What Makes States Go Nuclear?

By Bill Fletcher Jr

July 9, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

“Baker Shot”, part of Operation Crossroads nuclear test by the United States at Bikini Atoll in 1946. Public Domain.

Nuclear nonproliferation requires national sovereignty; states must believe that they can preserve their security without nuclear weapons. Where international law is respected, and powerful states can be constrained from attacking weaker ones, the incentives for nuclear proliferation decline. Where these conditions disappear, the logic of nuclear deterrence becomes increasingly compelling.

This is the dangerous lesson being taught by our current era.

The Trump regime’s attacks on Iran, its threats against Cuba, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and numerous other examples have done immeasurable damage to the notion of nuclear nonproliferation. If you know there is a continuous danger of aggression from a great power, why not have a few A-bombs in your arsenal? North Korea’s determination to develop nuclear weapons, for example, makes grim strategic “sense” in a world where agreements mean nothing and there is no way of enforcing even the basics of international law.

As we enter an increasingly dangerous era, our movements must forge a common understanding of the relationship between nuclear nonproliferation and national self-determination. Only by defending both can we begin to rebuild an international order in which countries no longer believe that their survival depends upon possession of the bomb.

The Foundations of Nuclear Nonproliferation

The battle around the issue of nuclear nonproliferation began at nearly the moment that the first atomic bomb was tested in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1945, but certainly in the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapons spread from the US to other countries, and were factored into military planning, though it took decades for much of the global military community to finally accept that the strategic use of nuclear weapons could not win a war.

The world coming to the brink of nuclear war in October 1962, with the Cuban Missile Crisis, alerted humanity to how quickly events could unfold and lead to global disaster.Various forms of nuclear nonproliferation agreements were developed after much of the scientific community united with mass anti-nuclear movements to change the popular narrative regarding the survivability of nuclear war—that is, to make clear that humanity would not survive it.. Splits within ruling circles also contributed towards these agreements.

Military establishments attempted to circumvent many of the restrictions on nuclear war through the sophistry of tactical nuclear weapons, i.e., lower-grade nuclear devices that could, allegedly, be utilized on the field of battle. Much of the world paid less attention to this threat as such discussions were sanitized.

An Unequal Nuclear Order

Nuclear nonproliferation, however, has never been an across-the-board set of equitable agreements. The US and, later, the USSR (followed by Russia), laid claims to the permanent possession of nuclear weapons. Over time, other countries joined the “club,” including Britain, France, China, India, and Pakistan. And then there were those that joined the “dark web” version of the nuclear community, such as Israel and their ally, apartheid South Africa , who would not acknowledge possession of nuclear weapons nor sign the nuclear non-proliferation agreement (at least, in the case of South Africa, until apartheid was defeated).

The early 1990s brought with it two interesting developments. The first was the newly independent Ukrainian government disinvesting from nuclear weapons and, literally, turning their weapons—as residue from the Cold War—over to the Russian Federation. The second development, on a very different note, was the escalating allegations that certain countries, particularly Iraq and North Korea, were either in possession of nuclear weapons or were on their way to possessing them.

Much of the discussion, at the time, revolved around nuclear nonproliferation and the threat from allegedly rogue states that might entertain using such weapons for strategic or tactical reasons. In the US media, fear was inflamed about the alleged danger of nuclear missiles being able to fly from Iraq and/or North Korea, potentially hitting US targets. Ironically, when probably the greatest danger of a nuclear exchange was between India and Pakistan—both of which admitted to possessing stockpiles of nuclear weapons—little global attention went towards the denuclearization of the Indian subcontinent and, instead, to a focus on alleged rogue actors.

Rather than any exploration as to whether and why Iraq, North Korea, and later Iran might have any interest in nuclear weapons, the focus in the global North—and particularly within the US—turned towards the alleged insanity and aggressiveness of the respective leaders of those countries and the supposed ease with which they might decide, willy-nilly, to push “the button” to ignite a nuclear conflagration.

The Incentives to Go Nuclear

The 2003 war against Iraq, the current war against Iran, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with the threat of war against Cuba, should render a more sober discussion on the motivations of smaller nations when it comes to nuclear weapons.

