Interview with Norman Spector: 'The war has been transplanted into Canada'
Norman Spector was chief of staff to then-prime minister Brian Mulroney, Canada’s envoy to both Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the mid-90s, and later publisher of the Jerusalem Post. From his prominent perch on the X social media platform, he is now a commentator and media critic. He spoke to Rob Roberts, editor-in-chief of National Post, via text on the eve of the second anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel:
Q; Norman, I’ve just left an October 7 commemoration at a Halifax synagogue and I’m not sure I can adequately summarize what I heard, but it is at least in part this: Jews feel alone right now. That the brief moment where it seemed antisemitism was on the wane, that moment had passed and that something far, far worse has replaced it. And that Canadian Jews know they have allies, but that it’s not nearly enough. They can only rely on themselves. We’ll get into the reasons, but how does that compare to what you’re seeing and feeling?
I’ve just come from brunch with Gentile friends I’ve been seeing for years. We were sitting outside on a sunny Victoria day discussing many issues including Trump, Eby vs. Smith and the Israel-Hamas war in between patting the splendid Labrador at the next table. So, for me, not that much has changed on a day-to-day level, but I understand that’s not the case for Jews in Toronto, Montreal etc. and as is true for Jews in London, Paris etc. as well as at universities in the U.S. since October 7.
Q: Are you suggesting I misread the mood, or something else?
I’m probably not the right person to ask that question. I’m a product of Jewish day schools and speak Hebrew and know Israel pretty well, but I’m a retired early Boomer having already been to university and having already made my career and living in a fairly small city with a fairly small Jewish population, not religious and don’t belong to a synagogue etc. So for me personally not that much has changed. But I’m not oblivious to what’s going on across Canada and around the world.
Q: What do you make of what’s going on in Canada? And what would you attribute it to? October 7 has had a profound effect on Israel’s standing in the world and on Jewish Canadians. Early on in the war, Parliament actually adopted a motion drafted by the Globe and Mail and moved by Elizabeth May advocating that the two issues be kept separate, but it got little attention (I think it was adopted by unanimous consent without a vote at the end of the day with few MPs in the House and I doubt many people know about it). But obviously it has not been successful!
Q: I’m embarrassed to say I can’t 100 per cent tell if you’re kidding. You gotta be.
See — I told you few people know about this! So the war has been transplanted into Canada, fortunately in a much less violent manner, and as it’s dragged on Israel has been increasingly losing in public opinion in most if not all Western democracies.
For domestic political reasons, Netanyahu framed it as a response to atrocities — rapes, hostages, etc. — by a barbaric enemy rather than the latest chapter in a century long existential war over a small territory between two peoples, which is how previous wars were framed. But his government’s opposition to two states itself precluded telling it like it is, and the longer the war went on the worse the deaths and destruction in Gaza looked compared to the atrocities and the more wind the pro-Hamas forces had in Canada to direct their animus against Jewish Canadians.
Israel had a war to fight — and the blowback on Jewish Canadians was not central or maybe even part of Netanyahu’s calculus.
I think things may have been different had Israel been truthful in framing the war (which I understand it couldn’t be).
It’s telling that this is happening in all Western democracies, including the U.S.
Another reason Israel is losing the war for public opinion is that the longer it’s gone on the more the divisions within Israel and among diaspora Jews have become evident. Bibi was unpopular before the war and foreign media have been eating up the stories of political survival being his motivation and the irony is that the hostages have come back to bite him in the ass domestically and with Trump.
So the media, too, framed it following Bibi’s lead rather than the truth — and the longer it went on the worse it got for Israel.
Right from the start we had this big debate over whether Hamas was a terrorist organization, as opposed to what it was truly all about.
It was late in the day for example that (Irwin) Cotler said that Hamas was not only a terrorist organization but an antisemitic, genocidal terrorist organization.
Deborah Lyons did not invoke the IHRA definition until the late in the day.
And neither did the Government of Canada, which had adopted the IHRA definition, cite it.
At one point (Justin) Trudeau said in French that he was a Zionist who believed in a Palestinian state too — but it took months until it was reported in English.
So as Israel’s standing declined with it losing the PR war, pro-Hamas forces were emboldened and here we are.
Q: You don’t think Israel was always behind the eight ball in terms of public opinion? That maybe a lot of the news media and almost all of academia and whatever forces control social media algorithms were always going to line up against the Jewish state? That decades of indulging “Israel Apartheid Week” and critical race theory framing of the conflict softened the West up for Hamas’s narrative?
