"Constructive engagement with the world requires of Canadians that we broaden our sense of the facts and overcome the West’s traditional callousness on the question of Palestinian life."
October 13, 2023
More inclusive coverage of this Mid-East crisis is in the interest of all Canadians. By the time Hopper’s article was published, more Palestinians than Israelis had already been killed during this crisis. Yet his article treats local support for Palestinians and for Israelis with a stunning double standard. Former Progressive Conservative prime minister Joe Clark has long urged Canadians to see past this old tunnel vision. “The Israel-Palestine conflict,” Clark observes, “is most contentious and dangerous in the immediate neighbourhood of the Middle East. However, it is also a lightning-rod issue between developed nations and the developing world, where many see the Palestinians as a symbol of broader exclusion.”[i] Constructive engagement with the world requires of Canadians that we broaden our sense of the facts and overcome the West’s traditional callousness on the question of Palestinian life.
Dan Freeman-Maloy
Director of Strategic Operations
References:
[i] Joe Clark, How We Lead: Canada in a Century of Change (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2013), 80.