OTTAWA — Canada is failing to defend Israel as the Jewish state faces coordinated lawfare and discriminatory treatment at international bodies, argues a new paper by human rights lawyer David Matas. The report says Ottawa’s recent votes, funding decisions, and legal posture are producing concrete harms for Israel and for the credibility of Canadian human rights policy.
Matas documents a string of policy decisions he says have strengthened anti-Israel actors. He highlights Ottawa’s resumption of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, after a pause in early 2024 despite Israeli allegations that some agency staff participated in the October 7, 2023, attacks. Critics say resuming support without robust reform risks underwriting institutions where violent extremists have operated.
The paper also spotlights Canada’s response to International Criminal Court developments, including arrest warrants issued for senior Israeli officials. Matas warns that Ottawa’s willingness to treat those warrants as binding, while Palestinian perpetrators remain at large, amounts to selective justice that feeds delegitimization campaigns against Israel. The ICC has issued warrants, and the court’s public records document those steps.
Canada’s pause and review of certain military export permits to Israel has further complicated bilateral cooperation, the paper notes. Ottawa has suspended or reviewed multiple export permits and announced tighter scrutiny of future shipments, even as it maintains relationships with authoritarian states with far worse human rights records. Matas says that the pattern undercuts Canada’s claim to principled leadership.
At the United Nations, the paper argues, Canada has supported or failed to block disproportionate resolutions aimed at Israel while ignoring or soft-pedaling abuses by other states. That posture, Matas concludes, normalizes the demonization of the Jewish state and allows anti-Zionist rhetoric to mutate into antisemitic practice. Advocacy groups, including CIJA, have publicly warned that Canada’s UN voting record in 2025 has been one-sided.
The report frames these choices not as abstract diplomatic disputes but as tangible risks. Matas writes that when Western democracies fund institutions implicated in violence, or when they accept court actions that single out Israel while overlooking atrocities by other actors, they erode the norms of impartial human rights enforcement. That erosion, he says, plays into a broader campaign of delegitimization of Israel that endangers Jews and democratic allies alike.
Ottawa officials have defended their positions as grounded in humanitarian concern and respect for international law. Government spokespeople have said funding to humanitarian programs is essential for civilians and that any measures tied to legal processes or export controls are being handled with care. But for Matas and many pro-Israel advocates, the balance is wrong. They want Canada to make clear demands for accountability, to press for UN reform, and to refuse policies that reward or empower actors who justify or celebrate terror.
The paper concludes with a direct policy agenda: defund or tightly condition support to organizations linked to extremist activity, reject politicized arrest warrants that single out Israel without comparable scrutiny of others, restore full security cooperation with Israel, and vote against disproportionate UN measures targeting the Jewish state. Matas warns that failure to act will not only betray Jewish Canadians, but it will also weaken Canada’s voice on human rights worldwide.
For pro-Israel and Zionist communities, the message is stark. The report calls on Ottawa to choose principles over expedience, to stand with an ally under siege in diplomatic fora, and to recognize that the rebranding of antisemitism as anti-Zionism requires an unequivocal response.
This article is based on verified information from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute paper by David Matas, Reuters reporting on Canada’s UNRWA funding decisions, the International Criminal Court public record, reporting on Canada’s review of military export permits, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs analysis of Canada’s UN votes.