Bouazzi admits his remarks on the war in Gaza crossed the line

Quebec Solidaire MP Haroun Bouazzi admitted Tuesday that he went too far by accusing the Quebec government of being complicit in war crimes and ethnic cleansing carried out by Israel in the Gaza Strip.

Last week, Mr. Bouazzi severely criticized the refusal of the Minister of National Relations, Martine Biron, to close the Quebec office in Tel Aviv due to the situation in Israel.

The MP, who spoke on social networks, returned to the subject on Tuesday, a few hours after QS co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois distanced himself from his comments.

“It’s true that my tweet on Thursday could have been better worded,” he said on X (formerly Twitter).

Mr. Bouazzi reiterated that the decision to maintain the Quebec branch for Israel sends the wrong message.

“This amounts to saying that the Netanyahu government is a government ‘like any other,’ while the International Court of Justice has found it plausible that its military actions constitute genocide,” he wrote.

Last week, QS submitted a petition with 12,000 signatures to demand the closure of the Quebec branch on Israeli soil. Haroun Bouazzi then reacted on X.

“The CAQ thus makes us complicit in a far-right government which is accumulating war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and which has started a genocidal process a few months ago,” he said. written Thursday.

Mr. Bouazzi refused to answer journalists’ questions on this subject on Tuesday before speaking on social networks.

“Bad idea” itself

In a press briefing which preceded it on Tuesday, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois wanted to qualify Mr. Bouazzi’s comments.

“No, it’s not incitement to hatred,” he said.

Stating that he would not use Mr. Bouazzi’s wording regarding Israel’s actions, the co-spokesperson maintained that maintaining the Quebec office in Tel Aviv harms Quebec’s reputation in the current context. .

“I have no problem conceding that the tweet was, shall we say, a little intense,” he said. But, basically, we all say the same thing. It is a bad idea to open an office in Tel Aviv in the middle of war, when serious suspicions of genocide weigh on the Israeli government. »

Call for restraint

According to Mr. Nadeau-Dubois, the Quebec government should refrain from doing business in Israel, in the middle of a war which has caused tens of thousands of victims.

“It seems to me that the least we can do is show a little restraint, to suspend the opening of this office,” he said.

The interim Liberal leader, Marc Tanguay, affirmed that it is up to Mr. Nadeau-Dubois to manage the situation with Mr. Bouazzi.

“It is clear that, when I saw such comments, I found that it went beyond the limits, it went beyond the limits, that it was unjustifiable,” he said.

PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon affirmed that violations of international law have been noted in the ongoing conflict in Israel. According to him, this should encourage the Quebec government to suspend its activities to be consistent with a motion from the National Assembly calling for a ceasefire.

“I think that in fact there could be a freeze on the activities of this office until there is a ceasefire,” he said.

Last week, M^me Biron defended the decision to maintain the office, even if its head of post is currently in Montreal. According to the minister, the objective is to maintain a gateway to the Middle East region.

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