NDP talked tough, but now just looks foolish

That the Liberals felt a need to engage with the NDP at such length rather than vote against the NDP motion hints at bigger divisions in their caucus — and perhaps their cabinet as well — on the Mideast than has become public

What a weird way to make foreign policy — or whatever it was that members of Parliament occupied themselves with for most of Monday.

Our elected representatives started the day by debating a motion put forward by the NDP that would have radically changed Canada’s policy on the Israel-Palestine question, tilting it decidedly toward a more resolutely pro-Palestinian stance.

They ended it by doing something else entirely. After a flurry of backroom meetings and an emergency cabinet session they ended up supporting an “amended” motion that basically restates existing Liberal government policy — with some tweaks that, it seems, many of them didn’t actually understand.

Indeed, days after this spasm of parliamentary verbiage the headline on a story about the outcome was all about how the motion that finally passed “sows confusion among NDP, Liberal MPs” on Canada’s policy toward arms exports to Israel.

Note that those NDP and Liberal MPs are the very ones who voted for the resolution, and whose leaders crafted the text the House of Commons approved late on Monday evening by a vote of 204-117. If they’re confused about what they voted for, what chance do the rest of us have?

Some Liberal MPs reportedly thought they’d voted for an arms embargo against Israel, along the lines of the original NDP motion that called on Canada to “suspend all trade in military goods and technology with Israel.” Others thought the motion only affirmed existing government policy — not to approve new arms export permits.

That’s closer to the actual words of what the Commons voted for — calling on Canada to “cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel.” But if that’s the case, what’s the big deal? Especially since, as the Star’s Tonda MacCharles reported, the details of all this are still to be worked out because much of what Canada exports to Israel is modified there and shipped back for use by Canada’s armed forces or shipped onward to our allies.

In a word, it’s complicated.

No wonder an analysis in the Jerusalem Post concluded that what was widely reported as Canada’s “arms embargo” on Israel really amounts to “foreign policy theatre for domestic audiences.”

The NDP, to start there, comes out of this episode looking foolish, indeed feckless. It went into Monday’s debate proclaiming the importance of recognizing a Palestinian state right now, today. By the end of the night, it was signing on to a routine statement about recognizing Palestine eventually “as part of a negotiated two-state solution” — the traditional Canadian position it had previously dismissed as too wishy-washy for these troubled times.

It was like that all along the line. Wherever the NDP had proposed tougher language against Israel (such as imposing sanctions on Israeli officials “who incite genocide”) the Liberals managed to roll the wording back. Yet NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was out on social media claiming his party had “forced” the Liberals to do various things they were already doing — through a non-binding resolution, no less — while his foreign affairs critic was wringing her hands about not getting what they were after. Quite a performance.

But the NDP is a bit player in all this. The Liberals have the burden of actually running a G7 government that has pretensions to play a role in major international issues. What they should have done was skip the parliamentary antics and vote against the NDP motion, which went against decades of bipartisan Canadian policy, not to mention current Liberal policy on the Gaza conflict.

The fact they felt a need to engage with the NDP at such length hints at bigger divisions in their caucus — and perhaps their cabinet as well — on the Mideast than has become public. So, they went down a road that ended nowhere in particular but managed to create more confusion along the way.

Presumably a bit of confusion is the point, a feature rather than a bug. If even Liberal MPs are reading different things into what the government has endorsed, then others are sure to do the same. If clarity risks only division, then better to go straight to deliberate ambiguity.

Hey, it’s worked before.