Front Burner - Canada and the politics of Gaza flotillas

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney has condemned what he described as the “abominable treatment” of flotilla activists detained by Israeli authorities. His statement came after the release of a video showing activists from around the world blindfolded, restrained, and forced face-down on the ground as Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir toured the detention site.Up to a dozen Canadians were among those detained, according to the group who organized the flotilla. All have since been deported. Today we’re joined by Heidi Matthews, legal scholar and assistant professor at York University’s Osgoode Law School, who traveled alongside an earlier flotilla as a part of a legal support vessel. She joins to discuss the politics and history of the Gaza flotillas, and the tradition of nonviolent direct action.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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Who gives you access to the latest health trends and... I know it. Beniva. Looks like people are starting to know Beneva pretty well. I knew that too. You're stronger with the right partner, Beneva. This is a CBC podcast. Hi everyone, I'm Jamie Poisson. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney

condemned what he described as the abominable treatment of flotilla activists detained by Israeli authorities. His statement came after the release of a video showing activists from around the world, blindfolded, restrained, and forced down on the ground as Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Givir toward the detention site. Up to a dozen Canadian,

were among those detained, according to the group who organized the flotilla. All detainees have since been deported. The footage has led to all kinds of international outrage, but it's also drawn new attention to a question that has persisted for nearly two decades now. Why do activists keep trying to sail to Gaza in the first place? We're joined by Heidi Matthews today, professor at York University's Osgood Law School, who traveled alongside one of the flotillas as part of a legal support vessel in September.

She joins me to discuss the politics and history of the Gaza flotillas and the long tradition of nonviolent direct action. Heidi, thank you so much for being with me today. Thanks so much for having me. Why don't we begin with the news here? As of yesterday, a number of world leaders, including Mark Carney, published statements in reference to a video that I'm just going to describe for listeners here. The video depicts a number of imprisoned flotilla participants. One is pulled to the ground by their head. Israeli National Security Minister Itemar Ben-Gavir walks past surrounded by agents in masks.

We then see him waving the Israeli flag. The camera then cuts and we see dozens of activists with their hands cable-tied behind their backs and on their knees and in stress positions with their foreheads touching the ground. And talk to me about your reaction to the video and then we'll discuss what Carney and others had to say. Yeah, it's a very distressing video, but at the same time, entirely predictable. So what happened to these participants who are now, as of this recording on Thursday afternoon, either on their way to Turkey or arriving in Istanbul as we speak, I've just been watching a live feed from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition,

picturing participants arriving, many of them with very severe. visible injuries as well. So the reason why that level of abuse is not surprising to me is because Israel has been inflicting severe abuse and even death on flotilla participants for many, many years. The flotilla itself has been sailing under different organizations, but essentially since the beginning of Israel's economic closure, as they sometimes call it, or the blockade of the Gaza Strip. And there have been several, several missions. They've gained notoriety and also a much greater degree of participation since the intensification of violence in the strip in October 23, continuing through today. The last flotilla, the one that I participated alongside, as you described, had many hundreds of volunteers.

So over 400 volunteers on many dozens of vessels, all of which were intercepted. Those volunteers were imprisoned for a much longer period in Israel, so up to six days in total. And they also suffered severe abuse and deprivation that we can talk about. I'll list some instances. Stress positions, as you mentioned, forced nudity and other forms of sexual violence and threats of sexual violence. some Muslim women had their hijabs forcibly removed, various forms of physical violence, deprivation, including lack of access to food or clean drinking water, medications were taken, etc. So the videos are not surprising to me or people who have participated in the flotilla, but we're certainly very glad to see that finally, after 20 years, the world is beginning to pay attention. Carney responded to this video by saying in part the abominable treatment of civilians aboard the flotilla,

including that which is documented in footage shared by Edemar Ben-Givir is unacceptable. He goes on to mention the fact that Ben-Gavir has already been sanctioned by Canada and that dignity and the protection of civilians must be upheld. Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs has directed by officials to summon the Israeli ambassador regarding the mistreatment of civilians aboard the flotilla to demand assurances regarding the safety and security of Canadians involved. That was like pretty much a summary of that statement. Does it leave anything, did it leave anything out to you?

