mannequins while he reads from a prepared statement.
That bit of staged solemnity took place earlier this week at the home of staged solemnity – Ottawa – when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was flanked by two mute, grim-looking cabinet ministers, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
All the choreographed scene was missing was a drum roll or a fanfare commensurate with the affected profundity of the occasion.
The Liberal Party’s former prince is facing a mutiny organised by a host of anxious backbenchers worried about losing their jobs – in light of public opinion polls suggesting that Trudeau’s government is listing so badly that much of the caucus is reportedly grasping for the nearest life jacket or, preferably, a large lifeboat to accommodate them all.
So, in a likely futile attempt to resuscitate his on-life-support political prospects and prove to Canada’s largely white, male cognoscenti that he still has the right stuff to remain prime minister – for the time being, at least – charming, effervescent Trudeau has channeled in tough, resolute Trudeau.
In effect, the prime minister declared diplomatic war on India – an emerging superpower and a supposed ally – based on “evidence” gathered by the country’s dysfunctional, scandal-racked police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
That “evidence,” Trudeau said, allegedly establishes that Indian “agents” have orchestrated a clandestine campaign “that pose[s] a significant threat to public safety”.
For its part, the RCMP claims that India’s covert schemes amount to “serious criminal activity in Canada” involving coercion, threats, and the murder of Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.
Aside from a bunch of cops and politicians, no one has seen so much as a morsel of the “evidence” to assess its strength – but I digress.
Trudeau said he asked New Delhi to play nice and help the RCMP out by cooperating with its ongoing probes. New Delhi, unsurprisingly, told Trudeau and company to take a long, lonely hike – to put it charitably.
Cue the diplomatic war. Trudeau kicked out six Indian diplomats posted in Canada, including India’s high commissioner. India, in a predictable retort, ordered six Canadian diplomats to pack their bags and head promptly home.
The aforementioned white, male cognoscenti – who cheer on wars of any sort – applauded Trudeau for standing up to state-sanctioned “terrorism” and insisted that India would “pay a heavy price” for doing what the prime minister and the RCMP believe New Delhi’s agents are doing to Canadians in Canada – even though none of them are privy to the shrouded-in-secrecy “evidence”.
As I said, Canada’s white, male cognoscenti just love war – diplomatic or otherwise.
But here is the nauseating rub.
Trudeau, his cabinet, and the familiar roster of obsequious columnists and on-TV-all-the-time commentators are rank hypocrites.
They will, of course, refuse to acknowledge this because they are incapable of introspection, let alone recognising the blaring, prima facie proof of their rank hypocrisy.
In defending his decision to expel India’s diplomats, Trudeau said “Canada is a country rooted in the rule of law, and the protection of our citizens is paramount.”
Sure it is.
Trudeau’s I’m-going-to-hold-the bad-guys-who-do-bad-things-to-Canadians-to-account tough-guy strutting is limited, apparently, by geography and which close “ally” is responsible for harming citizens he is charged, as prime minister, with protecting.
Canada’s white, male cognoscenti did not bother to listen carefully to all Trudeau said before reaching for their pom poms.
“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government in threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil – a deeply unacceptable violation of Canada’s sovereignty and of international law,” Trudeau said.
Let me paraphrase Trudeau for the hard of hearing.
If any country, especially Israel, threatens, coerces or kills Canadians in Lebanon or what remains of the human hellscape known as occupied Gaza, I’m not going to do a damn thing about it.
Oh sure, I might have my inconsequential foreign minister write a tweet or two “condemning” the killing by Israel of an elderly Canadian couple as they sought safe haven and approve of her making a short phone call to offer condolences to the surviving family.
Beyond that farcical bit of performative nonsense, my government and I have, in fact, enshrined Israel’s licence to kill Canadians with impunity because our dear beloved friend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would never, ever break the rules of war or international law.
Despite my tough-guy talk, Foreign Minister Joly and I will indeed “tolerate” the killing of Canadians by a “foreign government” as long as it doesn’t perpetrate its [war] crimes “on Canadian soil”.
You see, in our duplicitous view, that doesn’t constitute an “unacceptable violation” of “international law”.
Remember, Israel has the absolute, unquestionable right to defend itself and a few dead Canadians – blown into charred, unrecognisable bits that require DNA testing to confirm their identities – won’t change our myopic minds.
Goodness knows, we can’t risk having the usual apoplectic suspects inside and outside Parliament accusing my prostrate government of being anti-Semites or siding with “terrorists”.
De facto: We won’t be summoning Israel’s ambassador to Canada to Global Affairs HQ for a stiff talking-to or kicking out Israeli diplomats in response to the killing of three Canadians in Lebanon by its military over the past few weeks.
Is that clear, everyone?
If my rendering of the true meaning of Trudeau’s cynical, calibrated remarks offend his soon-to-be-unemployed toadies or any member of Canada’s white, male commentariat, then I urge them to speak with Kamal Tabaja, the eldest son of 74-year-old Hussein and 69-year-old Daad Tabaja, who were incinerated by an Israeli missile fired by an Israeli pilot in late September.
That’s a rhetorical request because Trudeau has already forgotten about their killing. And the columnists rushing to pen pieces excoriating India’s alleged crimes have never, and will never, demand that Israel “pay a heavy price” or denounce its documented crimes – whether the victims are a Canadian husband and wife who celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary this past April or the more than 41,000 mostly Palestinian children and women, casualties all of genocide.
I spoke to Tabaja – a Canadian citizen who lives and works in Bahrain.
He agreed. Prime Minister Trudeau is a rank hypocrite.
“With my parents, they did nothing,” Tabaja said. “They didn’t even bother… to issue a press release. They just sent a tweet.”
Tabaja said while it was right for Trudeau to hold India answerable since any “self-respecting” country would immediately take “political and diplomatic action” when Canadian citizens are targeted by a foreign power, his parents’ killing has been “ignored”.
In the wake of Trudeau’s “disgraceful” double standard, Tabaja said he has written – on behalf of his five still grieving brothers and sisters – to the prime minister condemning his blatant failure to hold Israel similarly to account.
He’s waiting for a reply.
Tabaja also agreed that Trudeau’s tough-guy act stops at the Israeli border and that it was inconceivable that this or any other prime minister would ever sanction Israel in the way Canada has sanctioned India.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “They all stop there.”
Sadly and shamefully, Kamal Tabaja is right.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
