Where Do the ICC's Arrest Warrants Place Canadians and Public Institutions in Relation to Israel?
The Government, Public Institutions and Journalists have failed us. Can the ICC save us?
In a world where democratic institutions have lost all moral credibility, siding with powers that blatantly commit atrocity in the name of sanity, in a world where western governments exhaust the same arguments to justify countless war crimes, where the voices of youth groups, marginalised communities, human rights advocates, and scholars are drowned out by the ambitions of the few who care little for the rule of law or basic human sympathy in their pursuit of power or its preservation.
In a world such as this one, will the ruling made by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant sway the Canadian public and its institutions, those that have mercilessly defended Israel's onslaught of Gaza and the West Bank.
Canada, Israel & Palestine
Canada was one of the 33 countries that voted in favour of the creation of the State of Israel in 1947 through the UNSCOP initiative. Since Israel's formal existence, Canada’s stance and rhetoric vis-a-vis Israel has been, to some degree critical, but to a much larger extent, favourable - specifically from the political class who exude most influence on policy decisions and public institutions.
Successive Canadian governments repeatedly advocated for building peace and improving relationships in the region, while remaining Israel’s close friend. This seemingly contradicting position characterised many Western government's positions on Israel - excluding the US which turns a blind eye at every occasion - and still does today.
The push-pull between appearing to want to uphold democratic ideals and human rights across the globe while simultaneously participating in or being directly complicit to the removal of these same rights and ideals, is a binding force between many Western democracies. This has taken form through a variety of invasions, wars, post-colonial projects, state sponsored coups and/or the forced extraction of natural resources, long before and long since Israel’s creation.
Dissimilar to the U.S., the U.K., or other close allies of Israel, Canada’s history includes periods of substantial pro-Arab lobbying and anti-Israel sentiment. During the 1950s and 1960s, Canada’s growing Arab community established a plethora of national and religious organisations which, in coalition with influential actors in Quebec society, particularly trade unions, managed to influence Canadian foreign policy in a manner (relatively) favourable to Palestinian interests during the 1970s and 1980s.
These efforts, however, were short-lived. The presence of key political actors, most notably Stephen Harper—Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister, whose personal and ideological relationship with the state of Israel shaped government rhetoric and foreign policy to fully exclude the Palestinian perspective—ultimately undermined attempts to translate pro-Palestinian sentiment into significant political influence on the national stage.
Canadian Public Institutions since October 7
Considering my affiliation with McGill University, having graduated with a B.A. in February of 2023, I will discuss the institution’s response to the conflict, its handling of student and faculty voices, and how its actions reflect broader trends in Canadian public discourse and policy on the issue. I must say, since entering the University in 2019, my view of being an alumnus of this institution has changed drastically. Much of this occurred post-October 7th –though it is evident that many more skeletons remain buried under a mountain of fragile yet effective efforts it has taken to overlook the University's origins rooted in colonial ambitions.
The response to the October 7th attack on Israel, and the stance maintained in the year that followed, have, in my view, starkly revealed who truly controls the levers of power in universities—institutions that are often regarded as the epitome of liberal democracy and drivers of social change. Universities all across the world but more significantly in North America experienced extremely harsh repression to calls for justice and divestment from what the International Court of Justice qualified as a plausible case of genocide against the Palestinian people. For the first time in many young people's lives, they were seen as violent and anti-Semitic by much of the mainstream media who framed their calls for justice as a ploy orchestrated by pro-hamas puppet masters. The alignment of major universities with this clearly biased mainstream narrative revealed a troubling reality: public institutions are willing to go to great lengths to delegitimise and repress real, student-led resistance in order to protect the interests of powerful actors.
This may come as no surprise to older generations who have either personally witnessed or lived through a shared era of violent crackdowns on student-led activism, whether in the context of anti-war protests or the civil rights movement. Nevertheless, as a post 2000’s kid this was certainly an eye-opening moment. Especially considering I was a fresh alumnus of a university that lay at the heart of this problem. To avoid diving into a rant on a topic I could write a whole article about, let me summarise some of McGill’s actions in response to pro-Palestinian student organisations, protests, walk-outs and finally encampments.