Not only was the US wrong in falsely arguing the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003, but they created a dilemma, particularly for smaller nations, which we have been living with ever since. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had been a strange ally of the USA. Within a matter of weeks after Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the US and Iraq became enemies. Iraq suddenly became the target of US allegations regarding nuclear ambitions. As we all know, a war then ensued. Was the lesson that the Iraqis should have developed nuclear weaponry? Was the lesson that friendship between nations, even friendship between toxic administrations, was irrelevant?

When Ukraine became independent of the USSR in 1991, Russia recognized Ukraine’s borders. In 1994, in exchange for an agreement that Russia would never invade or threaten Ukraine, the Ukrainians turned over their nuclear arsenal. In 2022, Putin’s Russia carried out a massive invasion of Ukraine. Was the lesson that Ukraine should never have turned over its nuclear weapons?

In 1962, the USSR provided Cuba with nuclear missiles for the purpose of self-defense against US aggression. The world came very close to war. The Soviets withdrew their missiles in exchange for the US withdrawing missiles from Turkey and an understanding of no military attack on Cuba. In 2026, in clear violation of international law, the Trump administration began strangling the Cuban people and threatening an armed invasion. Is the lesson that Cuba should have developed weapons of mass destruction?

The history of the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea offers an alternative example. Regardless of how one views the government of the DPRK, their possession of nuclear weapons has been a real factor in how countries around the world weigh whether it’s wise to attempt regime change. Given the extent to which the DPRK fears an armed and possibly nuclear assault by the US and the Republic of (South) Korea, their development of nuclear weapons is quite understandable, even if one disagrees on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. After all, as the saying goes, just because one is paranoid does not mean someone isn’t out to get them.

Particularly in the post-Cold War period, the guard rails on both nuclear proliferation and national aggression are unraveling. Where no international accountability exists to protect nations under armed threat, taking the direction of weapons of mass destruction becomes completely logical, if at the same time horrific. One need only look at the US/Israeli war against Iran following Trump’s destruction of the Obama administration-led international treaty with Iran regarding nuclear weapons and power, combined with the Israeli intent to keep western Asia in complete turmoil. Topping this, during negotiations between Iran and the US, Trump decided, twice, to initiate armed conflict. Is the lesson that Iran needed nuclear weapons?

Toward a Stronger Movement for Peace and Justice

To a great extent, at least in the US, there has been a strange space or wall between movements and efforts against nuclear proliferation, movements against war, and movements to defend the national sovereignty of peoples and states under threat by imperialists or national bullies. These movements occasionally overlap but they do not seem to include the same people. The reality of the current world situation is that there is an actual and practical overlap in the issues and, therefore, there must be an overlap in response.

Thus, at a critical movement such as this, opposition to nuclear weapons and the need for nuclear free zones—as is desperately needed in western Asia and on the Indian subcontinent—must be linked to larger matters of national sovereignty and the right of nations to settle internal matters in the absence of foreign interference. We certainly should have learned this lesson in 2003 in the context of the Iraq War, but many of us looked at it too narrowly and focused on the arrogance and aggression of the US alone, not recognizing the longer-term implications of the invasion. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the US/Israeli attack on Iran, the stakes have heightened and the desire for a nuclear counter-threat to aggression appears to become more reasonable for those facing assault.

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Bill Fletcher Jr

Bill Fletcher Jr (born 1954) has been an activist since his teen years. Upon graduating from college he went to work as a welder in a shipyard, thereby entering the labor movement. Over the years he has been active in workplace and community struggles as well as electoral campaigns. He has worked for several labor unions in addition to serving as a senior staffperson in the national AFL-CIO. Fletcher is the former president of TransAfrica Forum; a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies; and in the leadership of several other projects. Fletcher is the co-author (with Peter Agard) of “The Indispensable Ally: Black Workers and the Formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, 1934-1941”; the co-author (with Dr. Fernando Gapasin) of “Solidarity Divided: The crisis in organized labor and a new path toward social justice“; and the author of “‘They’re Bankrupting Us’ – And Twenty other myths about unions.” Fletcher is a syndicated columnist and a regular media commentator on television, radio and the Web.

No Country on Earth Fully Respects Workers’ Rights, and It’s Getting Worse

By Pete Dolack

July 9, 2026

Source: Systemic Disorder

“Union Unity,” Digital, ChatGPT, 2024.

