Housefather Treated with Kid Gloves by News Media

On March 18, the NDP proposed a motion in the House of Commons on Palestine. Among other goals, it included Canada recognizing Palestinian statehood, a blanket ban on extremist Israeli settlers to Canada and a call for a suspension in "all trade in military goods and technology with Israel." That motion was amended by the Liberals to remove these goals and replace them with language that ultimately deflates them.

In brief, the call to recognize the state of Palestine was replaced by a call to work "towards the establishment of the State of Palestine," alongside language to reaffirm Israel's right to exist. Blanket bans on settlers were removed to highlight sanctions. The suspension of "military trade" was replaced by the ceasing of "further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel." The motion was always non-binding, by the way, even in its original form.

Much has been written about the whole incident, in excellent analysis pieces, or debunking on Twitter (sadly, still a valuable place for news and analysis). The news covering subsequent announcements by the Canadian government has also been disappointing. Though that has been covered by The Maple's Alex Cosh, who has been at the forefront of reporting on Global Affairs Canada's messaging and "non-lethal" military exports.

What has received notable coverage in the aftermath of the vote, at least by legacy new media, is the reaction of Liberal MP for Mount Royal, QC, Anthony Housefather.

Housefather has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout their siege on Gaza and genocide of Palestinians. In November, Housefather, among other MPs like Melissa Lantsman, Marty Morantz and Marco Mendicino, took a trip to Israel paid for by the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, as reported by Davide Mastracci.

Before the vote, Housefather rose to argue passionately against the motion.

"I am a Canadian, I am a Jew and I am a Zionist," Housefather said in a near-10 minute speech. "I am proud that my family came here in the 19th century and helped build this country."

"I am a Zionist and I am not embarrassed or ashamed of being a Zionist."

The speech contained tropes like conflating Judaism with Zionism, and repeated debunked talking points about Israelis being the true Indigenous population to Palestine. He also painted protests at synagogues as antisemitic, without revealing why those synagogues were targeted (companies holding the events profited from the illegal sale of Palestinian land.)

On Twitter, a week before the vote, he categorized the NDP motion recognizing Palestinian statehood as "rewarding Hamas for its pogrom of Oct. 7." In the replies, he said he also supports a two state solution (presumably Israel and a secret, third, state). This is despite the fact that Israeli officials have repeatedly refused to even consider a two-state solution.

Housefather is not the only staunch Zionist in Canadian parliament. Marco Mendicino is another Liberal MP who has been vociferously supportive of Israel and against measures like funding UNRWA, which Housefather also supports. Importantly, the Canadian government saw no evidence to support pulling funding and the few claims we do have were extracted by Israeli torture of Palestinian UNRWA employees.

But Housefather has been one of the most prominent voices pushing Zionism in the Liberal party and Canadian government, overall. All of these statements and positions are being made while Israel has killed over 30,000 Palestinians and forced mass starvation throughout the Gaza strip.

So why does the news media insist on painting Housefather in a sympathetic light?

After the severely amended motion passed, CPAC interviewed Housefather on his reaction to the vote. Housefather was clearly rattled by the motion, and occasionally spoke with a shaky voice.

"I think it's the first time in my parliamentary career that I've had a reflection like this where I truly felt, last night, that a line had been crossed."

A reminder, Housefather was a Liberal MP when the entire House of Commons rose to applaud a literal Waffen-SS veteran.

Beyond this, what, exactly, is Housefather so upset about? The sticking point for him appears to be that the motion's main function was to push Canada to recognize the state of Palestine, which the vast majority of the world already does. Additionally, the motion was never even binding. So if the original one did pass (an extremely unlikely outcome), the government had no obligation to act on it. Further to this, if Housefather supports a two-state solution, wouldn't recognition of a Palestinian state be a major step forward to this outcome?

The point is moot because the amended vote removed this language. So... what's the problem, here?

Housefather's positions are a tangled, confusing mess of contradictions. It could be made clear if news media asked him questions to clarify them, but instead, they prefer to coddle his feelings.

The sympathy came in the original CPAC interview. "You seemed really upset about the last-minute amendment that your government put forward," the interviewer asked. "How did that make you feel as a parliamentarian?"

CTV News then quoted Housefather saying he felt "somewhat isolated." In the article, Rachel Aiello characterized his feelings as such: "he said it's hard feeling like his identity and concerns about Israel are not being understood by his fellow MPs."

What are his concerns? Those would have been useful to know.

The "reflection" that Housefather is doing is the headline in most Canadian Press articles carried by outlets. This is the case for National Newswatch, CityNews, Global News and CP24. The articles don't question any of the contradictions in Housefather's positions, they merely frontload his feelings at the expense of everything else.

To put it bluntly, the amendments to the motion don't change anything for the direction of Canada's approach to Israel and Palestine.

The original version could have forced the Liberals to answer for some of their positions, but in my opinion, the watered-down version is useless pablum. The NDP chose opportunist optics over the activism that brought this motion to the House of Commons in the first place. This is frustrating for a myriad of reasons, but the blunting of this motion down to the current policy the government already pursues should be a victory for people like Housefather. He clearly opposes recognition of a Palestinian state, despite his calls for a two-state solution, and that was removed. If he has negative feelings about what's actually in the amended motion, rather than a vague gesturing to disappointment, no media outlet has asked him. As it stands, it appears he's simply offended at the audacity to even raise the question.

This is not good journalism. This is pathetic. Housefather is not a tireless activist. He is not an average Canadian. He is not a celebrity. He is an elected MP. Elected officials should face scrutiny for their positions and be held to account, not coddled because he feels bad. At the very least, news media should ask why does he even feel bad at all. What is in the amended motion that would make him more upset than applauding a literal Nazi?

Questions like these aren't asked. Instead, our sympathies are supposed to lie with an unabashed Zionist, while the Palestinian people who are continually killed en masse are expected to praise Canadian political theatre.

In truth, Housefather is merely a vehicle for the Zionist position. If this genocide had occurred at a different point in time, another MP would be the leading Liberal voice for Zionism. The issue falls on our legacy news media, which seems completely uninterested in critically examining support for Zionism. It's taken as a given that Housefather's is a rational position. So when the feelings of an elected MP Zionist are hurt, those feelings take precedence over their positions.

It's another way our news media biases towards governmental policy.