Benjamin Netanyahu condemns Mark Carney over Gaza comment at rally
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday for his response to a protester’s comments on Gaza.
Mr. Carney had just taken the stage at a rally in Calgary on Tuesday evening when a protester shouted: “There is a genocide happening in Palestine!”
As the crowd jeered, the Liberal Leader replied: “I’m aware, which is why we have an arms embargo.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Carney said that he hadn’t clearly heard what the protester said. On Thursday, he said he would leave it to international courts to determine whether what is happening in Gaza amounts to genocide, adding that he would never politicize the word.
The Israeli Prime Minister called on Mr. Carney to retract what he called an irresponsible statement.
“Canada has always sided with civilization. So should Mr. Carney,” Mr. Netanyahu wrote in a post to the social media platform X on Thursday.
“Instead of supporting Israel, a democracy that is fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the one and only Jewish state.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters have disrupted every one of Mr. Carney’s public events this week as he has been campaigning for the April 28 federal election.
Israel’s war in Gaza began in October, 2023, when Hamas fighters killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 50,800 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry, and reduced much of Gaza to ruins.
In January, 2024, Ottawa stopped approving new permits for the export of military goods to Israel. Critics noted that existing arms exports permits were still allowing the shipments of defence products.
But in September, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced Ottawa had suspended 30 permits that had been issued before January to ship military goods to Israel.
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