Yeah, there's quite a bit going on here. I think the first thing to mention is that this statement actually came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself had called out Ben-Givir. Earlier this week is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Israeli forces for blocking the flotilla, but said today the way Ben-Givir deals with the activists in the video is not in line with Israel's values. So there is already a decision at the highest echelons of the Israeli government that Ben-Gabir would be held out as kind of a bad apple or an individual doing something outside of what is ordinarily condoned and perpetrated by Israeli institutions, including their vast detention system. that's the first major mistake here is to present this issue as though it's singular and related to the leadership alone of Ben-Gabir. When one watches the videos, what one sees are dozens and

dozens of detention officials, some of them may be military, others may be related to prison facilities. Those people are taking part in an engaging in illegal acts right before our eyes. And so this is not an issue of Ben-Givir. This is an issue, a longstanding one that human rights organizations, Palestinians, the UN, et cetera, have been documenting again for decades. The treatment that the world is up in arms about now when it comes to individuals who are not Palestinian is, I think, indicative of the deep, deep racism that undergirds both Canada's institutional support for Israel's unlawful occupation and the dehumanization that Israel perpetrates against Palestinians in detention in the thousands on a daily basis. I noticed another thing that the statement doesn't address is the

legality of the seizure of the flotilla itself. I know you're a professor at Osgood Law School and you specialize in international law. So I wonder what does the law say? Is it legal for Israeli authorities to intercept and arrest activists in international waters. Yeah, this is a great point. And it goes actually back to the heart of the question, which is the blockade itself, which, again, is not tied to the events of October 7th or anything like that, but is longstanding Israeli policy.

So Israel claims that its nearly total blockade of the Gaza Strip is lawful, and it claims that the naval blockade it has instituted in order to uphold the isolation of the strip and maintain its unlawful occupation. it says that that's necessary in order to prevent arms and other kinds of military equipment and support from reaching Hamas and other militant groups. Now, I will say under the law of war, naval blockades can, in very limited circumstances, be a lawful means and method of warfare. However, they cannot be used, as Israel does, as a justification to circumvent the law of occupation, which requires the occupier to adequately supply the civilian population with the necessities of life that, includes food, water, medicine, hygienic supplies, access to health care, et cetera. And a key

part of this blockade has to prevent the free movement of Palestinians in and out of the Gaza Strip. That means a lot of things. One example is that children who suffer severe injuries requiring amputation, et cetera, are not allowed to leave the trip to receive it. So even if in some alternate universe where the blockade were found to be lawful and I object to that construction, but even if it were lawful, Israel, A, is not allowed to use it to prevent supplies from reaching the population, and B, is not allowed to enforce it using unlawful means, including attacks on civilians and abuse of detainees. So why is it, do you think that the Canadian government isn't then calling the seizure of the flotelot itself illegal? Is it because they disagree with you? Is it something else?

you know, calling into question what Israel has been doing as a matter of state policy over the last many decades would mean calling into question the occupation itself. That is clearly something that the Canadian government is not willing to do, right? As yet, hopefully that will change, but the Canadian government has not been willing to go against fundamental Israeli state policy. Instead, it maintains that the two-state solution is a possibility. etc. Let's see if Toronto advisors know their group insurance providers. Oh, excuse me. Who has extensive expertise in both traditional group benefits and special risk solutions? Beneva. That's right. Who offers adaptable plans that cater to businesses big or small?

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I know you did a bit of this before, but I do want to come back to some of the reported treatment of activists that have been detained, particularly in recent years. I think a lot of people, certainly, that this came to the forefront after Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was on a previous Lottilla. I'm not scared of Israel. I'm scared of a world that has seemingly lost all sense of humanity. And what we are doing here is trying to show that there is still some humanity left. That there are still people willing to step up when all other means fail.

