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Sanders Says US Must Follow Suit After Canada Halts Arms Exports to Israel
"The U.S. should not provide another nickel for Netanyahu's war machine," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Mar 20, 2024
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that the Biden administration must follow Canada's government in halting arms exports to Israel, a call that came after humanitarian groups refuted the Israeli government's claim that its use of American weaponry in Gaza has been in line with international law.
Sanders (I-Vt.) said the Canadian Parliament was "absolutely right" to vote to stop weapons exports to Israel, whose military has killed more than 31,800 people in Gaza in less than six months—often using explosives, ammunition, and other equipment supplied by the U.S., Canada, Germany, and other countries.
"Given the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, including widespread and growing starvation, the U.S. should not provide another nickel for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's war machine," said Sanders.
Canadian lawmakers on Monday approved a nonbinding motion calling on the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to "cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel to ensure compliance with Canada's arms export regime."
Shortly following the vote, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told the Toronto Star that the government would stop exporting arms to Israel in line with the motion's demand. In the three months after the Hamas-led attack on October 7, Canada exported at least $28.5 million worth of military equipment to Israel, according to Global Affairs Canada.
"This is an important step," Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East wrote in response to Joly, "but we need to make sure that Canada stops the transfer of all military exports, period, without any loopholes."
The U.S. is a far bigger weapons supplier for Israel than Canada. Since October 7, the Biden administration has approved more than 100 separate arms sales—collectively worth billions of dollars—to Israel even amid massive and growing evidence that the country's military is using American-made weapons to commit atrocities against civilians in Gaza.
In a new memo to the Biden administration, Oxfam and Human Rights Watch noted that Israeli forces "routinely" drop "2,000-pound bombs on densely populated areas in Gaza."
"According to The Washington Post," the memo states, "Israeli forces dropped over 22,000 U.S.-origin munitions on Gaza during the first 45 days of the hostilities. The United States has reportedly transferred at least 5,000 2,000-pound 'dumb bombs' to Israel since October 7."
Last week, prompted by a new Biden administration policy, Israel's defense minister reportedly provided the White House with a written assurance that "Israel will use U.S. weapons according to international law and allow U.S.-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza." Critics dismissed Israel's pledge as a "sick joke."
But at least one key Biden administration official appears satisfied. HuffPost's Akbar Shahid Ahmed reported that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jacob Lew on Tuesday "privately endorsed Israel's claims it's abiding by U.S. law in using American weapons [and] sending aid to Gaza."
According to Ahmed, Lew's move alarmed U.S. officials who believe the Israeli government's claims are untrue.
"I used to advise the U.S. State Department on law of war assurances," Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group wrote in response to Ahmed's reporting. "If Ambassador Lew buys these Israeli assurances, I have a bridge he'll also be interested in purchasing."
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Prime Minister-Elect Justin Trudeau has Many Promises to Keep
Oct 20, 2015
After one of his three majority victories, Pierre Elliott Trudeau quoted a line from New Hampshire poet Robert Frost's Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening:
"I have promises to keep / And miles to go before I sleep."
At the late Prime Minister's funeral in 2000, his eldest son Justin paraphrased that quote:
"He kept his promises and earned his sleep."
It is Justin Trudeau who now has promises to keep.
He made many promises during this campaign, possibly more than his father made in his five election campaigns combined.
Here are just 16 of them:
1. To create a special, all-party parliamentary committee to study alternatives to the current first-past-the-post electoral system, and, within 18 months, introduce legislation to replace first-past-the-post, based on the committee's recommendations.
That is a key promise, and one that the power brokers and insiders of the Liberal party will not want the new Prime Minister to keep.
It will take determination and fortitude on Justin Trudeau's part to resist the many who will advise him to shelve that pledge.
The cynics are already saying we can forget about electoral reform.
On election night, when one member of a Radio-Canada panel evoked that particular Trudeau pledge, there were snickers all around.
When has it ever happened, the panelists said almost with one voice, that a party wins a majority under one voting system and turns around and changes that system?
Those who voted for the Liberals with hearts full of hope -- especially those who said theirs was a strategic vote necessitated by our unfair and unrepresentative electoral system -- might want to get ready start actively encouraging their party of choice to honour this particular promise.
If enacted, electoral reform would change the face of Canadian democracy for generations to come. It would be a true and lasting legacy project for Justin Trudeau's new government.
2. To get the Canada Revenue agency to "pro-actively" inform Canadians who have failed to apply for benefits of their right to do so; and, more important, to end the Harper government's politically motivated harassment of charities.
3. To restore home delivery of mail.
4. To extend the federal access to information law to the Prime Minster's and cabinet ministers' offices.
5. To institute parliamentary oversight, involving all parties in the House, of Canada's security agencies.
6. To appoint a commissioner to ensure all government advertising is non-partisan.
7. To end the odious and anti-parliamentary practice of stuffing disparate pieces of legislation into massive omnibus bills. This was a trademark of the Stephen Harper regime.
