A senior Israeli envoy is visiting Canada this week, seeking to improve relations with Ottawa and asking the federal government to resume arms exports to Israel, to pull funding from the UN relief agency for Palestinians, and to help boost bilateral trade and co-operation.
Aliza Bin Noun, political director at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said her country wants to develop and enhance its relationship with Canada. She said much has changed in her region recently.
“We are in a different ball game in the Middle East today, given the very rapid developments of the last months,” Ms. Bin Noun said in an interview.
Israel has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, as well as senior leadership in both Hamas and Hezbollah. Both organizations are designated as terror groups by Canada, and both are supported by Iran, as was the now-collapsed authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The losses by Hamas, the weakening of Hezbollah, and the dismantling of the Assad regime have all left Iran’s international influence projects in shreds. Iran is also still reeling from the death of President Ebrahim Raisi – heir apparent to 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – in a May helicopter accident.
Ms. Bin Noun said Israel considers now a “good opportunity to continue this pressure on Iran” to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. “At the end of the day, nobody wants to see Iran go nuclear.”
The senior Israeli diplomat praised Canada’s decision to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code, an action Ottawa said it took in June in response to “terrorist acts both on its own and in knowing association with listed terrorist entities, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.”
Ms. Bin Noun said Israel would like Canada to lift its suspension of arms exports to the Mideast country.
In January, Ottawa stopped approving new permits for the export of military goods to Israel, in response to criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war on Hamas. Critics had noted that existing arms exports permits were still allowing the shipments of defence products. But in September, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced Ottawa had suspended 30 permits that had been issued before January to ship military goods to Israel.
Israel was attacked by Hamas militants in an assault that left around 1,200 people dead and about 250 taken hostage. It responded with a bombing campaign and siege in Gaza that have so far killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Authority in the territory.
Ms. Bin Noun said Israel never accepted Canada’s arms embargo but said it’s even less justified today.
“The intensity of the war in Gaza is much lower,” she said. “We’re very close, hopefully, to a deal in connection to the ceasefire and release of the hostages, I hope. I hope, this time, we will see good results,” she said.
“This suspension issue is not compatible to the current situation, and it wasn’t before, especially when we remember that Israel did not start this war.”
Figures released by the Department of Global Affairs this year showed that exports of military goods to Israel from Canada rose to $30-million in 2023. That was up from $21.3-million in 2022.
Israel would also like Canada to end funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In January, Ottawa ordered a temporary pause in any additional funding, pending a UN investigation into Israel’s allegations that some of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza were involved in the Hamas attack on Israel.
Canada resumed its support with payments in March, shortly before an independent review, headed by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found that Israel had not provided sufficient supporting evidence to back its claims about UNRWA.
Ms. Bin Noun is meeting with federal government officials and she also met with co-deputy Conservative Party leader Melissa Lantsman.