House of Commons petitioned to investigate Israeli foreign recruitment inside Canada

Last week, Matthew Green, a parliamentarian for the New Democratic Party in Canada, submitted a petition to the justice minister calling for “a thorough investigation of those who have recruited or facilitated recruiting for the Israel Defense Forces, and, if warranted, lay charges.” The House of Commons petition cites the Foreign Enlistment Act, which forbids recruiting for foreign armed forces “within Canada.”

An MP sponsoring a parliamentary petition suggesting criminality is significant. Yet the Israel lobby groups usually quick to criticize any perceived slight of Israel have stayed silent about a petition noting that “the IDF has shot and injured at least two Canadian citizens since 2015” and “has repeatedly contravened the Fourth Geneva Convention, and illegally attacked Syria and Lebanon.” No press releases, no tweets, nothing. Nor did they bother to offer a comment when the Canadian Jewish News wrote about the parliamentary petition calling for an investigation into recruitment for the Israeli military.

The parliamentary petition is part of a multi-faceted campaign that began in the fall with a formal complaint and open letter signed by Noam Chomsky, Roger Waters, author Yann Martel, poet El Jones, and more than 150 others. Like the petition, the letter called on the federal government to apply charges under the Foreign Enlistment Act against those recruiting Canadians for the Israeli military.

The campaign pushing for an investigation has generated nearly two dozen articles, a response from the justice minister that it was up to the police to investigate, and multiple mass email actions. The aforementioned parliamentary petition has already garnered more than 1,500 signatures, three times the number required to be read in Parliament.

Yet for six months, leading advocates in the Israel lobby, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, B’nai B’rith, and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center have ignored allegations the Israeli consulate and other allied institutions have facilitated joining the IDF.

How to explain their lack of reaction? 

Discomfort with the legal question likely explains their silence. Drawing on information accessible through a simple Google search, the Israeli consulate, United Jewish Appeal of Greater Toronto and Federation Combined Jewish Appeal Montréal have all seemingly violated the Foreign Enlistment Act over the past year and a half.

On several occasions, the Israeli consulate in Toronto has advertised that they have an IDF representative available for personal appointments for those wishing to join the IDF. In 2019 the consulate announced, “an IDF representative will conduct personal interviews at the Consulate on November 11-14. Young people who wish to enlist in the IDF or anyone who has not fulfilled their obligations according to the Israeli Defense Service Law are invited to meet with him.” Subsequently, United Jewish Appeal of Greater Toronto and Federation Combined Jewish Appeal Montréal publicized a webinar last June by Nefesh-B’Nefesh titled “Joining the IDF,” which claimed to offer participants “everything you need and want to know about joining the IDF.”

Additionally, Hebrew Academy, TanenbaumCHAT and other Toronto and Montréal schools have enticed youngsters into the Israeli military in possible contravention of the law. These schools hold performances by Israeli military bands, organize fundraisers for groups supporting “lone soldiers” and celebrate the IDF in other ways. As the kids move through high school, former and current Israeli soldiers talk to them about the IDF, which sometimes appears part of the Israeli consulate’s recruitment drives. A proper police investigation would likely uncover far more evidence.

Nonetheless, it’s exceedingly unlikely anyone will be prosecuted, let alone convicted. There is little political will to do so and no one has ever been convicted under the Foreign Enlistment Act. So, the discomfort is probably not about anyone fearing spending time in jail, rather the bad press that comes from potentially breaking the law.

Tied to this is the ideology underpinning the law. It’s common for governments around the world to seek to deter their citizens from joining other countries’ militaries.

Aside from the prohibition on enlistment, the Canadian government restricts registered charities from supporting other countries’ militaries. Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) guidelines note, “increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of Canada’s armed forces is charitable, but supporting the armed forces of another country is not.”

Promoting a foreign army rests uneasily with some nationalist thinking. In a 2014 interview about Canadians fighting in Syria, prominent military historian J.L. Granatstein said he opposes Canadians joining any foreign military, including Israel’s army: “in my view no one who is a Canadian should be able to enlist in some other country’s military and keep his Canadian citizenship.” Granatstein described further details in an op-ed about the long history of Canadians fighting in other countries’ militaries:

“The Foreign Enlistment Act remained on the books, but it didn’t stop Canadian Jews from fighting for Israel or raising millions of dollars for its support. Ben Dunkelman, who had served with distinction with the Queen’s Own Rifles in Europe, went to Israel in 1948 and led a brigade with great success in Israel’s independence war. Many others did so, including George (Buzz) Beurling, a Royal Canadian Air Force fighter ace and a gentile, who joined the Israeli Air Force as a well-paid mercenary. Beurling died in an air crash in Rome on his way to the Middle East. Many other Canadian Jews served in the major Arab-Israeli wars of the following decades. Others serve in the Israeli military to this day, all presumably in violation of Canadian law.”

Dunkelman, a Canadian officer and WWII veteran who served in Israel’s military in 1948, claimed in his memoir “about one thousand” Canadians “fought to establish Israel.” Other estimates put the number of Canadians who fought in 1947/48 at closer to 300.

More than other Palestine-related demands, the anti-recruitment campaign puts the anti-Palestinian lobby on the backfoot. It’s time to stop Canadians from joining Israel’s occupation force.