Look at What They're Doing!
The brand and the reality sometimes drift. Quite far apart. Canada, my highly esteemed new home, is celebrated as a declared and genuine peace nation.
Canadians served in both World Wars in Europe. The Netherlands, in gratitude for their liberation, sends twenty thousand tulips to Canada every year.
The brand of “peace nation” for a vast, open, and diverse Canada has fascinated me for nearly fifty years. And as a Canadian citizen, I live under precisely this peaceable spirit of my adopted country. So far, so wonderful.
Well, that brand is no longer as bright, as crystal-clear, as it once was. There’s a creaking in the rafters, as two events make plain. In Tel Aviv, Canadian citizens are being beaten after their boat — part of the Sumud Flotilla — was seized and the activists abducted to Israel. The Canadian consulate was informed. Prime Minister Carney was contacted. The result? Nothing. Zero.
That is sobering.
Meanwhile, Canada is purchasing an American missile system for 2.6 billion dollars — a system being used in real and lethal ways in the Iran war. Delivery is set for 2029. The decision to buy was made in January, quietly, while the US President was once again juggling threats about a 51st state.
What is so peculiar about these events is remarkable in itself. And the silence around them in the media feels threatening. Polls on the Iran war show clearly that a majority of Canadians oppose it. Well then — at least among ordinary citizens, one or two sparks of a peace nation are still flickering.
Back to the Canadian activists, who have since been released.
Luiza Ravalli, a nurse, was on her way to Gaza carrying food, baby formula, diapers, medication. In the night, her sailboat was boarded by heavily armed Israeli soldiers. Three shots fired over the heads of the crew. Then another shot — landing between her and her colleague, centimetres from their bodies. Afterwards, the soldiers systematically destroyed all communication equipment on board and programmed the autopilot to a course heading directly into an approaching storm. Final words to the activists: “These are your new coordinates. If you change course, we’ll come back.” After twelve hours, the boat and crew were found by the NGO Open Arms — by Spain, that is, not by Canada.
Ehab Lotayef, a founding member of Canadian Boat to Gaza, describes the arrest and transfer to an Israeli prison ship: strip searches, beatings, stress positions. Water and bread were thrown at them — “like dogs.” Fifty people in a twelve-metre freight container. Layers of clothing were taken from them and thrown into the sea. Lotayef himself was stabbed in the hand when he tried to help a fellow prisoner. He was coughing during the press conference in Ottawa. His ribs and chest still hurt from the blows.
And while all of this was happening: Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir posted videos of the abuse before the deportees had even arrived in Israel. The whole world saw it. Canada said nothing.
No, the Canadian government was not entirely inactive, to be fair.
Foreign Affairs Minister Anand summoned the Israeli ambassador. She tweeted. Prime Minister Carney spoke with the Israeli president and called the treatment of the civilians “unacceptable.”
Letters from families — delivered in person, by post, by email — went unanswered or were acknowledged with boilerplate.
A meeting between the activists and the government would have been a positive and humane gesture. Had it happened.
Ehab Lotayef: “We felt abandoned by Canada — before anyone else.”
These harrowing accounts are well documented and were presented at the press conference mentioned above. Looking away no longer helps.
One thing is indifference towards one’s own citizens. The other is active participation in war.
Yes, I am disappointed, and more than a little frustrated, that the peaceful part of my home country, Canada, is melting away.