Class warfare continues to be waged incessantly. And that war’s offensives continue to be more intense. In just the past year, the world’s working people have seen more attacks on the rights of free speech and assembly, more attacks on civil liberties, more arrests and imprisonments, more refusals to engage in collective bargaining with unions and more technology used to monitor, discipline and silence workers.

None of this new, but it is getting worse. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has issued its 2026 Global Rights Index report, and has been the case in past years, the annual report makes for grim reading. Once again, no country on Earth fully protects workers’ rights.

In past years, there were only nine countries that met the qualifications for the best category, “sporadic violations of rights,” defined as where “Violations against workers are not absent but do not occur on a regular basis.” That was the case for the 2023 and 2022 reports. This year? Only eight countries were found to be merely “sporadic violations of rights.” Those countries are Austria, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Uruguay, with Uruguay newly promoted to this level from a year ago.

Before we dip into the details, the larger picture is alarming. And the advanced capitalist countries, you won’t be surprised to know, are no exceptions. “In Europe and the Americas, workers’ rights are suffering an alarming decline. Both regions registered their worst average country rating since the Index began in 2014, and the increasing influence of the far right is putting workers and unions at risk in countries such as Argentina and France – two out of four countries to be downgraded in 2026,” the ITUC said in its report. Nor are the reasons behind these developments a mystery. “This year’s results reinforce the ITUC’s view that we are witnessing a global erosion of democratic principles – a ‘billionaire coup against democracy’ – funded by the rich and delivered by far-right and authoritarian leaders,” the report said. “As a snapshot of the violations of workers’ rights, the 2026 Index exposes a pattern that the powerful would rather keep hidden: the systematic weakening of democracy through attacks on workers, unions and collective bargaining. From repression of strikes to the erosion of legal protections and the criminalisation of unions, these are not isolated incidents but part of a broader strategy to silence dissent and entrench inequality.”

Fully half of the world’s national governments launched attacks on the rights to free speech and assembly, and half also arrested or detained workers, the highest total yet. Workers in three-quarters of the world’s countries had their right to union organizing impeded, also a record high, and 80 percent of countries restricted the right to collectively bargain. Worse still, 87 percent of countries violated the right to strike.

For the past decade, the number of countries that exclude workers from the right to establish or join a union, that violate the right to collective bargaining, that violate the right to strike, that arbitrarily arrest and detain trade union members, and that deny or constrain freedom of speech and assembly have all risen.

The global rise of hard right governments has gone hand-in-hand with the deterioration of workers’ rights. Argentina, where President Javier Milei has carried out his promise to impose the harshest variety of austerity that he can get away with, achieved the unprecedented “accomplishment” of falling in the ratings for two consecutive years. Argentina is now classified in the ITUC survey as a 5 rating, the worst category, representing the worst offenders where workers “have effectively no access to rights.” The ITUC lists Argentina has one of the world’s ten worst. “Milei has led a staunchly anti-union agenda since coming to power in 2023, undermining basic workers’ rights, civil liberties and union activity,” the Confederation reports. “Workers and unionists face systematic abuse and the shrinking of civic space. … Union offices, including the headquarters of the glassworkers’ union, were infiltrated and vandalised.” High union officials have fled the country after a police roundup. “Employers in Argentina engage in union busting and exploitative practices with impunity,” the report concludes.

In France, which also saw its rating decline, there is a “sustained deterioration of workers’ rights, an increasingly hostile political atmosphere, and incrementally regressive government policy since nationwide protests against pension reform deeply shook the political landscape in 2023.” Furthermore, in an atmosphere of the government attempting to impose regressive labor policies, “more than 1,000 Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) activists have fallen foul of state and employer crackdowns and a spate of violent attacks by far-right groups.”

And what of the two countries that love to claim their defense of democracy is unwavering and endlessly point fingers at other countries? The United Kingdom was rated as a “regular violator of rights,” a ranking of 3, the middle of the five categories. That was actually an improvement from a year earlier, with the ITUC crediting the outgoing Starmer administration for “repeal[ing] excessive restrictions to industrial action introduced in the previous Conservative government’s 2016 Trade Union Act.” And the United States? Once again given a rating of 4, the category for countries that have “systematic violations of rights,” the second worst ranking.

