Walter E. Block
Heather McPherson is an NDP MP who represents the Edmonton Strathcona riding in the House of Commons. She is not a happy camper. What complaint does she have?
She states: “This week [November 9, 2025], I was outraged to learn that a tour of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers was organized across Canadian and American universities, including most recently at Toronto Metropolitan University.”
She is incensed that “It is unacceptable for any institution of higher learning to permit active members of a foreign military force – particularly one currently engaged in genocide, forced starvation, and forced displacement of civilians – to use resources from publicly funded post-secondary institutions.”
But what happened to “innocent until proven guilty?” According to that famous, albeit fictional English barrister Horace Rumpole, this is the “golden thread” that runs all throughout British Justice. No Canadian court has of yet found the Israel Defense Forces anything other than innocent of any offense of which she opines they are guilty. Certainly, that applies to these few Israeli soldiers who have had the temerity to seek to inform Canadian students of their points of view. No Canadian court has rendered such a judgement on any single such individual, let alone regarding the entire IDF organization. Nor, even, would any Canadian court to be competent to rule on any genocide taking place in the 10,000-mile distant Middle East. It is more than sufficient that these soldiers passed muster under Canadian immigration control, and thus have every right to be in this country, as much as she does, herself.
Now genocide is, of course, a per se crime. It is difficult in the extreme to imagine a more serious or atrocious rights violation. It consists of the purposeful attempt to eradicate a significant percentage of an enemy population. Hamas is clearly guilty of this despicable offence against humanity. In its atrocity of October 7, 2023, this terrorist organization mutilated and murdered some 1200 innocent Israelis; they took some 200 hostages, many of whom later perished while in captivity. This is a significant part of the population of only some nine million.
Is the Jewish state guilty of genocide in the aftermath of this Hamas attack? No. Not at all. It is a perversion not only of semantics, but, also, elemental justice, to maintain any such claim. Israel fought a purely defensive war, the goal of which was and still is to ensure that “never again,” will such a disgraceful episode occur.
It cannot be denied that tens of thousands of non-combatant Gazans perished in this war. But this was not intentional on the part of the IDF; rather is was collateral damage that occurs in all wars. It was greatly exacerbated, however, by Hamas, the supposed guardian of the Palestinian peoples. They used these civilians, women and children included, as shields, parking its military hardware in, and shooting rockets from, schools, hospitals and residential areas. This despicable act is something that not even the Nazis engaged in.
As for allegations of starvation, this false charge emanated almost an entire two years ago; it is rendered false by the facts on the ground: full bodied, healthy appearing Gazans have been seen on our television screens ever since then. Starving people do not survive for any such length of time. In any case, since when is it the obligation of a defensive army to feed enemy civilians? Did the Allies undertake any such obligation vis a vis the civilians? Of course not. Israel went way over and above any (non-existent) duty to do just that. Thousands of trucks containing food, water, medical supplies have passed through its borders in a westward direction. Also, the IDF have been extraordinarily careful to preserve Gazan lives. Before bombing Hamas rocket launchers located amongst civilians, it drops leaflets, warning them to depart (Hamas does not allow this, raising the death rate). How many other armies engage in such safeguarding practices? The military of the Hebrew nation does so even at the cost of its own soldiers’ lives. The IDF has a comparative advantage from the air; yet, its soldiers go from booby trapped building to booby trapped building, so as to spare Palestinian live.
As for McPherson’s charge of “displacement of civilians,” they are trespassers on land rightfully belonging to Jews. The latter were in occupation some 3500 years ago, busily homesteading, a la philosopher John Locke, the land now in contention. The Arabs arrived there only a few scant centuries ago.
This NDP member of Parliament is also excited about the fact that Canadian Universities have made a decision to “provide a platform to” members of the IDF. But are not such institutions of higher learning supposed to engage in academic inclusiveness? Are they not entitled to introduce their students to both sides of all controversial issues? We do not hear Heather McPherson when advocates of the Hamas side of this war gain a campus podium from which to speak their piece.
According to this politician “…any individuals in Canada who are suspected of committing such crimes, in any context around the world, must be investigated and, if evidence warrants, prosecuted.” Yes, yes, yes, of course, to be sure. But as of yet such “evidence” has not been forthcoming against any single one of these IDF spokesmen.
Our intrepid socialist continues her whining: “After hearing from student activists, I am alarmed by the events that occurred this week, especially as a number of young people were hospitalized after attempting to interrupt the event that was taking place. The right to protest is protected in Canada.”
We call “Whoa!” on that. Yes, of course, “protest” also runs through Canadian mores and rules like a “golden thread.” But assault and battery do not exactly fit this bill. Our Albertan legislator is perturbed by how these IDF speakers treated those who attempted to cancel their talks with violent disruptions, as occurs all too often on our leftish college campuses. Well it is about time, actually it is long past time that these socialist hooligans be taught a lesson about respect, about responsibility, about allowing the other side, too, to have a little microphone time.
