Following the inane ramblings of the mad king Donald Trump and the bullshit of the lying liar, the war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, I was impatient for the Canadian address to the recent UN General Assembly. It seemed the moment to take on both bullies in a firm and direct way.
Canada’s address was not delivered by Prime Minister Mark Carney, rather by the otherwise competent and empathic, Foreign Minister, Anita Anand. Judging the vocabulary of the speech, it seemed that though Carney didn’t deliver it, he, or his speechwriters likely wrote it. The omnipresent ‘catalyzed’ ‘rupture’ and ‘resilience’ all found their way into Anand’s oration. It is a government in need of a thesaurus.
Rather than a firebrand dissertation against the rise of autocrats and the attempt to weaken international law, the speech was a mix of flattery, self-congratulation, and trying too hard to be inoffensive, defense of global institutions. Whispering that Canada supports the ICC while allowing a Canadian judge of the court to be financially sanctioned by the Trump gang, is nothing if not cowardice.
Rather than a strong condemnation of Trump’s oil-induced attack on Venezuela, its illegal blockade of Cuba and its Israeli ill-advised war against Iran, Anand congratulated the US on reaching an agreement with Denmark and Greenland to expand US military presence in Greenland. But the agreement, the result of US gunboat diplomacy, may just be the first step to increased American hegemony in the hemisphere. Greenland’s vast mineral wealth and its potential offshore oil reserves may be too much of a temptation for the greedy pig, Trump and the litter of suckling piglets that follows him everywhere.
If Trump decides he wants to open a slew of US military bases in Canada, Anand (Carney) might rue the day that she (he) thought it was such a good idea for Greenland. The wolf may have tricked his way into Mormor’s house, but it’s the dwelling of Little Mark Riding Hood that is potentially in peril.
But it was Canada’s feeble protest against Israeli war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria that was the most disappointing and disturbing part of the speech. When you start off addressing decades of Israeli barbarism in the region by invoking Hamas, you know it’s nothing more than a tame, excuse me if I’ve offended you, slap on the wrist. Airy concern about Gaza and the West Bank and the imaginary two-state solution, is undone by the Hamas canard that placates Israel and by extension its criminal accomplice, the United States.
There is no moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas. From its earliest Herzl, Pinsker, and Rothschild days, the displacement, by violence, if necessary, of the existing Arab population of Palestine was central to Zionism. Hamas was birthed by brutal Israeli occupation, emerging in 1987 as an Islamic fundamentalist alternative to the Palestinian Authority, openly in Gaza and furtively in the West Bank.
Hamas is a reaction to Israeli’s stealing of Arab land in Palestine and the 80 plus year forced incarceration of millions of Arabs in an open-air concentration camp in the Gaza Strip. Israel is the aggressor state. Hamas is the militant response to Israel’s displacement and destruction of their Palestinian homeland.
Israel is the terrorist organization no matter much the Israeli-US driven designation came to be applied to Hamas.
There were other countries, not just Arab nations, that took on Israel without equivocation. Spain, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, and especially Iceland, were forceful in their attacks on Israel and Netanyahu and didn’t genuflect in front of the Israeli altar by leading with Hamas.
The recent rant of the bloodthirsty racist and Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, about waging war in the West Bank and Lebanon similar to how they have destroyed Gaza, lays bare yet again that Israel has no intention of stopping the killing and no interest in implementing the two-state solution.
The pale response to Israeli warmongering that Canada bleated out in the General Assembly carried no real-world weight and was no deterrent to the Israeli horde.
Besides the weak brew Canada offered to the world in its opposition to genocide, it spent an inordinate amount of time in self-congratulation and in lobbying for votes in its bid to be part of UN Human Rights Council in next month’s elections.
I’m not sure the world is best served by voting for a country whose attempts to do something about human rights in Palestine have been thus far more cloy than clout.
If Canada truly wants to be a leading middle power, acting like a supplicant does not inspire confidence and is too much a dainty look to put before the kings.
Paul Heno October 2026
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