“In 2025, Trump stripped collective bargaining rights from more than a million federal workers across more than 30 agencies — perhaps the biggest act of union busting in the nation’s history,” the report said. “The move, reserved in the past for emergencies, was portrayed by the Republican administration as being in the interest of national security. It means entire departments, such as the Departments of State and Justice, and even the Food and Drug Administration, are excluded from this basic right.” The ITUC also cited Trump leaving the federal labor arbitration body, the National Labor Relations Board, without a quorum so that no cases brought by unions can be heard, as well as imposing an intimidating environment for immigrant workers, the excessive force used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and arbitrary arrests of union leaders. “The harm caused by these militarised enforcement practices extends well beyond these high-profile cases, as hundreds of other workers and trade unionists have been arrested and deported or detained in life-threatening conditions without charges or due process,” the report said.

The Global Rights Index ranks the world’s countries from 1 to 5, with 1 the best category, denoting “sporadic violations of rights,” defined as where “Violations against workers are not absent but do not occur on a regular basis.” Those are the aforementioned eight countries. (These are green on the report’s maps.)

Rating 2 countries are those with “repeated violations of rights,” defined as where “Certain rights have come under repeated attacks by governments and/or companies and have undermined the struggle for better working conditions.” Countries with this rating include Australia, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. (These are yellow on the report’s maps.)

Rating 3 countries are those with “regular violations of rights,” defined as where “Governments and/or companies are regularly interfering in collective labour rights or are failing to fully guarantee important aspects of these rights” due to legal deficiencies “which make frequent violations possible.” Countries with this rating include Belgium, Canada, Chile, France, Mexico, South Africa and Switzerland. (These are light orange on the report’s maps.)

Rating 4 countries are those with “systematic violations of rights,” defined as where “The government and/or companies are engaged in serious efforts to crush the collective voice of workers, putting fundamental rights under threat.” Countries with this rating include Brazil, Greece, Israel, Peru, the United States and Vietnam. (These are dark orange on the report’s maps.)

Rating 5 countries are those with “no guarantees of rights,” defined as where “workers have effectively no access to these rights [spelled out in legislation] and are therefore exposed to autocratic regimes and unfair labour practices.” Countries with this rating include Argentina, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea and Turkey. (These are red on the report’s maps.) In addition, there are countries with a 5+ rating, those with “No guarantee of rights due to the breakdown of the rule of law.” The dozen countries listed here include Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria and Yemen.

The ITUC determines its ratings by checking adherence to a list of 97 standards derived from International Labour Organization conventions. Those 97 standards pertain to civil liberties, the right to establish or join unions, trade union activities, the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike. As a self-described confederation of national trade union centers, it says it represents 191 million workers in 169 countries and has 340 national affiliates.

Outside the scope of the International Trade Union Confederation’s report is the ability of workers to even have a job. Unemployment statistics notoriously greatly understate the number of people out of work and ignore altogether those with part-time work who need a full-time job. Even those lesser known statistics, such as such as the U-6 in the United States and R8 in Canada, that reveal higher numbers because of a more expansive definition of counting unemployment than the standard measures, undercount. One estimate of the true rate of un- and under-employment is 24.3 percent, calculated by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity. The International Labour Organization estimates that 2.1 billion workers are employed informally, far fewer than those with regular work. The ILO notes that “Informality is typically associated with lower job quality due to limited access to social protection, rights at work, workplace safety and job security.” And all this at a time when the gigantic sums of money shoveled into the pockets of billionaires and other capitalists is so high that there is not enough outlet for investment or other productive use, and instead the money is shoveled into financial speculation — the volume of trading in currency (foreign exchange), stocks, bonds and their derivatives exceeds the size of the global economy in 10 business days.

As we yet again have cause to note, class warfare is intensifying and remains decisively one-sided. For how long?

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This article was originally published by Systemic Disorder; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.Email

Pete Dolack

Pete Dolack is an activist, writer, poet, and photographer. He has been involved in various activist organizations, including Trade Justice New York Metro, National People’s Campaign, and New York Workers Against Fascism, among others. He has authored the books "It’s Not Over: Learning from the Socialist Experiment," which examines attempts to create societies outside of capitalism and explores their relevance to the present world while seeking a path to a better future and "What Do We Need Bosses For: Toward Economic Democracy," which analyzes past and present efforts to establish systems of economic democracy on a national or society-wide basis. He authored the book "It’s Not Over: Learning from the Socialist Experiment," which examines attempts to create societies outside of capitalism and explores their relevance to the present world while seeking a path to a better future.