One activist said that they witnessed Greta had dragged on the ground and forced to kiss the Israeli flag. Drag her very intensely. And they even put the Israeli flag on her face. And they even put Greta on a trolley. Like, they treated her like animals. They draped her in an Israeli flag, and they just pushed and pulled her wherever they wanted. And for whatever propaganda they wanted. Greta told the Swedish foreign ministry that she received harsh treatment, got rashes,

which were suspected to be caused by bedbugs. And other prisoners have reported, for example, drinking water from toilets after being denied food and clean water. I'm not sure if you mentioned that before. But just tell me a little bit more about what you have heard from people who have been part of these flotillas, etc. Right. So one of the services that I provide on a continuing basis to the Canadian organization that is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is gathering and assessing participant testimonies. And so I've spoken to many participants in the last flotilla, the one that Greta was part of. The Israeli government often likes to refer to as the selfie yacht. And I think that kind of imagery, when compared to the imagery we're seeing over the course of today and yesterday is really striking. in handcuffs in a very tight room, hot. We were not allowed to get fresh water for 20 hours until we reached Astat.

And when we reached Astat, we were treated like terrorists. I speak for everybody that was there, for the whole foetia. The word to describe the place where we were at is a camp, a concentration camp. Those volunteers report, again, various kinds of sexual abuse and humiliation, various kinds of threats. certainly lack of access to food and water. Many of them, of course, went on a hunger strike in

solidarity with Palestinian captives held in Israeli detention. One thing I will say that's extremely worrying for us last fall was the way in which Canadian consular staff failed to actually provide for the most basic rights of persons being held in detention under international human rights law, and that relates to the availability of clean drinking water. When consular staff visited Canadians in Ketsiod Prison in the Negev Desert. They were informed that they didn't have access to clean water. They requested bottled water and were never supplied with it. When they asked the consular staff what the Canadian government was doing to secure their humane treatment and release, the reply they got was that Minister Anand had tweeted.

Had tweeted. Got it. Okay. You know, these flotilic stated mandate, as you said, is to break the siege of Gaza and deliver food and resources to Palestinians. They also are designed in like the old civil rights tradition of creating a spectacle. Participants know that they will be arrested. Many have to know that they will be treated violently, especially now. In the way during the American Civil Rights era leaders would march knowing that they would likely be attacked by police dogs or shot with hoses. When the children took to the streets, the local head of the police, Connor used high pressure, fire hoses and dogs to attack the children, many of whom were arrested. Call the state troops in to move in on us with their bitter clubs clutched on both ends and literally toppling us over,

as if you top a bowling pen and a bowling alley. I've always felt that if we could fill the jails and our witness for freedom, it would lay the whole issue before the conscience of the local and national. community. But I guess the hope is that the moral shock of those images would inspire the public to confront injustices they might otherwise ignore, right? Given that, though, what do you think Israeli officials like Ben Gavir shared the video? Yeah, this is an important question with a lot of possible answers. A couple of observations. So I think there's clearly an unmistakable element of pride that he takes in the video, in particular, given the language,

that he uses. He says, Israel is the landlord. That's a rough translation of the Hebrew that he's speaking in the video. And you're now kind of guests in our, you know, on our land or in our house or whatever. He also says that he's, you know, asked Netanyahu to allow him to keep the prisoners longer than he has been permitted to. I think it's notable that they've been released almost immediately, right, which is in contrast to previous flotillas given the outrage. Obviously, the tradition of nonviolent direct resistance, which is designed, I think, again, to garner public attention to actually eventually get political and policy change, is done often using various kinds of civil disobedience, right, breaking the law, knowing that one will be

arrested. Sometimes that arrest ends up leading to various degrees of ill treatment. There are lots of different ways of treating people badly, I'll note as well. physical abuse and harassment are one. But the wider propaganda campaigns around constructing this kind of action are also very, very important and have been central to the Israeli government's attacks on the flotilla for many years as well. I think activists are simply committed, right? These people are living the reality, which is that it will take very disturbing images of people, particularly white women, the woman at the beginning of the Ben-Givir video, Katrina Graham is, you know, a young, blonde Irish woman.

