OTTAWA—Leaders of the world’s top economies agreed Wednesday that Israel has a right to defend against Iran’s missile attacks as they sought to avoid a response that would trigger an all-out war.
After speaking with other G7 leaders Wednesday morning about Iran’s rain of ballistic missiles on Israel, and Israel’s revelation its military led ground raids targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon for weeks, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters, “We unreservedly condemned Iran’s ballistic missile attack against Israel, further de-stabling (sic) action by this terrorist regime in the region, putting civilians at risk and running the risk of a wider war.”
“Obviously, Israel has the right to defend itself against these attacks. At the same time, we have to try and do everything we can to avoid a wider war, to protect civilians and to get humanitarian aid into affected regions.”
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday the U.S. military “co-ordinated closely with the Israeli Defense Forces to help defend Israel against this attack. U.S. naval destroyers joined Israeli air defence units in firing interceptors to shoot down inbound missiles.”
The U.S. was consulting with the Israelis “on next steps in terms of the response and how to deal with what Iran has just done, and we will continue to monitor for further threats and attacks from Iran and its proxies,” Sullivan said.
Whether Israel would target Iran’s military infrastructure like its air defences or uranium enrichment operations, or oil production facilities is a major question.
In Ottawa, Trudeau said the international community has to do “everything we can to call for peace and stability, which means calling for a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, calling for ceasefire in Gaza, and getting again back on track for a two-state solution, where a peaceful, secure, stable Israeli state is living alongside a peaceful, secure, stable, Palestinian state.”
But neither Trudeau, who took no questions, nor his Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly provided further clarity on what the G7 or Canada would consider a proportionate and justified response by Israel to Iran’s attack Tuesday or how Canada would respond if things spiralled further.
“Listen, we are taking one day at a time,” said Joly. “At the moment, our concern is that there not be a generalized war in the Middle East, and that’s a real concern.”
“Israel has said that they would retaliate. So the question is how can we be assured that this retaliation doesn’t become, as a consequence, a generalized war in Israel.”
When asked how far Israel might go before things tip into that generalized war, Joly said, “That’s the big question.”
“That’s why we’ll keep working with different countries of the G7, also with different countries of the Arab world, and of course with Israel to ensure there is no generalized war.”
New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh, whose party has been sharply critical of Israel in its prosecution of the war in Gaza, responded to a question about whether Israel had a right to respond to Iran with a caution about “collective punishment.”
“When we see what’s going on in Israel, the fact that they’re being bombed by both a terrorist organization like Hezbollah and by Iran, that’s deeply concerning. We are worried about an escalation of violence, and what we have seen is a complete disregard for innocent lives. And we know it is contrary to international law to have collective punishment, and the idea that that innocent lives are just collateral damage is fundamentally wrong and it violates international law.”
Even the threat of a broader war has not prompted a mass exodus of Lebanese-born Canadian citizens out of Lebanon. Neither Canada nor the U.S. have formally triggered an evacuation operation. Canada has reserved seats on Middle East Airlines which is still flying commercially out of Beirut. Joly said not all of those offers have been taken up, and so Canada has offered seats to Americans, Australians and New Zealanders.
Joly again urged Canadian citizens and permanent residents who can leave Lebanon to do so.
The federal government has chartered seats on three flights from Beirut to Istanbul over the next three days. Officials have reached out to 4,000 Canadians and permanent residents who indicated on an online form that they want government assisted travel information, but only a third of those contacted say they will avail themselves of reservations the Government of Canada is providing at a cost of about $445.
Liberal MP Fayçal El-Khoury, who was raised as a Christian in Lebanon, on Wednesday said that if the United Nations and the international community were truly committed to a long-lasting peace in the Middle East, there would be a way to resolve the impasse. “If the big player, the United Nations, wanted to stop this war, there is many means to stop it.”
“I am hoping not only a ceasefire, ceasefire one month, one year, two years, three years, it will start again. Let us hope to find a permanent, lasting solution, in order to give our generations to come, at least in our lifetime, to see peace prevail.”
