About the Episode

Bob Rae is a former Ontario Premier. He’s a former interim Liberal Party leader. He’s a Rhodes Scholar and at this moment he is Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Bob Rae has a private Twitter account in which he says his opinions are his own. They do not represent the government and never has that been more true than right now. A tweet the whole world is retweeting and liking from Bob Rae who says ”Need to understand the systematic, brutal cruelty of Hamas. Any organization like this has to be destroyed.” These words are attached to words spoken by a volunteer rescuer in Southern Israel, an eyewitness to what Hamas did to men women and children, what Hamas did to babies. The torture and mass murder of Civilians. Bob Rae’s message is that an organizaton this brutal needs to be destroyed.

The government of Canada takes no such position. Scores of Liberal MPs actually want the Prime Minister to call for a ceasefire. Hamas Terrorists struck only two weeks ago today, October 7th, 2023 a day to borrow a former US President’s words will live in infamy. The message that more than 20 Liberal MPs want Justin Trudeau to carry would live in insanity, some would say. Imagine telling the US to declare a ceasefire with Japan two weeks after Pearl Harbor on December 7th 1941 or a ceasefire with al-Quaida two weeks after September 11th, 2001. Canada’s Prime Minister has a political problem on his hands. If the Conservative Party of Canada agrees with Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations and the Prime Minister is found equivocating on the biggest geopolitical event of this year, Canadians may view Poilievre as a better representative of Canadian values than the current Prime Minister. But I am now in the realm of speculation. I don;t know that Canadians want Hamas destroyed. I have no data to support that.

And Canadians may say Yes to the simple question do you want the terrorist organization destroyed but they may give a different answer if the question, Do you want Hamas destroyed even if the military operation to end Hamas may cost the lives of a hundred thousand Palestinians in Gaza? Tough times come with tough questions. This is not a video game. It’s a real war, with real suffering and while Canadians can make judgements about Bob Rae and Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre this war is not about them. But this war that Hamas started two weeks ago with the mass murder and torture and kidnapping of Israeli civilians is not anywhere close to a ceasefire and may not be anywhere close to one a month from now and possibly a year from now. There is no way of knowing today how many countries will get militarily involved in this war. But we do know now that what happened two weeks ago today in Israel, the Israeli equivalent of 15 Nine Elevens, what happened on October 7th, 2023 will never be forgotten – Never.