Permanently severed all ties with the Students in Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), the only pro-Palestinian student-run organisation established in 1999. SPHR was actively engaged in opposing controversial policies through student mobilisation, as well as organising educational and cultural initiatives to amplify Palestinian voices.
Hired the private security agency SIRCO to remove and destroy the student-led encampment in McGill’s campus. McGill resorted to a private firm after the Quebec Superior Court rejected their injunction request thus forbidding them to use the police.
McGill President Deep Saini urged local police to intensify efforts (he phrased it as “do more”) to suppress the student-led protests, escalating tensions and fuelling violent encounters with the police on campus.
Private Money in Public Institutions
Similar to that of student protests in universities, the existence of private money in public institutions is not new, especially in North America. Since 1990, the average Canadian undergraduate tuition has increased by 159 per cent (after accounting for inflation) representing over 40% of all revenue earned by universities in 2015. This rise in tuition has come in conjunction with a rise in mega donations which seek to, through the universities’ eyes, fill in the financial gaps created by insubstantial government funding. Indeed, in just the last five years, McGill Universities along with the University of Queens and Toronto have received individual donations of $100 million or more. Whilst many donations claim to be contributions to culture initiatives or centres for important research, the lack of transparency provided by universities with regards to the strings attached to these donations means the public doesn’t know to what degree the donor has been given control over employees or academic processes.
Considering that maintaining Israel’s favourable public image often aligns with the interests of powerful figures—a reality that should surprise no one considering Canada’s historic stance on the issue—the disconnect between student and faculty perspectives and actions taken by public institutions becomes all the more apparent. This disparity reflects a broader pattern: the long history of wealthy individuals influencing organisations and institutions through donations or the threat of withholding them. Such practices deeply undermine the fabric of public institutions, eroding their core mission of amplifying student voices—especially those who participate in mobilisation efforts or activism.
No matter your stance on Palestine or Israel, I think we can all agree on the vitality in ensuring absolute transparency of where private funds are being directed in a university. Public institutions have to provide an escape, a safe haven to the politicised and corrupt political system we have all become so accustomed to.
Public Opinion on the Issue
Public opinion on the Israel-Palestine issue varies but tends to lean more critical of Israel. A study conducted by the National Post earlier this year (by this year I mean 2024) revealed that, among the 68% of participants who responded to the statement 'Israel is committing a genocide,' 45% completely agreed, while 23% disagreed. While there tends to be some agreement on condemning Israel’s actions, Canadians appear to be slightly more divided about how Canada should relate to Israel. This confusion is expected considering many Canadians have never had to question their loyalty or views of Israel until very recently, where even the mainstream media started reporting on the atrocities occurring in Gaza and the West Bank.
Where Canadians find reconciliation is with external institutions. This very much seems to be the Canadian way stemming from the individual all the way up to the government level. While there is a belief that something is wrong and we should change it, we’d rather offload this duty to an external body in whom we trust. Long before October 7th, in September of 2020, a poll conducted by IJV concluded that 84 % of Canadians supported the notion that the ICC should investigate Israeli officials accused of war crimes or other alleged human rights violations. The same same year, another IJV survey co-sponsored with two other advocacy groups found that “three out of four Canadians want their government to oppose Israel’s annexation of large parts of the West Bank, while almost half support the use of sanctions”. The current lack of consensus on how Canada should respond to this increasingly polarising issue can be attributed to the ways media outlets and influential state actors frame the debate on Israel-Palestine, reducing it to a binary choice: pro-democracy or pro-barbarity. This has pushed people to either staunchly defend their respective cause or instead, simply dissociate from politics as a whole. Indeed, almost 1 in 2 Canadians – as of the most recent poll in June 2024– don’t know or seem to have an opinion about the conflict between Israel, Hamas and Palestinians in Gaza.
