Canada’s Terrorist List Enables Terrorism

Justin Trudeau justified the brutal killing of the leader of a Lebanese political party on the grounds Canada lists his organization as a “terrorist.”

On September 27, Israel leveled six large apartment buildings in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut with some 80 bombs weighing 2,000 to 4,000 pounds each. Dropped by US-made F-15 fighter jets, the US-made BLU-109 “bunker-busters” incinerated an unknown number.

In response to this act of state terror Trudeau posted, “Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has been killed. He was the leader of a terrorist organization that attacked and killed innocent civilians, causing immense suffering across the region.”

When Israel’s terror campaign in Lebanon started in earnest ten days ago former ambassador to Norway and Communications Security Establishment Director General, Intelligence

Operations Artur Wilczynski justified terrorizing Lebanese on the grounds of targeting “a terror group.” After Israel injured thousands by blowing up 3,000 pagers across Lebanon the University of Ottawa’s Special Advisor on Antisemitism posted that the “targeting of Hezbollah operatives was brilliant. It struck a major blow against a terror group.”

But Hezbollah isn’t classified as a “terrorist” organization by the United Nations or most countries in the world. Nor was an organization that’s long been represented in Lebanon’s parliament defined as a “terrorist” organization by Ottawa for the first half of its existence. In fact, Prime Minister Jean Chretien met Hezbollah Secretary-General Nasrallah in Beirut in October 2002.

In “Selectively Terrified” Mary Foster detailed “how Hezbollah became a terrorist organization in Canada”. Foster wrote that “pressure to list Hezbollah came from the Canadian Alliance Party (a precursor to today’s Conservative Party), senior Liberal politicians Irwin Cotler and Art Eggleton, B’nai Brith (a Jewish human rights organization, staunchly pro-Israel in orientation), and the Canadian Jewish Congress.” The campaign was greatly boosted by fabricated quotes in the National Post claiming Nasrallah encouraged suicide bombing during a speech at a Beirut rally.

If Hezbollah is a terrorist organization what is the Israeli military or government? Maybe the IOF and Netanyahu’s Likud party could be the first entries on a new Canadian genocidaires list!

Israel supporters have long argued that that country has the right to terrorize Palestinians because Ottawa (usually at the lobby’s behest) listed some organization with limited means a “terrorist” group. Before Hamas’ October 7 attack Canada’s apartheid lobby argued Israel could terrorize 2.2 million Palestinians living in the open-air Gaza prison because Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad is listed a terrorist group in Canada.

Over 10 percent of Canada’s terrorist list is made up of organizations headquartered in a long-occupied land representing one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population. Representing much of Palestinian political life, eight of the oppressed nation’s organizations are listed, ranging from the left secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to the elected Hamas ‘government’ in Gaza.

A dozen years after the terror list was established the first ever Canadian-based group was added. In 2014 the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN) was designated a terrorist organization for engaging in the ghastly act of supporting orphans and a hospital in the Gaza Strip through official (Hamas-controlled) channels.

In recent months the genocide lobby has pushed to add the anti-imperialist group Samidoun to Canada’s terror enabling list. After its international branch “expressed our deepest mourning and our highest salutes” to Nasrallah upon his assassination, Holocaust Housefather opined that “Samidoun needs to be listed as a terrorist organization in Canada and around the world.” Liberal MP and Special Advisor on Jewish Community Relations and Antisemitism, Anthony Housefather added, “it is one of my priorities to get this done and by expressing how much they loved a terrorist leader who caused civilian deaths in Israel and around the world they are proving my point.”

While Palestinian groups are criminalized, Canada has close ties to the main generator of terror and killing of civilians in historic Palestine. Current Israeli government officials openly boast about their terror as necessary to teach Palestinians a lesson. Yet Canada has been selling weapons to the Israeli military and the two countries’ armed forces work together on various fronts.

Additionally, Canadian officials turn a blind eye to illegal recruitment for the IOF while the Canada Revenue Agency takes a soft approach to registered charities that defy its rules by financially assisting the Israeli military.

Measured by the number maimed or killed, the Israeli army is responsible for far more violence than any Palestinian or Lebanese group (and they are doing so on behalf of a European colonial project). Yet the Israeli military is not a listed terrorist organization.

Canada’s terrorist list highlights the stark double standard in Ottawa’s treatment of the colonized and colonizer. In fact, events over the past year clearly illustrate how this list enables Israel to terrorize Palestinians and Lebanese. Once again, shame on us.

The post Canada’s Terrorist List Enables Terrorism appeared first on CounterPunch.org.