It seems like possibly, maybe, the countries of the world could be finally willing to consider putting some real pressure on Israel to stop its genocide in Gaza. In a joint statement with the United Kingdom and France, Canada announced that if Israel did not cease its “military operations” in Gaza and its settlements in the West Bank, then the three countries would “not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions.”

While “military operations” is an interesting euphemism for Israel’s deliberate starvation and genocide of Gaza’s civilian population, which is primarily comprised of children, it’s still a fairly significant tone shift—as far as I am aware, this is the first time that Canada has floated the possibility of enacting sanctions on Israel, other than targeted sanctions on a handful of settler extremists last year.

The UK went a step further, suspending trade negotiations with Israel. The European Union also announced that a “strong majority” of its members voted to review the bloc’s trade agreements with Israel, a country which is currently standing trial in the International Court of Justice for the crime of genocide. France has recently been floating the idea that it would diplomatically recognize a Palestinian state.

The masks are off in Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a man who is subject to an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity—predictably responded that Canada, the UK, and France were giving a “huge prize” to Hamas for the statement. He went on to describe his government’s campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza as “a war of civilization over barbarism” and said that he had no intention of backing down on Israel’s now-explicit plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip.

The plans and actions of the Israeli government, though, put the rest of the world’s relatively weak condemnation into perspective. While Canada mulls the possibility of putting “targeted” sanctions on Israel (that is, unlikely to be the general sweeping measures applied to Russia, for example), the Israeli government marches forward in its planned annihilation of Gaza.

High-placed ministers in the Israel government have shown that they have no intention of slowing down the killing. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that government plans on “destroying everything that’s left of the Gaza Strip,” and “conquering, cleansing, and remaining in Gaza.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said that allowing food, medicine, and water into Gaza is a “grave mistake,” and has previously advocated for bombing food aid depots. The deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset, Nissim Vaturi, has called for all adults in Gaza to be separated from children and killed.

Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, has made clear that Israel’s recent decision to allow miniscule amounts of aid into Gaza is about securing sufficient diplomatic cover to finish the genocide. “We need to do it in a way that they won’t stop us,” he said, referring to how even staunch supporters of Israel draw the line at widespread deliberate famine. As of May 20, approximately 14,000 children are at imminent risk of being starved to death by the Israeli food blockade.

The political opposition to Netanyahu inside Israel’s Knesset, with rare exceptions, has mostly taken the line that the government hasn’t gone far enough in its war frenzy. Opposition leader Yair Lapid has recently taken to chastising Netanyahu for not bombing Iran and opening up a wider regional war. Former Knesset member with Likud (Netanyahu’s party) and current chair of the Zehut party Moshe Feiglin, for his part, said that “every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy” and that there is “no other victory” except when “not a single Gazan child will be left there.”

These ideologues, and the government they represent, must be isolated and stripped of their ability to enact violence. We are way past the time for joint statements.

Arms embargoes, sanctions, and other pressure points

Last year, Canada’s parliament passed a non-binding motion, which was proposed as a private member’s bill by the NDP’s Heather McPherson, to “cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel.” The measure, while symbolically useful, was full of holes. Exports that had already been approved—a number which grew dramatically over the past decade, and particularly since October 7—were allowed to continue. 

Companies could also export weapons and components to Israel’s chief sponsor, the United States, and then move them to Israel from there. Most recently, the federal government approved a General Dynamics shipment of artillery propellant—that is, the fuel used to power the explosives that Israel drops on schools, hospitals, and refugee camps—from Canada to the U.S. which will be transferred to Israel afterwards.

Canada has also continued purchasing weapons from Israeli weapons manufacturers, which market their products as having been “tested” on the captive population of Palestinians. Those purchases provide direct material support to the companies which supply the Israeli military. 

Enacting a comprehensive two-way arms embargo against Israel is urgent—one that extends to both imports and exports, and leaves no loopholes that allow Canadian companies to export to Israel via other countries like the United States.