It would seem then that those who take interest in this conflict tend to agree with the opinion that Israel must be looked at through the same lens as other nations and be held accountable for the crimes it has committed. However, the average Canadian either is not interested in the conflict or has lost faith in the political system to position themselves with regards to Israel’s increasing genocidal efforts to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. I believe, however, that the strong public support for the ICC, combined with Canada’s longstanding commitment to the normative and structural pillars of international law, suggests that the recent ICC decision could have a profound impact on public institutions, as it starkly exposes the blatant hypocrisy of supporting both Israel and the International Law.
Journalists: Are you serving your public?
As discussed, money and power undeniably paint part of the picture when considering Canadian complacency with regards to Palestine. However, the issue goes beyond who is controlling strongholds of public influence and policy, to the ones who are on the ground reporting on it. By on the ground I mean at home, ofcourse, or at the office, sitting on a comfy chair with a hot cup of tea ready to report on, or better yet totally ignore, an ongoing genocide occurring in Gaza & the West Bank.
Naturally, as I’m sure you are all aware by now, on the ground in Palestine, as a journalist, means almost certain death, with the ICJ reporting that over 75% of all journalists killed in 2023 died in Gaza. More recent data shows at least 217 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7th. With each death, a story, a family, a dream. A dream that, as we enter 2025, seems to continuously dwindle in the bleak prospect of anything changing for a Palestinian trapped in a land that the world has decided no longer belongs to them.
I reference an Al Jazeera article Know their names.
Ayat Khadoura
November 20, 2023
"We are human beings like everyone else in the world. We had many big dreams. But unfortunately today our dreams are that if we were martyred, we would be martyred as one body, that people would recognize us, and not be dismembered and put in a bag.
Our dreams have become that we would not hear the sound of bombing.
We never imagined that we would reach this stage and live such a life without the most basic necessities of life.
There are things we cannot talk about. Sometimes this war will end, and who will live will tell people what happened to us, what we lived through."
Ayat Khadoura, a freelance journalist and podcast presenter, was killed along with several family members in an Israeli air strike that targeted her home in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza.
I discuss this not to dilute the coating of guilt I and many others are sure to feel when confronting such horrendous realities from within our peaceful yet complicit existence, but to express the sheer disgust I feel when reading articles and opinion pieces by journalists who seem to live in a world of denial.
With Trudeau stepping down, I find myself reading articles from the Free Press and various other media outlets discussing the damning legacy he has left behind regarding his handling of anti-Semitism in the country. I sit here, on my kitchen counter, observing how journalists with vast audiences in influential news outlets are focused on criticising Trudeau for failing to, as Deep Saini put it, do more to denounce and put down university protests and other collective calls to action. They claim he has allowed anti-Semitism to seep into every level of Canadian life and accuse him of not doing enough to support Israel as the Jewish safe haven that it is.
And then I tell myself: maybe rich millionaires and corrupt politicians are not the problem. Maybe the issue lies with journalists in Western democracies who fail to acknowledge the blatant hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness inherent in promoting a perspective so one-sided.
How can one discuss anti-Semitism without also addressing Islamophobia—an increasingly pervasive phenomenon since October 7th, visible at all levels of Canadian society? This bias is evident in the way the conflict is reported, with mainstream news and avid Zionists often blatantly ridiculing pro-Palestinian sentiment as nothing more than a pro-terrorist agenda. Even if we were to achieve a level of balanced, humane reporting, how can we discuss these incidents in the same breath? How can we equate the experience of a Palestinian, bound to a land bombed daily—not by choice but by circumstance—with that of an Israeli, who makes a plethora of daily choices, whether it’s entering Gaza with armoured vehicles and the newest, most advanced military equipment or traveling across continents to visit family in Berlin?
The way we have used, manipulated, and discussed this disparity in agency and freedom exemplifies the complete and utter failure of our media outlets and its employees—yes, I’m talking about journalists. Instead of acknowledging the very clear current and historical power dynamics at play in the conflict, they use this lack of agency to propagate a perspective that satisfies the status-quo, a reality that has been totally manufactured.
It is not the topic of anti-Semitism that I find absurd, but rather the way it is repeatedly weaponised to misdirect the conversation. Instead of focusing on those truly suffering as a consequence of others' actions, the discourse often diverts attention away from where it is most urgently needed. The word is used with ill-intentions.
