by Morgan Duchesney
Last month the Harper government announced sweeping changes to the scope and mandate of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and extended no-fly lists and legal limits of preventative detention. The grave danger of such policies is that, after they are passed into law, they are difficult to remove.
One of the most disturbing developments taking place in the name of national security is the hypocrisy of a new policy designed to prevent Canadians from travelling overseas to engage in military activities defined by the Harper government as terrorism. The government has begun revoking the passports of Canadians fighting with ISIS or related groups overseas as well as those of people still in Canada planning to join them.
However, the Harper government heartily approves of Canadian citizens serving in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Francois LaSalle, media relations officer for the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD), said that Canada “stands shoulder to shoulder with Israel, the only liberal democratic state in [the Middle East]. We are fully aware that there are, from time to time, Canadian citizens serving in the Israeli Defense Forces. In some instances this will involve dual nationals living in Israel doing their compulsory military service in accordance with Israeli law.”
These Canadians serve in a wide range of IDF units, including sections whose members, horrified by civilian casualties, have rebelled and refused to serve in Gaza or the West Bank. According to the 1985 Foreign Enlistment Act, however, it is an offense for Canadians to enlist in a foreign army that is at war with a friendly state.
Legally, however, Canadians can join the IDF because Palestine, the focus of the IDF’s most violent efforts, is not, despite their best efforts, officially recognized as a state. Since Israel has never declared war on the Palestinian authority or other Palestinian representative bodies, Canadians can serve in the IDF without fear of sanction from their own government.
According to an article in the Canadian Jewish News, The Lone Soldier Center, an Israeli non-profit, estimates that 5,700 foreign fighters — about 145 of them Canadian — currently serve in the IDF.
Canadian-born fighters in the IDF face no legal consequences. By contrast, Somali-Canadian Mohamed Hersi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempting to join al-Shabab last August. Though he was found not guilty of committing or plotting a specific act of violence, the presiding judge declared that Hersi was “poised to become a ‘terror tourist’.”
Canadian journalist and activist Yves Engler wrote in Dissident Voice that “The double standard is extreme. It is illegal for Somali-Canadians to fight in that country but it is okay for Canadian Jews to kill Palestinians in Gaza. And the government will give you a charitable tax credit if you give them money to support it.”
While the corporate media reports that the IDF regularly invades Gaza to stop Hamas rocket and mortar attacks, the complex reality is rarely mentioned in American-dominated press. Eric Walberg presents his perspective in Counterpunch: “The violent occupation of Arab lands in 1948 was bad enough, but the seizure and rapid colonization of all of Palestine since 1967 radicalized the Middle East…Jews around the world have the legally recognized option of supporting Israel’s jihad against its Muslim neighbors. Yes, jihad, because Eretz Israel (Greater Israel) is still aggressively expanding, 70 years after it was founded.”
Canadian volunteers have been heavily involved in recent Israeli combat operations, including the brutal 2008-2009 Israeli assault that killed 1,400 Palestinians. Since terrorism is largely a matter of perspective, Palestinians can hardly be blamed for supporting the democratically-elected Hamas in Gaza or the Hezbollah militia that protects Lebanon’s southern border from Israeli land invasions. Odious as it is, the violence perpetrated by the latter is miniscule compared to the crushing power of Israel’s high-tech military (courtesy of the United States government).
Beyond the fact that the Harper government exercises an obvious double standard in its treatment of Canadians volunteering for the IDF and Canadians who attempt to join irregular forces in Syria and elsewhere is the fact that Revenue Canada offers charitable status benefits to organizations that provide financial and moral support to IDF soldiers. These include Disabled Veterans of Israel or Beit Halochem, Canadian Magen David Adom for Israel, the Association for the Soldiers of Israel in Canada (ASI), International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, the Ne’eman Foundation and the Canadian Zionist Cultural Association and the Israeli-based Lone Soldier Centre.
Additionally, some of the Canadian business elite like Gerry Schwartz, co-founder of CanWest Global Communication, and Heather Riesman, CEO of Indigo Books and Music, provide up to $3 million annually in post-military scholarships to Canadian IDF volunteers.
The time has come for the government to prevent Canadians from serving in any and all foreign military units, both regular and irregular. Canadian historian Jack Granatstein was quoted in a blog on the Daily Brew, saying, “If they’re going off to serve somewhere else, in some other army, they’re switching their allegiance…Canadians, even those born here, should forfeit their citizenship if they join a foreign army,” no matter how just they think the cause may be.
This article first appeared in the Leveller Vol.7, No.6 (Spring 2015).
