By Michael Nickerson
Better late than never: a well-worn little bromide we trot out to excuse our cowardice. And being a naturally cowardly species we tend to trot it out with great regularity. We are paralysed by fear of failure, fear of inaction, worrying about how we will be perceived by others, and how we will be sanctioned (be it by family, friends, or the general public). But as long as we eventually get around to whatever it is then no harm no foul. Right?
Well, for all our souls I hope that’s the case, at least as far as responding to recent events in Gaza, in Israel since the Hamas attacks of October 7th, and while we’re at it, the last hundred plus years of middle eastern history. Having not actually been alive for the last century I’m going give myself a pass on that one, but certainly not regarding what’s going on in Israel now. You see on that one I’ve been a seriously gutless little columnist, far too scared of being seen as some Israel-bashing anti-Semite for offering up any criticism of Israel’s current government and its campaign in Gaza. Hell, I can almost sense the hate mail brewing for my having gone even this far.
What shook me out of my lily-livered torpor? Seeing images of starving children, looking for all the world like tiny little aliens, all bones and bloated stomachs, coming out of Gaza. You’d think the sight of mile after square mile of rubble, and the tens of thousands of children who have been buried under it all would have got me moving a little earlier, but apparently some pictures speak louder than others.
But it’s not just me who is hoping that my ‘sorry I missed your genocide’ card will make up for lost time, because apparently those images have been a head-clearing kick in the groin to others as well, including our own prime minister. Yes, Mark Carney has taken a bold step forward, condemning the “humanitarian horror” in Gaza, and announcing that Canada will join the U.K., France, Australia, Portugal and (wait for it) Malta, in officially recognizing a State of Palestine at the UN this September. That should put some fat on those little ones in no time.
Yet even this meagre, and for all practical purposes useless, overture is being met with the anticipated backlash that has kept the world relatively silent until recently. For it doesn’t do well for your polling numbers when you start being viewed as an anti-Jew fascist doing Hamas’s bidding. And to be fair, Israelis and the Jewish community at large have every right to be skeptical of such criticism given the right-wing antisemitism that is still pervasive today, and has been going back not ‘just’ to 1930’s Germany and the Holocaust, but centuries, with European persecution and pogroms. October 7th ripped that societal wound wide open.
If anyone thinks that wound, or the wounds of generations of Palestinians are going to be healed by statehood proclamations then they’re quite nuts, but it’s a sign that the carnage has finally gone too far for the world at large. So there will be calls for another ceasefire, renewed delivery of aid, rebuilding, peace talks and lofty notions of self-determination. Needless to say we’ve been down this road before, though never so catastrophically for both sides, and it seems to quite literally blow up in everyone’s faces time and again. What’s that saying about continually repeating the same thing being a reflection of one’s lack of sanity?
Sadly there are core issues that never seem to be tackled that must be this time around if some notion of “peace” is to become anything more than an intellectual exercise. For instance, everyone is quite right in saying that no lasting ceasefire or renewed peace process can happen with Hamas and its radicalized members having anything to do with it. What we don’t add is that it will also go nowhere while Israel’s ultranationalist right is part of the discussion. Both are violent, racist movements that want the elimination of the other. They must never be allowed to reach their genocidal goals, and should be treated as the terrorist organizations that they are.
But this problem, this war, this wound, is generational. Past attempts at peace have involved a lot of talk with little investment to back it. Where will the money and will to provide education, nutrition, and opportunities come from? It’s not just a case of rebuilding Gaza, but of nurturing and de-radicalizing a people that have seen little hope of opportunity or self-determination. It was the United States that stepped up and de-nazified Germany and rebuilt Japan from the ashes after World War II, creating the peaceful nations that exist today. It’s hard to imagine the current Trump administration doing the same, but that void will need to be filled if peace and stability has any chance at all. We’ll need to join others in filling that void. Whether that means returning to peacekeeping, supporting reconstruction, or investing (both monetary and sweat equity) in business infrastructure and development, Canada needs to answer the call.
And since I’m getting all Pollyannaish here, is it too much to ask that we have reasoned conversations with each other? For if this crisis has demonstrated anything it’s that the few who attempt to discuss the topic do more screaming than talking, shouting than listening, while the rest cower in silence instead of expressing their views in good faith. Better late than never? In this polarized world we can only hope so.
