Canadian PM Mark Carney Condemns Israel

By Howie Silbiger

Canadian Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney has condemned Israel for protecting Christians during Iranian missile barrages on Jerusalem.

Read that again, because it sounds like satire, but it isn’t. It’s a real statement, issued in the middle of an active war, while missiles are being fired at the city and fragments have already landed in and around the Old City.

And somehow, from Ottawa, the outrage lands on Israel. Not on the people launching the missiles.

It lands on the people trying to stop bodies from piling up in one of the most crowded, sensitive religious zones on earth.

Carney called Israel’s actions a violation of the “status quo.” That’s the language he chose, completely detached from reality. Because nothing says status quo like incoming missiles over Jerusalem. Nothing says normal conditions like a city bracing for impact while clergy and civilians are packed into tight, ancient streets with nowhere to run.

What exactly does he think Israel is supposed to do here? Open the gates, let thousands flood in, and hope the next missile politely waits until after Palm Sunday?

Let’s be clear about what actually happened. Israeli police restricted access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday. The reason wasn’t ideology or hostility to Christians. It was security, in a city that has already seen missile debris fall near its holiest sites.

And here’s the part that keeps getting ignored. The restrictions didn’t just hit Christians. Jews were restricted. Muslims were restricted. The entire Old City was effectively locked down because missiles don’t care what religion you are.

Carney didn’t say that.

He didn’t lead with the missiles. He didn’t ground his statement in the reality on the ground. He went straight to condemning Israel, because that’s the reflex now. Something happens in Jerusalem, and before anyone even processes the context, the condemnation is drafted, polished, and posted. It’s grotesque.

Even inside that reality, the details matter. After Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa was asked not to hold mass out of security concerns,

Over the past several days, Iran has repeatedly targeted the holy sites of all three monotheistic religions in Jerusalem with ballistic missiles. In one strike, missile fragments crashed meters from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. To protect worshippers, Israel asked members of all faiths to temporarily abstain from worshipping at the Christian, Muslim and Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Today, out of special concern for his safety, Cardinal Pizzaballa was asked to refrain from holding mass at the Church. Even so, once Netanyahu learned of the situation, he instructed the authorities to enable the Patriarch to hold services as he wishes.

It’s grotesque that a Canadian prime minister can look at a war zone and decide the real issue is that Israel didn’t manage the optics of a religious holiday properly. It’s grotesque that the responsibility is always placed on the side taking fire, never on the side launching it.

Iran and its terror network are launching the missiles. Hezbollah, the Houthis, the same actors who have spent years making “death to Israel” feel like background noise. The same actors who have made it impossible for anyone in that city to worship “freely and without fear,” the exact phrase Carney used while pointing the finger in the wrong direction.

The lie that drives the undercurrent is the idea that Israel is the reason people cannot worship freely in Jerusalem right now.

It’s not the missiles. not the threats, not the very real possibility that one direct hit into a packed holy site would turn a religious holiday into a mass funeral. Israel didn’t create that reality. Israel is dealing with it.

Canadian PM Carney’s response is to step in from thousands of kilometers away and issue a lecture about the “status quo,” as if this is a scheduling dispute instead of a war. It’s the kind of statement that sounds good in a quiet office and collapses the second you drop it into the streets of Jerusalem. Because on those streets, there is no status quo right now; There are sirens, There is fear, there are missile fragments landing near places people have prayed for centuries.

And there are decisions being made in real time about how to stop the next one from killing dozens, or hundreds, in a single moment. That’s what Carney chose to ignore. That’s what makes this so offensive.

The problem isn’t that he criticized Israel, criticism is fair game, Israel is not above it. But stripping away the context, flattening a war zone into a talking point, and pretending this is about religious freedom crosses a line.

If you can look at Jerusalem under missile fire and still decide Israel is the problem, you’re not misunderstanding the situation. You are either blinded by your hate or you’re choosing to ignore reality.

Howie Silbiger is the host of The Howie Silbiger Show on truetalkradio.com and Political Hitman on Israelnewstalkradio.com. He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Montreal Jewish News.