Justin Trudeau must be held accountable for his wrongheaded decision, which allows Canada to be used as a political tool against the State of Israel and its duly elected leaders.
By Jerry Grafstein, JNS
As he prepares to step down from his post as prime minister, Justin Trudeau’s legacy as it relates to Canada and Israel will be shadowed by his failure to stand up for the Jewish state in the face of a highly criticized ruling by the International Criminal Court in The Hague against its leadership.
Even before the Canadian minister of justice could weigh in on the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for “crimes against humanity,” Trudeau pronounced that the country would “abide” by the court’s “regulations and rulings.” But unlike his father, Pierre Trudeau, who twice served as prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau is not a lawyer and was ill-equipped to make this determination.
As such, he must be held accountable for his wrongheaded decision, which allows Canada to be used as a political tool against the State of Israel and its duly elected leaders. Moreover, as Canada played a pivotal role in establishing the ICC and contributed to its development in a variety of important ways, the prime minister had the opportunity to leverage Canada’s standing in the world body for the betterment of the courts. Instead, by supporting its decision, Trudeau allowed the justly criticized ICC to drag down Canada’s reputation.
It has also jeopardized Canada’s economic dealing with the United States, its largest trading partner, as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and other American political leaders, including Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), have promised “crippling economic” sanctions against Canada if it follows through on acting on the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Gallant.
As a former member of the Canadian senate and adviser to Canadian justice ministers (including Pierre Trudeau before he was premier), I stand against the prime minister’s decision because I believe in the rule of law, justice, and the principle of fundamental fairness as informed by my extensive relevant experience as an expert of international law.
Instead of acting against Israel, Canada should follow the lead of other democratic nations, including Hungary and Argentina, who have declared the ICC decision to be a travesty of justice and vowed that it will not be adopted in their countries.
It must be noted that since Israel is not a member of the ICC, the court is precluded from considering cases against countries with national judiciaries, like Israel, because of the “complementarity” principle as Israel has an independent judiciary that can, and has, investigated charges of improper acts by members of the Israel Defense Forces. Moreover, the ICC drew a false equivalency between declared terrorists and Israel’s right to defense as under established international law.
Under accepted legal principles and due process, the core evidence in the case against Israel is deficient. There is no evidence that Israel has intentionally or was involved in the starvation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which is an essential and fallacious argument of the ICC prosecutor. Throughout Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel has not impeded viable relief efforts. Rather, the terrorists are stealing these supplies. Even the Integrated Food Security Classification System, a U.N. agency, has determined that allegations of starvation in Gaza were false, evidence of which the ICC is fully aware.
The ICC’s code of conduct declares that its prosecutors “should not negatively affect confidence in its independence” and should “refrain from expressing an opinion.” That has not happened in this case and ICC prosecutors have breached their own rules.
The court also unilaterally and wrongly lowered the bar for supporting a potential finding of “genocide,” a crime attributed to Nazi Germany.
While numerous international lawyers in the United States have disagreed with the ICC’s decision, law schools and international lawyers in Canada have sadly remained mum. Canada itself is tainted by its poor and uncorroborated statements about Israel’s conduct during the war.
In that regard, some parliamentarians are tainted by their premature declaration of “Palestine” as a state without the putative state having met the necessary principles of accepted international law, further undermining Canada’s reputation as a nation founded on the rule of law. Had the prime minister consulted with Canada’s senior military leaders, he would no doubt have disagreed with the ICC decision, as many of them properly consider the IDF to be the most moral armed forces in the world based on established world metrics.
Even before Trudeau announced his support for the ICC ruling, Canada was facing a historic rise in antisemitic attacks. The government’s decision to “abide” by the ICC decision has made the situation worse, as evidenced by the shooting of a Jewish school (fortunately, when the school was closed at the time) and an arson attack on a synagogue.
Canada must follow the lead of other democratic countries and state that it will not enforce the ICC decision. Moreover, Canada needs to establish a national strike force of police and prosecutors to bring antisemitic offenders in this country to justice. To do less is a disgrace to Canada, its good name, its reputation and its future.