Academics, activists fight to bar ex-Israel PM Bennett from entering Canada

The Toronto venue where former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett is scheduled to speak this week describes itself as “awe-inspiring”. That might complement the many weddings and other festive events the venue hosts.

A vocal group of Canadians, however, hardly see Bennet’s talk as reason for celebration.

Addressing this, Canada-based human rights organisation, Just Peace Advocates, hosted an online panel discussion entitled “Why Naftali Bennett should be barred from entering Canada”.

The discussion featured individuals who have played a close or direct role in a recent legal application, filed with a Canadian federal court, to prevent Bennett–former Israeli Prime Minister–from entering Canada: Khaled Mouammar, a Palestinian-Canadian and signatory of the application; Shane Martinez and Nicholas Pope, lawyers representing the applicant parties, consisting of Mouammar and other Canadian groups; and Michael Lynk, law professor at the University of Western Ontario and former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

Whether Bennett will be allowed in Canada, specifically for a sold out event he’s scheduled June 14 to speak at Toronto, is unclear. The application seeks to compel Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Marco Mendocino, to make a written decision on the matter.

He has not yet done so.

As Lynk pointed out, the Canadian government and Mendocino cannot remain silent. Instead Mendocino, acting on behalf of the Canadian government, is bound to make the written decision.

This in part means taking seriously that Bennett has potentially committed war crimes, by encouraging and promoting the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements. Such expansion has displaced generations of Palestinians from their homes, since at least 1967 in the West Bank and elsewhere.

Moreover, under its Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Canadian government–as Martinez confirmed–is obliged to “deny entry to individuals who are reasonably believed to have been involved in or complicit in war crimes” let alone someone who has actively taken steps to undermine the Palestinians.

A 2022 report by Peace Now cites evidence to justify such a belief, stating that “the Bennett-[Yair] Lapid [Israeli] government…issued tenders for the construction of 1,550 housing units in the settlements, compared to an annual average of 1,343 housing units per year in the [Benjamin] Netanyahu [Israeli] governments (an increase of 15 percent)”.

Pope tells TRT World that Mendocino could not be penalized financially for not making a written decision but he can be held legally accountable for not being able to stop Bennett’s visit.

Mendocino’s silence on the question of whether Bennett is allowed to enter Canada can be an “implicit” indication that the Israeli leader can come.

Yet at least in Canada such decisions are legally weak.

Perhaps that is the silver lining. In overturning Mendocino’s implicit decision a Canadian court would be upholding Canada’s express commitment to not condone or accommodate war criminals.

This is hardly strong consolation, especially for Palestinians who are most and immediately affected by the war crime of expanding illegal Israeli settlements. Honouring their right not to be displaced by such expansion involves the international community, including Canada, being proactive in discouraging such criminality.

Prohibiting war criminals–potential or actual–from entering Canada cannot be exempt from this. Doing so, as the panel made clear, is at least to indirectly encourage war crimes.

Likewise, not barring Bennett amounts to Canada conveying the message: “we will not discipline you for unnecessarily harming Palestinians”. Even if Canada’s legislation says the opposite, this surely doesn’t free the country from blame. It rather implicates it in Israel’s ongoing violations of the Palestinian people.

For Moummar, the illegal expansion of Israeli settlements is similar to the Nakba of 1948, during which at least 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes by armed Israeli aggression. Filing the application against Bennett is part of countering that devastating legacy.

“I went through [the Nakba] as a six-year-old boy with my grandmother and elder brother,” said Mouammar, “and I don’t want the same thing to happen to the 3.4 million Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank”, who are at risk of being further displaced by the expansion.

Allowing Bennett into Canada gives validity to Israel’s illegal acts.