For folks curious about today's Canuck news:

Last fall, Trudeau issued 28.5 million in new permits for military exports to Israel, for classes of material ranging from bombs to vehicle components to electronic equipment and monitoring systems. Canadian parts also get shipped to the US to complete equipment sent by them.

This was a huge uptick for related spending, and it upset Canadians who've in the past protested Trudeau for supplying Saudi Arabia against Yemen. 1/2

https://www.readthemaple.com/trudeau-government-authorized-28-million-of-new-military-exports-to-israel-since-october/

So Canada's decision to block new military funding to Israel isn't an empty gesture; it's responding to a discourse that has not only been going for the last few months, but also for the last few decades.

Canadians tend to be raised on the belief that our legacy is as "peacekeepers", and the bravery of one of us against Rwandan genocide also keeps that myth alive.

But the country has also been part of the world's military actions, too - so there's a longstanding fight over identity here. 2/2

@MLClark I too was unhappy we supplied military hardware to Saudi Arabia; it's a repressive dictatorial/theocratic regime w/ a catastrophically bad human rights record, a toxic state ideology (to the point one could easily argued their principles are the antithesis of ours), & a long history of covertly sponsoring terrorism.

By contrast Israel has a fairly robust democracy, a decent human rights record (certainly no worse than ours), & an ideological base fairly compatible with pluralism...

@MLClark Suffice to say it doesn't appear to me supplying military materiel to the Saudis in any way serves the interests of world peace... especially not if our goal is a pluralistic, tolerant global society.

I do think supplying military materiel to the Israelis, on the other hand, could serve world peace - their current opponent is, after all, an explicitly genocidal terrorist group...

But I'm a tad less idealistic than most in this area - & recognize sometimes victory is needed for peace.

@IrelandTorin

I don't think anything that's happening in Israel under its current far-right government serves peace--and I say that as someone who reads local Israeli news every day.

I also lived through another era where people acted like mass war campaigns wouldn't just radicalize the rest and create new extremists. We saw Taliban scatter and return.

The "total victory" BS from the 2000s echoes in this war. Nobody will "win". We're just enduring atrocity until enough are tired of it again.

@MLClark Their current government's far-right bent is disturbing, I'll grant that.

It is, however, somewhat understandable; people tend to skew right (& warm to militaristic ideals/groups) when faced by hostile actors who preach the complete annihilation of their people. Especially when that kind of thing has been tried before.

I'm not entirely convinced the situations are analogous; for one, it seems the level of radicalization in the Gaza Strip has been extreme for a very long time.