(Bloomberg) -- Just five days ago, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly was convinced a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah was near. Then Israeli forces killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and Iran vowed revenge.
Now it’s crucial for Group of Seven leaders to crank up the pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the escalation of violence before the Middle East is pulled into a wider war, Joly said.
“We’ve been taking a tougher line and we hope that other countries — of course the US and in Europe — will do so as well,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg News, shortly after giving a speech at the United Nations about the need for a cease-fire. “It is fundamental that war doesn’t start between Israel and Iran, which would inflame the entire region.”
Joly made the comments just hours before Israel announced it had begun ground raids in southern Lebanon, hitting targets in villages close to the border. The US has warned the Netanyahu government against a larger operation that would risk a direct confrontation with Iran, a US official with knowledge of the situation told Bloomberg.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has tried to walk a tightrope on the conflict between Israel and its sworn enemies in Hamas and Hezbollah. It has supported Israel’s right to defend itself while condemning civilian deaths in Gaza and Lebanon — and Trudeau and Joly have been accused at times of being too soft on Hamas and on the Israeli government.
In the interview, Joly did not condemn the assassination of the Hezbollah leader. “Listen, I have no love for Nasrallah,” she said, calling him the former head of a terrorist group that has killed many people in Israel, Lebanon, and beyond. “But at the same time, I’m really concerned about how this can escalate at a time when we were asking for a cease-fire.”
The Canadian minister warned about the religious and community tensions that may be unleashed within Lebanon if it becomes engulfed in all-out war, with devastating consequences for civilians and refugees living there. It has the potential to spark a much larger conflict between western democracies and Iran, Russia, China and North Korea, she cautioned.
“There cannot be a war in Lebanon, full stop,” Joly said. “I’m very concerned that in turn it will not only have an impact on the entire Middle East, but also on Israel’s long-term security.”
After rejecting a proposal by France and the US for a 21-day pause on the violence, Netanyahu gave a defiant speech to the UN General Assembly on Friday. “As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice and Israel has every right to remove this threat,” he said.
In her own speech on Monday, Joly said what is happening in the Middle East is an “unspeakable tragedy” — a repeated cycle of violence where civilians pay the heaviest price. “This is a senseless war that goes against the dignity of human beings. The suffering on all sides must end,” she said.
Joly and Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada has deep internal divisions on the issue — much like Democrats in the US — and striking a balance between the conflicting views among its members has been exceptionally difficult. During the interview, Joly acknowledged those divisions, but argued that they’re present in other political parties too, even if they are less public.
“I‘ve never seen this level of division and polarization on an issue in all my political career,” said Joly, who has served in Trudeau’s cabinet since 2015 and has been foreign affairs minister for three years.
She said many of her counterparts in other western democracies have told her this conflict is the most difficult issue they’ve dealt with.
“The pain is real on all sides,” Joly said. “And it is difficult to be principled when you see so many people dying on both sides.”
(Updates with news of Israeli forces’ ground offensive in fourth paragraph.)
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