Canada turns against Israel

The new Carney government lost no time in signaling that Canada’s recent shift in foreign policy against Israel will continue under the new Liberal government. This is no surprise to anyone who has watched the Carney campaign or observed the large number of Trudeau cabinet members who have been installed in his new cabinet. Anita Arnand is a Trudeau-era holdover in a new post, as minister of foreign affairs, and her very first remarks as minister consisted of blaming Israel for the situation in Gaza without so much as acknowledging that it was the government of Gaza, Hamas, that started the war.

In May, Canada, the United Kingdom, and France joined together to threaten Israel with “concrete measures” if it did not stop its renewed military offensive in Gaza and allow in aid. In the midst of a war Israel is fighting on seven fronts for its very existence, the government of Canada had already placed an arms embargo on Israel. Then, on June 2, it was revealed by the Toronto Star that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been investigating Israel for possible war crimes for over a year.

We can see an increasing distance between Canada’s policy on Israel and that of the United States and a corresponding alignment of Canada’s policy with left-wing governments in Europe. What are the long-term implications for Canada of such a historic shift in foreign policy?

Many Christians, influenced by dispensational premillennialism, support Israel because of how they perceive Israel fitting into their eschatological projections of the end times. Other Christians, who believe in historic premillennialism or amillennialism, view the future conversion of Israel as a promise that will be fulfilled in the last days and some see the modern nation of Israel as significant for that hope. Some still view the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12:1-3) as pertaining to Jews rather than to the church. For them, to support Israel leads to blessing and to oppose Israel leads to being cursed. (For the record, I am an amillennialist who believes Israel will be converted to her Messiah before Jesus returns and I see the Abrahamic blessing as applying to the modern nation of Israel.)

But suppose we set eschatology aside for a moment and think of the Canadian shift away from support for Israel in terms of politics alone? What if we think of it in terms of what Samuel Huntington famously termed the “clash of civilizations”? From a purely secular political perspective, what are the implications of Canada’s turn away from support for a Jewish state in the Jewish homeland and embrace of the pro-Palestinian view of Israel as an illegitimate settler-colonial state?

In my view, Christians can care about this issue on a purely secular basis alone. We should be very concerned that Canada’s government is failing to support the only Western-facing, liberal democracy in the Middle East. We should also be concerned about the reason why the government is doing this, namely, to placate pro-Palestinian protesters, that is, Muslims and their Marxist allies.

Because of immigration, the Muslim population of Canada doubled in 20 years between 2001 and 2021 to 4.9% (1.8 million) and it is undoubtedly over 5% now. By contrast, the Jewish population in 2021 was about 335,000, less than 1% of Canada’s population. While Jewish numbers barely hold steady, Muslim numbers are surging. The writing is on the wall for those who only care about amassing the most votes. Already, in one-third of all federal ridings the Muslim vote exceeds the margin of victory in the 2021 election. Block-voting by Muslim communities is common.

So, forget Israel for a moment. What we are seeing here is a striking advance in political power by Islam in Canada. Jews traditionally have supported the Liberal Party, but lately it has been the Conservative Party that has stood up for Israel. Will Canadian Jews switch to Conservative?

Beyond party politics, however, there is a much bigger issue to consider. If Israel is an illegitimate settler-colonial state that deserves to be destroyed by “The Resistance”—and by any means necessary—then so is Canada! The same neo-Marxist, post-colonialist theory that motivates the current left to support the Palestinian cause against Israel also preaches that Canada is founded on racism, genocide, apartheid, and colonialism. So, the same tactics used against Israel logically could be used against Canada, including those used on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Bible teaches that God often punishes sin simply by letting sinners indulge in it and reap the negative consequences of violating His moral order. By handing over Israel to the tender mercies of the jihadists, Canada may well be sealing its own fate.