44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 16, 2023 11:00AM
- Oct/16/23 2:21:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the tragic loss of life at the hands of Hamas's evil has made us angry, sad and filled with unimaginable grief as we are left trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.
These terror attacks are the cruellest against the Jewish people, my people, since the Holocaust.
It is possible to live in a world where we strive for peace in the Middle East while at the same time being able to state in no uncertain terms that we condemn the rape, murder and kidnapping of innocent women, children and the elderly. We must be able to say this without the word “but” inserted to serve as the catalyst for some moral justification. There is no morality to be found in what it has done.
Even the lives of people whose interests Hamas claims to represent mean nothing in its pursuit of hatred and the eradication of the Jewish people. There is no question that we must uphold the value of all human life and extend to one another a sense of kindness and dignity as we struggle together in the days ahead.
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- Oct/16/23 7:55:04 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I am going to split my time with the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills.
I stand in this debate with sadness and anger as a Canadian, as a member of the House and as a Jew. Jewish Canadians are not only mourning; they feel that they are under threat. It is our duty here to provide reassurance and protection to those who feel vulnerable, whether within the Jewish community, among the Muslim community or in any other community.
It is unfathomable to me that in 2023, anyone should fear sending their kids to school or being near a place or in a place of worship, at a community centre or in a business owned by an identifiable group at the centre of this war. It is a complete perversion of the rights and freedoms afforded to anyone in this country, and it requires more than just words like “stay vigilant”. It requires action. It requires action from every level of government.
The outright slaughter of babies, of mothers, of Holocaust survivors and of hundreds of innocent civilians should be easy to condemn, a simple moral test that too many have failed, because the visceral language of the entitled creates a fetish of blind demonization of one party in this conflict, even in the face of such obvious carnage. Instead of condemnation, too many Canadians stood and celebrated in demonstrations, dancing in the streets branded in Hamas propaganda. Too many more sought to justify, minimize or rationalize the brutality.
I would remind the House, in this vein, that the 1988 Hamas covenant and the revised charter from about five years ago must not be ignored in the conversation. The original charter is rather clear on Hamas's genocidal intentions. It calls for the complete destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a theocratic state based on Islamic law. It states the need for an unrestrained and unceasing jihad to obtain that objective and the outright dismissal of any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish or Muslim claim to the land. It is by every account anti-Semitic.
What happened in Israel on Saturday is true to Hamas's explicit charter edict, their objectives and their ambitions. On October 7, Hamas carried out the worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. They intentionally targeted innocent mothers, children, babies, elderly Holocaust survivors, entire families and innocent civilians carrying out their daily lives until they were so brutally cut short.
Among them were Canadians, with five murdered and three others believed to be captive. The gruesome attacks unleashed a carnage so unspeakable, so unthinkable, that it would not be believable unless it was captured on video and put on the Internet, as we see. They are not militants. They are not government. They are not a resistance movement. They are as the member for Carleton said: Hamas is a “sadistic criminal terrorist death cult, and it must be defeated.”
Israel has the right and obligation to do just that. As a defensive operation to destroy Hamas and its military capacity in Gaza continues, the pleas for restraint, compromise and peacebuilding are destined to fail with the genocidal aims of Hamas, as in their charter.
With that, it is the government's responsibility to ensure that Canadians are evacuated from the region, that missions serve those abroad who need help and that it advocates for the safe release of hostages. I would add this final critical point. If there is one thing we can take away, it is for the government to finally, as it said it would, criminalize the IRGC, the funder and convener through which the regime in Iran is fighting a proxy war to proliferate terror not only on Israelis but on those in Gaza and around the world.
We will not let the government have a free pass on this, for it is too common for Israel to have friends when it is easy and much harder for those friends to stand up when times get difficult. For the destruction of terror in Hamas, in the Iranian regime and around the world, and for the security of our ally, Hamas must be destroyed. Things will get harder.
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- Oct/16/23 9:18:14 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, quite obviously, my colleague is absolutely right.
There has been a lot of talk about an attack on Israel. Now, it is true that some people are trying to downplay the reality of what happened and the disgusting way Hamas attacked Israeli citizens. Canadians died. Some victims were from the United States. There were people at a concert. Young people were there to have fun and listen to music. Paratroopers came in from all sides and started shooting. It does not make any sense at all.
That is why we always have to think of the act that was committed, whether it was against Israel or against people from any other country who were there that day and were attacked by 1,500 Hamas commandos. These terrorists did this simply to spread terror. That is what terrorism is. It is about spreading terror and scaring people.
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- Oct/16/23 10:12:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I personally and all of my Conservative colleagues have called for the IRGC to be declared a terrorist organization by the government, so that it could not organize here in Canada or raise funds here in Canada. On the Liberal side they have gone so far as to call it a state sponsor of terrorism.
Again, this is not a drill. This is reality. Iran sponsors terror throughout the region and, in fact, probably elsewhere outside the Middle East. We need to see it for what it is, call it out and stop the flow of funds to terrorist organizations like Hamas.
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- Oct/16/23 10:57:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would certainly agree that Hamas not only does not speak for the Palestinian people but also represents the greatest hurdle to peace in Gaza and the region. That is why it is imperative that we recognize that it is a precondition of peace that there is no terror. There is one organization, on October 7, that committed an act of terror, and that was Hamas.
What we seek now is justice for those who have fallen and, obviously, building back toward a path to peace. However, there can be no peace in the wake of terror, and we will continue to pursue justice.
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