There is no need to take my word for it. I am not Muslim nor Jewish, Arab nor Israeli. On my final comment on anti-semitism I will quote Norman Finkelstein, an American political scientist and activist who was born to Jewish Holocaust-survivor parents, when discussing how the use of the term anti-semitism has changed in-order to support a certain prerogative that is tied with a political agenda. It takes place in an interview, where he asked if he feels about rising anti-Semitism in the wake of this conflict. He starts off by comparing what the word means now, compared to what it used to mean.
“When you talked about anti-Semitism, it meant does it affect your job opportunities? Does it affect your access to higher, certain institutions of higher education? Does it affect where you're going to live? Does it affect negatively your interactions with the law? That's what antisemitism meant. They were quantifiable, palpable, lucid expressions of this phobia.
I reference this not to undermine the legitimate fears that Jewish communities undoubtedly feel in the face of real acts of anti-Semitism, such as the alarming neo-Nazi rallies in November of this past year, or any other violent actions or demonstrations against individuals because of their religion. Rather, I aim to redirect the discussion toward a perspective that is too often ignored in today’s conversations about hate—one that isn’t largely manufactured and repeatedly tied to criticism of an apartheid state (according to a growing number of Jewish scholars), but instead focuses on the measurable effects of this hate.
When analysing the quantifiable, palpable, and lucid expressions of this phobia, it becomes undeniable that the historic restriction of movement and agency faced by Palestinians, coupled with the staggering loss of life endured by those whose only crime is living in a land occupied by the settler-colonial project of Israel, demands a higher degree of sympathy and urgency. This is not about diminishing one group’s suffering but about ensuring that the conversation centres on the full scope of injustice in a way that addresses the disproportionate realities on the ground.
So… Where do the ICC's arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant place Canadians and Public Institutions in relation to Israel?
Stepping into 2025 brings a degree of hope—but it’s a hope that cannot coexist with complacency. I believe change is inevitable, but the timeframe in which it unfolds depends almost entirely on you. By "you," I mean the university student, the activist, the journalist, the creative, the engineer, the mathematician. The stark yet humbling truth we’ve come to understand—especially throughout 2024, if not earlier—is that money and power will always be prioritised over public interest.
And yet, there are glimmers of progress. International institutions like the ICC are beginning to steer the conversation toward more meaningful and representative spaces. However, the way information flows to the public continues to hinder transparency and truth, fostering distrust of the ‘other’ and creating an echo chamber that entrenches problematic viewpoints or discourages meaningful engagement. It is filtered top-down through mediums shaped by specific perspectives, prejudices, or lived experiences—each transforming the narrative in subtle but significant ways. We all do this, myself included, as I acknowledge through this very article.
The purpose of this piece is not solely to cast shame on the professionals who hold immense spheres of influence and yet fail to be honest—honest with themselves, and with the people whose opinions they shape. Though, admittedly, that is a sentiment I hope resonates. The true intent here is to urge all of us to engage in deeper critical thinking, to question, counter, and actively fight against those who control the keys to communication within our political and social environments.
Do this in whatever way you find most suitable—just do more — as Saini would say.
With the stepping down of the problematic and significantly insignificant Trudeau, and the soon to be end of Biden's genocidal legacy, we are witnessing the inevitable failure of governments and leaders who claimed to represent voices, perspectives, and values that were never truly heard or seen during their time in power. I would not describe this as the fall of the left, as I do not believe these individuals ever genuinely embodied leftist principles. Instead, they used the association with leftist ideals as a veneer to advance the interests of the greedy and powerful.
This failure has cleared the path for figures who unapologetically, but authentically, articulate anti-immigrant, nationalist, and conservative sentiments: right-wing populist leaders.
Yet, amidst this political decay, institutions like the ICC rise above these corrupt structures, earning the trust of Canadians and others worldwide. The ongoing airstrikes on Gaza, which result in the daily deaths of Palestinian children, aid workers, journalists, and doctors, may suggest that the ICC’s decisions have thus far been inconsequential. However, for Canadians—and for those in the United States, Europe, and Argentina—there is now something to hold on to, something that more closely aligns with the truth.