This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
Premier Doug Ford stood in the legislature Tuesday morning to condemn Hamas's attack on Israel as "terrorism in its darkest form."
His speech was part of a days-long debate initiated by the government on a motion that decries "the slaughter, rape and kidnapping of innocent Israeli civilians, including babies, children and seniors" by Hamas terrorists and reaffirms the "inalienable right of the State of Israel to defend itself and its people against this horrific violence."
All of the Ontario politicians who spoke to the motion Tuesday called Hamas a terrorist group and condemned its brutality, blaming it for violence against Israelis and Palestinians who want to live their lives in peace.
But outside of the chamber, in the hallways of Queen's Park, opposition politicians accused the government of playing politics with the war and using it to deflect from the premier's Greenbelt scandal, which is under RCMP investigation.
After the debate on Israel's right to defend itself concludes, likely on Thursday morning, another will begin on a motion to censure NDP MPP Sarah Jama. It is expected to pass and will enable the Speaker to deny her right to speak and vote in the house until she apologies in the legislature and retracts a public statement she made accusing Israel of the "continued violations of human rights in Gaza."
"We must look to the solution to this endless cycle of death and destruction: end all occupation of Palestinian land and end apartheid," she had said.
Jama, whose husband's family is Palestinian, apologized for failing to condemn Hamas in her initial statement but has not retracted it.
Her leader has stood by her.
"It is a very drastic move to censure a new MPP who was just elected by her riding, who will no longer be able to really do her job by representing her constituents," said Marit Stiles. "It should not be taken lightly and the government is using it for their political purposes to distract from what is really happening, what is really on the minds of most Ontarians, which is the fact that this government is being criminally investigated by the RCMP."
Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser, whose party intends to support both motions, didn't go quite so far but called on the government to stop the "finger waving and taunting" of the NDP.
He questioned a procedural play by the government to move an amendment, and an amendment to their amendment, making minor tweaks to the wording of the motion — "the terrorist organization Hamas" becomes "Hamas terrorists," for instance — which serves to block the NDP from proposing an amendment and prolong the debate.
Fraser also criticized the Conservatives for heckling the NDP with taunts of, "Where's Sarah Jama?" and answering opposition questions on the Greenbelt scandal and other policy issues with digs at Stiles over her decision not to kick her MPP out of caucus.
"How does that help anybody in the Middle East or in Ottawa South, or in Toronto Centre, or in someplace in rural Ontario? It doesn't. And our job is to bring people together," he said.
Fraser called on the Conservatives to stop adding to the division in society and do something that would help, like match donations to humanitarian aid.
Sources say the debate has been hard on the NDP, which has long been divided on the Middle East.
One NDP source told The Trillium that the wording of the motion on the Israel-Hamas war seems designed to divide the party and cause it political problems. Another told columnist Steve Paikin that an NDP MPP had considered quitting over the Jama issue and had to be talked off the ledge by senior party officials.
But on that score, the Progressive Conservatives' offensive has eased some of the tensions within the party, according to one MPP.
"These motions, the intent is to divide us, but one of the things that happens is the more this government tries to divide us and change the story of what's going on in the provincial legislature, the more united we are," said NDP Sol Mamawka.
The NDP's two co-deputy leaders spoke to the motion, putting the party's different bases on display. John Vanthof, a farmer from Timiskaming-Cochrane, got a standing ovation from all sides for a speech he made without notes that wove together personal stories of his father, a World War Two vet, and seeing a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. He called both Israelis and Palestinians victims of Hamas.
Doly Begum, a Bangladeshi Muslim woman who represents Scarborough Southwest, condemned "Hamas’s senseless violence, war crimes and attacks on innocent civilians, women, seniors, babies," but she also said the roots of the current conflict pre-date the formation of Hamas and lie in the denial of Palestinian human rights.
And Begum pleaded with the house for Palestinian lives to be valued as much as any others.
She proposed an amendment to the motion, but it was ruled out of order because of the Conservatives' previous amendments.
It would have added: "And that this House calls on the government of Canada to advocate for immediate release of all hostages and protection of all civilians in accordance with international law, an end to the siege of bombardment of Gaza and for humanitarian aid to reach Palestinian civilians urgently without restriction.”
Begum's message was echoed by her leader, Stiles, who decried the deaths of Palestinians and said, "We are watching potential war crimes in real-time."
She said that without that addition, the government's motion was incomplete, and signalled that her party would not support it.
