Israel's slaughter of aid workers will continue unabated.
The world has decided not to care.
One year ago, seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen were targeted and murdered by the Israeli military over the course of three successive drone strikes.
Of those seven, one was Jacob Flickinger, a dual citizen of America and Canada, born and raised in the province of Québec. But neither President Joseph Biden nor Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did anything material to bring justice against Jacob’s murderers.
And one year later, with new leaders for both nations, nothing has changed…because neither Canada nor America wish it to change. Israel continues to slaughter medics and aid workers through repeated and systematic military activity, and both countries continue to provide the military equipment to enable this rampage.
In the early morning of March 23rd, Israeli forces in southern Gaza murdered eight Palestinian Red Crescent Society paramedics, six civil defence rescue workers, and one UNRWA employee.
The Israeli government initially lied, claiming that the medics did not identify their vehicles with emergency signals, but this was proven false when PRCS uncovered mobile phone footage recorded by one of the murdered medics.
Despite evidence that the fifteen men were executed one-by-one, with reports that at least one victim had their hands bound, Israel’s report deemed the matter merely a “professional failure”, and refused to recommend any criminal charges or declare any violation of the IDF’s code of ethics.
Furthermore, the report stated that claims of the fifteen men being executed “are blood libel”, an atrocious abuse of the term to justify an actual slaughter of innocent people.
Obviously, both the United Nations and the PRCS firmly rejected Israel’s report. Their staff were executed, in cold blood, a blatant war crime which in a just world would send all involved directly to The Hague.
But we don’t live in a just world. Most of my readers live in Canada or the United States, two countries with extreme levels of complicity in supporting Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.
Canada falsely claims to be imposing an arms embargo on Israel, while shipping artillery propellant to the Israeli military through the United States. When you see the corpses of Palestinian children, blown apart by artillery, do not let yourself forget that we did this.
Meanwhile, America has let go of any pretensions after exchanging Biden for Trump, and takes glee in their contribution to the genocide. The guns will flow, the blood will flow, and the slaughter shall continue unabated. The Yankee cheers at the horror they unleash, while the Canadian pretends they are better by hiding it.
Excuse me if I’ve grown cynical, but Israel has shamelessly engaged in this behaviour for decades, not just during this war. We’ve all seen Waltz With Bashir, but nobody seems to care that we’re on the fifth or sixth sequel by now.
The world simply got together and decided that IDF war criminals will not face justice. ICC arrest warrants remain unenforced by supposed signatory states. Impunity emboldens the Israeli military, and the war crimes will only become more and more blatant as time continues.
If Canadians want me to stop being cynical about them, they can vote differently in this election. When you cast your ballot to elect an MP in your riding, go to VotePalestine.ca/Candidates and pick one that has endorsed the platform of a full arms embargo.
But until the Canadian people elect a government that actually does something to help Palestine, I’m going to keep being cynical about all of you.
Because Israel keeps murdering aid workers, and none of you care enough to do something about it.
Thanks for this. Good work! Of course as you well know it’s not only aid workers. Photographers, doctors, journalists…the record has been set on a long list of those murdered. In the end it’s people and children, a horrific number of them. We will never be forgiven for not stopping this, we will never rest for being accomplisses.