8. All Parliamentary committee chairs should be elected by the full House, by secret ballot. Currently, committee chairs are purely partisan appointments of the Prime Minister.
9. To end Stephen Harper's war on science and restore the compulsory long-form census.
10. To name an equal number of women and men to the cabinet.
Those are just some of the many Liberal promises related to democratic reform. Justin Trudeau announced those reform commitments and a number of others -- with much fanfare -- this past June.
Trudeau's newly elected Liberal party has also promised:
11. To restore healthcare for refugees and reinstitute family reunification in immigration. They would allow, for instance, elderly parents to join their families in Canada as permanent residents, entitled to health care and other services. The Harper government has consigned such folks to precarious status on annually renewable visitor visas.
12. To make a major investment in on-reserve First Nations education without imposing Harper's humiliating and draconian conditions on First Nations communities, all in the context of a renewed nation-to-nation relationship with Canada's First Nations, Inuit and Metis people
13. To find a consensus with the provinces to achieve real progress on greenhouse gas reductions. Notably, Trudeau has not yet set any emission reduction targets for Canada. However, he has long described himself as an environmentalist and says he is committed to seeing Canada take a leadership role in the fight against climate change. Canadians who worry about global warming might want to watch carefully how the new government performs on this file. The UN Conference of the Parties on climate change will start in barely more than a month, in Paris.
14. To restore funding for CBC/Radio-Canada. The Liberal record on this -- going back to the Jean Chretien and Paul Martin days -- is not encouraging. However, Montreal MP and former leader Stephane Dion have taken a strong, well-articulated, and committed position on this dossier. And one hopes the new government will recognize that federal support for public broadcasting involves more than the CBC alone. It must also include the National Film Board, Telefilm Canada, and the full range of federal funding mechanisms for producing and distributing programs and films that tell Canada's story.
15. To end Canada's participation in bombing raids on Iraq and Syria.
And finally:
16. To bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of this year.
It is a big and ambitious agenda. And, of course, the list is far from exhaustive.
Those who voted for this new government were ready to put aside thoughts of Liberal scandals of the past.
On Monday, October 19, and at the advanced polls earlier, the legions of Liberal voters -- many of whom had voted for Jack Layton's NDP last time -- were not thinking of the insiders and lobbyists who swarmed around previous Liberal governments.
Mostly, one suspects, they wanted to drive a stake through the heart of the loathsome Harper regime.
A great many voters did not want to risk an uncertain result. They were ready to put their unqualified faith in the optimism, energy, and hope of the young Liberal leader -- now the next Prime Minister.
The last time a Liberal government swept to power after nearly a decade of Conservative rule, in 1993, it too promised hope and change, anchored in a program of major infrastructure investments.
That Jean Chretien-led government did deliver some of what it promised.
However, it also slashed the CBC and other federal institutions, radically reduced health and social transfers to the provinces, and completely ended longstanding federal support for some programs, such as public housing.
Neither Chretien not any of his senior colleagues had never mentioned they were planning to do any of that.
Let's hope the voters have better luck with the Liberal Party this time.
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Two Confirmed Dead In Shooting Near Canadian Parliament
Police are searching for "multiple shooters"
Oct 22, 2014
Update 2:40 EST:
Two people are confirmed dead from Wednesday's shooting.
The Canadian soldier shot while guarding Canada's War Memorial has reportedly died from his injuries. Furthermore, a "male suspect" is confirmed dead.
Police are reportedly searching cars leaving attempting to travel from Ottawa to Quebec and going door to door in downtown Ottawa, where schools remain on lockdown.
"At an afternoon press conference, [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] would not say whether another gunman was believed at large," CBC reports.
CBC continues:
Ottawa Civic Hospital confirmed three people were taken to hospital. Two are stable, and one has a gunshot wound. The hospital was referring calls on the status of the other victim to the Department of National Defence.
Earlier:
Downtown Ottawa buildings are on lockdown after multiple shots were reportedly fired near Parliament and at soldiers guarding Canada's War memorial on Wednesday morning.
Canadian publication rabble.careports:
A gunman shot and very seriously wounded a Canadian Forces soldier at the War Memorial in Ottawa at about 10:00 a.m. this morning, Wednesday, October 22.
According to witnesses, the gunman then hijacked a car, without harming the driver, and drove onto Parliament Hill.
There are reports that the gunman then entered the main entrance of the Centre Block of Parliament and shot repeatedly and indiscriminately.
Journalists who were on the scene at the time report that some people there were gravely injured, but there are no details as to the extent of casualties yet.
Marc Soucy of the Ottawa Police said there were "numerous gunmen" responsible for what witnesses say were dozens of shots, according toCNN.
This footage from inside the Parliament Hill building was captured by a Globe & Mail reporter on the scene at the time:
Inside Parliament in Ottawa during 2014 shootingOn October 22, 2014 a gunman opened fire at the War Memorial in Ottawa and then had a shootout with police inside Centre ...
A Canadian soldier has reportedly been struck by gunfire, and further information about this or other injuries was not immediately available.
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