 

Israel rejects reports of humanitarian crisis in Gaza

09.07.2026

Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa

Reports of a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip are "extremely misleading," a high-ranking official of the Israeli government organization responsible for the occupied territories said on Thursday.

The situation for Palestinians in the territory has improved considerably, the COGAT official said in a press interview.

He pointed to a COGAT report issued on Thursday that states that around 1.78 million tons of food entered the Gaza Strip between October 2025, when the ceasefire went into effect, and June 7.

This was well above the guidelines of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), he said. 

The official noted that food prices had fallen by 72% in the Gaza Strip since September 2025 and that water provision, at 40 litres per person per day, was double the World Health Organization guideline.

The information could not be independently verified.

A WFP report from June 9 referred to high and fluctuating food prices as jeopardizing food security in the region as well as access to adequate and varied nutrition.

Military operations, air attacks and population displacements were restricting humanitarian operations, it said.

UN children's organization UNICEF said in a May 29 report that drinking water distribution was reaching up to 1.5 million people. 

It added that 82% of families remained water-insecure and that up to 70% were unable to collect the minimum of 6 litres per person per day for drinking and cooking.

The COGAT official said Israel was "committed to facilitating the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip" in coordination with its international partners, despite challenges.

He referred to "Hamas's continued obstruction of humanitarian operations," accusing the militant organization that controls Palestinian areas in the region of poor management resulting in large amounts of food being spoiled and destroyed.

The COGAT official also said that Hamas was imposing taxes and fixing prices in a way that distorted market conditions.

• UNICEF report
• COGAT report

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

 

Date set for first Palestinian election in more than 20 years

09.07.2026, 

Photo: Wolfgang Kumm/dpa

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has set November 28 as the date for the first parliamentary elections in more than two decades, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Thursday.

Abbas issued the date by decree, calling upon Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip to vote.

At the last election on January 25, 2006, the Islamist Hamas organization won a majority with 74 seats in the 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council.

A year later, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip following violent clashes with Abbas's Fatah movement. After that, the parliament was largely paralysed. The Palestinian Constitutional Court eventually dissolved it at the end of 2018.

Whether and under what conditions the election can take place remains uncertain. Israel has regarded East Jerusalem as part of its indivisible capital since its annexation in 1967 and has banned official political activity by the Palestinian Authority (PA) within the city. The annexation is largely not recognized internationally. 

In the war-torn Gaza Strip, Hamas remains the main political actor.

The long-overdue presidential election is to be held in the first quarter of 2027. 

Abbas, now 90, won the last election on January 9, 2005. His regular four-year term ended in 2009. 

Since then, presidential elections have repeatedly been postponed or cancelled.

• WAFA report

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

 

Israel Engaged in Illicit Foreign Interference in Canada: Report

Government officials have not responded to questions about a troubling new report published in May by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East

By David Gray-Donald

July 8, 2026

Source: The Grind Magazine

Image from Consulate General of Israel

A new report details how the Israeli government is covertly and illicitly trying to influence public affairs in Canada.

While countries regularly lobby one another, four cases of Israel’s actions crossed a line because they were done in secret, according to Canadians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East (CJPME), the advocacy group behind the report.

First, in October 2023, the Israeli consulate in Toronto secretly commissioned an opinion poll that “manipulated Canadian public opinion about Israel’s war on Gaza,” according to an investigation by The Breach. The poll used “completely and totally loaded questions,” another pollster commented, to sway results in support of Israel’s bombing of Gaza and to make it appear that Canadians were concerned about pro-Palestine protests. The poll was conducted by high-powered Toronto PR firm Aurora Strategies Global without disclosing it was paid for by the Israeli consulate. A select group of Liberal MPs received the results before the poll was published and discussed how to bring it to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s attention.