It can’t stop there. An arms embargo is a baseline measure—do not arm a genocide—but Canada’s legal responsibilities for genocide prevention run deeper than that. A few options on the table include:

  • Sanctions: Canada could implement escalating sanctions against Israel. These could begin with targeted sanctions on high-placed members of the Israeli government and “security” cabinet, such as Netanyahu, Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and others, as well as major arms manufacturers like Elbit Systems. Such sanctions could then escalate to Israel’s private sector, up to economy-wide measures similar to those applied to Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
  • Ban IDF recruitment: The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is populated, in significant part, by international volunteers. That includes many Canadians who have chosen to voluntarily go overseas in order to participate in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Canada’s Foreign Enlistment Act already explicitly bans foreign governments from attempting to recruit Canadians into their armies, but the Act is conspicuously unenforced when it comes to IDF recruitment. The Canadian government could immediately begin enforcing the act.
  • Investigate returning soldiers: When a Canadian serves in the IDF and comes home, the Canadian government does not keep track of these potentially radicalized and violent actors—many of whom have gone on to work in the security sector, including policing the Palestine solidarity movement. The government of South Africa has announced that it will criminally charge any South African citizen who serves in Israel’s genocide. Canada could follow its lead, and at minimum investigate their conduct while overseas and charge anyone who could be credibly accused of personally committing war crimes.
  • Suspend the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA): Canada has had a free trade deal with Israel since 1997, and “modernized” the agreement in 2019. The Canadian government has interpreted the agreement as applying not just to Israel, but also to the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. This allows, for example, wine made in illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory to be labelled as “made in Israel.” In the context of a July 2024 ruling by the ICJ, which affirmed that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal, that also means that CIFTA is likely in violation of international law. Suspending the trade deal would be an important step for pressuring Israel’s economy.
  • Join South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ: South Africa has been leading the genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. Many countries, including Canada’s allies such as Spain, Ireland, Mexico, and Brazil as well as dozens of others, have signed onto the case as supporters of South Africa’s position. Canada should do the same.
  • Recognize the state of Palestine: The Canadian government’s stated position on the so-called “Israel-Palestinian conflict” is in favour of a two state solution. Yet the government does not recognize the state of Palestine, unlike over 75 per cent of United Nations member states. Canada should immediately recognize the state of Palestine, as Spain, Ireland, and Norway did last year.

Canada helped end South African apartheid—and can do so again in Palestine

Canada has played a leading role in international campaigns for justice before—and sometimes in unlikely and unexpected ways. 

Shortly after being elected in 1984, the conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney met with South African archbishop Desmond Tutu, a key figure in the movement to liberate the country’s Black majority from white minority rule. Tutu convinced Mulroney—who had long found apartheid repugnant—that Canada, despite not being a superpower, had the capacity to act and shape history. It worked.

Mulroney, not exactly a radical or friend to social movements, worked steadfastly to rally the countries of the world to the cause of South Africa’s Black majority. He helped engineer escalating sanctions against the increasingly violent government of South Africa, and provided a clear moral counterargument against contemporary right-wing leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, both of whom were die-hard supporters of apartheid. 

By the late 1980s, international pressure had turned South Africa into a pariah state. It was under severe sanctions by much of the rest of the world, it had lost a number of wars it had picked with its neighbours in an attempt to expand the territory under white supremacist rule, and it was facing growing internal unrest by the Black liberation movement.

When the apartheid regime released Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990, Margaret Thatcher began pressuring Mulroney to support lifting sanctions against South Africa—knowing that if Canada backed off, much of the rest of the world would as well. Mulroney refused, and held out until the collapse of the apartheid system.

Mulroney, of course, did not lead the opposition to apartheid—that honour can only be bestowed on South Africans themselves, who paid in countless lives during their heroic, decades-long resistance on the road to freedom. But under Mulroney’s leadership, Canada was able to play a key role in the international pressure that contributed to ending one of the most evil systems of the 20th century.

Nelson Mandela called Brian Mulroney to thank him on the day after he was released from prison. He visited Canada four months later, and spoke to parliament on invitation from Mulroney.

This week’s joint letter to Israel—and other moves by world leaders—was a welcome reprieve that, we can only hope, signals the end of the world’s unconditional support for Israel’s escalating atrocities in Gaza, the West Bank, and the entire region. 

As in South Africa, the main forces of resistance to Israel’s system of occupation, apartheid, and genocide come from Palestinians themselves, who have refused to be displaced in the face of Israel’s violence. But just as in South Africa, they cannot be left on their own. Canada should learn from its own history, and take action.