Canada's Craven Foreign Policy

Canada Fails to Reject Israel's Plan for "New Middle East" with Palestine Erased from the Map

– Margaret Villamizar and Hilary LeBlanc –

Ottawa, October 29, 2023

At a time the peoples of the entire world, including Canadians and Quebeckers, are denouncing the crime of genocide Israel is committing against the long-suffering Palestinian people, official Canada stands exposed as a thoroughly dishonest champion of human rights, peace and any other claim it makes in the name of a so-called rules-based international order. Canada's attempts to create a moral equivalence between the Palestinian resistance and what Israel is doing have no other aim than to conciliate with what Israel is doing. Most recently, Canada raised no objection to the provocative speech delivered on September 22 by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the General Debate at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Netanyahu presented his vision for a "New Middle East" which he accompanied by holding up two maps. The first map showed what he said was Israel in 1948. The second map represented what he called “The New Middle East.” It was impossible to miss that what stood out about the maps Netanyahu held up was that both presented Israel devoid of Palestine altogether, showing it covering the entire geography of historic Palestine. There were no demarcations to indicate the existence of any Palestinian territory -- either in 1948 at Israel's creation with the partition of Palestine into separate Arab and "Jewish" states, or in Netanyahu's vision of a new Middle East.

On the first map Netanyahu held up, bearing the title “Israel in 1948,” only Israel was labelled, with none of the countries surrounding it named. His explanation was that at the time of its founding Israel was "a tiny country, isolated, surrounded by a hostile Arab world." The second map, which he said represented "The New Middle East," had six other countries labelled, with whom Netanyahu said Israel had so far made peace: Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco -- the latter four most recently through the Abraham Accords in 2020 which he said was accomplished with the help of the United States. Now a peace deal with Saudi Arabia was all that remained to clinch the "new Middle East" he envisioned, Netanyahu said.

Map of 1948

Netanyahu's present day Middle East

Map with red line indicating trade routes into Europe

Of course all that is now shattered with the peoples of all those countries protesting en masse the crimes Israel is committing today. Netanyahu's speech nonetheless confirms what the U.S., Canada, Britain and other countries which are supporting Israel in its attempt to kill all Palestinians and deprive them of their homeland once and for all are defending in the Middle East. Netanyahu provocatively declared that this "new" alignment of countries with Israel as the hub would not only deliver prosperity but increase the prospects of making peace between Israel and the Palestinians. In the most cynical fashion he declared that when Palestinians "see that most of the Arab world has reconciled itself to the Jewish state, they too, will be more likely to abandon the fantasy of destroying Israel, and finally embrace a path of genuine peace with it."

The unspoken but very clear implication was that "peace" with the Palestinians means their acceptance of the permanent extinction of their sovereign rights as a people and the seizure and occupation by Israel of all their remaining territory. Of course, what Netanyahu described as the "new alignment of countries with Israel as the hub," is the trade, security, communication and energy corridors the U.S. is doing its utmost to develop in that strategic region of the world based on its own striving for hegemony against the new alliances being established by the majority of the countries of the world which reject U.S. destructive hegemonic designs.

Canada raised absolutely no objection to this "vision for a New Middle East," clearly designed to create a bulwark against the rights of the people of the entire region, the Palestinians first and foremost, so as to protect U.S. imperialist interests. Now, less than a month after Netanyahu delivered this speech, Israel is engaged in a campaign of genocide which the entire world can see seeks to empty the northern part of the Gaza Strip, turn its population into refugees once again and then annex that land as part of their plan for a Greater Israel. They are now doing the same with all of Gaza as well as the West Bank. And Israel is defended to the hilt by the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and other old colonial powers who partitioned Arab lands after World War I and created borders by carving up territory and putting certain tribes into power to suit their own predatory interests.

It is a game plan that the resistance of the Palestinian people and of others both excluded from and included in Netanyahu's delusional "new" Middle East are rebelling against. The cunning of history is such that the outcome of the grand Zionist illusions will not be determined by Israel's killing power, backed by the U.S. and now also Canadian Special Forces, but by the Palestinian Resistance and the peoples of the world who are demanding justice for the Palestinian cause. No matter how hard those who seek to conciliate with Israel's crimes in the name of high ideals try, blaming the Palestinians will not wash.

Excerpt from Speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
at 2023 UN General Assembly

Below is an excerpt from the speech made by the Israeli Prime Minister at the United Nations General Assembly on September 2, 2023 in which he speaks about his plans for a "New Middle East."

[...]

There is no question. The Abraham accords heralded the dawn of a new age of peace.

But I believe that we are at the cusp of an even more dramatic breakthrough – an historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Such a peace will go a long way to ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. It will encourage other Arab states to normalize their relations with Israel. It will enhance the prospects of peace with the Palestinians. It will encourage a broader reconciliation between Judaism and Islam, between Jerusalem and Mecca, between the descendants of Isaac and the descendants of Ishmael. All these are tremendous blessings.

Two weeks ago, we saw another blessing already in sight. In the G20 conference, President Biden Prime Minister Modi and European and Arab leaders announced plans for a visionary corridor that will stretch across the Arabian Peninsula and Israel. It will connect India to Europe with maritime links, rail links, energy pipelines, fiber optic cables.

This corridor will bypass maritime checkpoints, or choke points rather, and dramatically lower the cost of goods, communication and energy for over 2 billion people.

What a historic change for my country. You see, the land of Israel is situated in the crossroad between Africa, Asia and Europe. And for centuries, my country was repeatedly invaded by empires passing through it in their campaigns of plunder and conquest elsewhere. But today, as we tear down the walls of enmity, Israel can become a bridge of peace and prosperity between these continents.

Peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia will truly create a new Middle East.

To understand the magnitude of the transformation that we seek to advance, let me show you a map of the Middle East in 1948, the year Israel was established. Here's Israel in 1948. It's a tiny country, isolated, surrounded by a hostile Arab world.

In our first seven years, we made peace with Egypt and Jordan. And then in 2020, we made the Abraham accords – peace with another four Arab states. Now look at what happens when we make peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The whole Middle East changes. We tear down the walls of enmity. We bring the possibility of prosperity and peace to this entire region. But we do something else.

You know, a few years ago, I stood here with a red marker to show the curse, a great curse, the curse of a nuclear Iran. But today, today, I bring this marker to show a great blessing, the blessing of a new Middle East, between Israel, Saudi Arabia and our other neighbors.

We will not only bring down barriers between Israel and our neighbors, we will build a new corridor of peace and prosperity that connects Asia, through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, to Europe. This is an extraordinary change, a monumental change. Another pivot of history.

[...]

To view a video of the full speech, click here.

This article was published in

Volume 53 Number 10 - October 2023

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/M530101.HTM