Yes, indeed, “protest” is and should continue to be “protected in Canada.” However, this was not at all a peaceful “protest.” It was an attempt, happily suppressed, to prohibit those invitees of Canadian Jewish organizations from publicly speaking. They were engaged in a “heckler’s veto.” Surely, this is not the sort of thing that should be allowed at Canadian or any other universities.
If this member of the New Democratic Party is really concerned “… that our public institutions never again legitimize or normalize war crimes” then she should use her best efforts to prevent the campus speeches of anyone who favors the side in the Middle Eastern war occupied by Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or any other such terrorist entity, as she herself does. Yes, there are indeed “war crimes” taking place in that unhappy corner of the world. But those who actually engage in them are the enemies of the Jewish state.
Do we support any such muzzling of the bitter enemies of Israel, including this Member of Parliament? We do not. Rather, we side with the John Stuart Mill of his “On Liberty,” who called for widespread free speech, for a hearing of all sides of debated issues.
Sorry, Mr. Block, but your definition of genocide is off the mark. You say it refers to the eradication of “a significant percentage of…a population.”
But what percentage” 10%? 40?
No, it means 100% of a population. Raphael Lemkin constructed the word starting with the Latin “gens” for a people and ending with -cide, as in homicide, fratricide, pesticide, insecticide. It means the extermination of a people.
Lemkin created the word to describe the Nazi project of world conquest during they would find every Jew and murder every Jew, so that in the future there would be no more Jewish people (in both senses, Jewish individuals and a Jewish nation). The Holocaust was unique, as the Jewish people is unique.
@shalbit I agree with you that it should, logically, but Lemkin defined it so broadly that it makes no sense. I googled it:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/coining-a-word-and-championing-a-cause-the-story-of-raphael-lemkin
And making it a per se crime, in which evidence of intent is irrelevant, likewise makes no sense, since intent is the key distinction between homicide, manslaughter, not guilty on account of self-defence or insanity, going back to the Torah and throughout the history of the West. Communist justice makes no such distinction. Hence, the false equivalences such as the accidental death of Gavin Cato and the lynching of Yankel Rosenbaum which made me start to question and challenge the leftist dogmas I had been indoctrinated with and was surrounded by, for the first time, one by one, before my “Great Awakening’ at the start of the 2nd Intifada in 2000.
By the same token, logically, “Jewish and Democratic” should mean, “government of the Jews, by the Jews and for the Jews,” In the spirit of the last line of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address: “That government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth” which was delivered brilliantly by Charles Laughton in “Ruggles of Red Gap” (1935) (inside joke: the actor who plays the character with the pipe he starts out talking to was a famous character actor named Charles Ruggles.) Great film. Another of my favorites I grew up watching. Can be watched streaming on a variety of platforms.
Here’s the scene
https://youtu.be/awsmXerhLqQ?si=25EPrFvA35q0cNsP
but the U.N. Convention does require intent though it includes the language “whole or in part” and is likewise so broad as to make it meaningless.
“Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf
So under this cockamamie definition, causing bodily or mental harm to Hamas can be construed as genocide because genocidal terrorists are a part of whatever ethnic/religious/racial group you want to classify them as belonging to. Same goes for the thoroughly Nazified ethnic Germans of the Sudetenland and East Prussia in 1945, enter Candace Owens, Truly Alice in Wonderland stuff.
I’m reminded of the line from Noel Coward’s song, “Let’s not be Beastly to the Germans,”You can’t deprive a gangster of his gun.” Murdering Jews is the central pillar of their culture, so logically, if you take that away, or when Jews defend themselves, or other minorities from being massacred, eg., Druze, Alawites, Kurds, Christians, that’s Genocide, and only when the Jews do it, see? Hence, ” No Jews, No News.” There’ll be a quiz after class.
The radical Left – which has absorbed and subsumed much of liberalism – there is no centralized “Communist Party” since the ‘50s, or even earlier, though its shell exists, it’s more of an amorphous movement – Calculates Political Outcomes instead of intent. The liberal/left judges oppose the penalty. Hence:
AI Overview
Over a year later and the case hasn’t even been tried yet. At the rate this is going, he might get off with time served for jaywalking. And liberals say polls show the death penalty isn’t a deterrent. Yes, well, if they don’t apply it, I guess it wouldn’t be. Would it?
Not what I was looking for but close enough: AI Overview:
How’s that for an example of predictable outcomes, not to mention Sinwar.
The only nice
thing I have to say about Gavin Newsom is that his
veto was the only thing that kept Sirhan Sirhan from being released.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with Sirhan and advocated his release. Half the Kennedys agreed with him. I remember when he said Covid was engineered not to harm Jews. I don’t think Kennedy is right in the head. That’s a charitable interpretation.
Like McPherson, all these NDPers are permanently “outraged” at just about everything… but not so outraged about the induction of many, if not most, students into supporting terrorists whose only function in life is to kill as many “unbelievers” as possible, in whatever manner they choose, including the McPhersons of the world.
Let’s hope Heather get’s banned from all University Campus for spreading lies.