Find IDF Soldiers has elicited a significant backlash. But there’s been little discussion of the website’s indictment of the legal exceptionalism given to Israel in Canadian political culture.
Find IDF Soldiers lists 85 Canadians who have fought in the Israeli military. It has been covered by The Jerusalem Post, Ynet, Jewish Onliner, Jewish Press, Israel Hayom, i24, The J, National Post, Jewish Breaking News, Jewish News Syndicate, Jew In The City, Vernon Morning Star, Haaretz and others. A Canadian Jewish News article headlined “Canadian veterans of the IDF profiled by an anti-Israel website are considering a class-action lawsuit” quotes the father of one of those listed who is campaigning to shutter the site. Author of The Wake Up Call: Global Jihad and the Rise of Antisemitism in a World Gone MAD, Israel Ellis told Canadian Jewish News, “‘How do we get this thing shut down as quickly as possible?’ That took me on a bit of a journey,” he said, and was soon contacting ‘every politician I know’—and law enforcement officials, too. ‘Many people were talking, and by the morning the site was shut down.’”
The reaction to the site, which is back up, is another example of the authoritarian tendency of Zionism. If it bothers their genocidal, supremacist, sensibilities it must be illegal and shuttered.
But there’s a far stronger legal case to be made against those named on Find IDF Soldiers and those who induce Canadians to join the Israeli military. Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act states, “Every person who, either before or after the coming into force of this section, commits outside Canada (a) genocide, (b) a crime against humanity, or (c) a war crime, is guilty of an indictable offense and may be prosecuted for that offense.”
Every Canadian who has fought in Gaza over the past 16 months should be charged. Many of those who fought in Israel’s occupation force in previous years should also be investigated for possible participation in war crimes.
Part of why Find IDF Soldiers has elicited such a reaction is that it was launched as the Hind Rajab Foundation pursues Israeli soldiers in Brazil, Belgium and elsewhere. The foundation has also filed complaints against 1,000 IDF members and officers to the International Criminal Court.
Find IDF Soldiers also highlights the failure of Canadian officials to enforce the Foreign Enlistment Act, which states that “any person who, within Canada, recruits or otherwise induces any person or body of persons to enlist or to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state or other armed forces operating in that state is guilty of an offense.” Various schools, community institutions and wealthy individuals induce Canadians to join the Israeli military. In 2020 a formal legal complaint and public letter signed by numerous prominent individuals were released calling on the federal government to investigate individuals for violating the Foreign Enlistment Act by inducing Canadians to join the Israeli military. The Trudeau government effectively ignored the public letter and legal complaint even though it was published on the front page of Le Devoir. Then Justice Minister David Lametti responded by simply saying it was up to the police to investigate. For their part, the police refused to seriously investigate.
More evidence has come to light recently. The Canadian Jewish News quoted a parent saying “a quarter of the class” at Toronto’s Bnei Akiva high school join the Israeli military. The school encourages students to make the move in a series of ways.
Hellbound and Down 