Why some dead babies count more than others

Yesterday, the 75th day of the Israel-Hamas war, Immigration Minister Marc Miller introduced special measures to support temporary residence for extended family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents living in Gaza. 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced and over 20,000 civilians slaughtered before we extended this humanitarian gesture. By contrast, a mere 28 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Canada introduced the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET). Compare the two and it’s immediately apparent that the Ukrainians fleeing Russian aggression get a much more generous offer than the Palestinians. For one thing, our Gaza “special measures” are restricted to those with family connections in Canada, whereas CUAET applies to all Ukrainians, regardless of whether they already have family in Canada or not. How to account for our glaring hypocrisy? After all, Israel has killed twice as many civilians in Gaza in two months than Putin’s barbaric hordes have killed in Ukraine in almost two years. I believe it’s a combination of factors. Firstly, our media ecosystem is saturated with anti-Russian propaganda. Putin is a brutal dictator who hates democracy. An irrational megalomaniac, he is capable of any atrocity imaginable. Russia is bad. Similarly, Israel is consistently portrayed as a peace-seeking democracy that has long tried in vain to live peaceably alongside its hate-crazed Palestinian neighbors. No matter how many UN resolutions they ignore and how many women and children succumb to their relentless onslaught, at the end of the day we must respect Israel’s right to defend itself. Israel is good. Finally, let’s not rule out good old-fashioned racism. It’s just so much easier to open our hearts to white Christians than to non-white Muslims. Our hypocrisy stinks.