Second, Israel’s Ministry of Justice secretly hired the high-powered Torys law firm in Toronto in 2019 to intervene in a legal dispute over Canada’s labelling of wines from illegal West Bank settlements, according to The Breach. After the intervention by Torys, the government appealed an earlier court decision, fighting the courts in Israel’s favour.

Third, Israel has secretly funded a series of propaganda trips to Israel for politicians and journalists. This includes trips organized by the Ontario-based Exigent Foundation, which took place as recently as 2025, according to a PressProgress investigation.

Fourth, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs funded a secret campaign targeting Canada and the U.S. by making websites for fake groups, along with hundreds of fake social media accounts powered by ChatGPT, according to Haaretz and the New York Times. The campaign spread pro-Israel and Islamophobic messages, portraying Muslims as a threat to the West. Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister at the time, Chrystia Freeland, said this was unacceptable.

The report also raises the alarm about how Israeli ministries and leaders are doxxing Canadian activists and openly calling for restricting Canadians’ right to protest.

Canadian media ignores report, government staying quiet

While concerns around foreign interference from Russia, India, China and other nations receive significant attention from Canadian politicians and media, the new CJPME report was not covered by Canadian media nor discussed publicly by Mark Carney’s Liberal government.

International outlets The Cradle and Middle East Eye published articles about it.

CJPME tells The Grind they sent the report to Parliament’s Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development for their ongoing study on Global Impact of Transnational Repression. The subcommittee acknowledged receipt of the report, according to CJPME, but it has not yet been added as a brief to their website.

Global Affairs Canada did not answer The Grind’s questions for this article, telling us to ask Public Safety Canada instead. Nearly two weeks after receiving questions, Public Safety sent generic comment, which did not answer our questions. Their only update was that “Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) assessed that the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage against Canada remains unchanged.”

Neither Public Safety nor Global Affairs Canada would say whether the government had received and read CJPME’s report.

Public Safety suggested asking the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) for comment. The NSICOP had published a report in 2024 titled Foreign Interference in Canada’s Democratic Processes and Institutions. The report does not mention Israel, but CJPME notes Israel may have been one of the three countries that was redacted in Chapter 2 of the report, titled “Key Threat Actors,” which identified the six “primary perpetrators of repression against ethnocultural communities in Canada.”

In February 2023, the Toronto Star reported that, according to a Conservative Party source, Canadian security agencies had flagged Israel as one of six countries potentially engaging in influence activities, along with China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran. While the U.S. wields enormous influence over Canadian affairs in overt ways, Canada’s security agencies haven’t raised the alarm about covert American influence, at least not publicly.

NSICOP would not comment directly on the CJPME report, saying the committee only comments through its official reports. A spokesperson also said they would not reveal the names of the redacted countries in their 2024 report.

The NSICOP Secretariat suggested contacting the Privy Council Office (PCO) for comment. The PCO, which provides non-partisan support to the prime minister and cabinet, responded to say they had nothing to add to the comments Public Safety sent The Grind..

Why the lack of concern?

“The CJPME report is authoritative, provocative (in the best sense of that word) and demands a fuller investigation by the Canadian government itself,” Michael Lynk tells The Grind by email. Lynk is an emeritus law professor at the University of Windsor and is a former UN Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967.

To date, Lynk says, “the Canadian government has not taken the issue of foreign interference coming from Israel seriously, certainly not to the scale of its apparent interference.”

Asked why Israel seems to get off easy, Lynk states that “no other foreign state has as effective a domestic lobby in Canada advocating on its behalf and closely coordinating its advocacy with this foreign state.”

“There is no Russia lobby or a very effective China lobby in Canada,” Lynk continued. The organizations in the Israeli lobby,” which are separate from the Israeli government, “are not doing anything illegal, but they are advocating for a state that is in multiple violations on international law and hundreds of UN resolutions.”

“I cannot think of another country that stands so firmly on the wrong side of international law, yet continues to enjoy normal relationships with Canada,” he added.

Lynk believes the government should take the report seriously, but doubts it will. This, he says, will be “the litmus test on whether the mild criticisms that the Carney government has issued towards Israel over the past year have any real substance or are meant as eyewash.”

The Israeli consulate in Toronto, Torys, Aurora Strategies Global and the the Exigent Foundation did not respond to The Grind’s requests for comment.

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This article was originally published by The Grind Magazine; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.