Analysts: Canada's ban on selling weapons to Israel is an indication of Western change and Arab weakness

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Analysts believe that the Canadian government's decision to stop arms exports to Israel was supported by the United States of America, and that it represents a strong message that the Western position has begun to shift in favor of the Palestinian cause due to popular pressure.

The step came after a decision taken by the Canadian Parliament, by a comfortable majority, prohibiting the provision of any weapons to the Israeli army, in a first for a Western country towards Israel.

Commenting on the step, the senior researcher at the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Dr. Liqaa Makki, said that the decision has more moral than military dimensions, especially since Israel’s imports of Canadian weapons are not significantly large.

Makki added - in the program "Gaza... What Next" - that regardless of what Israel imports from Canada, the decision is primarily moral because it came from a country that strongly supports the occupying state and has been considering moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem since 1980.

In addition, it is the first time that a country member of the G7, the European Union, and NATO has announced a halt to arms sales to Israel, even though Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his ruling party are staunch supporters of Tel Aviv, Makki says.

The decision carries great symbolism because it is the first of its kind since the Nakba of 1948, and it will likely have significance in light of the Western shift from the Palestinian issue, according to Makki, who believes that the decision may have been issued with the approval, coordination, or recommendation of the United States.

Remarkable transformation

In this context, the Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, said that the decision is “very important,” because Canada is considered a ally of the United States and is one of the countries in the world most affected by its policy, expressing his conviction that Washington supported this Canadian step.

Therefore, the emergence of such a decision from Canada in particular reflects what the great popular pressure did in favor of the Palestinian cause, according to Barghouti, who believes that the matter represents a turning point that will have repercussions in other countries in the future.

Barghouti believes that the Western shift in favor of the Palestinian position contributed strongly to changing the position of the parties present in the Canadian Parliament and within the ruling party itself, in addition to the gravity of the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, which killed and wounded about 120,000 in the Gaza Strip.

The famine that is devastating the Gaza Strip and the images of children dying of hunger and thousands of patients dying due to lack of treatment have shaken the Canadian position, according to Al-Barghouti, who pointed out that “Canadian fears are also due to the issuance of a decision by the International Court of Justice condemning Israel for committing genocide, which puts them in the category of participants in the crime.

An American slap to Netanyahu

Although the decision will not affect the Israeli army, since Canada does not export lethal weapons to Israel, it will make the Israeli soldier feel like an outcast and raise his fears that the United States will take the same step.

Not only that, the Canadian decision, in Makki’s opinion, “seems to be a slap from US President Joe Biden to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Washington believes has gone too far, which perhaps prompted it to push the Canadians to take this step on behalf of NATO, the Group of Seven, and the European Union.”

Makki pointed to the attack launched by the Democratic majority leader in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, against Netanyahu, which gave Western leaders the opportunity to move freely against Israel.

But Barghouti does not believe that matters have reached this point on the American side and that Washington may have accepted the decision and not instructed the Canadians to take it.

He added, "Canada is not a hostage of the United States, as evidenced by the fact that it took a decision to break the siege on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) and refinance it under the weight of popular pressure, which some doubted would influence Western politicians," he said.

He stressed that the Arab and Islamic peoples must put pressure on their governments in order to push them to change their positions on what is happening in Gaza, stressing that sanctions and isolation are what will deter Israel from continuing its crimes.

Where are the Arabs?

Regarding the absence of any Arab action to deter Israel compared to what Canada did, Makki said that “something has changed in the region during the last decade and has made the Palestinian issue in general less important.”

Makki believes that "a sharp polarization process took place between Iran and the coup leaders and revolutionaries in the region, making the enemy ambiguous to some and distancing people from the central issue of the nation, which was the password for everyone who wanted to win the presidency or carry out a military coup."

Even in Egypt, which is known for its people’s hostility to Israel, Makki says, “The people’s support for Palestine has declined because people are preoccupied with other issues that concern them, as is the case in Syria, whose people say that Bashar al-Assad’s regime killed more of them than the occupation killed in Gaza, and this is all the result of demolishing the idea of ​​the enemy.” ", as he put it.

Makki expressed his surprise at the reluctance of a country the size, strength and stature of Egypt to bring aid into the adjacent sector, stressing that “Egypt is capable of entering everything through the Rafah crossing by force if it wants to.”

On the other hand, Al-Barghouti believes that the issue is not limited to the fact that there is a broad trend that “trades hostility with Iran to justify its complicity with Israel,” adding, “All Arab peoples and regimes should not be placed in one basket because there is a disparity in positions, as evidenced by what the Yemenis did when they were poorer.” Arab countries.

He added that the people's feelings "have not changed towards the issue or the Palestinians, but the problem is that the opinion of the Arab peoples no longer has value due to the absence of democracy."

In addition, Barghouti adds, some rulers “believe that their presence in power depends on an American decision, and some of them were involved in cooperating with Israel in order to remain in power,” stressing that “if the people’s opinion had been responded to, the situation would not have become as it is now.”

Barghouti concluded by saying that things will not remain as they are now, and that many have not learned the lesson of what happened after the Nakba, when a number of Arab political regimes were overthrown, because what is happening now is more severe than what happened in 1948 and will certainly have major repercussions.

Source: Al Jazeera