I think that's not accidental that that has been part of the outrage engendered here. I think those folks are willing to put their lives, oftentimes their livelihoods, if they get attacked through, you know, various defamation and propaganda campaigns. they're willing to put all of that on the line because ultimately that's what it takes to get people to even pay attention and then ultimately to get governments to change their policy. Why do you think this video has garnered the kind of statements that we've seen from governments all over the world? I take your point, but Greta is also a young white woman who has a big international presence. And in response to this incident, we've now seen statements from the United States. Kingdom, Italy, Spain, France, the UN, Poland, Ireland, Greece, Canada.

There are more. And why has this generated such a strong reaction from Western leaders? The Greta piece of this is fascinating because she was actually a useful target for supporters of Israel because of the kind of disdain that various folks on the right have used against her relating to all kinds of. of activism, climate-related activism, of course, that she does as well. And so one of the iconic photos from her involvement in the flotilla was actually a photo of an IDF soldier kind of handing her a sandwich and saying, look how well we treat her as opposed to look how we mistreat her, despite allegations of her relating to the flag, et cetera, as you've, as you've already described. I think there's something about seeing the abuse, right, that makes it more credible for audiences.

audiences are the public are not willing to view as credible, I guess, simply reports of abuse and maybe quite the same way as if they're actually seeing it. But I think there's also like a broader context here that's interesting and might suggest that we're in an inflection point in terms of public reception and then maybe we'll see ultimately political action as well. So just last week, Nick Christoph from the New York Times, right, had this extensive report detailing abuse, particularly. sexual abuse inflicted by Israeli detention and security officials against Palestinian detainees. He details all kinds of

instances of very graphic sexual abuse that I won't repeat here, but folks can find easily. There was a concerted backlash by the Israeli government who was threatened to sue him for defamation, et cetera, huge campaign to discredit him in his reporting. But I think what it does,

this combination in the same news cycle, essentially, of Christoff, who's as eminent, New York Times reporter, et cetera, telling the world not only is the torture of Palestinian captives, endemic, systematic, widespread, et cetera, but it also involves kind of unconscionable levels of sexual abuse. I think that lends credit to the stories of Flotilla participants, particularly when we have the video to put alongside it. And maybe worth saying here, the New York Times is standing behind that column and that reporting. Talk to me about why you were compelled to go to Tunisia and be part of this legal support vessel traveling alongside the Flotelo last year. And I also know you were in Tunisia when one of the vessels was

actually attacked in an incident that you have called a war crime. So just talk to me a little bit more about that. Yeah, that's right. So I was in Tunisia for many days before the flotilla finally embarked from Tunis. And when many of the vessels that had already sailed from Barcelona were in port in Tunis, the two main vessels of the flotilla, one was called the Alma, the other was called the family. They were flagged by the United Kingdom and by Portugal. They were attacked on consecutive nights using by droids dropping really rudimentary, I will say, very rudimentary and sundry weapons onto the front of those boats. They caused quite large fires. The fires happily were put out and nobody was injured, even though people were on board the vessels at

time. And it was at night. Some people were sleeping. Later reporting in Hararets and CBS and some other outlets actually said that Netanyahu himself had ordered those attacks, reporting them kind of fell away. I don't know what kind of, you know, diplomatic action the United Kingdom and Portugal may have taken with Tunisia behind the scenes. Who knows? But there were attacks on those boats. The flotilla proceeded notwithstanding, right? So the level of risk physically to participants that that was real long before they would ever be intercepted by the IDF was quite clear. you know, attacking a civilian vessel intentionally is a war crime, right? That's kind of the basic rule of international humanitarian law is that you don't intentionally

attack civilians and that any attacks that you do conduct must be carried out in a proportionate manner, right? Those are the two most fundamental rules of the law of war. For me, this was really, in many ways, of research activity. So part of what I was doing in Tunisia was very straightforwardly research work, giving talks, et cetera, on the content of international law. Part of the work was also research related in the sense that, as I've already described, I work with participants and talk to them about their experiences, et cetera, and then write about that. But the other piece for me was also really pedagogical. So this took place at the beginning of term, you know, I'm walking into first-year criminal law classes,

as well as a class on international criminal law. it was important for me to be able to show to my students, many of whom have participated also in nonviolent direct actions as members of encampments across Canada as part of their undergrad, for example, or maybe even at York. And so many of them are very well aware of the sort of climate of repression, the very heavy-handed way in which institutions, particularly universities, dealt with those encampments,

and yet had maintained a commitment to the cause and really nervous about going to law school in that environment. And I was able, with my own actions, to pivot my research and teaching agenda to be able to say, look, there are different ways of doing international law, of being active in the field, and of creating communities that are dedicated to social justice and care in the moment.

