It may have been 15 years since Jon Allen has served as Canada’s ambassador to Israel, but that has not stopped countless Canadian news media outlets from interviewing him and publishing his predictably anti-Israel opinion columns, which have included blaming Israel for Islamic terrorism, while curiously ignoring the pro-Israel views of former Canadian Ambassador to Israel Vivian Bercovici.

Allen’s June 11 commentary in The Globe and Mail entitled: “Canada’s decision to sanction two-far right Israeli minister sends a signal: enough is enough,” lauded Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to sanction two Israeli cabinet ministers, an unprecedented diplomatic attack against democratically-elected members of an ally.

Allen admitted that the move by Ottawa, joined by a small number of other countries, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom, will have no material effect on the two individuals, but instead “sends “a clear signal that racism, ethnic cleansing, the illegal annexation of territory, the withholding of humanitarian aid to 2.1 million people, and clear efforts on the ground to deny the possibility of a two-state solution, are morally unacceptable and contrary to international law,” adding that he hopes it will “force” Israel to end the war with Hamas.

The two cabinet ministers, Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, share opinions that many may find objectionable. Nevertheless, they are democratically-elected members of a liberal democratic state, and an ally of Canada, and as noted by former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, “the unprecedented sanctioning of freely elected leaders of a fellow democracy is a self-inflicted blow to the democratic idea.”

More fundamentally, the very basis with which Allen sees justification in the sanctioning of these two cabinet ministers – namely, that it will “force” Israel to end the war with Hamas, is both factually without merit and morally repugnant.

Israel did not start the war with Hamas, nor has it sought to continue it. Hamas launched an invasion against Israel on October 7, 2023, and since then, has held Israeli (and foreign) hostages, continued when possible to fire rockets into Israel, and has adamantly refused to lay down their weapons.

Hamas is a genocidal Islamic terrorist group that seeks the total annihilation of Israel. It has refused any ceasefire attempt which would make it surrender, yet Allen naively claims that Jerusalem should surrender to a Palestinian jihadist group that seeks its destruction.

As Hamas makes clear, it sees no solution but the elimination of Israel as its endgame, and consequently any arrangement which keeps the terrorist group in power serves only to perpetuate the war into the foreseeable future.

Either Allen did not know this – an incredible level of ignorance for a former ambassador to Israel – or he otherwise simply didn’t care. In any case, for reasons unknown, he chose to ignore this elephant in the room, and falsely presented Israel as the party which can end the war with Hamas, when in reality only Hamas can end the war.

Israel is a liberal democracy, as imperfect as it may be. Israel has a right and a moral duty to defend itself against those who seek to destroy it, including Hamas and its patron, Iran, and yet Allen’s ire is almost always fixed exclusively on Israel, waving his finger and demanding that Israel surrender to the jihadist forces that seek its annihilation.

Although Allen’s opinion column was published before the outbreak of open war between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Israel, his words strike as more hollow than ever in light of recent developments, showing the moral cowardice in attacking Israel and holding Jerusalem accountable for daring to defend itself against the genocidal powers which seek the mass murder of its people.