{"id":9330,"date":"2014-08-11T09:45:57","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T16:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=9330"},"modified":"2014-08-11T09:45:57","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T16:45:57","slug":"politically-speaking-canadas-stance-on-gaza-conflict-troubling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2014\/08\/11\/politically-speaking-canadas-stance-on-gaza-conflict-troubling\/","title":{"rendered":"<em>Politically Speaking<\/em>: Canada\u2019s stance on Gaza conflict troubling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canada\u2019s relevance on the world stage has only been increasing since World War II, for better or for worse. We still have far less sway than the US or the European Union, but on the rare occasion that Canada speaks, people actually tend to listen.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why I thought it was important to mention the Harper government\u2019s current stance on the ongoing conflict in Gaza. In an email circulated to party members and subscribers, the Conservative Party called themselves \u201cthe only party that stands with Israel\u201d and listed several unsavoury labels for anyone who disagrees.<\/p>\n<p>The problem here is the black-and-white thinking. Let\u2019s get one thing clear: not blindly following Israel doesn\u2019t mean one supports Hamas. Hamas are terrorists, and they do not shy away from that label. At the same time, acknowledging Israel\u2019s right to exist doesn\u2019t mean I must support all of their defensive strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli and Palestinian citizens both have the exact same right to life, which is a sentiment not shared by many Israeli and Hamas leaders. Hamas policy is awful, Israeli policy is awful, and the citizens are left to suffer for it.<\/p>\n<p>How many Palestinian mothers and children had anything to do with bringing Hamas to power? How many Israelis signed off on the bombing of UN shelters? It may be politically convenient to brush over the civilian loss of the Conservative\u2019s oh-so-ballsy \u201cstand with Israel,\u201d but Canadians aren\u2019t stupid.<\/p>\n<p>We know that there are two sides to every story. So when the Harper government calls total blind support for Israel \u201cCanada at its best,\u201d most of us at least do a double take.<\/p>\n<p>They say that those who remain neutral in the face of injustice are siding with the oppressor. I\u2019m glad that Canada is sticking up for something. I just wish that something could be security and opportunity for all of the millions of innocent bystanders in Israel and Palestine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canada\u2019s relevance on the world stage has only been increasing since World War II, for better or for worse. We still have far less sway than the US or the European Union, but on the rare occasion that Canada speaks, people actually tend to listen. That\u2019s why I thought it was important to mention the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-august-14-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9331,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9330\/revisions\/9331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}