And so when I came back, I used my experience to teach the law around the lawfulness of blockade, the law around occupation, and the delivery of humanitarian assistance. In fact, I coach a competitive moot team where the problem relates to humanitarian assistance and blockades incidentally this year. So there's a lot of overlap between all kinds of sections of my job

and then also what I really perceived to be a deep, deep sense of responsibility in a moment of genocide where our governments and institutions are failing to discharge their very concrete international law obligations to make that a part of my teaching. When you were out there, what was daily life like on board one of these vessels? Like what kind of conversations were people having, also knowing that they were likely to be intercepted? Yeah, a lot of what we do when we're on boats, and I was not able to spend as much time as I'd wanted to on the boat itself.

But while I was there, a lot of it is particularly in the evening was being on drone watch. I've already described attacks that were conducted in port using drones. The flotilla is subjected to incessant drone surveillance. It's a little difficult to figure out kind of who those drones are, whether they're friendly or not. Some of them may well be, but there is kind of constant, you know, drone activity and one needs to be cognizant of that. It really does, for me at least, changed my perception of just kind of like existing in the world when you know that somebody, is watching you and you're monitoring them watching

you and kind of wondering about, oh, what actually, what's going to happen and when is it going to happen? That really does change how you sort of approach daily life. On the other hand, what was striking to me was the way in which that surveillance and the violence

in the port itself became normalized. And I think that's part of the project, right? The part of the goal of two and a half years now of genocidal violence in Gaza is to normalize that within the constituencies of the governments who are providing material and political cover for that violence, including the Canadian government, right? So that violence has become normalized in the Canadian population. And frankly, for me, the second time that the attack happened,

it began to feel normal. Like, that's just what happens now with the flotilla. And I think there's a real risk that that could happen with the physical violence we're seeing with this flotilla. And I'm just hoping, given the reaction, given the mainstream media, attention that's being paid to this violence and this will actually mark a turning point. These flotillas are, as we've been kind of talking about, actually part of a broader activist tradition. And just talk to me a little bit more about this kind of protests and actually perhaps similarities or parallels you see with activism in other times or places. Yeah. I mean, there are, you know, countless examples that some that people,

It might be helpful to mention because folks might not think of them today because they've become so sedimented in what we perceive as acceptable resistance to oppressive regimes, right, that we may think of them differently from activities like the flotilla. And so, I mean, really, one example is to say that, you know, Rosa Parks herself, right, when she sat at the front of the bus, she wasn't just, you know, sitting in a different seat. She was violating the law at the time, right? And so she was contesting the oppressive framework, which was in place, which was segregated public transportation systems, and then was subjected to state enforcement on that basis. There are all sorts of examples of that, of course, in the civil rights movement in the United States. More recently in Canada, people will recall in 2020 the series of blockades that were erected in solidarity with Wet Sueton Hereditary Chief Movement, opposition against the construction of at that time the coastal gas link at the coastal gasoline.

From downtown Toronto where protesters brought traffic to a standstill. I'd really like to go home and I wonder if maybe you guys would like to go home now too to your families. This is our home. We are home. You're on our front lawn. Who do you serve? Who do you protect?

