Commentary
When a person makes a mistake, the right thing to do is apologize and make amends. Most of us follow through with a proper apology—sometimes willingly, and other times begrudgingly—and move on.
Some politicians find that a bitter pill to swallow. There are instances where they’ll refuse to apologize irrespective of potential consequences. Others will avoid the issue for as long as possible. Still others will double down on their original statement and make things even worse for themselves.
Case in point, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent mishandling of a hospital bombing during the Israel-Hamas war.
This relates to the Oct. 17 explosion in the parking lot of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City. It’s one of the city’s oldest hospitals and is run by the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem. No one is exactly sure of the amount of casualties. Fatality numbers range from as low as 50 (according to the US-based Center for Naval Analyses) to as high as 471 (according to Hamas’s Gaza Health Industry).
The immediate concern was which side caused this explosion, and whether it was intentional or unintentional by design.
Some countries waited until the facts had been gathered before jumping into the fray. This was the right decision. Neither Hamas nor Israel claimed immediate responsibility for what happened. There was plenty of finger-pointing, but little else.
U.S. President Joe Biden, to his credit, released a statement that day which was succinct and on point. “I am outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion at the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, and the terrible loss of life that resulted,“ he said. ”Immediately upon hearing this news, I spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and have directed my national security team to continue gathering information about what exactly happened. The United States stands unequivocally for the protection of civilian life during conflict and we mourn the patients, medical staff and other innocents killed or wounded in this tragedy.”
This is the political model most right-thinking countries should have employed.
In contrast, countries like Algeria, Iran, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia brazenly barrelled ahead and laid blame at Israel’s feet. Hamas and Hezbollah condemned Israel. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared the explosion as “the latest example of Israeli attacks devoid of the most basic human values.” African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat posted this on X: “There are no words to fully express our condemnation of Israel’s bombing of a Gaza hospital today, killing hundreds of people.”
It quickly became clear they had spoken out far too early. High-level intelligence sources in the United States, France, and Israel named one of Hamas’s terrorist partners, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as the culprit. They believed it had been caused by a failed rocket launch that went astray and hit the hospital parking lot. While the PIJ has predictably denied any involvement, this scenario makes a great deal of sense.
What about Trudeau?
The PM never specifically pinned the blame on either Israel or Hamas. He said the “news coming out of Gaza is horrific,” described the bombing as “absolutely unacceptable” and noted “international humanitarian and international law needs to be respected in this and in all cases. There are rules around wars and it’s not acceptable to hit a hospital.”
Yet, Trudeau didn’t take Israel’s side when several of Canada’s allies, including the United States, produced more than sufficient evidence that it had played no role in the explosion. “We saw some preliminary evidence but we'll keep working with our allies as quickly as possible before reaching any firm and final conclusion,” he said at a press conference, and Canada will be “taking the necessary time to look carefully at everything.”
It was a laughable statement. Would Canadian intelligence really be able to discover something that American intelligence couldn’t? Absolutely not. National Defence Minister Bill Blair’s Oct. 21 statement confirmed this. An “independent analysis” by the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command, he claimed, “indicates with a high degree of confidence that Israel did not strike the hospital on October 17, 2023,” and the “more likely scenario is that the strike was caused by an errant rocket fired from Gaza.”
Instead of utilizing Biden’s tactical lead that balanced personal disappointment with political reality, Trudeau wrongly went in a different direction. He clearly didn’t work with our allies, who were much further ahead with their intelligence and research. He reached the same conclusion that others already had. This is embarrassing for Canada.
Trudeau should acknowledge this mistake and own up to it.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
