This article originally appeared in the Line. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Dan Pujdak, May 21, 2025
Stepping into the first cabinet meeting last week, newly minted Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand stopped to comment on the ongoing war in the Middle East. Anand told reporters, “We cannot allow the continued use of food as a political tool … Over 50,000 people have died as a result of the aggression caused against the Palestinians and the Gazan people in Palestine.”
Everyone can — or at least should — be able to agree that starvation is a tragedy, and forced starvation, if it’s occurring, is even worse. However, Anand’s statement quotes the Hamas Health Ministry, which claims 53,000 people have died in the current conflict. The figure makes no distinction between Hamas militants — who Canada would consider terrorists — and civilians. Moreover, it is firmly established that Hamas hides weapons near civilians to maximize casualties for its own propaganda. Similarly, Hamas has diverted aid and food, further contributing to civilian misery. Deaths are tragedies and war is awful, but a diplomat must show balance and acknowledge that Hamas’ messaging may not reflect conditions on the ground.
Yet the most offensive aspect of Anand’s comments was her talk of “aggression caused against the Palestinians,” while failing to state that aggression’s cause: Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 assault. She also neglected to mention years of Hamas attacking Israeli civilians, or that the ongoing violence is driven primarily by Hamas’ refusal to surrender and release the hostages it has held for the past 592 days.
Unfortunately, Anand’s tone echoes her predecessor, Mélanie Joly, whose one-sided remarks were routinely called out by critics as sounding dangerously close to Hamas propaganda. Now, Anand’s remarks have been amplified by Canada signing onto a joint statement with Britain and France that, again, places lopsided blame and responsibility on Israel to end the fighting that Hamas started and that Hamas, and only Hamas, can end at any moment by laying down its arms and releasing its hostages.
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Dan Pujdak is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He was the director of policy to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs and has worked extensively on reconciliation-based initiatives across Canada.