Get your boots off native next. And in Halifax, a long line of trucks sat idle as protesters blocked access to a container term. In BC today, the protesters brought their message directly to the government, blocking the doors and disrupting the speech from the throne. Those instances of nonviolent resistance were constructed not only in the public discourse, I mean, not only as illegal, right, but as akin to instances of domestic terrorism. And there was serious discussion at that point, which is not entirely gone away in sort of government's fears about how to treat. that kind of resistance domestically in whether or not to use the language of terrorism to construct it. And so that's obviously quite dangerous. And the last thing I'll just mention, which is maybe may or may not be obvious,

but nonviolent direct action was, of course, instrumental in the downfall of apartheid in South Africa. And some of the important similarities there with the broader movement for Palestinian National Liberation connect in particular to the use of boycotts, right? there's a lot of talk about the BDS movement, the Palestinian BDS movement, including around divestment on university campuses, et cetera. That was what the student encampments were asking for. They were asking for disclosure. They were asking for divestment of university investments in corporations that are complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity. And it was in part an academic boycott, various kinds of economic boycotts, et cetera, that created the

pressure necessary from an international perspective to eventually lead to the end of apartheid. You know, that took a long time, right? Like, what, 40 years, 50 years? And the Palestinian National Liberation Movement has also been happening for a long time. And again, hopefully we are coming up at a point now where the flotilla increases not just the acceptability, but also the urgency of broader public support for these various forms of nonviolent direct action, including consumer boycotts, etc. Just to come back to Canada and this current government and Mark Carney to end this conversation, you mentioned apartheid South Africa. This country takes a great deal of pride for being one of the first Western nations to really push for an end to South African apartheid during Brian

Moroni's tenure as Prime Minister in the 80s and 90s. Mr. Mandela, you can count on Canada in the months and years ahead. He's come to Canada, he says, to say thank you for supporting the fight against apartheid, in particular Canada's leadership in the area of sanctions. But he's also warning the fights not over yet. We have come to say, keep up the offensive against the system of apartheid, which continues to raft our country. This is kind of core to Canada's foreign policy story in many ways.

And how or where do you think Canada's position on Gaza, on Israel's campaign in Lebanon or on these flotillas, fits into that story? Yeah. I do think that Canada's is, I mean, has been for a long time, but increasingly, particularly given the intensification, of violence in the Gaza Strip is really being faced with the discontinuity between at least its self-perception of what it has done historically, including, you know, the role it played in negotiating and concluding the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, for example, right? There's a much longer

story goes well beyond South Africa about Canada's role in building what we now with a grain of salt refer to as the international, you know, rules-based order. You know, Carney is interesting because he's voiced concerns in his, you know, his famous Davos speech about, you know, how to manage this order in light of new pressures on middle powers, et cetera. But in that speech, he also recommitted himself to the very basic principles of international law around human rights, but also state sovereignty, territorial integrity, et cetera, and yet has failed to uphold those recommitments, namely with respect to his initial support for the aggressive American and Israeli strikes on Iran. Right. So it's very, it should be quite obvious now to the Canadian population that there is a disconnect, a very, very serious disconnect between the rhetoric of the current government.

The story it likes to tell about its history of compliance with human rights and international law and what it's going to do moving forward. There are ways in which Canada can change this. Canada has resisted any kind of support for, to speak about South Africa again, for South Africa's case at the International Court of Justice alleging genocide against Israel, it's open to Canada to intervene in that case. In other instances

where similar rights are being violated, Canada has been a leader in recent years. It has initiated proceedings against Syria for violations of the Convention Against Torture. It is about to initiate. It looks like proceedings against Afghanistan

for gender-based apartheid. Right? So very similar kinds of structural state crimes. It can take that action at the ICJ as well. When it came to the advisory opinion on occupation, Canada actually formally expressed that the court should not exercise its jurisdiction in that case. So they're very, very serious disconnects here that, you know, I think it should, I hope it's obvious to the population create very serious problems. conceptually. That feels like a good place for us to end. Heidi, thank you very much for this. Thanks for having me. All right, that is all for today. Front burner was produced this week by Matthew Amha, Joytha Schengupta, Mackenzie Cameron, and Kristen DeJager. Our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our music is by Joseph Shabison. Our senior producers are Imogen Burchard and Elaine Chow. Our executive producer is Nick McKay Blokos. And I'm Jamie Puezom.

Thank you so much for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.