Certainly, the tragic scenes coming out of Gaza, where Hamas was using civilians as human shields, didn’t help Israel’s cause. But I’m not sure I see Israel’s emphasis on these vital young people slain at Nova, or the murdered and kidnapped peaceniks from the kibbutzim, as an error.
In previous wars, Israel had wide support because it was seen as the little guy fighting for its survival. Also, they were shorter. But I’ll give you the role that settler colonialism etc. played. But that too would have been mitigated had the war been framed as being about two states, “one Jewish, one Arab” between the river and the sea as in the Canadian inspired UN partition plan.
I don’t discount the atrocities as being horrific — simply saying that the longer the war went on the more they were outweighed by the nightly scenes out of Gaza, and the TikTok phenomenon amongst younger people.
Q: Let’s talk about Canadian domestic politics. We could talk for hours about the choices made by Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre — in terms of political strategy, in terms of principles, in terms of the impact on the debate on Canada. We’d certainly have a different Mideast policy if Trump hadn’t decided to throw the election to the Liberals.
No doubt about that. Carney has a bigger problem holding his coalition together on this and the death of the NDP leading to a two-party system in Canada has been vastly exaggerated. But I think the Conservative too would be better off for the war to end and the focus being entirely on their economic issues.
Q: Do you see principle or cynicism in Canada’s decision to recognize, sort of, a Palestinian state? I was struck by how Mark Carney framed it as a punishment for Israel, not through the lens of support for Israel and demanding the Palestinians take these important steps by a firm date. That felt like domestic politics to me.
The various leaders were responding to domestic public opinion. Carney’s first announcement was worse in that the elections were in 2026 and the recognition now, but they kind of adjusted before the vote to distinguish between it and normalizations. But basically it was performative and Trump quickly eclipsed them with some really creative diplomacy. I think even Carney recognized how weak the first position was.
Q: As we speak, anti-Israel activists at at least two Canadian universities are reportedly planning demonstrations to celebrate October 7. The Concordia event is described as a “October 7 Rally” in one of the online pamphlets I saw on X. It’s my sense that this is precisely why Jews feel so alone. Not only that such rallies are happening in Canada but that authorities aren’t intervening in much of this kind of stuff. Police are famously bringing demonstrators coffee!
Yes, that’s an excellent example of what’s been happening in Canada (at a university formerly known for a future Canadian senator and a Bermuda politician involved in a computer being thrown out a window!).
Had such demonstrations in Montreal and elsewhere from the start been labelled pro-Hamas rather than pro-Palestinian, police and other law enforcement agencies might have acted differently, since Hamas has been declared a terrorist organization under Canadian law (though Adil Charkaoui would have continued to benefit from the Criminal Code defence). And had Irwin Cotler spoken out earlier and often with his definition of Hamas being an antisemitic, genocidal terrorist organization, some of the antisemitism we’ve seen in Canada might have been mitigated.
Q; Where does this go next, do you think?
Kier Starmer in the U.K. seems to have woken up to the physical threat to the Jewish community since the Manchester synagogue attack, although I may be giving him too much credit.
What happens next here? Does a potential peace deal defuse things in Canada?
I don’t know if I think it will. But I also don’t know if the peace deal has a real chance of success.
Is Canada capable of taking the threat seriously?
There will be no peace in the Mideast until both peoples elect governments that have campaigned on two states for two peoples — “one Jewish, one Palestinian” as in the 1947 partition plan — but there can be an end to this war. Starmer is now facing a serious challenge from Farage, but I’m not sure Poilievre will ever take that road — though immigration is certainly on the agenda right now thanks to him. All Canadians regardless of political stripe starting with Carney should be grateful to him for resigning Trudeau so thoroughly that he could not un-resign as did his Dad in 79! Both Israelis and Palestinians need elections and the results will have a major influence on how events unfold in Canada.
For better or worse (mostly the latter), the Mideast conflict has been transported to Canada with Jewish Canadians now on the back foot and increasingly divided in support for Israel.
Q: Divided in support for Israel, or for Bibi and the war? Are you even confident that an Israeli election bounces Bibi? That guy has 11 political lives and counting …
It’s by no means certain that Bibi will lose next time out.I think a new government that at least mouths support for two states will calm unease among Jewish Canadians.
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