It is time. It is, in fact, well beyond time. 

The images and information of atrocities streaming from Israel and Palestine – the murders, rapes, bombings, the hostages taken by Hamas, including children – are harrowing and heartbreaking. They demand accountability. 

Canada has a role to play. It should immediately offer its unyielding support to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Palestinian and Israeli figures. 

In 2019, the ICC Prosecutor announced that “war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip”. In 2021, Judges at the Court officially ruled that the Prosecutor had jurisdiction over those areas. The Court subsequently opened an investigation into the situation in Palestine in 2021. 

The Prosecutor’s investigation is not about demonizing or excusing either party. The ICC has shown no bias in its investigation. The Court is mandated to investigate all sides of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, including indiscriminate attacks by Hamas as well as alleged atrocities committed by Israel’s military and government. 

Canada has never fully supported an independent international investigation into atrocities committed in Palestine and Israel. Unlike most other countries and many of its own allies, Ottawa has repeatedly insisted that it “does not recognize a Palestinian state” and therefore that the ICC cannot investigate crimes committed there, whether they be perpetrated by terrorist organizations like Hamas or the Israeli military. Ottawa’s position has left victims in the lurch, communicating clearly that it does not believe they are worthy of justice.

What makes its position especially bizarre is that Canada has been an admirable supporter of the ICC since its creation in 2002. Yet this support ends when it comes to atrocities committed against Israelis and Palestinians. 

Canada also remained silent when Israel – which deeply opposes any ICC investigation into the country – equated the Court with terrorist organizations and mounted a sophisticated campaign to undermine the very existence of the only independent and permanent court capable of investigating and prosecuting international crimes.

While the ICC’s investigation into the situation in Palestine continues undeterred, the Court’s ability to meaningfully deliver accountability would be boosted by Ottawa’s support – as it has been in the context of Ukraine.

Of course, some may say that pursuing justice would frustrate a potential negotiated peace in the Middle East. Such arguments are hogwash. What peace and what negotiations? Justice cannot frustrate peace when peace is not on the table. The atrocities being committed in Palestine and Israel are nothing new. Peace negotiations and the 1994 Oslo Accords – and their touted two-state solution – were supposed to bring an end to these crimes. They have done nothing of the sort. Suggesting that peace should be prioritized offers nothing new. It upholds a status quo of atrocity crimes that is untenable. 

Does this mean that seeking justice will lead to peace? Not on its own. Accountability is not a silver bullet. But justice is an important element to peace, and worth pursuing for those so desperately deprived of both. There is never a wrong time to care about justice and accountability for victims and survivors of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The time to talk about it is always.

We should also reject the grotesque argument that simply because Palestinians have faced decades of illegal occupation and alleged apartheid, that the behaviour of Hamas and other terrorist groups is somehow justified. It is not. The human rights violations, crimes, and well-documented, everyday indignities that Palestinians face do not excuse the atrocities we are seeing today. Hamas’ sadistic atrocities and terror demand justice.

In rightly denouncing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine and Israel, however, many states and their representatives – including from Canada – have refused to acknowledge let alone lend their support behind the one international institution that could prosecute those very atrocities: the ICC.

In a recent op-ed, authors including Irwin Cotler, Canada’s special envoy for preserving Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism, conclude that: “Justice and accountability for Hamas’s continuing heinous aggression, as well as for all those who continue to aid and abet it, is long overdue.” However, the authors would not say whether this meant that the ICC’s investigation should be supported and Cotler has repeatedly stated that he believes the Court cannot investigate or prosecute atrocities in the situation in Palestine.

In contrast, the New Democratic Party (NDP) has emerged as the only Canadian political party to clearly endorse accountability for the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in Palestine and Israel. The NDP’s Foreign Affairs Critic Heather McPherson has stated:

Today we are calling on Canada to do everything in its power to ensure the protection of civilians and respect for international law. Canada must now support international justice efforts by the ICJ and the ICC to investigate war crimes by all military actors in Israel-Palestine. All war crimes, by all parties to this conflict, must be prosecuted.

Hopefully more parties – and perhaps even the government – find the courage and common sense to make similar announcements in the near future.

It is well known but too often ignored that living under constant humiliation makes people turn to violence and committed horrific harms.

In his study on the causes of violent behaviour, renowned psychiatrist James Gilligan wrote: “People resort to violence when they feel that they can wipe out shame only by shaming those who they feel shamed them. The most powerful way to shame anyone is by means of violence, just as the most powerful way to provoke anyone into committing violence is by shaming him.”

We can end the cycle of shame, humiliation, and violence that characterizes life for far too many people in Israel and Palestine. Accountability can help to break that cycle by offering a different outlet, a new channel for victims, survivors, and affected communities that does not rely on further repression or atrocity. 

Canada must support justice. It must support the ICC’s investigation into the situation in Palestine. Anything else exposes hypocrisy and contempt for international justice and basic human rights.

It is time.