The last few weeks, and indeed days, have seen an enormous escalationin the conflict in the Middle East. Israel has re-occupied the Gazastrip, led an all-out assault on Lebanon in an effort to destroyHezbollah and reshape the political authorities in Lebanon, andthreatened both Syria and Jordan with military and aircraftdeployments.

Israel has done so unilaterally and illegally, invokingits own doctrine of “pre-emptive intervention,” without sanction ofthe United Nations Security Council.

Israel’s assaults on both Gaza and Lebanon have occurred in a mannerthat clearly violates international law. This is seen in the“collective punishment” being severely meted out against Palestiniansin Gaza and against Lebanese civilians, and it is seen in thewholesale and blatant destruction of civilian infrastructure and thelarge numbers of civilians being murdered in both Gaza and Lebanon.

Israel’s actions are in the face of condemnation of world opinion,and the vast majority of states of the world. The U.S. and Canada aretwo of the exceptions to world opinion, both endorsing and justifyingthe rogue behaviour of Israel, seemingly with no moral limits beingable to be breeched of acceptable international conduct in the caseof Israel.

The violence has claimed the lives of at least sevenCanadians (and many more Canadian casualties) in Lebanon as a resultof Israeli military aggression, according to news reports.

The response of Canadian authorities has been what has come to beexpected from the Conservative government of Prime Minister StephenHarper: following American imperialism; an ideological shift towardmilitary aggressiveness and defence of Israel whatever actions itundertakes and no matter what the violation of international law,judicial rulings and public opinion; and administrative neglect andincompetence in meeting the needs of Canadian citizens, especiallythose who cannot claim European ancestry.

The previous Liberal government of Paul Martin had already begun moving in thesedirections with its support of the Canadian military deployment intoa combat role in southern Afghanistan, and the siding with the U.S.,Israel and a few other American vassal states in resolutions beforethe United Nations on Israel’s failure to uphold United Nationsresolutions on Palestine and other human rights issues.

Rather than continuing with Canada’s historical support for multilateralism andinternational rule of law, Canada now defends the right to exerciseunilateral military measures for the U.S. and Israel, and alsoseparate international rules on a host of issues.

At the same time, Canada hypocritically follows the U.S. in claiming only to want tohold North Korea, Iran, Venezuela and others to international rulesand norms. According to Canada’s new foreign policy position, somestates apparently have the right to extra-territorial sovereignty,and some states can exercise their sovereign rights only at thediscretion of others.

Harper has taken these positions up even more vigorously than theprevious Liberals, continually invoking all the Americanclichés of how the world has changed since 9/11. Harper madeCanada the first nation to place sanctions on the newly elected Hamasgovernment in the Palestinian territories — the sanctions that becamethe real trigger that began the escalation of hostilities (not thephony line from the media blaming the kidnapping of an Israelisoldier at the Gaza border, while ignoring the Israeli and Westernsanctions on the Palestinian government and the murder by Israelirockets of Palestinian citizens at the beach in Gaza).

Indeed, not only has Harper lined Canada up with the U.S. at the G8 meetings indefence of the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, Harper has been themost vociferous defender of the “proportionality” of the Israeliassaults in both Gaza and in Lebanon. In London, on his way to the G8meeting in Russia, Harper termed Israel’s ferocious attacks a“measured response.”

(One could cynically observe how much continuedMiddle East conflict does to aid Harper’s efforts to sell Alberta’soil sands to the American government and oil monopolies, and Harper’strumpeting Canada as an “energy superpower.”)

With so much effort given over to ideological posturing, theadministrative incompetence of the Harper government in aidingCanadians stranded in Lebanon has been shocking. The Foreign Affairsbureaucracy has been tied up binding Canada even more tightly intothe American empire and preparing Harper’s G8 trip.

The hapless Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay is on vacation in Nova Scotia;MacKay comically suggested in a TV interview that Canadians inLebanon get to the nearest internet connection to contact theCanadian embassy on how to leave Lebanon! Such incompetence inadministering the basic machinery of the state from neoliberals ishardly new, but this is beyond the pale. Indeed, the government’sposture is a national disgrace after Canadian citizens have beenkilled by illegal bombing of civilian targets by Israel.

This is the very bombing which Prime Minister Harper has explicitly endorsed as a“measured response.” The Canadian government, as much as the regime inIsrael, has the blood of Canadians (and of course of hundreds ofinnocent civilians in the region) on its hands.

It is a very sorry, reckless and morally troubling foreign policyposition that Canada now endorses: closer integration into U.S.foreign policy positions, including the doctrine of the right of theU.S. and Israel alone to use military “pre-emptive intervention,”apart from any sanction by the UN Security Council; uncriticalalignment with U.S. and Israeli military interventions, includingmore active Canadian military deployments; and political andbureaucratic disregard for Canadians who might get in the way ofthese foreign policy positions (whether this is Canadians stranded inLebanon, or Canadians illegally extradited via the U.S. “war on terror”sweep).

The silence (in the case of the Liberals) and disarray (in thecase of the Bloc Québécois and the NDP) of the parliamentaryopposition forces has been frustrating. But given how timid they havebeen with respect to actively opposing the Harper Conservatives, andtheir own political realignments in terms of neoliberalism andCanadian foreign policy positions, it can’t be said that their lackof vocal opposition is surprising.

It is clear that there needs to be an immediate seizure of Israeliassaults on Lebanon and Gaza (and the reported incursions into Syriaand Jordan as well). These attacks have claimed hundreds of innocentlives, and entailed a catastrophic destruction of civilianinfrastructures in acts of “collective punishment” by Israel inviolation of international law.

The sanctions and embargo on Gaza,including food and medical supplies, which is making for ahumanitarian disaster, must also immediately end. The worldgovernments and the Canadian and international peace movements mustreject the attempt by the U.S. and Israel to unilaterally determinewho is and who is not an acceptable sovereign government, and toredraw unilaterally the political and territorial boundaries of theMiddle East.

The attention of the world needs to turn to the massimprisonment and human rights violations of Palestinians by Israel,including the incarceration of children in Israeli prisons; theviolations of Israel of international courts in building theapartheid separation wall (much of it well outside the boundaries ofits 1967 borders in an open land grab, even beyond the illegalsettlements in place in the West Bank); the attempt to fully absorbEast Jerusalem into Israel; and the need to negotiate a fullyindependent and sovereign Palestinian state (for which it is quiteunclear that Israel believes actually has the right to exist, givenits actual practices with respect to the Palestinian Authority).

Without these steps, there will certainly be no easing of theconflict between Israel and its bordering states, social justice forPalestinians and the same sovereign rights to self-government andnational self-determination as any other peoples in the world, or endto the political instability encompassing the entire Middle East. TheMiddle East cauldron will keep boiling, and crisis upon crisis willrevisit Lebanon.

Canadians need to call the Harper government toaccount for why it keeps stoking the flames of conflict across theMiddle East, and how its actions have contributed to the loss ofCanadian civilians in Lebanon and Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.This bloody, awful day must have some good come out of it.